Who are We Fighting For?

I recently saw a status on Facebook from someone working in the pro-life movement. It was about how the pro-life movement isn’t a cause; it’s a battle. As pro-lifers we must, therefore, “fight the pro-aborts to win.”

My first response was “ok, yeah, it’s a spiritual battlefield.” However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought: I don’t think the enemy is who you think it is. It’s not an “us versus them” battle.

We’re not fighting against pro-“choicers.”

We are fighting for them.

The nature of evil is to destroy the person imposing the evil on others. If that’s the case, then we are fighting for their minds and souls, which have been so viciously contorted and twisted. This means that there is a tragedy to abortion that is gravely overlooked.

The tragedy of abortion is that, yes, it brutally murders innocent children and uses and abuses women in the process. I never want to undermine the evil of such acts and the harm it inflicts in those people’s lives. It goes against the very dignity of the victimized human person – both born and unborn.

However, where evil – where abortion – triumphs, is in the heart of the one committing the evil act. While the victim is harmed, the soul of the person doing the harm is lost.

That is the underlying horror in any evil act.

That is the evil of abortion.

In the act of killing someone innocent, the life of the innocent person is lost. In the case of abortion, without the chance for baptism, which is another grave matter. However, I can’t believe in a God who would send those children to Hell simply because, through no fault of their own, they were not baptized.

So, while abortion takes from them the great gift of life, it also robs the pro-“choicer” of a gift: the gift of his soul and the consequential possibility of eternal happiness in Heaven with our Lord. One man loses his life. Another loses his soul.

Think of it this way. Soldiers are in a war, and one of their buddies is taken prisoner by the enemy. The soldiers are not going to leave their friend in the grips of this evil. They want to rescue him – he is one of them and he belongs with them. They love him. So, they go to rescue him.

Now imagine for a moment that when the rescuers finally get into camp and try to rescue their friend, they find out that he’s joined ranks with the enemy. Now he fights with them. The enemy poisoned his mind against the good and, in so doing, forced him to fight for the evil side he recently stood against.

The pain of his friends must be almost worse than if the enemy had just killed him outright. Now he’s not dead. He’s not missing. He’s lost. He has not only changed sides, he has lost his identity in the process.

The battle now is not one that they wage against their friend, though they continue to fight the enemy. Rather, the battle is now one that they wage for their friend. They fight the enemy with renewed vigor because they must rescue their friend – not just physically, but mentally as well.

That is how we must see our pro-“choice” brethren. They are not our enemies. They are the complete opposite. They are our friends, taken hostage by the Evil One who has poisoned their minds against the side of life, light, and goodness.

We must fight for them and try to bring them back to the light. We must mourn the fact that they are not dead, but are lost instead.

We will be accountable for that one day. When we get to the pearly gates and St. Peter asks us “where are the lost sheep?” what will we say? “Oh, I dunno, but see all the babies I saved!”?

We must remember what it means to be on the side of life. Everyone alive is a beloved child of God: planned, willed, made out of love by the One Who is love. Everyone alive – no matter what evil he has committed – is capable of being forgiven and loved by the Lord Who created the universe. God desires those people.

If God loves, misses, and calls for them, then we must do so as well. We must do so because Christ longs for them. We are Christ’s feet, hands, eyes, voice. We are the tools He uses to search for His lost sheep. If we do not search for our lost brethren, if we do not mourn them, how will they ever hear of the promise of redemption that Christ gives them?

The battle isn’t between pro-lifers and pro-“choicers.” The battle is between pro-lifers and the Evil One. Pro-“choicers” are what the battle is being fought over – the pawn the Evil One uses for his deadly work. Only when we rescue our pro-“choice” brothers and sisters will the killing stop.

We are fighting against the Evil One who has taken our brethren hostage and we will be accountable for that some day. We may not save them all, but we must be able to say that we tried.

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36), and what does it profit the pro-lifer to save all the babies, but lose the pro-“choicers” in the process?