Domestic Violence and Choice"Why did

Domestic Violence and Choice

"Why did you have the abortion?" I ask.

The woman sitting across me then breaks down in tears, if she's not crying already, and tells me a lurid story of domestic violence and extreme physical abuse suffered at the hands of her former husband who did not want the child. I then reach over, stop the tape, and offer the woman a kleenex.

I've lost track of how many times this scenario has played out in my office at any diocesan marriage tribunal where I have worked -- probably at least half of cases involving an abortion, if my memory serves correctly. And while there are many types of situations to which I've hardened over the years, this ain't one of them. It still breaks my heart when I discover a woman was beaten by her former spouse into killing the couple's child in the womb. And yet, the feminists would have you believe that abortion is about women having control over their own reproductive systems. They would have you believe that abortion is about choice.

Not in my experience. It never ceases to amaze me how many of these women claim that they were simply dropped off at the abortion clinic, bruised and bloodied, sometimes even with broken bones, after just suffering a terrible beating. And yet, no questions are raised, nobody calls the police, the abortion just proceeds on the spot. Why do we never hear a peep about domestic violence and spousal abuse from the pro-abortion and so-called "choice" crowd when it comes to forced abortion? Strange. It seems that choice and freedom from coercion, often reinforced by violence, doesn't apply when a woman's decision is to keep the baby.