Juggling life and an unplanned pregnancy

    The story by student Stewart Sinclair in the April 19 issue of the Loyola Maroon, the campus newspaper of Loyola University New Orleans, contained every imaginable element of sadness.
    Sinclair’s unnamed girlfriend became pregnant. They wrestled together, and alone, with a decision on what to do about it. They went to an abortion clinic for counseling. They waited the state-mandated 24 hours, and then returned the next day – Good Friday – for the abortion.
    Forget for a moment the human tragedy that plays out secretly for college students across the U.S. when a baby gets in the way of their fantasy world of convenience and privacy, a fantasy world where consequence is divorced from behavior.
    In that fantasy world, established 40 years ago by judicial decree, the unborn are neither uniquely human nor deserving of protection – all scientific evidence to the contrary – unless a person who once was similarly situated in a mother’s womb decides to declare them uniquely human or deserving of protection.
    But the sadness in this case extends beyond the loss of unborn life and the circumstances that may have convinced a young woman there was no alternative to her unplanned pregnancy other than abortion.
    Why would her boyfriend decide to share the couple’s sad story with the Loyola community – and by virtue of the Internet, with the world – using the university’s newspaper? Even more mysterious, why would a Catholic university’s newspaper choose to print such a story that fundamentally contradicts Catholic teaching and mocks the natural law?
    Academic freedom? Because we can? By that logic, I wonder what story the Maroon’s editors ever might deem unworthy of ink to paper.
    Jesuit Father Kevin Wildes, Loyola’s president, said with a proper touch of sarcasm that “my friends at the Maroon decided to be boneheads.”
    “My secondary reaction was sadness,” Father Wildes said. “My first reaction was, I was furious. I have reached out to the student. I have not heard back from him. I had, as they say in the diplomatic world of the State Department, a ‘frank and honest discussion’ with the (newspaper’s) advisor (faculty member Michael Giusti).
    “Years, ago, I had an old coach who had a great line: ‘No self-inflicted wounds.’ This is a tragedy for the couple, but for us at the university, this is a self-inflicted wound, and this should not have happened.”      
    Sinclair’s story, which has been removed from the university’s website, is particularly sad because of the facts he layers in, I guess to explain the couple’s anguish. He writes about his girlfriend “being harassed by protestors outside of one of only seven (abortion) clinics in the state of Louisiana” while she “had to go through tests, interviews and ultrasounds.”
    Since the Mifepristone abortion pill and the entire procedure to end her pregnancy was going to cost $550, Sinclair decided to saunter down to Royal Street “every day of spring break” and juggle for cash from passersby. Apparently, Sinclair juggled his finances well enough for his girlfriend to take the abortion pill on Good Friday.
    “There was no time to cry,” Sinclair writes. “We both knew we were making the decision to end a potential life. The way my girlfriend’s body contorted and the screams of agony that escaped her were reminders of the severity of our decision.”
    Words have power and meaning. The life inside his girlfriend’s womb was not “potential” life but life itself, carrying within it uniquely human DNA. By its very nature, the embryo does not demand  confirmation from anything or anyone outside of itself about what it is.
    Beyond the loss of life, the sadness of this now very public act may affect this couple and their families for a lifetime. Who knows what the young woman will think of her decision next year or five years from now or 30? Who knows how much pressure was brought to bear on her? Did she talk to her parents?
    For its part, Loyola is re-evaluating its process for how the university will oversee the Maroon. The university is looking at its crisis counseling services – which are available to all students on campus – to see if they need to be better publicized.
    The sadness of abortion may explode exponentially in coming years with the construction of a regional Planned Parenthood abortion facility just five minutes from the Loyola and Tulane campuses. How many silent screams will it take to rouse the moral conscience?
    Ironically, Sinclair’s article may have a back-door effect. We need to pray for forgiveness and for all women with unplanned pregnancies to have the hope that they will get all the help they need to choose life.
    That’s a sacred duty, not a juggling act.
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].