Want to Actually Get Somewhere on Abortion?

Washington, D.C. — “My mother told me that she tried to induce a miscarriage by jumping off chairs and trunks,” the late former mayor of New York wrote in 1989. He explained that she had told him she had had several abortions in her life. In this experience, she was pregnant with her third child after his father had lost his business, Koch explained. “We were very poor. The prospect of another mouth to feed posed serious problems,” he wrote. Her desperate attempt at ending the pregnancy didn’t work. And at the point of acceptance, she was worried sick that she had done damage to her child. Thanks be to God, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. (“I thank God that Pat is here” are his words.) About her, Koch wrote, “Not only was she not injured, she went on to be one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met.”

“It would have been a tragedy if she’d never been born,” he concluded.

His gratitude for Pat’s life did not make him an opponent of legal abortion, however. In 1970, Koch was a congressman from New York. It’s long been known as the abortion capital of the U.S. Back then, it was the first state to legalize abortion. “When the New York law went into effect, women from other states and countries came here to have abortions.”

Sound familiar?

Koch described the sea change in public opinion once the Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade decision in 1973: “Overnight, a social revolution of tremendous moral, ethical and demographic impact swept the nation. Just a few years before, abortion . . . was a subject polite people rarely discussed. Now it was freely available in neighborhood clinics and doctors’ offices from coast to coast.”

Fifty years of that made it possible for us to be dispensing pills to young women to abort their unborn babies in their dorm rooms and apartments.

Koch talked about how he never considered himself pro-abortion. Like many who describe themselves as pro-choice, he saw it as freedom, and wanted women in difficult situations to have options. He wrote about some of the unproductive and seemingly intractable debates that were happening — people talking past one another and name-calling and assuming the worst intentions.

Sound familiar?

One of the exceptions to the rule was a nurse and pro-life activist, Jeanne Head, who would bring him roses. “Instead of issuing shrill threats and accusations, she would discuss with me her determination to make abortions illegal,” Koch recalled. “Her approach to the subject was very intelligent and reasoned.” And she listened “patiently to my side of the issue. And I must say I was impressed by her willingness to talk about such a high-powered subject in such a calm and considerate manner.” And being a nurse, she could have pulled an authority card on him, but she clearly treated him with more respect than that.

Koch also wrote this: “Ms. Head, you bring me roses, even though you disagree with me. But if I changed my position, and came out against abortion, those who support me now would not bring me roses. They would bring me cactuses. They would be totally enraged by my point of view, and would become crazed with anger. So I want to commend you for defending your position in such a responsible and courteous way.”

Sound familiar? There are few incentives in politics for people to actually listen to one another and find not only common ground but mutual humanity.

It’s frigid and icy and snowing in Washington, D.C., as I write this. But even before the 51st annual March for Life here, I’ve met people from North Dakota and Idaho and Arizona — and you get the idea who made the trek. (Some 200 students from the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D., were traveling on buses for almost 40 hours. And that’s one way.) And, yes, even though Roe has ended, we still come here to mark the anniversary. And to remind people that actually this is not just a states issue, but a human one.

A former congressman (Democrat, by the way, who was punished for being a voice for the unborn) at a lunch I hosted was highlighting so many different efforts and ministries that help make life plausible for women and children and families. He wished we could be sharing with the world every story shared at the event. A woman from And Then There Were None talked about how she came to leave the abortion industry and how she prays every day for her fellow co-workers and Planned Parenthood. Because in many ways, like Mayor Koch, most of them aren’t pro-abortion literally. A woman who had an abortion in New York in those early days talked with great love for those who work in the clinics and for every woman who has ever had an abortion. Politics is one thing. Media is one thing. But humanity is another. Where can we have that better conversation? Every one of us has the power to do it in our own relationships and encounters.

That Ed Koch testimony came from His Eminence and Hizzoner, a book he wrote with his friend John Cardinal O’Connor, the late archbishop of New York. Cardinal O’Connor came to a conviction while visiting the Dachau concentration camp that he had to do everything in his power to make sure “Never Again” was true. That’s how seriously he took abortion. And yet he and Koch wrote a book together including this and other neuralgic topics. Like Koch and Head, they showed us how to do this with love. We non-bishops and non-mayors, too, need to take many pages from their book.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.