A Pro-Life Coward

Come closer, I have to whisper. I am against abortion.

I knew it was murder as early as college, during a course in embryology. But only in the last few years have I managed to make muted statements in private conversations that I know abortion to be murder and that the mother's soul is murdered just as surely as the baby.

I apologize to God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have never seen the comfortably critical mass of people it would take for me to join them outside the local abortion mill. That I have not made much of an effort to make it to church for a rosary for life. That I have lacked the courage to stand with those whose patient prayerful witness stomps my conscience flat, but not flat enough to show up to join them.

Oh, sure, I pray during these anniversary days of Roe v. Wade. And I'm pretty good with the donations. But I despise myself: those are private and not socially risky.

A coward is praying. Please, Lord, help me pray louder.