There are some moments in your life that have such an impact, you are never the same. Your convictions and choices are forever colored by the impression, and it cannot be otherwise. This is my story of one of those moments . .

I was born in the early sixties in a time of social upheaval. When I was ten years old, the landmark Roe v Wade decision on abortion clouded our nation’s conscience and led the way for widespread acceptance of this atrocity around the world. In our small family, living in upstate New York, there was no such acceptance. [Editor’s note: ‘Roe v Wade’ was the decision made by the US Supreme Court on 22 January 1973 that, in effect, overturned all federal and state laws that forbade or restricted abortion.]

Earlier days
Bertha and Charles Carter had waited anxiously five years for my arrival. My sister Martha delighted them when she appeared a year and a half later. I always found my parents interesting, with an eclectic bookcase and reading material all about the house. They had been brought up Catholic, but they were some of the most informed and socially aware Catholics in our small rural community. Dad was reading Thomas Merton at a time when Merton was considered ‘edgy’ at best with his Asian studies and anti-war sentiment. Mom bought us baby dolls with dark brown skin color so that we would be aware of the beautiful people beyond the borders of our little world. [Editor’s note: Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Trappist monk, known in Gethsemane Abbey as ‘Father Louis’, and writer.]

Young and aware

Hannah as a young girl and her parents with joseph

Looking back, it comes as no surprise to me that they both would have cherished such deep devotion
to the cause of respect for life. In those early years of the 70’s, our family became involved in the local Birthright chapter. Martha and I were allowed up past our bedtime, part of late night poster-making sessions. We pasted magazine photos of smiling babies onto large pieces of paper and coffee cans, to be used for fundraising and awareness. It felt good to be part of an effort to make a difference.

‘Abortion Mill’

One Saturday morning we took a long trip. I can’t remember if we had to cross into Quebec, just over the Canadian border, or if we were headed for another town in New York State, where abortion was legal even before Roe v Wade was decided. What I do remember was the ugly term for our destination, ‘abortion mill’. It was a place where all they did day in and day out was perform this unthinkable ‘procedure’ which defied reason in my tenyear-old mind. I didn’t feel that far away from babyhood myself, and I couldn’t fathom a choice that involved the loss of life for your own child. I was a child myself. Had I been so expendable to my own parents? I knew that was not the case, but was I just one of the lucky ones? How could this be a matter left to chance and personal choice?

How unfair. What were they doing in there? The car stopped. We all got out. I took a look across the wide lawn toward the building that stood on its own with nothing but farmland around.

It seemed so bleak and forbidding. What were they doing in there? Mom reminded us to take out our rosaries, and as a family we began to pray.

Another car pulled in and proceeded up the long driveway, parking nearer to the building. Two people got out, one of them a young woman, and headed for the entrance. In that terrible moment, all the horror and injustice of what I was watching with my own eyes came home.

I was powerless to defend that sweet innocent person, my brother, my sister, who was being carried to a brutal death by the one who should have loved him or her more than life itself.

I sobbed aloud, deep, shaking sobs. It was a strange place, crying desperately for another at ten years old, when all that usually mattered were my own childish crises.

I can never remember that moment without weeping. Even now, at this writing, I have been caught off guard by the tears that erupt in the retelling.

Now my mother was crying as well, helping my sister and me back into the car. ‘Charlie, I can’t take this anymore, we have to get the girls out of here’. The strength of her emotion, her obvious distress, still sound in my ears. Martha was silent and sad. My dad with his gentle, serious manner, took us home. How could I ever forget what I had seen?

Welcome, little Stranger

Fast forward twenty-three years.I am standing alone in the bathroom at 5:00am with a plastic stick in my hand. Two lines have just turned pink. Two lines. Positive. I’m not alone. Someone else is here with me. ‘Welcome, little Stranger,’ I say out loud. The first words a welcome before the prospect of single motherhood descends on me, terrifying and overwhelming. At the time, I am 10,000 miles away from my parents, alone and afraid. What will I do now, how will my life change? I have no idea, but I do know that there will mercifully be no thought of ‘choices’. I had come to that instinctively long ago,
certain that all babies should be allowed to enter this world. So no wrenching life-and-death decisions for a new mother. Just the next best step now for us both. Now we are family

Ten years later and I am putting the finishing touches on the poster my son Joseph and I will carry in the Walk for Life West Coast (San Francisco). It is an event to mark the January 22 anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision. We ride the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) with our sign, which is awkward to hold on a public train. It’s big and bulky, but also carries a messagethat is not usually welcome in the cultural atmosphereof San Francisco.This is Joseph’s lesson in political incorrectness and his firstencounter with those who don’t appreciate this witness. He is a little nervous but he knows this is important. He won’t even kill an ant because he doesn’t want to cause pain to living things. Like his mom at ten, he can’t understand how people could justify abortion. As we ride the train, I put my arm around the person who has made my life more wonderful than I ever could have imagined. He is the dearest gift of God to me, God who knew how to write straight with my crooked lines. Joseph gets it. He understands that even if the law made his life and that of his peers expendable at a whim, it had no business doing so. Maybe tomorrow his generation will make things right. Already teenagers can be seen sporting t-shirts with the message, ‘Abortion is mean’ or ‘Why are you killing my generation?’

Amid the noises of the train on its route, Joseph turns to me. His expression serious, he looks me full in the face. I know he’s thinking deeply. ‘Mom? Did anyone ever say I should be aborted?’ I catch my breath at the weight of his question, then smile at him. ‘No, Joseph. You were and are a gift and no one ever considered that’.

Why can’t it be the same for every child? My parents have both passed on to the Lord, but I think daily of what I owe them. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the long-ago trip to that awful place. Thank you for taking a stand and sharing your reasons with me. Thank you for making it unthinkable to end the
life of my child, no matter what. Thank you for my Joseph. He was not a choice, but a gift.

You may email the author at: carter_hannah@hotmail.com

RELATED WEBSITES

• Birthright International: www.birthright.com and www.birthright.org
• Pro-Life Philippines Foundation Inc: www.prolife.org.ph
• Life Site: www.lifesite.net
• Thomas Merton: www.monks.org/thomasmerton.html