Pro-life bumper stickers make me
uncomfortable.
They
don’t make me uncomfortable because I’m pro-abortion. I agree with the Church’s
teachings on the sanctity of life at every stage. I do not believe in the death
penalty; don’t believe in euthanasia and rarely think that war is the only
answer to an international problem.
Rather, my discomfort with some aspects of the pro-life movement in general,
and the Catholic piece of it in particular, arises from my perspective as a
foster and adoptive parent. I see too little of a connection between the
pro-life movement and the foster and adoptive community.
Each
year, in Milwaukee, the city in which our family lives, there are between two
and three thousand children who need placement outside of their homes because
of allegations of neglect or abuse by their parents. Each year there are about
900 active, licensed foster homes in Milwaukee able to receive those children.
The rest of the foster children are placed with unlicensed relatives or in
group homes. In all medium to large cities with substantial populations of
children in foster care, many the families who step forward to foster are too
often marginal themselves, and without the necessary resources to meet the
needs of the foster children placed with them. Children then are moved from
home to home as foster parents find they cannot handle the behavioral issues of
the traumatized child. Heathy,
financially stable families who would be able to provide a safe home for foster
children often look at the emotional complexity of the task and decide that
they are not able to commit to the undertaking.
While
I understand that not every Catholic family is called to foster or adopt, a
Catholic pro-life identity must include a highly visible commitment to those
children who were not initially aborted, but whose current life of neglect and
abuse leaves them vulnerable and at risk.
The
pro-life voice is well-known in the Catholic community. Some Catholics vote
according to this issue, singularly. But what if we could become equally
well-known for our commitment to providing safe families for foster children? What
if the Catholic pro-life community would become conversant in trauma-informed
care so as to better minister to young victims of abuse and neglect? If
alongside their work to change legislation regarding abortion, pro-life groups
would work within the foster care arena, the movement would gain necessary
credibility. A commitment to foster care, when put next to a commitment to end
abortion, demonstrates an understanding of the complexity of the abortion
question. It underlines our Catholic teaching of the sanctity of life— life
threatened within the womb, but also facing just as serious danger outside the
mother’s body. At a recent Catholic conference I attended in Chicago, there
were four booths dedicated to the anti-abortion aspect of the pro-life
movement. Yet, I didn’t see even one booth—or even one small part of a pro-life
booth— dedicated to recruiting new foster parents.
Although
Adoption, not abortion! makes a
catchy bumper sticker slogan, the issue of adopting would-be aborted children
is not as simple as it might appear. Of the more than a hundred thousand
children currently awaiting adoption in the U.S., almost half are African
American, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Of
this group, severely disabled children and black boys must wait the longest for
adoption. At the same time, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s
statistics show that more than a third of the U.S. women each year who choose
abortion are black. When we, as church, tell these women to put their children
up for adoption, do we back up our words by pointing to families open to
adopting black children? Right now, the answer is no — there is a shortage of
parents willing to adopt African American children, and our words are
hollow.
I
recognize that some pro-life activists might bristle at the idea that they are
not doing enough for children. Many of these people give tremendous amounts of
time and energy trying to prevent the tragedy of abortion and the emotional
fallout it causes for women. I am not suggesting that they stop. But I am
suggesting that we, as Catholics, begin to look at the issue of abortion in a
less simplistic way. I’m suggesting that we open our arms even wider—that we
challenge each other to create a line of households ready and waiting to accept
unwanted, abused or neglected children. I am suggesting a movement that
includes within the pro-life community families who have fostered and adopted
and who walk the difficult road toward healing and wholeness with their
children. I’m suggesting that our pro-life activists work as hard on
legislation protecting foster children and preventing further abuse as they do
on legislation surrounding abortion. And when we do this, when the word
“Catholic” is linked with foster care just as surely as it is with “pro-life,”
then we will be able to hold our heads high when we tell others to “Choose
life.” Because others will have our assurance that life will be protected, once
it is chosen.
