Forty Days and Forty Nights

Forty Days and Forty Nights

Jeannie Ludlow

More thoughtful posts by author at Abortion Witness

Once again, an anti-abortion rights group has renamed the Lenten Season “40 Days for Life.” The goal of this campaign is to save as many unborn babies as possible by getting women to change their minds as they enter abortion clinics.

I have wondered at the choice of Lent for this campaign; Lent is a time for introspection and repentance, a time to honor and emulate the forty days of isolation, fasting, and prayer that Jesus spent in preparation for his ministry. When I first thought about it, it seemed that the noisy, public activities of the “40 Days for Life” campaign were more like the forty-days deluge of Noah’s flood than like the time of soul-searching and self-examination that Lent is supposed to be. However, when I remembered that the forty days in the wilderness provided the setting for the three temptations of Jesus, the choice of Lent for the “40 Days for Life” campaign began to make more sense.

Those of us who work as abortion care providers know that the kind of anti-abortion action that plays out on sidewalks near clinics demonstrates very little understanding of what happens in women’s real lives. The “40 Days for Life” campaign is no exception. For twelve years, I worked in an independent abortion clinic, where I listened to and assisted hundreds of women who either had decided to abort their pregnancies or were in the process of trying to decide what to do. I learned there that women who have abortions do so, very often, so they can continue to honor and fulfill their commitments to others and to themselves.

Most abortion patients in the U.S. are mothers, and most of the moms who came to our clinic told me that motherhood was one of the reasons they were choosing abortion. “I am a good mom to the kids I have,” these moms often told me. “If I have another baby right now, all that will change.” Patients who were not yet moms also indicated that motherhood was an important part of their decision. “I want to be a mom when I am ready,” these women would say, or “I want to wait until I can give my children everything my parents gave me.” There is a great essay by Jones, Frohwirth, and Moore exploring how abortion patients think about mothering: “‘I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World: How Issues of Motherhood Influence Women Who Have Abortions” (see www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2008/01/07/index.html). Many abortion patients choose abortion in order to continue fulfilling obligations to other family members—an aging parent or an unemployed life partner, for example.

Surely, for these women who come to our clinics because we offer them the best option to honor their commitments to others, the “40 Days for Life” campaign messages of “don’t kill your baby” and “it’s not too late to change your mind” sound a bit like the first temptation of Jesus. Satan brought him a stone and challenged him to take the stone, change it into bread, and eat it. If he had done so, Jesus would have been prioritizing the physical over the spiritual, breaking his fast, and turning his back on his commitments. Similarly, this campaign urges our patients to shift their priorities, to turn their backs on their commitments to their families and themselves.

Many women choose abortion for financial reasons. I can’t tell you how often I heard, “I would like to have this baby, but I just can’t afford to support a(nother) child right now.” For these women, the campaign’s message of “have your baby—God will provide” is not unlike the second temptation. Satan took Jesus to a very high place and challenged him to jump, to trust God to save him, thus proving that he really was the son of God. Similarly, the “40 Days for Life” campaign challenges our patients to ignore the reality of their lives and test God’s ability to take care of them.

Of course, some women choose abortion because they simply do not want to be parents at that time. For these women, the “40 Days for Life” campaign’s offers of diapers, formula, and baby clothes—as if true parenting were defined by what we put on and into our babies’ bodies—must ring as hollow as Satan’s offer in the third temptation. If Jesus would serve Satan instead of God, Satan would give to Jesus everything he could see. Similarly, the “40 Days for Life” campaign confuses material goods for values. Abortion care providers know that women who do not want to parent a child will not become willing parents through access to material goods.

For women having abortions during the Lenten Season—women trying to do the best they can for themselves and their families—the “40 Days for Life” anti-abortion campaign offers obstacles, not truth. That most women walk right by those obstacles and into the clinics is testimony, not to any miracle, but to women’s resilience and resolution.