I feel that, as in the time of the Desert Fathers, the young are fleeing the cities–wandering over the face of the land, living after a fashion in voluntary poverty and manual labor, seeming to be inactive in the “peace movement.” I know they are still a part of it–just as Cesar Chavez and the Farm Workers’ Movement is also part of it, committed to non-violence, even while they resist, fighting for their lives and their families’ lives. (They, together with the blacks, feel and have stated this, that birth control and abortion are genocide.)

I agree with them and say–make room for children, don’t do away with them. Up and down and on both sides of the Hudson River religious orders own thousands of acres of land, cultivated, landscaped, but not growing food for the hungry or founding villages for the families or schools for the children.

Dorothy Day Open Letter to Fr.Dan Berrigan On Pilgrimage 1972

It’s not often mentioned and perhaps not widely known that before her conversion Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, had an abortion. In her novel The Eleventh Virgin she describes her character having an abortion and then being deserted by her partner afterwards. This was indeed Dorothy Day’s own personal experience when 22 years old. She doubted that she would ever get pregnant again and she refers to this fear in her book, The Long Loneliness. Pelvic sepsis following this illegal and possibly unsterile procedure was not unusual and the consequent Fallopian tube obstruction could result in sterility. She rarely wrote about abortion but was profoundly remorseful of her lifestyle before her conversion. In the Long Loneliness she describes how very blessed she felt when in 1925 she realised that she had become pregnant with her partner Forster Batterham. One can only surmise how her faith journey was influenced by the remorse of her earlier abortion and her bliss at becoming pregnant again. This time this new life would be welcomed and baptised into the Catholic Church even if she was to lose the man she deeply loved.

Some might say what right have I have to even raise the issue of abortion because I am a man. We are all touched by human life but as a medical doctor and specialist anaesthetist I was particularly involved as I was asked to anaesthetise for abortions several times in my career and refused. I always noticed who was Catholic in the anaesthetic department by seeing who were claiming their legal right under the 1967 Abortion Act to be conscientious objectors. One colleague even said that he wished that he was Catholic so that he could refuse despite the fact that the legal right to refuse also applies to any person on simply conscience grounds. In my personal experience I don’t recall any other person refusing who wasn’t a Catholic. I should always be grateful to Cardinal Heenan who obtained that legal concession in 1967. When I hear criticisms of the institutional Church I thank God how its intervention in 1967 protected both my mind and soul.

There are probably two reasons why I could never have been a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology. The first is that I don’t think I could have suffered well the severe sleep deprivation and secondly of how to negotiate the 1967 Abortion Act. As a young doctor with no friends in high places the last thing I needed was being a “troublesome” junior doctor with inconvenient scruples.

There are two Lenten witnesses I have tried do whenever possible in London. The first is the one that any follower of Dorothy Day would find not unusual. This is the marking of the Ministry of Defence building as a sign of Christian opposition to nuclear war preparations. Dorothy Day regularly did civil disobedience against the New York civil defence preparations for a potential nuclear attack. She viewed this as legitimising plans for nuclear war and opposed the nuclear arms race from 1945. As a consequence of this frequent witness she once spent time in jail. My second witness was praying at an abortion clinic which was usually until recently in Ealing London at the Marie Stopes clinic. Both require a commitment to non-violence.

When planning to pray at Ealing I was pleased to be asked to not only sign an online promise of non-violence both verbal and physical before the witness at the abortion clinic but also asked to sign a hard copy when I arrived. The anti-abortionists prayed the Rosary which I joined and I saw no intimidation of the patients going into the clinic. Their focus on the Rosary meant that there was little eye contact with the pro-abortion demonstrators which removed any spirit of judgement and antagonism and their prayer was combined with practical support for those women who decide to change their decision. However since 2018 anyone praying at this abortion clinic now risks arrest as the local council have instituted what is a virtual no praying zone around this clinic.

Would Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin have approved of my witness for peace at the Ministry of Defence? Would they have approved my witness for life at the abortion clinic? Would they see the connection between the two at a time when over 180,000 abortions are carried out in UK each year and when Parliament voted against a ban on sex selective abortion in 2015? Can you make a call to choose life in one issue and ignore the other?

The first century Bethlehem massacre of the innocents was then a gender discrimination against the male child whereas the global gender select abortion is now a discrimination against the female child. Academics can estimate the missing women globally when the gender balance in society is measured. One academic has made an estimate of 100 million missing women globally, mainly in Asia.

Ray Towey