- Feb 5, 2002
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On Consequences: Abortion & the YouTube Influencer Couple
On a cool October evening some years back, a young woman – let’s call her Jenny, age 18 – checked into St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica and gave birth to a baby boy. Her friends had urged her to have an abortion. So did her boyfriend, Jack, also 18, who waited with us now outside the delivery room, his eyes red with feelings he didn’t expect and couldn’t put a name to.
I sat next to him and listened while he explained that yes, he really loved Jenny, but it just hadn’t worked out. He drank too much. He liked to fight. He couldn’t hold a job. And now he was in trouble with the law for driving his car through the plate-glass front window of a gas station, boozed to oblivion. The idea of being a dad – well, it just seemed crazy.
Jenny, who’d followed Jack from the Midwest, fended off her friends through the sixth, seventh, and into the eighth month, agreeing that sure, abortion was the sensible route, and yes, she’d get the problem taken care of. And then, on a rainy afternoon, she walked into a local Catholic church instead.
The priest referred her to a support group who, at her request, connected her with a young woman lawyer who did prolife adoption work. The lawyer explained some options: She knew quite a few Catholic and other Christian couples seeking to adopt. But Jenny already knew what she wanted. A week or so later, the phone rang in our home.
What I remember most about the next few weeks is Jenny’s courage. She had no money. She loved Jack but had no illusions about building a life with him. Her friends thought she was a fool for putting herself through the birth and never showed up at the hospital. Her family back home in Wisconsin didn’t even know where she was.
Continued below.
www.thecatholicthing.org
On a cool October evening some years back, a young woman – let’s call her Jenny, age 18 – checked into St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica and gave birth to a baby boy. Her friends had urged her to have an abortion. So did her boyfriend, Jack, also 18, who waited with us now outside the delivery room, his eyes red with feelings he didn’t expect and couldn’t put a name to.
I sat next to him and listened while he explained that yes, he really loved Jenny, but it just hadn’t worked out. He drank too much. He liked to fight. He couldn’t hold a job. And now he was in trouble with the law for driving his car through the plate-glass front window of a gas station, boozed to oblivion. The idea of being a dad – well, it just seemed crazy.
Jenny, who’d followed Jack from the Midwest, fended off her friends through the sixth, seventh, and into the eighth month, agreeing that sure, abortion was the sensible route, and yes, she’d get the problem taken care of. And then, on a rainy afternoon, she walked into a local Catholic church instead.
The priest referred her to a support group who, at her request, connected her with a young woman lawyer who did prolife adoption work. The lawyer explained some options: She knew quite a few Catholic and other Christian couples seeking to adopt. But Jenny already knew what she wanted. A week or so later, the phone rang in our home.
What I remember most about the next few weeks is Jenny’s courage. She had no money. She loved Jack but had no illusions about building a life with him. Her friends thought she was a fool for putting herself through the birth and never showed up at the hospital. Her family back home in Wisconsin didn’t even know where she was.
Continued below.
A Brief Note on Consequences - The Catholic Thing
Francis X. Maier: Whoever saves a single soul in this life, Scripture accounts it as if he had saved an entire world.
www.thecatholicthing.org
