During my twenty-five years of teaching in Catholic seminaries, my uneasiness regarding the issue of abortion never went away. Reading right-wing Catholic pamphlets, I was alerted to "the alarming growth of the abortion industry" and to the unsavory hints that American public life was on the slippery slope toward sanctioning sterilization of the unfit and elimination of the unproductive. My wake-up call came, however, when I became an undercover agent within Planned Parenthood. Here, then, is where my story must begin.

Training with Planned Parenthood

When the abortion frenzy was first taking shape within sectors of my Church, I decided, as a committed Christian, that talk was cheap and that it was time for me to take action. Having been trained in Catholic Action, I decided to infiltrate the system and to produce change from the inside. In my mind, the Planned Parenthood Federation was the archvillain.

I saw this group as responsible for promoting cheap and easy abortions as part of their women's rights agenda. Hence, by way of bringing a religious leaven to this group, I decided to act as a volunteer abortion counselor within the very structures where women were flocking to decide the future of the life in their wombs.

Planned Parenthood provided me with the required four two-hour sessions of training. During this period, no one asked me anything regarding my religious affiliation or invited me to explore my gut feelings regarding abortion. At first, I was puzzled by this. But then it became clear that Planned Parenthood was not interested in what I thought or felt; rather, they were focused on whether I was capable of empathetically entering into the mind and heart of a woman coming to me for counseling who was traumatized by "her" unexpected pregnancy.

Next, I discovered that I had misjudged Planned Parenthood for "advocating" (even pushing) abortions. Again and again, my trainers enforced the idea that the decision belonged to the would-be mother. I was trained to assist women whose only difficulty was overcoming the shame and the hesitancy of telling their boyfriends and their parents that they were pregnant. Others needed help because they were in the morass of not knowing who the father was. Still others were unsure whether, for the sake of their child, they could commit themselves to a man whom they judged would likely turn out to be a bad father.

Gradually, I came to discover that Planned Parenthood was bent upon respecting the whole panorama of emotional, social, economic, religious, and institutional aspects of deciding how to respond to an unplanned pregnancy. My trainer kept insisting that my task was to allow the would-be mother to accurately assess her "inner resources" and her own "ethical intuitions" in the face of her own condition and that of her unborn child. Even those coming in with a firm commitment to having an abortion, my trainer insisted, needed to be gentle helped to tell their story of how they became pregnant and how they arrived at their choice of abortion. Planned Parenthood knew that a hasty and unreflective decision could later cause much suffering to all concerned. Making a safe place for women to tell their stories was at the heart of what my trainer expected of me.

Then my practice as a counselor began. I was surprised and humbled to have women half my age or twice my age telling me their deepest secrets, and I was very much aware that they were telling me this as a man. Every case was absolutely unique.

A 16-year-old got drunk at a house party and decided to lose her virginity in the bedroom with, as she said, "a guy that I didn't even like." An older woman near menopause was devastated by a pregnancy at a time in her life when she was physically exhausted by raising four girls and was counting the days until they were all "out of the house." Each of these women made a slow and painful decision. In the end, both decided to accept the new life growing in their wombs and to rely upon their inner resources to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation.

The drama surrounding Amy's pregnancy

Then an attractive women of 28 whom I shall call Amy came to see me. She told me that she was two months pregnant. A flood of tears followed. She kept berating herself saying, "How could I have been so stupid." Gradually her whole story poured out.

She had married her high school sweetheart immediately following graduation. Kevin, their first and only child, was conceived a few months later. Then, unexpectedly, her husband began drinking more. Verbal and then physical abuse followed.

He openly boasted of having sex with other women. After the birth, little changed. He seemingly resented all the time and attention I gave to Kevin. When the beatings continued, I gradually got the courage to escape. I started my life over in another city since no one in my family would believe that the beatings were unprovoked. The folks in a local Catholic Church took me under their wing. They became my real family. First, they found me a place in public housing and helped me get on welfare. Then, they helped me with tuition at a community college. Just as I was completing my associate degree, Kevin started in kindergarten, and I got my first job as secretary to the Dean at the local Catholic seminary. I was riding on cloud nine. I rented a small home near the seminary so I could walk to work. I got off welfare. Small groups of seminarians would often visit me after supper and play with Kevin. Everything was perfect.

Then a heaving rush of tears and repeated laments, "How could I have been so stupid," followed. I kept quiet. From experience, I knew full well that she would continue in her own due time. Anything I might say would just slow down the flow of grief and distract her from the thread of her story.

Then I met Frank, a first-year seminarian. He was a real fine gentleman, and he had a hundred ways of making Kevin laugh. Frank, used to stay on a bit after the other seminarians went back to study. Innocent hugs led to innocent kisses. Frank was so innocent . . . I mean inexperienced. He never had a girlfriend to call his own, so he kind of pretended that I was "his girl." I told myself that I was doing this for his sake. But I was lonely, and finding a man who was gentle and kind – so different from all the other men I have known – was a surprise and a joy for me. I was so needy myself that I couldn't see that I was playing with fire.

More heartbreaking tears. Then she slowly told me of that "tender night" they had their first experience of sex together. "Frank gave no thought to using a condom. Besides, I felt I was in the infertile part of my cycle. But I was sadly mistaken."

So what were Amy's options? As she saw them, they were as follows: (a) Tell Frank and possibly ruin his life and his calling as a priest. (b) Tell Frank the child belongs to another man and bear the weight of the punishment for fornication that was sure to follow:

At the seminary, they'd fire me at the drop of a hat. Then I'd have to move away. Kevin would be heartbroken at losing the only family he ever had. Then, when the baby came, I'd be unable to work and be back on welfare, trying to put my life together so that I could maybe rise up again somewhere down the line.

In the end, she decided to tell Frank that what they did was wrong and that he must never come over again. She decided to have an abortion without telling anyone. But then a new struggle ensued for Amy: "Could God ever forgive me if I killed the life in my womb?"

Amy felt trapped. There were no happy solutions. Every choice she might make was strewn with dangers for all concerned. Slowly and tearfully, Amy decided to go ahead with an abortion "in order to protect the life that I've made for Kevin and to keep the respect of my adopted family at my church." As for God, she felt that "somehow God knows how much I have suffered already and, being a kind Father, he wouldn't want Kevin and me to suffer any more."

As for Frank, Amy decided that she had been a "damn fool" and that, in the future, she would never again get involved with any man, and surely not with a seminarian.

The breakdown of my moral superiority

Witnessing women like Amy broke down my sense of moral superiority. She came to me confessing her sins, resolving to amend her life, and asking God for forgiveness. I honestly don't know whether Amy felt at peace with herself and her God after her abortion. She never came back.

I have no doubts, however, that she confessed her sin to a priest with the same tears and anguish that she had shown me. I can't say, in all honesty, whether she made the best possible choice. All I can say is that, in fear and trembling, she made her choice. In the end, I can only be certain that she was right about God being "a kind Father".

After meeting with Amy for the final time, I came out of Planned Parenthood and noticed twenty Catholics who were standing near the entrance driveway.  I knew they were Catholic because they all held rosary beads, and they were reciting their Hail Marys in unison with a robust rhythm.  I felt a surge of anger well up within me.  Normally I would have avoided them.  Today, however, I was thinking of Amy and I imagined that their prayers were like sharp stones being thrown at her—the woman whom they regarded as a great sinner and an enemy of God.  I shouted at them, “Stop. You have no idea of the suffering of these women.  Jesus wants you to cease and desist.  Stop throwing your stony Hail Marys at these women.  Stop, I say.”  To my astonishment, some of them did stop.  And then I called out three times in a clear voice without the slightest rancor, “Let anyone who is without sin throw the next stone.  Let anyone who is without sin throw the next stone.  Let anyone who is without sin throw the next stone” (John 8:7).  With that, they all finally stopped.  A few quickly put their rosaries in their purses and quietly walked away.

After many hours of reflecting upon Amy, I began to realize that the official Church is anything but a kind father. The official Church has no heart for listening to and making a safe place for listening to women like Amy. The official Church offers moral absolutes and moral condemnations – positions which, I am ashamed to say, I once cherished myself because they confirmed my need for absolutes and gave me a sense of moral superiority. My so-called moral superiority, however, was a terrible sham – an affront to God and to the women like Amy whom I imagined that I was somehow appointed by God to guide.

Following my stint at Planned Parenthood, my blinders were gone. In fact, I saw clearly that if the truth had come out, the seminary rector would have immediately fired Amy, sending her into oblivion. Frank, meanwhile, would have been privately shamed, given a year of probation, and then sent on to be ordained.

In the end, therefore, I recognized the awful truth that the moral climate within the seminary would assure that men guilty of fornication were secretly protected while the guilty women were shunned and made to suffer all the public consequences.

Even before I began to explore the moral underpinnings of the Church's position on abortion, therefore, I had to confess that I discovered that there was an unhealthy moral perversion in my heart and in my Church.