This morning I submitted the following letter to Meadville Tribune editor, Pat Bywater, after reading Luigi DeFrancesco's opinion piece, "It's a wonderful life." Whether or not Bywater chooses to publish my response, I wanted my Congregation to know where I stand on DeFrancesco's revolting piece:
"January 21, 2012
Shame on the Meadville Tribune for publishing Luigi DeFrancesco's opinion "It's a Wonderful Life!" (Saturday 1/21/12) and shame on Mr. DeFrancesco for his seemingly cavalier attitude toward rape.
The Tribune's anti-abortion agenda is crystal clear, given the number of columns they publish by DeFrancesco and others (including the increasingly tiresome columns of K. Lopez of the National Review) – but this time you've gone too far.
DeFrancesco's cavalier treatment of rape is stunningly inappropriate, and I am frankly astonished that the Tribune would choose to print it. At least you could have chosen a more appropriate headline for the piece to give us a heads up. Rather than "It's a Wonderful Life!" the headline might have more appropriately been, "You've Been Raped, So What, When's the Baby Due?"
His cavalier treatment of rape ("We have probably been conceived in rape a milennia ago. Does anybody have any regrets?") is outwarped only by the twisted logic of claiming that "wanton" abortions are a money-making endeavor that exploit women's bodies. I would find this claim laughable if I weren't so busy weeping – after all, what is a forced pregnancy if not an exploitation of a woman's body?
I found Mr. DeFrancesco's arguments confusing and contradictory, especially about two points: First, is his protest that women's bodies are sacred and we should therefore avoid all exploitation of women's bodies? And second, would God really permit one of his women "helpers" to abort a fetus that could eventually become the person who could cure cancer or solve the energy crisis (ironic that the population crisis and the energy crisis are so intertwined, but that's a different column for a different day).
If his protest is that women's bodies (which include our wombs) are sacred, and therefore we should avoid all exploitation of women's bodies, then Mr. DeFrancesco and I find ourselves in agreement: women's bodies should NEVER, ever, be exploited. Our bodies, including our wombs, are sacred and sovereign, and should not be subject to exploitation by anyone else – doctor, politician, zealot, lawmaker, or rapist. Women's sacred bodies and wombs must not be exploited by those who would violate our beings and bodies by rape, nor by those who would seek enforcement of a resulting pregnancy upon a woman, despite her own free agency.
As to women being God's "helpers" – my understanding of the teachings of Jesus is that each and every one of us, no matter our gender or our reproductive capacity, is called to be a helper by way of loving – not judging – our neighbors. I would find the anti-abortion movement so much more credible if their claims about the sovereignty of life and their zeal for life were channeled into being God's "helpers" by making a difference in the lives of the many children in our city, our county, our state, our nation, and our world, who suffer from hunger, poverty, abuse, neglect, abandonment, lack of proper medical and dental care, and lack of proper education.
Easing the suffering of these children would be a real "pro-life" effort; otherwise, the anti-abortion/pro-birth argument is really and simply about privileging one's own "privileges" (as Mr. DeFrancesco refers to them) over and against the legal reproductive rights of women, and over and against the basic human rights of suffering children who have a right to expect more from ALL of us, as God's helpers.
In my opinion, Mr. DeFrancesco has approached rape with the same cavalier attitude with which anti-abortionists accuse women of approaching abortion. Yet never have I experienced such an attitude in counseling a woman who is contemplating, or who has had an abortion.
Despite the myths propagated by the anti-abortionist movement, never have their decisions come lightly; it is a heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching decision, and not a single woman I've counseled has ever chosen abortion as casual or "wanton" birth control. Please, give women more credit than this; after all, if God trusts us enough to be God's "helpers" then Mr. DeFrancesco should trust us enough to make decisions about our wombs and our lives. As the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice would counsel, such decisions about reproduction are between a woman and her God."
Rev. Carmen Emerson
