Hearts Open, Closed, and Unaware

Okay, I'll be honest about it. Annie's reflections on her experience attempting to inject a little truth in the minds of those marching for abortion brought me to tears. I won't attempt to siphon from the emotion, for this post. Go read the whole entry. However, I do want to draw out a particular aspect that relates to something from my Saturday-into-Sunday post about abortion and birth trends. I suggested that subsequent generations — or segments thereof — will lose their sense of the profundity of the "choice" of abortion; here's Annie:

I silently made eye contact with as many people as possible, women and men. The older, middle-aged ones, had their eyes glued straight ahead for the most part. But almost all the young women, even of high school age, looked at my sign as they walked by on that sidewalk, laughing among themselves and their boyfriends or girlfriends. When my sign caught their eye, they then reflexively looked to see who was holding it. After our eyes met, a few quickly looked away, not wanting to know, but most just stared at me a long time in shock. A lot of brows furrowed as they walked away, no longer laughing; they'd never even thought it was possible, I suppose, that a woman would think twice about her abortion, could really regret having done it.

I think the understanding of the travesty is written deep down in us. Given our natures, though, the saddest part is that the politics of the thing will carry many through the act. What then?

One woman, maybe about 30ish, started screaming at me, at the top of her lungs, "I CHOSE!! AND I'M PROUD!" over and over and over again. The others around her took up the chant, some verbatim, some saying instead, "I CHOOSE!! AND I'M PROUD!!" The veins were popping out on her forehead and neck, her face was beet red, and she was hunched over at the waist as she shrieked out the words at high volume, glowering at me, for at least five minutes straight. If there is a definition of "frothing at the mouth," that was this woman at that time.