The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, November 07, 2002, Image 16

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CAL TOPS ’CANES IN LATEST POL
1
CAL
2
MIAMI (FL)
3
OKLAHOMA
4
COLORADO
5
TENNESSEE
6
TEXAS
7
FLORIDA STATE
8
FLORIDA
9
• —
17 NEBRASKA
Must turn off ^injuries’
thin Trojans to succeed.Coi
trolling the playbookiscnid
with l ISC's quarterback.
19 BOISE STATE
Can the 'Canes repeat? Can the Sooners make it two out of the last three? Who will win the Heisman?
How many polygons does a Butkus Award winner get? Where is Berkeley? The answers to these
(No. No. Look to Texas. Thousands. Take I-80 west and follow the signs.) and other pressing ques
tions can be found in this year's College Football Top 25 poll:
Say hello to the first *
Bowl" winner. Increased
rates show that thisyeaita
boys are on their way up
20 AUBURN
The No. 3 Te
jerteam (15-3
[defend its 2001
regular se
week in San .
Championship
time the Aggie
title was in 199
win their first-c
The 2002 se
and downs. Tht
unbeaten streal
for consecutive
The streak stai
matches in a
record for mos
With the Ag
5 Texas Friday
season title, tin
end of the Big
ble-dip. Now
been met, the
the next step ii
“We’re re as
[rest of the w;
Guerrieri. “W
Tournament) t
The Aggies
1 CAL
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Paid Advertisment
r-m-i Remembering
Thomas
Phil McCombs
This year’s March for Life, in which 45,000 abortion opponents picketed
the Supreme Court, didn’t have the emotional impact on me that these
events often do. I was on my way out of town on business and scarcely
noticed.
Looking at news reports later, it seemed that everyone had been on his
or her best behavior. The abortion opponents were making it plain that they
oppose the use of violence to close clinics. The counter-demonstrations by
abortion righLs advocates, as we’re careful to call them, were rare.
It’s all a little confusing to me. I don’t know anyone who—in his or her
heart—doesn’t hate abortion. And it seems odd to see Christian conserva
tives so eager to force their will through the armed authority of the state
when they already have at hand the far more powerful weapon of prayer.
Anyway, I like prayer. It’s all I have left.
And pain.
When the abortion was performed, I was out of town on business too. 1
made sure of that. Whatever physical, emotional and spiritual agony the
woman suffered, 1 was not by her side to support her. I turned my face
away. My behavior was in all respects craven, immoral.
For some instinctual reason, or just imaginatively. I’ve come to believe
that it was a boy, a son whom I wanted killed because, at the time, his exis
tence would have inconvenienced me. I’d had my fun. He didn’t fit into
my plans.
His name, which is carved on my heart, was Thomas.
My feelings of responsibility and guilt are undiminished by the fact that
the woman had full legal authority to make the decision on her own, either
way, without consulting me or even informing me. In fact, she consulted in
an open fashion reflecting our shared responsibility, and I could have made
a strong case for having the child. Instead, I urged her along the path of
death.
And skipped town.
It’s not a lot of help, either—emotionally or spiritually—that the high
priests of the American judiciary have put their A-OK on this particular
form of what I personally have come to regard as the slaughter of inno
cents. After all, it’s the task of government to decide whom we may or
must kill, and not necessarily to provide therapeutic services afterward. In
the Army I remember being trained at public expense in the “spirit of the
bayonet,” which is, simply put, “to kill.” The spirit of abortion is the same,
in my view, though the enemy isn’t shooting back.
I feel like a murderer—which isn’t to say that I blame anyone else, or
think anyone else is a murderer.
It’s just the way I feel, and all the rationalizations in the world haven’t
changed this. I still grieve for little Thomas. It is an ocean of grief. From
somewhere in the distant past I remember the phrase from Shakespeare,
“the multitudinous seas incarnadine.”
When I go up to the river on vacation this summer, he won t N? 0111 --
boating with me on the lovely old wooden runabout that 1 can trealh
afford to put in the water hut can’t bring myself to discard, either.
He won’t he lying on the grass by the tent at night, looking at the
sky and saying, “What’s that one called. Dad?”
Because there was no room on the Earth for Thomas.
He’s dead.
The latest numbers show abortions in America have been runniiV
about 1.5 million annually. That’s a lot of pain.
Secular men’s groups have tended to be focused on the no say, ^
pay” issue. “These men feel raped,” says Mel Feit ot the National ^
for Men. “They lose everything they worked for all their lives. Inn )
cases they had an agreement with the woman not to have
a baby and*
, well as
rfor
she changes her mind they call me up and say, ‘How can she do
me? How can she get away with it?’” Feit plans to bring suit in e
court.
I’m more interested in the traumatic pain that many men, as
women, often feel after an abortion. A healing process of recognit
grieving and ultimately forgiveness is needed.
“There’s a lot of ambivalence for men when they get in touc ^
their pain,” says Eileen C. Marx, formerly communications direc
Cardinal James A. Hickey of Washington and now a columnist ^
publications. ‘They didn’t have the physical pregnancy, so often
they’re not entitled to the feelings of sadness and anger and gui
that women often feel.” “pepl ea( *'
She tells of one man, a friend, whose wife had an abortiorr ^
ed with her not to have it. He said his parents would raise ^ a bo(-
could put it up for adoption. The marriage broke up as a resu
lion and other issues. He was really devastated by the experien 0
Marx has recently written about a post-abortion healing
Project Rachel, in which more men are becoming involved
boylriends and even grandfathers. There are 100 Project Rac
including one in Washington. theph 0116 ’
1 found it helpful just talking to Marx, a caring person, on ^
though it was a little tough when she mentioned being P re % n
ing the heartbeat and feeling “this wonderful celebration of
y° u ” t forg iveness
She said not to be too hard on myself, that healing is a
and God forgives me.
I said sure, that’s right, but some things are still hard.
Like looking in the mirror.
; a Washington Post staff writer. ©1995, The V&shjngtonPssf ^ e P n
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