The Freedom to Choose What Is Right

Now the Lord is the Spirit,

and where the Spirit of the Lord is,

there is liberty.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Reflection by Fr. Frank Pavone

Norma McCorvey (the former Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade)

used to work at an abortion mill named "A Choice for

Women." She now realizes what a cruel irony that

title was.

She saw first hand, just as pregnancy resource center

counselors see, that women don't get abortions

because of freedom of choice, but rather because they

feel they have no freedom and no choice.

They feel trapped, abandoned, desperate and afraid,

and have been led to believe that abortion is their

only option.

As Frederica Mathewes-Green has written, no woman

wants an abortion like she wants a Porsche or an ice

cream; rather, she wants it like an animal caught in

a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

That doesn't mean that the Spirit allows us to do

whatever we want or to decide for ourselves what's

right and wrong.

Rather, it means that the Spirit gives us the freedom

to do what is right, the power to choose what is

good, when we see it before us and yet feel pulled in

the opposite direction. Liberty means that we no

longer have to feel doomed to do what we know is

wrong.

We are the people of the Spirit of the Lord, and when

we take action on behalf of life, especially by being

present at abortion mills, we are acting on behalf of

true freedom, and imparting to those who are in

bondage the power to do what is right.