By Judie Brown
Harpies! Webster tells us that harpies are shrewish women who are capable of awful acts because of their dour nature. They are the sort of females who might have followed behind Christ as He carried His cross on Good Friday, heckling Him and acting in other peevish ways.
These are the mythical women who came to mind when I read about the women who are striving to protect abortion rights, even at the cost of their own souls, though they may not even realize it.
Consider the feminists who lead the National Women’s Law Center, an organization that recently proclaimed in a headline, “First They Came for Abortion, Now They’re (Secretly) Coming for Birth Control.” To make their point even more stupefying, they depict an American flag in the graphic with birth control pills replacing the stars. Not only is this offensive to many of us, but the assertion is erroneous. After all, we are living in a nation led by a president who cannot imagine striving to protect a preborn child until she is 15 weeks gestational age! He will not be “coming for birth control.” Talk about hype among the harpies.
But that is only one example.
The president/CEO of Planned Parenthood issued a statement on the passage of the United States House of Representatives’ budget reconciliation resolution. Alexis McGill Johnson says the language would “strip health care access,” an act that she calls “cruel and consequential.” Of course she does!
For Planned Parenthood, the only way to ensure health for American females is to ensure their access to contraception and abortion—any method that provides a way forward to end the life of a baby not yet born. In other words, Planned Parenthood prefers banned parenthood.
Finally, members of Congress, including feminist Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett, are making their voices heard as they support proposals to provide broader access to abortion-related services. In 2023, Congresswoman Crockett said, “The only person who should have a final say in women’s health and access to reproductive care is the woman who needs it. The decision is a personal decision, not a political one.”
These are just some of the women in this nation who are abortion zealots. Like their sisters in arms, they will stop at nothing to secure the ability of any woman at any age to end the life of her baby. This is why we refer to them as harpies.
As we walk the way of Christ this Passion week, we must be aware that when it comes to the zealots who thirst for the blood of babies, they will not stop to ponder the road to Gethsemane. Those who advocate for and support abortion have cast their lots with the soldiers who gambled for Christ’s robe. They have lost their way. Let us pray for them this Holy Week.
Echoing the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, we pray, “Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.”
Ponder the Passion and resolve anew to serve God’s babies so that one day their tiny crucifixions will no longer occur.