Transformed by Love
Love can change an individual. Can it also change a movement?
By Karen Stiller

They do not gather weekly to recite it, but secular feminism has a creed-a statement of beliefs more entrenched in the feminist psyche than any creeds are in the Church. The most sacred article of their faith is the "pro-abortion" stand.

To be feminist, one must be "pro-choice," or so they say.

As a young woman in University in Halifax in the late eighties, I embraced feminism and found myself awkwardly hugging someone I was not entirely comfortable with. Feminism's freedom involved chaining oneself to a set of political beliefs. And abortion was the padlock.

It made some sense to me at the time. In the last years of high school, I accompanied a friend as naïve as I, but not as lucky, to a Halifax hospital for an abortion. The nurse took my friend behind a door with one of those useless windows of thick glass that don't let you see anything clearly. I sat in the waiting room with mothers and their daughters and other girls all alone. As I sat, I wondered what would have happened if I had yelled out to my friend at the last minute, "Don't!" Some part of me knew even then that this was a lousy choice for a teenager who thought she had no choice at all.

But that part of me had not yet grown strong in courage or conviction, and it stayed quiet and drove my friend home in my father's Chrysler. The last bit of the soap operas and some cold water to drink-that's all she asked for.

As a woman who has birthed three babes of my own, I have asked myself more than once if, for the love of a friend, I could sit again in such a waiting room. The answer is no. But I would, in the name of love, sit for an afternoon and give cold water to drink.

For it was Love that changed me. In University I met many people, studied many philosophies, devoured books and papers and theories, trying to understand the world and myself. Then I met Christ. Back then, I would have said I was transformed. But now I understand transformation to be both in an instant and in a lifetime.

Feminism gave me tools to critique the world and faith gave me freedom to critique feminism. I rattled the chains and was relieved and released. Abortion, the necessary evil, became just wrong. And unbearably sad.

A friend gave me an important book called, Pro-life Feminism . I discovered women who called themselves both feminist and pro-life. That book gave me the tools I needed to mould my newly released pro-life convictions into something with shape and substance, and gave me the courage to engage other students in debate using their vocabulary on an issue that was heating up in Halifax. Morgentaler was coming.

My boyfriend at the time, my husband after all this time, and I joined the pro-life movement in Halifax. We started a pro-life campus group. Immediately, I found myself the spokesperson for the group and discovered that maybe I was a bit courageous after all. The abortion debate became part of the Student Council elections that year, and I spoke the pro-life word to crowds sold out on another point of view.

We protested outside Morgentaler's newly opened clinic. I hated every minute of it. It turned the heat up under the animosity that existed between the opposing sides. What simmered on a back burner at other times, boiled over outside of that place and rolled over us like lava. It was pure hatred flowing from both sides. And for the first time, I wondered if maybe it really was a spiritual battle.

I attended meetings in church basements where men called grown women "little ladies" and secret plans were made for chaining volunteers to doorways. Like a kid who didn't do her math homework, I sat looking at the floor, praying I would not be called upon. Then God called my husband to Seminary, and we were moving to Vancouver. I was relieved.

There I became involved with the formation of a Feminists for Life chapter. We planned a press conference to announce our launch. The room was empty save for three angry people. They were pro-lifers outraged at such a group. It was ridiculous and sad. And confirmed to me what I suspected in Halifax. The movement was fractured. Suspicion and competition between political, educational, and religious legs left it crippled.

I was burnt out when we left Halifax and I needed time to be away from the heat. To those who never need such time, I salute you. I am not made of the same stuff. But what I have now I give. As a writer, I give my words. As a family, we give our money. As a mother, I give my tears. For some, that will never be enough. And to that, I can give no answer.

Karen Stiller is a free-lance writer living in Toronto.