Congresswoman Cori Bush has no idea what mercy truly is. The 45-year-old represents the first Congressional District of Missouri and is a committed pro-abortion female . But her comments regarding her personal abortion experience boggle my mind.
Bush chose to abort her baby after she was raped and became pregnant. She wiped away a tear as she testified before the House Oversight Committee about the time during a Church trip when she was raped. She said : "Choosing to have an abortion was the hardest decision I had ever made, but at 18 years old, I knew it was the right decision for me."
She also talked with Abigail Tracy - a national political reporter for Vanity Fair - about her abortion. During that interview, Bush revealed her awareness of the fact that her baby was growing inside her, and yet, because of her future plans and her distress at feeling abandoned by the man who had impregnated her, she felt abortion was her only recourse.
But Bush's words about the pro-life people in front of the abortion clinic who were focused on saving babies were equally revealing. She said:
I remember after that, leaving the parking lot, and again getting to the part where everybody's swarming a car. . . . I remember thinking . . . You're yelling at me, but you don't know my story. You're not going to help me with this baby if I had the baby. I felt like there was no mercy, coming from people that didn't even know me.
In other words, Bush mischaracterized people who would have helped as those who would not, thus depriving herself of their loving embrace. Instead, she chose death for her child.
Bush then says : "To all the Black women and girls who have had abortions or will have abortions - know this: We have nothing to be ashamed of." In other words, Bush is telling her story and weeping for the cameras not only because of her own pain and shame, but more so because she does not want to see decriminalized abortion come to an end. According to her, the very idea that a law might recognize the humanity of the baby before she is born is a threat that must be opposed.
I am not putting words in Cori Bush's mouth. It is she who said : "We live in a society that has failed to legislate love and justice for us. So we deserve better, we demand better, we are worthy of better."
Bush's various quotes tell the story in a way that none of us in the pro-life movement ever could. She has freely chosen to use her tragic experience to advance a cause that kills people and maims their mothers while at the same time cementing the pain of rape and abortion into an ideology that can only result in more suffering and more death.
To describe those of us who protest the killing as human beings lacking in mercy while she advances a cause that is merciless toward the most defenseless among us is not a tactical error but rather a conscious decision to embrace evil and decry the good.
Cori Bush suffers greatly from not only the rape she experienced and the abortion decision she made but most of all from her tragic denial about the fact that her innocent baby died because of the horrific sins of his father. The fact that she does not see this as part of her story is troubling because it is yet another reflection of the callous disregard for innocent human lives that has seeped into the very fabric of our cultural soul.
St. Peter discerned this same attitude centuries ago when he warned us in 1 Peter 5:8-11 :
Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings. The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ Jesus will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you suffered a little. To him be dominion forever.
Never forget that advocating love for the babies and their mothers while embracing our enemies in prayer are acts of mercy. Conversely, the advocates of death and deniers of Christ's dominion are those who exhibit no mercy.