Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Abolishing Abortion by Rev. Frank Pavone



This book is a rousing call to the American Church and specifically to Catholics, to literally end abortion. Its focus lies in entering the public square with the "prolife message." This book begins with an introduction that sets the tone for this book, giving us the flavor of what is to come. Arranged in twelve chapters, the book is dedicated to the unborn as "our unborn brothers and sisters." Following Chapter 12, the book provides an appendix that is a written transcript of a prolife address by Rev. Derek King, nephew of Martin Luther King Jr.. This is followed by acknowledgments of those who have made this book possible. The book ends with a section of Notes of sources used by the author, and ends with his bio. This author, Rev. Frank Pavone, is the President of the National Pro-Life Religious Council and is the national director of Priests for Life. He is the national pastoral director of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign and of Rachel's Vineyard, the world's largest ministry of Priests healing after abortion. This book is endorsed by many prominent conservative political and religious leaders.

I was definitely challenged by this book. From the very beginning, I was under no illusion that I was being called to be willing and ready to sacrifice my comfort, my reputation, my freedom and even my life, for this prolife cause and to try to end abortion. As a non-Catholic, parts of this strongly Catholic book did not speak to me, especially the parts about Catholic traditions in reference to the prolife cause. I only reluctantly agreed with the author that none of us, me included, has done enough to try to end abortion. I found myself frustrated that the author gave so few practical tips for involvement, but his assumption is that readers alreadyn know what to do and either fear the fight, or don't care. Realistically, I had tried to step up my involvement in this cause in the past, but had had a bad experience when I had sought to volunteer with an area crisis pregnancy center. I found myself getting bored and having to force myself through the chapters of the book, addressed to pastors and focused on the legalities of speaking openly about abortion. During my reading of this book I found myself visiting this author's website for information and for resources to use in online advocacy. Even as people are focused on de-funding Planned Parenthood, it seems to me that this alone would not end abortion. To truly help women and save their unborn children, the funds should be re-allocated to life-affirming women's services where abortions are not done. This book's focus on prolife advocacy in the public square and in politics, is only one part of the puzzle. I feel, and many others agree, that unless we try to find common ground with the other side and work toward what we agree on (like better adoption laws, preventing pregnancies, and better laws for single parent families and low-income families, we can make abortion illegal and pull funds out of Planned Parenthood. However, women and their partners will still remain abortion-minded unless we all work together, privately and publicly, to make it so that alternatives to abortion will look more attractive and abortion less attractive.

I recommend this book for every pastor in every congregation. This book gives them re-assurance about how far they can go in speaking openly about abortion and advocate for the unborn, without breaking laws and risk losing tax-exempt status. I recommend this book for all Christian leaders at all levels. I recommend this book for all those who are passionate about ending abortions. I do not recommend this book for people for who have experienced abortions, unless they have experienced a good manner of healing. This book's impassioned rhetoric can be very triggering for such persons. For the very same reason, people, even those in the Christian community, who call themselves progressive or liberal, will probably be turned off by this book. This book is not for everyone.

I have received this book free of charge from Book Look Bloggers, in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a favorable review of this book.

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