Outside the abortuary. 'C’mon now, cast the first stone! You’ve sinned, how can you throw a stone? '

Peaceful vigil outside BPAS Bedford Square Abortuary WC1

'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her' Gospel of John

‘How dare you?! How dare you stand there, tell my girlfriend that she’s doing some reeelly dirty thing, like she’s some baby killer or something. You with your rosary! You’re meant to be some kind of Christian? C’mon now, cast the first stone! What’s that bit from the Bible? You’ve sinned, how can you throw a stone? Cast not the first stone!’ The boyfriend then screws up his eyes at the ‘side walk counsellor’ and any further effort on the part of the counsellor to discuss the dangers of abortion, and the detail that by going into the clinic, they are enabling and witnesses to their child’s murder is prevented by the boyfriend sniping ‘cast the first stone!’

The body language of the boyfriend is always very telling. He clenches his teeth guard dog like. If the girlfriend tries to peer around him, and merely make eye contact with the pro-life counsellor the boyfriend will sidestep and prevent the girlfriend. This isn’t a protective action; it’s a dishonest one.

Likewise, the clinic workers who pass in and out of the abortion clinics, can muster the courage, purse their lips and hiss ‘oh go on you, you’re no follower of Jeeezus, you can’t cast the first stone!’

Parents, who bring their children to the clinic so as to procure a hasty dispatch of their grandchild, are most difficult people to counsel outside a clinic. If they are in the forties/fifties, they may actually know the bible verse by heart. The parents create a bubble around the expectant mother and jeer ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!’ Parents say the line with the most conviction, parents feel the most shame and are cross that their ‘secret abortion’ is being witnessed by some pesky ‘Christians’. ‘Well, we’ll show those anti-abortionists who’s really Christian, and who really knows their bible!’ is their mind-set.

Everyone responsible for the abortion, from the twenty-five year old boyfriend in tight jeans, the clinic worker who glistens with expensive jewellery to the stressed parent who stridently walk in with their thirteen year old daughter, are trying to transfer their guilt and shame onto the pro-lifers. It’s their bid to make those who participate in a peaceful, prayerful life-saving mission outside the clinic feel alienated from Our Lord and feel ashamed of their life-saving mission. They are testing our Christianity.

When who is actually throwing stones and ending life?

Excuse my repetition of ‘life-saving mission’ but just like Our Lord saved the life of the woman taken in adultery, ‘we’ (everyone involved in a mission outside abortuaries) are there to save the lives of unborn children.

We may with every confidence politely say, ‘thank you for bringing my attention to the bible, and you must also know that Our Lord saved the woman’s life. We are trying to save life - the lives of babies.’ 

The background to the woman who was saved from being stoned to death is that the Pharisees were testing Jesus on His loyalty to the law of Moses, when they said ‘Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one.’

The ‘such a one’ refers to the woman guilty of adultery, and yes applying the law of Moses, she would have been stoned. 

Nowhere, however, in the law of Moses does it command that completely innocent babies growing in the womb be stoned – to death.

But our modern-living creed passes guilt and blame on the innocent babies for being conceived at the ‘wrong’ time, the inconvenient ‘unplanned’ babies, well those babies deserve ‘medical abortion’. By ‘medical’ this euphemism refers to the fact that the mother takes ‘pills’ that will either stone the foetus, or cause the baby to die in its own blood. Errr, now who’s throwing the first stone?  

The hope for ALL that working in the ‘abortion industry’ and for the many mothers of stoned babies: there is forgiveness from Our Lord.

He forgave the woman caught in adultery. And in giving her forgiveness, Our Lord, the world’s first Catholic priest nullified the law of Moses by cleansing the woman of her sin and her guilt: ‘Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more.’