,I never dreamed, however, that this self-effacing "diminutive woman of deliberate mien," as she is described by Damien Cave in the New York Times, was involved in the kind of underground work in anti-abortion activism so grizzly that most U.S. Marines could not stomach it, or that her view of the risks involved would be exemplified in her annual commemoration of her first stint in jail as though she was celebrating her birthday.
Monica Migliorino Miller, is not only Professor of Theology at Madonna University and the Director of Citizens for a Pro- Life Society. She is a veritable pro-life commando who has undertaken periodic missions deep into enemy territory in the Empire of Death.
In one mission, as Damien Cave reports in his NYT article:
Acting on a tip, between February and September of 1988, she said they retrieved around 4,000 fetuses that had been shipped there from a dozen or so abortion clinics nationwide. (A protracted lawsuit tied to their efforts ended in 2003.)The objective was to bring the reality of the abortion holocaust to the public's attention with as much vivid realism as possible. Cave reports:
Mrs. Migliorino Miller said the boxes filled spare rooms in her apartment and others for nearly a year. “We didn’t feel we could put them in storage,” she said.
In 1988, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago, presided over a funeral for around 2,000 of the fetuses. Activists buried many others.
[I]n 1987, she said a tip led her to a Chicago alley with dozens of boxed-up fetuses in a trash-hauling bin."Maybe 50 percent of the graphic images of abortion victims that you'll find online are probably my photography," says Dr. Miller.
That was when she took her first fetal pictures. She described her initial motivation as journalistic. “We felt it was very important to make a record of the reality of abortion,” she said.
The process was a challenge: the fetuses, hard to handle; the scent of the formaldehyde solution, enough to burn the nose. Shooting could only be done up close.
[Acknowledgements: Damien Cave, "Behind the Scenes: Picturing Fetal Remains" (New York Times, October 9, 2009), via Caeli Finn; and a tip of the hat to Danny, Alma & Dominic Daniels for hosting a most remarkable gathering.]
Most readers will not remember Michelle Migliorino Miller as the author of a charitable but nonetheless scathing critique of some of the fruitier theobabble of the Archie Andrews of contemporary American Catholic Theology, Scott Hahn. Her critique appeared as part of an ongoing exchange in the New Oxford Review, which grew out of a critical review of Hahn’s work in that periodical back, if memory serves, in the late 90s. She drew particular credibility from the fact she new Hahn from his graduate student days, and had in fact -- again, if memory serves -- worked in some capacity in his defending of his doctoral dissertation.
ReplyDeleteThat whole exchange is well worth the review, especially if you are gaga over the head of the family that generously offered itself as an appropriate model for interpretation of the Divine Trinity.
It is gratifying to me to see that she has done so much more with her life than accumulate a stack of volumes of quirky pop theology.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0503-miller
ReplyDelete". . . which grew out of a critical review of Hahn’s work in that periodical back, if memory serves, in the late 90s."
ReplyDeleteClumsily worded. It was the review that appeared in the NOR, not any work of Hahn's.
Also, the exchange appeared in NOR in the early 2000s, not the late 90s. Sorry.
The Hahn connection is not one I am familiar with, beyond some distant hearsay and scattered references.
ReplyDeleteThe "hard-core" activism of Professor Miller, however, is absolutely remarkable. Why have we not heard more about this woman? Amazing! She should be as large a presence in the Catholic media as Mother Teresa, and I think Mother Teresa would agree.
Amazing.