PURITY OF HEART ENABLES MANY YOUTHS TO SEE TRUTH.

Byline: JAMES BEMIS Commentary

Recently, I served as a judge in an essay contest for eighth-graders, sponsored by Simi's St. Rose of Lima Respect Life Committee. Respect Life was established by the National Catholic Conference of Bishops to provide information on issues of human life and dignity.

Besides the generally high quality, these essays provided an interesting insight into the future. Particularly noteworthy was the students' lucid thinking on the contentious issue of abortion, without the politics and intellectual corruption fogging the view of so many adults.

Our national conversation about abortion is now simply people talking past each other, a battle of shouted slogans with few really listening to the other side. It is refreshing, then, to hear from those not jaded by propaganda or their own complicity in this matter. Such were the voices heard in the essay competition.

Contestants were given the following: Jessica, a close friend, is pregnant and scared. She asks for a ride to an abortion clinic, saying if she doesn't have the procedure, her whole life will be ruined. Jessica is afraid her parents will hate her, she'll have to quit sports, and she won't be able to enjoy her teen-age years.

Writers were asked: What would you say to her?

Third-place winner Anne Erickson wrote of the emotional scars left by abortion, saying, ``In the back of your mind, you will always wonder what your baby would have looked like. Every time you pass a mother with a child, you'll wonder if that should have been you. Every day, you will wonder whether or not abortion was the right decision.''

``But if you have your baby,' Anne counseled, ``I promise that once you take one look at him, you will know that you made the right decision, and will not live your life in regret, but happiness.''

Second-place winner Lina Jocas looked at the personal toll, telling the tale of a family friend. ``This woman even went to her appointment to get an abortion. She was sitting in the waiting room and could not go through with it. She called up her husband and just could not do it.

``Now her child is in her early 20s and married,'' Lina continued. ``She can't imagine if she went through with the abortion. Her life would have been depressing and miserable. It would have been the worst mistake of her life.''

Grand prize winner Alejandro Palomino wrote to Jessica about the positive alternatives to abortion. ``I know having a baby is a large responsibility,'' he wrote, ``but you could give your baby a loving home. Some couples are not blessed with the ability to create life.

``The Catholic Church has many programs for single mothers that want to put their baby up for adoption,'' he advised, ``Your baby could be raised by a Catholic family that could provide your baby with a loving mother and father. Before you consider abortion, think of all the loving couples who are waiting for a baby.''

All the essays had one thing in common: With unusual insight and compassion, these children recognized abortion as a human loss and tragedy, one involving - at a minimum - two victims whose existence is forever torn apart. There's no talk here about ``medical procedures,'' ``terminating a pregnancy,'' a ``woman's right to choose'' or other political buzzwords, only a sober, clear-minded comprehension of abortion's dreaded toll.

Modern propaganda techniques have distorted our ability to think clearly about a whole alphabet's range of issues from abstinence to Zionism, not the least of which is the subject of abortion. But the young, with their characteristic simplicity and innocence, seem more capable of escaping the web of deception than their elders.

For what children lack in sophistication, they make up with incorrupt hearts. With such purity often comes the ability to see the truth, and then the courage to speak it.