One nice thing about a blog that almost nobody reads is that I feel freer to write my thoughts on some very controversial subjects. I do not care to debate. I don't have answers. I have many, many questions. Writing it out helps me.
It became clear to me, after participating in the Right to Life March and listening to the speakers this year, that there is a huge divide between what being pro-life means to me and what it means to many who wear the label pro-life. This has been eating at me all week, and I’ve finally decided I need to sort it out – for my own sanity, you know.
Anyway, I want to get down what I mean when I say I’m pro-life.
Pro-life is huge. See the word LIFE in there. That is from beginning (conception) to end (death). Taking life as a whole, the time in the womb is the shortest part. Extremely important, but very, very small compared to the rest of life. Pro-life is supporting life. Inside the womb as well as outside. When we narrow pro-life to being anti-abortion, we remove the largest part of life. (I can already see arguments and problems with my reasoning, but I’m still working on it.)
So let’s address abortion by itself. I don’t believe we will ever see Roe v Wade overturned. In fact, I’m not sure that is the best way to fight abortion. We would probably end up with more people accused of crimes (according to the law) than our already overloaded court system can deal with. Women aren’t going to stop seeking abortions, and there are doctors who are going to provide them. Making something illegal doesn’t solve the underlying problem. What is the underlying problem? Wish I knew. The pro-life answer is probably a lack of respect for human life, not seeing the sanctity of human life. I see a definite lack of respect for humanity – worldwide – from the unborn to the aged and everything in between. It’s more than that. On a practical level then, what do we do? Try to reduce the number of abortions. Envision a world where abortion is rarely used. How? A few starters might be:
Education. Girls and boys educated about sex. Not just on a physical level, but on an emotional level, too. Teach respect. Can you even do that? We could try. I have personally seen much negativity being taught about sex among conservative Christians, but that’s for another time.
Contraceptives. Make them easily available and affordable. My insurance doesn’t cover contraceptives. Part of me thinks: why don’t you just use birth control? It’s so easy. Maybe it’s not so easy, though. Then I know people who have said they would be more upset and concerned over their child using birth control than having pre-marital sex. My daughter was getting birth control from PP, and it didn’t seem that cheap to me – especially for a young woman who doesn’t make much money. Again, boys need to be taught that they are also responsible for contraceptives.
Support. That young girl that is pregnant? She needs your help. From health care to maybe shelter, food, work, and a shoulder to cry on. I keep hearing about crisis pregnancy centers. Those are great, but I don’t know of any locally that provide health care, probably due to a lack of funding. They have clothes and referrals, but those girls need health care, during and after the birth. And I swear the next time somebody spouts off personal responsibility, I’m going to smack them.
I’m willing to listen to other thoughts. As long as it's not preaching.
Last week I spent an hour listening to pro-life speakers. Their main (only ?) concern this year was that we defeat health care reform. I heard nothing about education (many are opposed to sex education in schools), I never hear anything about making contraceptives more available (there would be problems with the Catholic and some evangelical pro-lifers), and I hear little about support. It’s always political.
Another thing. The pro-life movement seems to be a Christian movement; in fact, a conservative, evangelical Christian movement. While they were decrying health care reform (will increase abortions by the millions and elderly people will be dying off by the thousands), they didn’t miss a chance to encourage people to spread the Gospel of Jesus while they were campaigning against ‘Obama care’. I personally have met several Muslim and Jewish women, over message boards, who would like to be part of a pro-life movement, but find it impossible due to religion. I’ve even met a few non-religious people who self-identify as pro-life but want nothing to do with Christian groups. Shouldn’t we be reaching across the path to the other side? Is life only important to Christians?
With all the flack going on about Tim Tebow’s ad during the Super Bowl, I did a little reading. His mother was in the Philippines while pregnant with him. I think abortion is illegal there, so I’m not really sure if abortion would have been a legal choice. I’m positive even if she were here in the US, she would not have chosen to abort. I admire her choice. That’s fine. But. Just because everything worked out fine for her, there are many women in similar circumstances (major health issues) where things didn’t work out so well. Not everybody gets a miracle (regardless of faith, religion or how hard they pray).
While abortion is severely restricted in the Philippines, many women choose to abort and many end up in the hospital due to lack of proper care during and after the abortion. I found an article about a woman who went to an older woman for an abortion. She performed the abortion through massage (crushing the baby???). This lady bled for a week afterwards. She was begging God to forgive her. Why did she do it? Because she didn’t know how she was going to feed another baby. The one thing that becomes more and more apparent as I get older, is that life is not black and white. It’s rather a beautiful color of gray. I didn’t sleep well after reading that article. No-one should sleep well after reading an article like that. Especially pro-lifers.
Then there was the woman who found out that her baby was developing with only a partial skull and no brain. The answer I read? That we (including her) needed to learn to love sitting at the foot of the cross with Christ. Somehow, that just isn’t a good answer. This woman and her husband did decide to abort. Answers to these problems are not easy nor are they always black and white. I know what the Christian pro-lifer says about this, but I’m not clear what God is saying. The one thing I think both sides could agree upon is creating a world where abortion is rarely chosen. But to do that, you truly have to support LIFE.
Pro-life also means to me:
I’m opposed to the death penalty.
I’m opposed to war (although this appears to be a pipe dream).
I’m opposed to oppression, by religions, governments, the rich. Remove oppression, and we might be a good way towards eradicating war.
I believe people have a right, simply due to their humanity, to basic health care, clean water, food, simple shelter.
I believe in personal responsibility. I also believe in responsibility for the whole of humanity. I am responsible for my own actions. I am also responsible for humanity. I am inseparable from the whole of humanity. When humanity suffers, I suffer.
I would love to go to a pro-life rally that truly supports life.
2 comments:
"Pro-lifers" are so black and white in their thinking and compartmentalize this whole subject. Life abounds in the universe. We have to start there to really address the taking of a life of any kind. And then there is the whole question of when truly does the soul enter the human body of an embryo. Do we really know? For sure? Before the Christians defined reality and women were the ones who attended to pregnancies one waited till after the first trimester to even talk about being pregnant. There was and still is so much that could happen in that very fragile beginning of the human child's journey of decent into matter. There needs to be much more about the sacredness of all life before we can tackle abortion. If human life was truly seen as sacred and special, I mean really sacred, the idea of even starting a child and the responsibility that entailed would be so important that people would not accidently start a life in the first place. It would be planned. But then, the whole topic of sexuality and what that is truly about would also be seen as sacred and a power and a responsbility to be very mindful of. The anti- abortionist are well meaning, but it could also be an excuse to find scapegoats and people to see as lesser than and "otherize." We still just don't get it. Instead of blaming and shaming and condeming, we should be really exploring the further truths we need to learn about life and our sacred duty to it as humans.
Martha and I were just talking about this the other day while we were shopping. Have I mentioned recently I hate labels? They make life difficult. I think it'd be nice to live in a world where women feel they have more options than just abortions, so that there could be less of them. I still think that the choice should be available to them, but it would be nice if that was a choice they didn't often times feel that they had to make. I think more education is also key...instead of preaching only abstinence as the only kind of birth control, all forms should be discussed and made readily available. I think Planned Parenthood is making a good start, but you're right, it's not exactly the cheapest thing ever. Supposedly if you're under 18 you get a standard rate and if you're over 18 they give you a price based on your income. For me it was about the cost of another cell phone or something but it was worth it to know I was being responsible. Another thing I really like about PP is that young people (under 18) can go in and get birth control privately....i.e., if they have uber conservative parents who would flip if they knew they were on birth control, they can still attain it without their parents knowing. And I know this is really a horrible thing, but I suppose it's better for them to have to be sneaky, be able to get birth control, then end up pregnant and debating abortion. Hopefully with all of these changes in health care it will make birth control more readily available and required to be covered by insurance..
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