I need to take some time to tell you that I understand abortion. I understand being 16 and terrified. I understand being in graduate school and at a loss for what to do now. I understand being on the streets with no future plan. I understand being addicted to drugs. I've never been any of those things, but I can empathize with the fact that it would be quite difficult to add a whole human life to any of those situations. I understand that sometimes there is a great deal of despair and abortion seems like the way to move on, to fix it, to make it all okay.
I know people who have had abortions. I know men who have encouraged or stood by abortions. I know men who wanted their babies but had no voice. There are so many others that I don't know about because abortion isn't usually something we scream from the rooftops.
I am pro life.
That doesn't mean that I don't believe that God's grace and mercy extends to each of us regardless of the choices that we've made. I do. I have great compassion for women and men who live with the burden of abortion every, single day.
Choosing life is sometimes really HARD. It's sometimes really BRAVE. Choosing abortion is EASIER than choosing ADOPTION. Choosing abortion is EASIER, sometimes, than choosing LIFE. I understand that and I care deeply for women and men who made a choice and can't go back and change it. If there is even a hint of confusion, guilt, sadness, grief, pain, wondering, or questioning, my heart breaks and I know that there is healing available. There is a future. There is forgiveness.
What I don't have compassion for is #shoutyourabortion. "My abortion was awesome!" "Best thing that ever happened to me!" This campaign, I am struggling with. This campaign is taking a lot out of me. Because, while I can comprehend the reasons women abort their babies, I cannot comprehend celebrating it and wearing it like a badge of honor.
Amelia Bonow wrote, "...I am telling you this today because the narrative of those working to defund Planned Parenthood relies on the assumption that abortion is still something to be whispered about. Plenty of people still believe that on some level--if you are a good woman--abortion is a choice which should [sic] accompanied by some level of sadness, shame, or regret. But you know what? I have a good heart and having an abortion made me happy in a totally unqualified way. Why wouldn't I be happy that I was not forced to become a mother?"
I am pro life.
It's not that I can't understand circumstances that lead people to make a different choice. It's not that I don't understand women and men who are pro choice. It's not that I am judgmental and unfeeling. But I simply cannot understand abortion making someone feel happy in a way she's never felt before.
This is not my world view. This is not a world view that I want any part of.
I love this post. I had a hard time relaying my point of view in the pro life pro choice aspect, and I'm pro life, but I was never the type to be holding out signs at an abortion clinic and tell them they were going to hell. People associate pro life to those sorts, and I've never wanted to be linked to that. I believe in the grace of God and how even though people have made those choices, He loves them anyway.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this. It was excellent.
I don't understand how it could make a person happy either. I think it's sad that it's apparently socially acceptable to celebrate one's choice to end a life for the sake of their own convenience, but it's still not that accepted to talk about one's losses, whether physical or only dreams. I feel sad for all the childless mothers who would give anything to have held on to their babies or ever had them in the first place; this movement must be a knife in their chests. I think it would be in mine if I didn't have Hannah.
ReplyDelete- Heather