It’s time for the annual Pro-Life Rally in Washington. I was there when I was 17. I was a staunch Republican. I regurgitated the propaganda like a good Catholic girl. I chanted, “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Roe v. Wade has got to go!” at the top of my lungs and even in my sleep. I saved my stop sign poster. I pinned it to my wall.

About a year later, my heart hurt. I felt like I had let myself down. I felt like I had betrayed my faith, my voice as an American citizen, and my honor as a Christian to love my neighbor. I took my poster down. I closed my mouth. I started thinking and listening more than yelling and parroting. That was the beginning of the end of my affiliation with the Republican party. But that’s another story…

Morally and ethically speaking, I am still pro-life. Politically speaking, I turned my back and here’s why.

1. I’m Pro-Choice because I’m Christian (Part 1). I’m the sort of Christian that leads with my heart. Compassion. Empathy. Gratitude. Not contempt, condemnation and fear. When I took the required ethics course at my very conservative, very born-again, very evangelical high school, it forced me to think. I can’t say it had the outcome they expected, but think I did and for that I’m grateful. I couldn’t understand why all these Christians that powerfully led with their faith and spewed out Sanctity of Life rhetoric around fetuses were also passionately pro-war, pro-gun, pro-defense, and pro-death penalty. If all life is sacred, then shouldn’t…all… life be sacred? If it is a law to save the babies, then also make it a law to destroy your guns, disassemble your bombs, resolve conflict with peace, and abolish the death penalty.

If all life is sacred, then shouldn’t…all… life be sacred?

2. I’m Pro-Choice because I’m Christian (Part 2). God gave us the gift of choice. And what God gives to us, shouldn’t we pay forward? Love? Forgiveness? In acknowledging the holiness of our God-breathed existence, shouldn’t we honor the way that God created us, which is in God’s image, with free will? Free will is a God-like quality. That. Is. Terrifying. We are little gods running around the planet. But instead of giving out free will like The God, we use our free will to take it away from others. Wait what? Yeah. No. That makes zero sense. How dare we deny God’s gift to each other to make our own decisions! If we restrict or diminish what God has given us, we are elevating ourselves above God. By withholding God’s gift of free will, we are interfering in God’s blessing and ultimately condemning ourselves. Respecting free will is respecting our God-given gift of independent thoughts, ideas and values.

I chose to have my children.

3. Personal preferences shouldn’t be laws. I like chocolate cake. That doesn’t mean in Octavia’s country red velvet cake is illegal. Those that enjoy red velvet should not be mocked, ridiculed and imprisoned. If you want red velvet, eat your red velvet. I will have chocolate. Enjoy. It’s your body, eat what you want. Ok, my cake metaphor is hokey. I’m no anarchist. I think laws are necessary. I think people should be held accountable. But laws are necessary for public health, for the greater good, for things that universally affect, protect and care for all of us. The choice to abort a pregnancy is a very personal, private, difficult, heart-aching decision that has no business being on the public agenda.

4. Pro-Choice does not equal pro-abortion. No one loves abortion. Have you ever seen anyone get excited and throw a party because they’re having an abortion? Absolutely not. The thought of it makes me sick. But being a parent, what crushes me even more is an unwanted, unloved, and uncared for child being born and forced even deeper into the margins, made to be invisible, desperately trying to survive and make a life, ultimately falling into the cracks and statistically, crime, drugs, prison or death. Where is the sanctity in this life? Who is rushing to adopt all of the children that might be forced to exist? If abortion becomes illegal, someone had better start building the biggest and swankiest home and school for all of these children and also providing top-rate prenatal healthcare, birthing luxuries and post-partum care for all of their mothers. Better yet, this birthing hotel should be funded by all the men that fertilized these goddesses’ eggs. What would happen if we held men as accountable for providing for and caring for their babies as the mothers? If you don’t want to have an abortion, don’t have one. It’s your choice. I chose to have my children. I can’t imagine if the tables were turned and I were forced to abort.

The choice to abort a pregnancy is a very personal, private, difficult, heart-aching decision that has no business being on the public agenda.

5. The Pro-Life agenda is punishing women for having sex. It isn’t about the babies. It’s about condemning a woman for being a woman and enjoying being a woman. It’s about forcing her into shame because she tasted the pleasures of sex and doesn’t want (or isn’t equipped to take on) long-term consequences of a child. Ridiculous variations of this include forcing her to fully fund arrangement of funeral services and burying her aborted child or even the threat of imprisonment for murder. But why is it always the woman that is dishonored? Her body will be wrecked from the inside out. She will struggle emotionally, mentally, physically, financially. Who has compassion for this woman? I don’t even want to start ranting about cases of rape or incest. If this is a shame game, it takes two to make the child, so please, bring in the father. Bring the man in! Inflate his insides and stretch his abdominal skin 500x the normal size. Implant a 10lb parasite that rubs on his organs, sits on his bladder, pinches his nerves and kicks his lungs. Slice him from rectum to urethra. Let him bleed for two months to recover. Let him suffer along with her and the two can collectively wear the shame of procreation. Back to point No. 4, if this is about guilt and consequences, make the daddies personally fund every ounce of healthcare required to have a healthy pregnancy, birth and post-partum recovery. And let him raise the child.

…this birthing hotel should be funded by all the men that fertilized these goddesses’ eggs.

 Also, criminalizing abortion is not a decline in abortion. It’s a decline in healthy, medically-sound, legal abortions and an increase of dangerous quick-fixes and botched shortcuts. If a woman is determined not to have her baby, she will find a way not to have her baby. Believe me. We are resourceful. This is dangerous. This is terrifying. How many women will be put at risk for permanent damage or infection – or mental breakdowns – because they’re inducing miscarriages or inflicting self-harm? This is the ultimate punishment. And for what? Having sex?

To those marching: good for you. I support marches and protests and anyone speaking their voice. But I ask you to stop and consider why you’re marching. Would it be better to share compassion to women going into an abortion? Or maybe you could volunteer at Planned Parenthood to help educate women on how to prevent pregnancies in the first place. Maybe you could even start a young women’s self-care initiative to help girls validate themselves rather than looking for approval and acceptance through sexually pleasing a man. There are so many alternatives that are equally pro-life but not anti-women. 

Carrying a child is a blessing; a magical God-like honor. And it is an honor for her to choose her path. Let the woman decide for herself. Stop talking and start listening. Be a vessel of compassion, not contempt.

~ OR