Pro-Choice/Pro-Life/Pro-People

Part 1: Pro-Choice/Pro-Life/Pro-People

Part 2: It's Okay To Drown Your Baby When...

Part 3: The Murders Of Liberty & Babies

Part 4: Rewarded For Bad Behavior

Compassion has kept me silent on this.
I feel deeply empathetic to people who have had to make this agonizing decision.
If it were me, whether I regretted or defended my choice, I would feel icky every time someone with a proud posture, trying to win an argument, said anything against it. 

So in an effort to be loving, I've said nothing.


And then today while the kids were sleeping, I followed a link...

I read an article that would probably be controversial to both pro-choice and pro-life folks. 
I loved it. 
The author echoed my feelings so perfectly, though with a much different tone than I would have taken. 

So I started to share it on Facebook... 

...Then changed my mind... 

...Then changed my mind again and posted it... 

...Then changed my mind again and deleted it.

Seriously.

I didn't want my friends who disagree with me to misunderstand me, though I can't imagine anyone hating me for feeling the way I do after we'd had a conversation about it.

But then I decided that I do not want to be a person who makes decisions based on fear, so I posted it with a big long introduction that went something like this:

I went back and forth on whether or not to post this because I have so many pro-choice friends and I don't want them to think of me differently.

But then I decided that fear is not a good basis for decision making.

And I've re-posted blogs and articles that I'm not even half as passionate about.

So I'm trusting that my friends know my heart, won't make assumptions about my motives, and will be kind - to me and to each other  :)

And I hit "post"...

Then, in the middle of making dinner, I thought about how this article might make someone who has had an abortion feel.

This isn't just a political debate to them. 

I imagine this is not "right vs. wrong" to them.

It's a very personal and sensitive part of their story. 

And I bet they'd feel more judged than loved by seeing me post this article, and that's not my heart at all. 

So I deleted it.

I am NOT against people who have abortion in their past or who are considering it right now.

On the contrary, I have compassion for them and the position they're in, and I'd want nothing more than to listen to their context, to have them sit in my living room and tell me their experience and how it's shaped them.

...And I also love babies... 

...I didn't always believe as I do now...

But I've come to sincerely believe that there is no turning point when a "fetus" becomes a baby. I believe that from conception "a person's a person, no matter how small." 
That 'cluster of cells' is actually a little life that we just aren't able to see or hear yet.

I am NOT against women.

I am simply FOR that second heartbeat and HER life and HER rights, because I believe they're just as important as her mama's. Rights of babies like Gianna Jessen, who survived her mother's abortion. Click here for a video of her speaking. Men, pay particular attention to what she says in Part 2 at 2:55.

I believe it really should be a self-evident truth "that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..." and that second heartbeat that can't survive on its own falls under this and needs to be protected.

Every situation is complicated. 

I just know that my heart screams out for the helpless, innocent, marginalized.

I value clarity over agreement, so please try to see things as I do before condemning me. I respect you and your beliefs. Please respect me and mine, and those of my friends.

Just a reminder: I'm a real person who gets her feelings hurt more easily than I'd like. So please be gentle. 

Click here for 10 questions pro-choice folks may want to answer for themselves.

If you're still forming your opinion on this, or if you believe abortion is a personal matter, please click here for a video that's worth the 30 minutes to watch the whole way through.

Former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic Abby Johnson is respectful to both 'sides' in her book Unplanned (click here to read the first chapter) and I encourage anyone on either side to read it.

Part 2: 
"It's okay to drown your baby when..."
Part 3:
"The Murders of Liberty & Babies"


If you need any help, please call:

Pregnancy Resource Center

Healing Encouragement for Abortion-Related Trauma 

How does "The Pill" work as an abortifacient?

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