I frequent a lot of women based blogs, and one of my favorites is Rocks in My Dryer. I love the humerous style of Shannon’s writing, and especially the fun blog carnivals she hosts (such as Works for Me Wednesday and the Bloggy Giveaway Carnivals).
After visiting her site last night, I discovered that she also writes for www.BlogHer.com. And her first article I encountered is one that is a very, very sensitive topic….it’s about abortion and is titled “Why I am Pro Life”.
Growing up in a very conservative christian school, I was “taught” (and expected) to be pro-life and completely against the pro-choice campaign. Although I didn’t like it much, silent protests at local public schools (with photos of aborted fetuses) were part of my high school experiences. And through it all, I never truly determined which side of the fence I stood on. With my Biblical background, I knew all the “correct” answers and the “correct” arguments for the pro-life side. However, inside, I also could sympathize with the pro-choice campaign.
Each side had very valid arguments. And, unfortunately, each side looked at the issue from completely different standpoints. I could relate to both of them, and could understand both. Yet when I watched my pro-life counterparts trying to “reason” with the pro-choice crew (or to teens in general), terms and words and arguments were used that I knew went completely “over their head” simply because the answers did not fit with the other person’s world view, fears or outlook on things during that stage of life.
It was as if they were comparing apples to oranges:
“You’re killing a baby!” (pro-life) vs. ”I want the legal option to protect my body!” (pro-choice)
Both are valid arguments that stem from two completely different viewpoints.
After high school, even though I’m conservative by nature, I started to fall more towards the pro-choice side. Having grown up in a very conservative Christian circle, I also knew all too well how people react to teenage pregnancy mistakes and my heart would break for girls who had to suffer with the “evil vs. evil” choice of whether they should tell their ultra-strict parents or simply have an abortion at 2-3 months and keep family peace.
It’s really really sad, but many people who claim to be Godly Christians would turn out their own children for mistakes of the flesh. It’s also a huge blight on a family in conservative southern circles when a girl gets pregnant unmarried. I’m extremely thankful that my parents (who I am very close to) were not the ultra-conservative type, but it scares me to wonder how my own mom and dad would have reacted if I would have had the misfortune of making a baby during the tubulant teen years. Shoot, I don’t know if I could have even told them that sort of news after I graduated from college! I know all too well that children who deeply crave parental approval would rather mame their own selves than disappoint their mother or father. These types of deep-rooted feelings in conservatively raised females also apply to wanting (and maintaining) acceptance from friends, church groups, and extended family members. Being shunned and outcast because of a mistake can drive a person to do many things…even more harsher things such as choosing not to continue on with a fetus inside of them.
It’s very sad how much judgment, snobbery, and hypocrisy abound in the opinionated “Christian” world. Because of that, up to now, I have never even shared with anyone my views on abortion. I knew most would not listen – I’d just be judged, and handed the same arguments that I grew up memorizing from the Bible. If I didn’t “listen to reason” I would be told (by some) how far away from God’s will I was, I was going to Hell for believing in murder, and that if I just prayed hard enough I would “see the light”. All of this would be said with a pat on the back and a sad shake of the head. Or, with raised, shocked eyebrows as if I were Lucifer incarnate. (Truly, I am not.) I’m not trying to make light of people who act like that – they’re good, decent people – I’m just pointing out how in very conservative social circles it’s nearly impossible to have a dissenting opinion from “the norm” of the group without being mocked or feeling degraded.
So, anyway, as I grew further from my high school days of forced pro-life protest marches, I grew silently closer to the thought that a woman should have at least “a choice”. A “choice” to avoid family feuds. A “choice” to avoid shame, embarrassment, and humiliation from her family community. A “choice” to not bear a fetus she doesn’t want. A “choice” not to bring a baby into a single parent teen home. Yes, I knew all the pro-life arguments to these “choices”, and all of the (logical) Biblically based “reasons” behind the pro-life campaign…..but I still sympathized more with the living, established female mindset. At the bare minimum, I felt that a civil goverment shouldn’t pass “prevention” laws that forced females to endure social / family ostracizing, a rape-pregnancy, homelessness, financial downfall, or (in worser cases) her own death due to complications (i.e. early preeclampsia).
I felt that way up until September 12, 2007.
My husband and I had not long before discovered that I was pregnant with our first baby (Little Jack!). The September 12 appointment was my first pre-natal visit, and I was 6 weeks LMP. My baby had been concieved only 4 short weeks – 28 days – earlier. He was just a teeny, tinsy speck on the screen.
In the appointment, I was given my first sonogram (ultrasound). They used that to confirm pregnancy (instead of a blood test) and to confirm health and due date.
The lights dimmed, and I looked at the screen. There was this most perfect little…speck..I’d ever seen in my life. It was my baby. He was moving around and flitting around, full of life, it appeared.
Then the nurse turned the sound up.
THA-THUMP! THA-THUMP! THA-THUMP!
My little speck’s heart was beating strongly. It was beating loudly. It was beating clearly….at 172 beats per minute. It sounded no different than my heart or your heart, except a tad faster! I will never, in my life forget that one moment in time.
I started bawling at that point and my view points about life completely changed. An “embryo” or ”fetus” was no longer something that I saw on National Geographic TV. It was now “my baby”. He had a heartbeat. He had a future. He had a tiny life, existing at that point as a microscopic little organism inside of my belly – his own little universe. It was now “my choice” if “my baby” would live to develop the rest of his organs so he could survive on the “outside”. Ultimately, it was now “my choice” as to whether this little being growing inside would live or die. I had never encountered such a mentally deep “choice” such as that before.
It sickened me to think of something ever happening to “my little speck” that I saw on the screen that day. His life depended on “my choice” of using my body to stay healthy and develop the rest of his body. He had no say in the matter – he didn’t even know what Seseme Street was yet. It wasn’t his fault that he was there, drinking up nourishment and trying to survive my hostile uterus (if you watch those shows on conception you’d wonder how anyone ever survives the first 48 hours!!).
But he already had a heartbeat.
To me, stopping that heartbeat meant ending an innocent little life. To me, stopping that little speck’s (or any “little speck’s”) heartbeat was now on the same level as stopping the heartbeat of an invalid, the heartbeat of a comatose person, or the heartbeat of an alzheimer’s patient.
“Choice” no longer seemed (nor seems) that important to me in the grand scheme of things. Life was now (and still is, as I finish up this pregnancy) my viewpoint. The choice to end an innocent life (or “future life”), or the choice to not do everything in your power to keep that innocent life alive, is too heavy a choice for my mind to bear. After that pre-natal visit, I could no longer stay on the pro-choice camp side. That short 30 seconds while we all silently listened to my “little speck’s” heartbeat convicted my heart of a fetus’ right to life more than 24 years of solid educational Bible theology, church attendance, christian school attendance, Bible reading, and prayer ever did.
Near the end of the original article, Shannon concludes her pro-life viewpoints with a terrific summarization.
….Unhindered choice is not a guaranteed human right. Think about it: civil society already tells us that we cannot “choose” to abuse a child or “choose” to steal a car. There are legal consequences to those actions, because “choosing” to burglarize a home infringes on the basic liberties of the person who lives there.
The precedent is set. When our right to choose bumps up against the right of another to exist peacefully, our choice is blocked by civilized law.
And it is with this in mind that I realized, as I came to terms with the validity of the human-ness of a embryo and fetus, that I had to accept there was a moral point at which a “woman’s right to choose” ended. Her right to decide what to do with her body bumps up against the right of that baby’s right to exist.
The only place I could arrive after looking at the medical/legal/social/civil/constitutional issues was that something had to give. A woman’s right to choose an abortion cannot logically co-exist with a embryo/fetus’ right to be born.
Simply put, life trumps choice.
I believe the article is one of the best I’ve read for promoting “pro-life” (and I’ve read and heard a lot – I still have a little plastic fetus we were given during an hour long chapel sermon on abortion during 7th grade). After having grown up as an “expected” pro-lifer, I had desensitized myself to all of the typical arguments. They were all repetitive and petty. However, Shannon’s article was really refreshing. It wasn’t crude, it wasn’t demeaning, and it did not promote snobbery towards those who are still pro-choice.
It simply gave one woman’s viewpoint of why she has accepted a pro-life outlook in life.
And I appreciate her writing it!
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