Tags

, , , ,

So, apparently I need to snatch up yet another opportunity to win friends and influence people with my deep cynicism and darkly jaded views.

A lot of Christians are getting all excited about the Supreme Court, the possibility of over turning Roe v Wade, and the idea of having a prolife President. I actually envy their innocence, their naivete, and sometimes I even just close my eyes and pretend, and just let that sweetness fill the room.

I have far too many dark memories. Too much of the world’s truth has been inflicted on me, and so to believe we can just pass a law banning abortion and call ourselves “prolife,” rings hollow. It’s a lie, a deception. It’s like self identifying as “prolife” when in fact we are nothing of the sort.

We’ve still done little or nothing to end child sexual abuse, and that devaluing of a child’s body is what often leads to her later devaluing the life within her. To this day we surround, protect, and shelter pedophiles in our communities, in our churches.

I bear witness to this truth every single day. Not a day goes by that I don’t see yet another sexual assault victim kicked out somewhere, cast aside, or asked to leave, in favor of a perpetrator who always seems to just have this innate worth, value, and social status within our little tribes.

If she learns her life has less value, the life within her will, too.

We’ve done little or nothing to rid the world of domestic violence. My past is scarred by tragic stories, a girl murdered just two days after giving birth and left in a shallow grave. So many young girls missing up and down the West coast, so many that nobody really cares anymore. A child now growing up in an institution because somebody in a rage kicked his mother in the stomach over and over again. It’s a little known truth, but women are most likely to be abused while they are pregnant.

Yep, getting pregnant can cost you your life and we have statistics that demonstrate that truth. A pregnancy can trigger jealousy, envy, fear, and violence from intimate partners who are supposed to be there for you.

Maybe you have to know that wrath and rage up close and personal, that murderous hatred that lurks in the human heart, and to have seen it’s victims to understand why not bringing a child into this world can sometimes feel like an act of mercy.

Having children was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You have to send a piece of your heart out into a world full of sin and darkness, full of brokenness and exploitation, and you have to hope for the best. It takes a huge leap of faith and almost immediately the world comes against you and tries to prove you wrong. People picture motherhood in their heads and don’t usually see the risk of drive by shootings, drug over doses, domestic violence, child rape, suicide.

We’re buying stuffed animals and having elaborate gender reveal parties as if the world were just made of fluffy bunnies and lullabies.

No far from where I live, we charged a teen age girl living with six adult men with murder because she gave birth and put her baby in a dumpster. For nine months, six grown men completely disregarded this girl’s well being and allowed her to give birth alone on the toilet, but she’s the criminal? She put a piece of her own self out in the dumpster, because that is how she perceived herself, because that is how she was treated by those around her.

Abortion is an environmental crime. The environment within your heart must be hospitable to human life. You can’t just magically make it so by passing a law.

I don’t think we understand that truth in this country. I don’t think we’ve made the connection and come to the understanding that if her life matters, the life of the child within her will matter, too. Instead we want to force, legislate, and mandate away choice, as if we can solve a heart problem, a sin problem, by simply self identifying as “prolife,” and pointing to our laws.

I don’t think God is fooled by such things. I think if I have the eyes to see the truth, He can see it even better. We’re trying to criminalize women for their choices, without having any awareness, or any willingness to really examine why they might make those choices. If we actually want to do something about abortion, we really need to go much deeper, to take a hard look at the root causes and start addressing the truth and reality of so many women’s lives.

One reason why prochoice and abortion have been such a powerful force in this country is because the truth is known to so many of us, women have been criminalized for our very existence for generations, and we know it. To once again criminalize abortion allows us to sweep the whole truth under a rug and go right on blaming women for all the ills of the world, without ever having to address the truth of child sexual abuse, fatherlessness, addiction, domestic violence, economic disparities, and the outright murder of so many already born children.

You can’t fix the truth of who we are as human beings by stacking the Supreme Court, changing laws, or voting for the right people.