“Where were you when…..?” The answer is driving up Interstate 95 after completing my food shopping task at Ft. Belvoir Commissary. Although I knew that there was a high probability the Supreme Court would rule to void Roe v. Wade, it still felt like a gut punch.
Not because my personal past includes an abortion. No, my life history did not result in my having to make that difficult choice. But my life history does extend to the time when women (and girls, teenage girls) made the decision about their futures with knitting needles and back-alley “clinics” while women of means could get on one of those “new” passenger planes and travel to a place where termination of a pregnancy was possible. My life history does extend to knowing that one or two of my high school classmates “disappeared” from town because the shame of pregnancy in a small town made it impossible for them to live at home. My life history is long enough to remember when Roe v. Wade was made law and women felt for the first time that they had some agency over their own bodies. That ended as a group of people on the Supreme Court removed the right of a woman over her reproductive biology.
Where will it end? Justice Thomas has already said the decision handed down on June 24th provides the possibility of other rights thought to be safe in the Constitution to be overturned. Things like contraception, in vitro fertilization, and the Marriage Equality Act are in danger.
How on earth did we get to this point? The answer is slowly and deliberately. Sadly, the answer is also deeply rooted in a fundamentalist, literalist interpretation of scripture and Christianity. It doesn’t make any difference if words like “abortion” and “contraception” are not found, even in the hallowed King James Version. It doesn’t matter that the Bible has quite a few models of living together to go along with the usual quotes on marriage. What has mattered is how the Bible has been used to justify a presumption – how someone thinks everyone else should live. It does not even matter that the model they espouse is tainted on a regular basis by actions and deeds. It does not matter if other expressions of faith differ from their interpretation.
“Sacredness of life” is a common framework, as if only the Pro-Life proponents believe in that idea. They are wrong. Those who are Pro-Choice recognize the sacredness of all life, including the girl/woman who will bear new life within her. Sacredness of life means women are recognized as having the ability to make decisions about their body. Sacredness of life means those who are poor or who have little access to medical care or who have been victimized are also sacred. Sacredness of life means a woman in a life-risking pregnancy does not have to die to bear a motherless child. Sacredness of life is more than a viable fetus; it is all people having all the resources necessary to grow into adulthood and through old age. Sacredness of life means no one is cast away as “other”. Sacredness of life means women and doctors do not have to bear the criminalization threat.
Yes, I am Pro-Choice and yes, I am profoundly a believer in the sacredness of life. I believe that Whom I name God was present with me in my birthing and in the birthing of my children. I also believe God was with my parents when their second pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth and a loss my parents felt their whole lives. I believe God was present when in vitro fertilization made possible some amazing children and youth and when in vitro fertilization did not work leaving would-be parents heartbroken. I rejoice in God’s presence when the same science allows loving couples of the same gender to become the caring, extraordinary parents they longed to be. Likewise, I believe God is lovingly present with every girl/woman who is faced with a pregnancy that she knows needs to be ended.
Earlier I wrote, “how did we get here?” As I close these “Young Thoughts”, I write that we get through this by caring enough about the philosophies, belief systems, and attitudes of those who run for public office to vote for people who will build up rather than tear down, restore and not remove, respect the life experiences of all not a few. Only then can we approximate a nation where Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is for all.
Rev. Clara
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