pro-choice

Mourning

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I have come to realize that “pro-life” is a misnomer. The people who espouse it, who embrace it, who shout it from the rooftops, don’t actually know what it means. When I hear the phrase “pro-life” I’m supposed to think that the person shouting it believes in life. But they don’t believe in life when the life is gay, when the life is Black, when the life is an immigrant or someone who’s accented, when the life is poor or homeless or addicted to drugs. They don’t believe in life when they allow three people, three human beings, a mother and her two small children drown while watching, and actively stop help from getting to them. They don’t believe in life if they are killed by guns, which are more sacred to them than the life it takes. They claim to care about the life of people who aren’t people yet, still unborn, still getting their life from their host woman, but if that woman dies because she can’t receive a lifesaving abortion, well, that’s life. But it’s not pro-life.

They lie about the services at Planned Parenthood.

They lie about the activities inside “crisis pregnancy centers.”

They lie about women’s* bodies or they simply don’t understand how women’s bodies work, which should be the first clue that they shouldn’t be legislating on women’s bodies.

I’ve seen legislators who don’t understand the basics of puberty or menstruation or how babies are conceived, thinking that the only party is the woman who holds the responsibility for her actions and the future of three people.

They sound pathetic and stupid, and it’s embarrassing.

On this anniversary of the now reversed Roe v. Wade, I’m in mourning. I’m in mourning for what pro-life people did to Roe, the person: manipulating, gaslighting, and abandoning. I’m in mourning for my daughter. I’m in mourning for her friends. I mourn for the residents of Texas and Florida especially.

The only pro-life option is safe and legal abortions for anyone who needs one.

Why is there upset and indignation when the “pro-life” set is called pro-birth or forced birth, but what else are they if not that? No one comes to pray outside of social services or the WIC offices for the children once they are born. No one prays outside of counseling centers, real counseling centers for victims of sexual assault and incest. The only prayers are for doctor’s offices and clinics that offer full service reproductive health services. Why is that?

How can you be anti-abortion and pro-death penalty?

How can you be pro-war?

Things to think about because your hypocrisy is showing, and it has been for a very long time. With the Dobbs ruling, women are dying, women are being prosecuted and persecuted for having miscarriages, women are being denied life-saving care, women are left to die of sepsis, are left to infertility, and families are just left.

*When I say women, read: all child-bearing people.

A Surprise from the Pulpit

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I wrote this soon after the mass on Divine Mercy Sunday, and shared it on my Facebook page. I wanted to also share it here.

Whenever the topic of abortion comes up in a church setting or with church people, I tend to hold my breath. I don’t know how many people are aware of my pro-choice stance. If asked, I try to be clear that I am for women’s reproductive rights in all the forms that women choose to use them. My most vocal place is probably on my Facebook and Tumblr, and no one from church, save one, is on Facebook or knows about Tumblr at the moment. That’s not to say I’m hiding my beliefs, I don”t think I do, but that’s how it’s been.

I had been looking forward to our Bishop as presider of the Divine Mercy Mass a few weekends ago. When I entered, I was handed a song-sheet and offered a relic to venerate, which I did.

I was early so that I could participate in the recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, before the start of Mass. I find those group chaplet recitations and rosary prayers very moving.

The Mass went as it usually does except that it was the Bishop and there were four other priests in attendance plus the deacon. It gives the feeling of something special; not that each liturgy isn’t special in its own way, but the larger group of religious gives it a certain presentation. We have a really good music ministry and they are always outstanding and were on this day as well.

When the Bishop began his Homily with a reference to an unnamed political candidate who proposes punishing women for abortions, I cringed. I could feel my body tense up. I didn’t expect him to endorse this candidate. It also wasn’t because I expect my clergy to come out and talk about pro-choice or reproduction in any way that is not Catholic doctrine. This is something I accept within the church. In the particular case of my priest, he’s never brought abortion up in a political way; only as part of the prayer of the faithful for life, from conception until natural death, etc. with the exception of promoting 40 Days for Life. I usually add my own two cents of prayer silently to include all those who I feel should be included, and who are most often excluded – the women in their most difficult moments.

So when the Bishop brought up Donald Trump, not by name of course, I held my breath.

He talked about how that isn’t the way we should be thinking about the women who have abortions. He never once mentioned preventing abortions, banning abortions, birth control, adoption, none of it.

What he talked about was how we focus on the baby and we should be focusing on the women. He also used the word women, not mother. He talked about how women have their reasons for abortions and when they have them, we need to support them. Whether it’s their choice or their only choice, we need to show them this compassion we talk about. Real pro-life people don’t tell these women that they’re going to hell or that they’ll be punished. Real pro-life people are there for the women after their abortions and without judgment.

I’ve never heard such a pro-choice sentiment from a clergy person let alone a Bishop.

Of course, I know he’s not pro-choice, but this is the first time I’ve heard someone of his stature talk about women using another choice other than carrying the fetus to full term and having the baby.

I was pleasantly surprised on his focus towards the women.

Compassion and mercy are not talking points from Pope Francis; they are a way of living and I for one am happy to see it outside of the media and inside my own parish and diocese.

Life and Living

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(It says: “Until life within the womb of a mother is safe, life outside the womb will never be safe.”)

(*Note: I saw this earlier today and I had an opinion on it to share. Not all of my reflections this Lent will be on my positive journeying through the forty days. I have many things that cross my mind in a day, and this was today’s.
Trigger warnings for abortion and choice.*)

I could not disagree with this more. In fact, I find it offensive that this is part of a so-called pro-life campaign.

In fact, I think the opposite is true: it is our obligation to care for those already born and through education and appropriate birth control, abortions will, and have been going steadier, lower.

The false equivalency of a fetus and a grown person having the same safety concerns tells me that the person who wrote this sign doesn’t understand the real issues that women in this country, pregnant or not, face on a daily basis.

Is abortion really less safe than being born without a spinal cord or a brain stem?

Is abortion really less safe than starving and dying in poverty?

Is abortion really less safe than living in a chronically abusive household?

Do we really care more for our unborn than our already born? Our persons of color? Our single parents? Our foster kids? Our child victims of rape who are forced to carry babies to term when their emotional states and their physical bodies are not ready for it?

Shouldn’t we begin with taking care of those outside the womb first? If we can’t get that right, how can we presume to know what’s the best options for inside someone else’s body?

We also know that a fetus could not survive on its own without its physical attachment to the mother, the host, unlike people who are already living, breathing, thinking human beings. It is not a symbiotic relationship; it is strictly one-sided. If you remove the baby from the situation, the mother will still be alive. The opposite is not true.

I would prefer less bumper sticker sanctimony and more real world options without the attack on pregnant women at every turn.

Rethinking the March for Life

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In his Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II said, “In giving life to man, God demands that he love, respect and promote life.”

I realize that today is a day to remember and pray for the unborn child. However, I would submit to you that while that is a noble and admirable cause, it does not translate into protesting and marching against abortion.

When abortion debates come up, often forgotten is the mother. Her physical health is ignored. Her mental health is ignored. Her economics are ignored, as are her support or lack of it.

Instead of marching or protesting against abortion, which should remain safe and legal for anyone who wants or needs one, perhaps we could promote life in other ways, like volunteer at a women’s shelter, donate to rape crisis centers (with time as well as money), provide for the already burdened lower economic family who has the number of children they want, give back birth control choices to the women getting pregnant since we know that access to birth control reduces abortion. Put comprehensive and accurate sex health education in the schools since we know that sex education done properly reduces teenage pregnancies and abortions.

Stop co-opting the word choice when you only want to provide one option.

Stop murdering doctors and terrorizing already fragile women at their moment of crisis as they follow through on one of the most difficult decisions they will ever have to make.

Of course pray for women and babies, but don’t forget about the ones who are post-born, the ones struggling daily under stresses and health risks and abuse. Standing on a street corner protesting only scares already scared women. There are other, more positive ways to follow your heart. Didn’t Jesus call those who prayed out loud and in public hypocrites? Didn’t He think there were other ways to pray, contemplatively instead of as a show to their neighbors?

We should rethink these acts of terror we put upon women at their lowest low, and pray and care for all life even those whose choices and lifestyles we disagree with and not abandon the women and children whose lives we are trying to affect.