Why I Vote Pro-Choice
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I promised to tell her story, so I’ll try.
Hannah is the name (the real name) of a girl who was very, very close to me. She had a long and horrible history of sexual, emotional and physical abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to protect her from those very things. She grew up believing that she had no value beyond her body, that sex is all she was for, all she was meant for or good for. It was the sum total of the reason for her existence on this planet, to be used at the hands of men or women or whomever.
She doesn’t know how many times she was raped in her life. It started early and continued most of her life. She can’t count the number of times she was abused, not only because there were so many but because growing up like that, she wasn’t always sure what constituted abuse. Was it abuse if it didn’t hurt? Was it abuse if you were in a bad place at the wrong time? Was it abuse if you really felt like you didn’t deserve any better? Hannah didn’t know.
When Hannah was 17, she was raped (again) by a cousin. She became pregnant. She was living alone in a strange city with no real friends and no idea what to do.
In that situation, even a lot of hardcore pro-lifers will see that when Hannah, a scared, abused little girl with no faith background and no support system, had an abortion, she was doing what she thought best both for her and for the baby. She could not imagine carrying a constant reminder of her repeat violation for ten months, adding more of his genes to the universal pool. She herself had never had anyone love her and she believed that despite what people said, her baby would never know love either. She didn’t believe herself capable of loving it or of staying sane long enough to find out whether she could.
This girl had no concept of a healthy, mutual relationship. Hannah could not fathom a man who would want to spend time with her for any reason short of sex. And two months later, she found herself in a similar situation. An abusive significant other who often forced her into situations in which she was uncomfortable — though he told her she was “weird” for not liking those situations — had taken advantage of her one too many times. Hannah never would have called it rape. She didn’t know she could say no, so how could she know it was rape? She found herself pregnant again. No family, no real friends, and only one person to talk to who seemed a little less judgmental. (I regret that that person was not me.)
She had her second abortion. Emotionally, she was damaged and scarred by so many things, it’s hard to tell how she felt about what had happened. Years later, she would talk about it and only then did she realize what she had done. It took her a long time to forgive the girl she’d been and longer still to feel that that decision didn’t just add up to another reason that she was worthless, that she deserved the things that had happened and that continued to happen.
I wish I could tell you that things were happy for Hannah for the rest of her life, but they weren’t. She had many more hard things to deal with and didn’t have a long existence in which to deal with them. She did, however, find family in friends who loved her regardless, with whom she could be herself. She found a God who believed in her and invited her to believe in him and the forgiveness he offered. She did, at times, find peace. But I will never look into the eyes of another Hannah and condemn her for the things that happened to her and the things that shaped how she made her choices.
I do not have to condone her choices in order to love her and those like her. I just have to realize that there, but for the grace of God, would go so many more.
Yes, let’s end abortion. But let’s do it by ending the things that lead up to it. Legislation only complicates things. Let’s stop the abuse, the hurt, the isolation and the shame. Let’s reach out and give friends and family to those who have none. Let’s support those who find themselves in this position and positions like it and maybe one day we won’t have to legislate against abortion or many of the other ills of society.
Let us be the face of Christ and the hands of God and let’s strive, daily, for the inbreaking of the kingdom of God in our worlds. We have too much to do to sit and fling mud at one another. There’s too much to be done to spend time name calling and questioning each others’ faith and commitment.
All life is sacred. Even the lives of the broken, damaged and lost.
15 Comments
The Wonderful World of Geeks ~ Windows Fanatics
October 23rd, 2008
at 5:59am
[...] One blogger votes Pro-Choice no matter what. [...]
JR
October 23rd, 2008
at 8:45am
Thanks for the great story!!!
There’s more to holding life sacred then a “Pro-Life” political agenda.
If you TRULY value life then you should vote AGAINST wars, AGAINST preventing access to health care and AGAINST the death penalty.
“Pro-lifers” that forget that life continues after birth disgust me.
Uncle Fester
October 23rd, 2008
at 8:57am
Hurray for you, you see where the problem starts and needs to end.
Don’t condemn someone if you haven’t walked in their shoes.
RedFlameOut
October 23rd, 2008
at 9:07am
The abortion issue is so divisive, it is hard to discuss because of the high emotional responses.
I believe in the following:
Human life begins at conception
No matter how the abortion laws are setup, there must be an out for incest, rape, and the mothers welfare (plus possibly a few more such as non-sexual abuse by a spouse or other person).
Since the child is not viable in the first trimester, abortion should always be legal at that point.
The child is usually viable in the third trimester and so abortion should not be legal except for the out mentioned above. In most cases, the mother had a chance to abort earlier.
The second trimester is the hardest. The child may or may not be viable and so the decision needs to be left to the mother, the father in many cases needs to have input, and the doctor (and her God).
Do I voice pro-choice? No. But it does affect my vote. Those who insist abortion must be illegal at all stages miss the point of the bible and other religious documents (based on your faith). Those who insist it must be legal at all stages no matter what are wrong too. The answer is in the middle while protecting the mother and child in a fair and balanced way.
Coming from a family with sexual abuse issues, I feel for and empathize with Hannah and those who, like her, were abused and had to make such hard decisions.
Peace.
brie sansotta
October 23rd, 2008
at 9:44am
I have thought for a long time that there is a point where we might make progress here. First of all counsel the pregnant woman. Then, if she feels she cannot carry the foetus to birth, surgically take the foetus and bring it up in a laboratory (they can actually do this - but it is expensive).
Yes, this is very costly - but everyonwe all would take on the financial cost (especially the man and the woman involved in the pregnancy). And no one could say that any foetus/child/ was “killed”.
I get angry that no one wants to find this middle ground. Just want to blame the woman - and, if the baby is born - forget about it. Where is all the concern over the poor children born to people who can’t or won’t be good parents?
Kevin Bailey
October 23rd, 2008
at 10:08am
Love the person NOT the choices.
I believe your story boils down to this. You and I will both vote for leaders that will respect life and work to end abortion.
We will do a part of this by choosing leaders that will provide legislation that will make it illegal to take another persons life (gosh and here I thought that was already a law???) and ensuring that all life is afforded protection with this law (life from natural beginning, conception, to natural end).
However they cannot end there. They must also take action to affirm those devalued in our society; made to believe they are ’slaves’ to serve some other persons desires/pleasures (thought we got rid of slavery also??). Providing avenues for shelter and compassion from people that will help them to understand the value they truly have and the treasure that life is and how it should be treated. Providing opportunities to support themselves and find others that will love and support them. This is what we need our leaders to do to put an end to abortion. A law will not do it, it will just make the abortions that do occur a crime. It should be treated as one and as with all crimes those that commit it should be prosecuted and those that are victims of it should be protected. If a women chooses abortion because she is placed in duress and or is fed lies her culpability is reduced or may even be gone. However Doctors, Nurses, Counselors, Rapists, etc. are accomplices to the crime and should be prosecuted.
Voting to end abortion is the easy part. The tough part is following through on the other stuff, sacrifice of ourselves to give compassion, comfort and love to those who are poor in these things. That is not easy but it has been done by others and many of us will need to take up this new/old battle to protect life, to cherish it and help others to see it for the unquantifiable treasure that it is!
Me
October 23rd, 2008
at 7:05pm
Your story is a common one. I too can share a story of a close friend who had been raped hundreds of times, by a neighbor boy into his adulthood, his friends at different times and all at once, and than threatened her life over a period of near 10 years. Her esteem was low and like your friend also felt like she had no purpose in this world - though difficult and with many deep emotional scares, she was able to choose to move beyond that point of her life.
Unfortunately, when babies come into this world, they have no choice whom their parents will be and the circumstance of which they come into existence. Life is a hard place and good people are hurt and die everyday. But many of us at least are able to choose somewhere along our hardships for better or for worse, or even a lesser of two evils to try and move on with our lives - unlike the tiny lives many mothers are carrying inside of them when they choose to have an abortion - for better or worse, so they can move on with their lives. If you are a Christian, can a person be forgiven? Perhaps - it’s not for me to decide, but it would only seem “just” that a God who knows the deepest intent of every heart and every thought of every soul demands the greatest and ultimate penitence and remorse, even to the depths of their own lives for such actions. Are there times when abortions are needed? Perhaps under certain medical conditions where the mother’s life is endangered, but that should be the decision of the women and her Doctor who faces such circumstances.
rotten dot com is a website that displays grossly horrific and graphical images of fatalities from human beings. Yet as disgusting and disturbing as that website might be, it is nothing in compared to any “real” abortion web site that displays actual photos of the abortion process. No matter how it is sugar coated or how tragic the event was that lead to a women being pregnant, the end result is still the same - a life is being killed - and the sad part is usually it is done for the comfort and convince of the individual so they can move on with their lives.
So thanks for sharing why you vote for choice.
I, vote for life.
Stephen Jared
October 23rd, 2008
at 9:19pm
The issue is moot. The real issue is why women choose a gruesome operation when the laminaria (aka kombu) method can be done safely and painlessly by the woman herself.
Bullet
October 23rd, 2008
at 9:35pm
Abortion will only become an unquestioned right of the individual when the males of the species are the ones who become pregnant.
Ain’t life grand?
Stephen Jared
October 23rd, 2008
at 10:03pm
To complete my last: Only a duly licensed MD may use invasive procedure. My comment was for information only. I am not recommending anything. You have a constitutional right to treat yourself but I assume no responsibility.
I learned about the laminaria method from a patient of an American MD, who taught her this.
The kombu seaweed grows at the bottom of the ocean, under intense pressure, contracts the uterus when put in the opening of the cervix. Miscarriage happens in 24 hours.
Stephen Jared
October 23rd, 2008
at 10:26pm
For a monthly newsletter called ‘Surviving Medical Science’, send me an email.
Q
October 24th, 2008
at 6:19pm
Stephen, if you think miscarriage is either painless or safe, you should talk to someone who has had one. Just because it’s not caused by the same invasive process makes it no less of a traumatic even to the body. Please don’t advertise newsletters and questionable procedures on my blog.
Stephen Jared
October 25th, 2008
at 11:08am
Painless and safe refers to Asian cultures which would practice this after a night of unprotected sex. I don’t think that waiting several months would be painless and safe.
Would you courageously have your leg amputated for frostbite-gangrene? Or use the Chinese herbal formula for gangrene?
Stephen Jared
October 25th, 2008
at 12:31pm
The laminaria method is offered by Planned Parenthood. “Painless and safe” were the words used by the woman who told me about it.
Armando
November 4th, 2008
at 3:21am
Life is sacred - from it’s inception to the end of its natural course.
How can a murderer of a pregnant woman be condemned for the killing of 2 beings and yet the same laws permit the extirpation of the same unborn being?
It’s senseless!
Roe vs. Wade, YES!, and to haedes with morals and mores.
You’ve come a long way, baby!