First, abortions are not rare occurrences, and they are allowed through the ninth month of pregnancy. So far in 2017, in the U.S. there have been over 890, 000 abortions - and counting.
Also, the mindset in our country encourages women to think about themselves and their bodies in a way that I find oversimplified.
I do not intend to pass judgement on anyone. To belittle or demean any woman's personal choice. I certainly do not want to go back to those days when women routinely gave birth to more babies than their bodies and minds could possibly handle because scientists did not understand women's bodies and how they worked. I also want to take abortions because of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother out of the equation. In each case, less than 1% of abortions take place for these reasons. Yet some women think that these are the MAIN reasons women get abortions. Not so. Read on.
I'm interested in the way we think in this country, in the values which we hold which affect our decisions. What I want to do is to encourage women to broaden their horizons in the way that they think about themselves and their choices. This is hard to do because, in our country, we most admire the following: personal choice and control over one's life. We also value fulfilling our desires and trying to keep our lives as free of pain, suffering, and inconvenience as we can. Everyone would like these things. Yet, is this realistic?
When any of these values are threatened in our lives, we try to make decisions to get that way of life back. But life doesn't operate that way. We are never really in control. For example, I remember how we felt when we learned that our son had a brain tumor and would live only a year or so more. I felt absolute panic. "I can't handle this," I thought. "Our lives are out of control. I'm going to lose my mind."
Yes, our lives were out of control. But we did handle the pain and anguish, and we did not lose our minds. We discovered, all of us in our family, that we were so much stronger than we thought. And, through enduring the horror of death, we became more compassionate to others in the throes of grief.
I also have a sister with disabilities. She can live on her own, but she needs help with paying her bills and in making judgements. When our mother died, my sister and I took over being responsible for her welfare. It's not always an easy responsibility. Yet our sister is such a joy - she has great depth, great love in her heart. In her simplicity, she is always teaching us. Many of our children have children with serious disabilities. I have seen their anguish over their children's suffering, their knowledge that this child is a responsibility for life. Yet I've also seen their love for those children, the knowledge that each one is a special individual who contributes to the family's life.
I also have three grandchildren who are adopted. One is the son of a teenager who did not want to keep a baby because she wanted to continue high school and make something of herself. She decided to give her child up for adoption, the type of adoption that allows her to keep in touch with his adoptive family. Her son has grown up knowing her, loving her, and she is in the nursing field today. I wonder: are there women who say "I couldn't take the pain and inconvenience of bearing a child and giving it up"? How I wish I could say - "Yes, you have the strength within you to handle pain and inconvenience. Give your child a life of its own."
Our society doesn't value making decisions that can inconvenience us, that can send our lives out of control, that can cause us to live at a lower economic standard, that can cause suffering of any kind to enter our lives. To make decisions that allow these things into our lives are not decisions that people praise, or even support. Especially if society offers us another way out. Why should we ever make decisions that inconvenience us, cause us extra responsibility, and also will affect the lives of the people around us? And, we live in a society which values things and their possession more than we value relationships and experiences with those we love.
These are also the reasons, by the way, that so many marriages end in our country. When a marriage sends our life out of control, when it demands hard sacrifices and endless commitment, when we suddenly have to live at a lower economic standard, when we have to adjust to another human being with a different set of habits, - why should we bother to continue, when we can get a divorce? There are many good reasons to get a divorce - abuse of any kind being one of them. But - how many people give up, throw in the towel on marriage too soon? How many don't hang in there long enough to see that all the hard work and personal sacrifice are worth it? That love born out of the sacrifice of our own egos is burnished gold?
In other words, we live in a society which so insulates itself against any situations that people can't control, that we no longer know all the maturity, all the self-sacrifice, and all the depths of love that we're capable of. We live on the surface, instead of diving into the ocean of committed love.
This is my main concern about abortion, when I see the statistics. Surveys taken in 1987 and 2004 (as well as the detailed statistics from Minnesota) suggest that a significant fraction of abortions are obtained by mothers who have the means to care for a child but do not want their lives inconvenienced. Even sex selective abortions may be more common than those for some of the hard cases. And most of the unborn with Down syndrome are aborted. In fact, unborn babies are even aborted for having cleft palates. How sad it is that, in the minds and hearts of these young girls and women, they cannot conceive of themselves surviving or thriving if their lives go out of control or if they have responsibilities that they think are beyond them? How many have no faith, or have never examined their faith?
In other words, pro-abortion people say, "No woman should ever be forced to carry and give birth to a child she does not want."
And, my heart says, "What can we do or say to a young woman to help her see that this does not have to be a child she does not want? How can we help her see her own strength, her own capacity for love? How can we help her see that each child is a tiny miracle? How can we help her see the wonder that her body is, that she can carry, grow, and produce life? How can we offer her the support that perhaps she is not getting from the people around her?"
When we bring God and faith into the equation, we can see other realities as well. It is commonplace to say that we are all children of God, that we are all created in the Image of God. Now when does this begin? Does a child magically become a child of God when it's born? Does a child only have God's Image when it is fully formed in the uterus? Or - does God see us as His child when we begin to grow in the uterus? If we believe in God our Creator, how can we justify aborting babies in the fifth month of pregnancy when not only their lives can be saved, but they experience pain?
Do we really believe in a God Who says, " I take hold of your right hand and tell you, - do not fear!" A God Who will give us the Power of His Holy Spirit to do what is best for ourselves and our child?
Here is the hard, real thing. The women of our species bear the children. They are called upon to go through more inconvenience, more pain, and more self-sacrifice than the males. If they get pregnant, our society owes them all the financial and emotional support that we can give them. They need this. They deserve this. But - they have a responsibility for that child in their uterus. No amount of referring to it as "tissue" can take away the reality of its unique life, a life that deserves life.
In the pre-Civil War days, slaves were treated as sub-human. They could be bought and sold. They could be raped. They could be murdered. They didn't deserve to learn how to read or to make decisions about their own lives. It was much easier to justify the economic benefits of slavery when people convinced themselves that these were not human beings.
It's much easier to justify abortion when we pretend that the unborn are not human beings. Then we can choose to do what we like with them, even dispose of them. But they are human - check out their DNA. They are created in God's own Image. The more we lie to ourselves, the more we make ourselves unable to cope with the reality of who the unborn are and what our responsibilities are - responsibilities that can give us joy beyond telling when we do the right thing and allow our children to have lives of their own.
In itself, bearing a child is a blessing. Why have we said it's a blessing only when we personally choose to make it a blessing? Why can't we trust God and take joy in every child He gives us? Knowing that He, the Creator of Life, will help us every step of the way?