You mention that it comes down to value of a human life over another. I don’t think it is as cut and dry as that. I aborted a fetus because I knew in my heart I could not care for that baby. Back then, I was not mentally able to care for the child. I had been raped several years before and was struggling with life due to issues of rape the family I married into and my family of origin. Issues of power and control. I was barely existing myself. I was new to the Christian faith and had no grounding mainly because I was always supposed to be a “Christian” in this family I married into…a good Christian person. It was not safe to tell that my fiance raped me just before our wedding. As a child, I was also sexually assaulted and my parents would not believe me so who would do it now. It was a terrible place to be. I still have the medical report in my files regarding the aftercare of this self abortion. I keep it, remember it and grieve it because I do value human life. Yet, I knew I could not give the child what it needed and the power of entitlement that existed around me would have forced me into pretending to exist, which I did within this family, until I couldn’t. I broke down mentally and have been stigmatized ever since, even 50 years later.

Abortion is not okay in most situations. There are not always places for a person to go for help or agencies to help. To label someone as not valuing human life for having an abortion is not fair. There is so much that goes into this. I believe the the thing that pre-exists abortion, discrimination, rape, abuse and so on is the need for power. It is something that covers the fragile ego that power somehow seems to be the antidote. There are victims to this attempted antidote of power and unborn children are the most fragile of them all. There are other victims that are often forgotten because of the fragility of the child. The mother is one because they are an adult. Adults can look adult but within they are often children because of their own life histories. They get swept under the rug. If they do come out of hiding, then they are challenged in public scrutiny or judged as crazy, unbelievable, etc. They also lose their integrity, again, because of power and ego of perpetrators or society at large.

Yes, defend the unborn child! But look deeper into the layers power and dis-empowerment that go back so far and has infiltrated our lives to this day. I live near Buffalo, NY, and this morning I listened to call to a media center of people within that community where the recent mass shooting occurred. They each referenced the racial discrimination going back 400 years ago, asking that it has to stop. They said, “Enough!” I hear your words of stopping the killing of unborn babies. I hear my inner words of stopping the generations of trauma in families, communities, cultures, religions to stop because the inner pain we all carry to some degree. These cycles of pain have got to end, but how do we begin a new cycle? I read an article in Reader’s Digest the other day that told of how two different communities who were polar opposites came together to resolve an issue. They listened to each other, and with work, are coming together to integrate their ideas. They started by acknowledging their different perspectives and then talked, not about right or wrong but who they each were. They became friends but who differed.
Power over others to bring order to our inner and outer lives only breeds more pain, resentment. etc. I have seen this and listened to this from a variety of people throughout my lifetime and the end result of misused power brings pain. I read it in the Bible. I have experienced the nothingness of my sense of self. It is painful but not hopeless. That’s where Jesus comes in. We need to go deeper with each other, if that is possible, as there are so many defenses built up to keep us in a sense of safety.

Yes, we have to keep those unborn children safe, but I think there is more to it than just that. Thanks for letting me speak. Again, good article.