Roe v. Hate

Roe v. Hate
(note: trigger words: abortion, cussing)

I marched.
Held the signs.
Waved to cars in traffic.
In the cold and snow along the Belt Highway.
A young teen, a young child, was I.

Maybe today you’d call it a peaceful protest.

I saw the women drive by with words written on their cars.
My body my choice.
Some yelled “Fuck you!” Long before I knew what that phrase meant.
Was I exuding hate?
Why all the vitriol?

And I believed I was doing it right.
Was I part of the solution or the problem?

In college in volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center.
I held signs along the side of the highway once again, only this time on Rangeline.
The same women drove by with the same messages: My body my choice. Fuck you.

And I believed I was doing it right.
Was I part of the solution or the problem?

Then my learning started to unravel. Unlearning. Relearning.

First, the movie “The Butterfly Effect.”
From my naive and trauma free childhood, I saw on screen children being put in situations that 1 in 3 go through in this life.
Was it better to never have been born? Or live through the horrors of sexual child abuse?
Though reenactments, I walked away scarred from watching those scenes.
I walked away believing the former.

And I believed I was right.
Did that thought leave me as part of the solution or the problem?

Then I met Angela.
She was unlike any Christian I’d ever met.
She came across quite Amish at a first glance but was progressive and challenged both sides of all issues when we talked.
“Think of your students,” she’d say. “The ones who are home alone and neglected. Whose parents can’t even take care of themselves. Whose parents can’t afford to even have kids.”
I thought of them.
Why didn’t they just use a fucking condom? is what I thought.
But instead of answering or talking or discussing anything, I sat and wondered again: Was it better to have never been born?

Was I doing anything right?
Was I part of a solution or a problem?

42 years into this, me, born the same week as Sanctity of Life Sunday, I had the first person I know of publicly announce to me and on Facebook that she had an abortion when she was 18.
Don't tell me that this isn't an issue laced in shame and overtaken with hypocrisy.
Name all the women you know who have ever confessed to you to getting one.
Shame.
I had a friend in college who later in life worked at a crisis pregnancy center that used to offer abortions in a city you may know well.
Joplin.
They told me they saw more women from religious settings... church, Christian college, etc, than any others.
"I don't want anyone to know. I can't tell anyone," they'd plea.
Shame.
You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.

Am I doing anything right?
Am I part of a solution or a problem?

Last year, I met two nuns, two sisters, who walked with women who were raped, poor, alone—all considering abortion who carried their children to full term.
What compassion.
This? Their whole life. Their vocation they told me.

They believe they’re doing it right.
They believe they’re a part of the solution.

I know all the sides of every argument to this.
I can argue both sides, though I don't want to argue.
I've studied the scriptures.
Life and spirit. Are they the same?
What do we do with Numbers chapter 5?
This is NOT black and white as I was told as a child.
Though the fetus will always turn into a child, was it better for them to be alive?
Why can I buy a gun but not an abortion in many states?
Why can't my child, if I had one, check out books without permission but don't get me started on all of the other things she can and cannot do.
Why are people voting for politicians who want to eradicate abortion but not fight for legislation that helps her take care of the child who is birthed?
No universal healthcare. No paid family leave. No universal childcare. And have you seen our mortality rate? It's related to ACCESS. Ask ANY OBGYN.
Wait till this decision plays that word out.
Coat hangers are dangerous. Drug trafficking is a real phrase.
You gonna outlaw those too?
Why aren't men's bodies regulated? Reverse vasectomies would solve a lot of this.
I'd vote for that.
Why is this not a problem legally in some "illegal" states until a woman's body is VIOLATED? You really want to reinforce that idea?
Why is an adoption the same price as what I take home in a year and far more than an abortion?
Why are women in other countries trafficked to produce children, and therefore income via adoption?
Why is there so much paperwork to get a child?

But mostly this:
WHY DOES A CHILD COST MONEY TO ADOPT?
WHY DOES A CHILD COST MONEY?
WHY DOES A CHILD COST MONEY?
WHY DOES A CHILD COST MONEY?
WHY DOES A CHILD COST MONEY?

Don't tell me any of us are doing this right.
No one is changing anyone's mind.
But we could all do a little better by learning both sides of the coin.
Reading.
Studying.
And how about LISTENING?
We all can be part of solutions and solve this without starting the second civil war.
If you can be far right, far left, pro-life, or pro-choice, then why can’t I be a little bit of all of those?
I can.

Saving lives may not look like what you or I imagined it to be now or in our lifetimes, but I promise you it doesn’t get far with optical allyship and Facebook fights.

Excuse me, sir? Ma’am?
Your hate is showing.

So here, I march on.
This time, indefinitely holding a sign that says
"Love."

And I know at least I'm doing that right.