if human life is what i REALLY care about (and I think we’ve all established that i do)….
…and if advocating for all people to have access to the things I have access to and have always had access to my whole life for no other reason than this little one that, as a fetus, I had no control over:
I was born into my family because my parents had sex without me knowing about it and now I live here in this society/culture. So, in my neighborhood we had food, running water, a pet dog, safe schools, lots of white people, a school system that offered arts & sports and extra curricular activities. We had guidance counselors and dual enrollment opportunities in high school. And Western ethics and Evangelical Christianity were the only tools I had as my basis of morality. My decisions were simply shaped by me being born to two white parents who were also born to (or adopted by—in my dad’s case) two white parents in a middle class small town in Michigan. I didn’t choose my circumstances and the life I was born into, nature did.
I can easily recognize that there are people in this world and in my country and in my own community that are born to VASTLY different circumstances. So, the only way to understand what that would be like is to seek out real life examples of people that are different than me and think of how my definition of morality and ethics might shift…an example of a situation that plays out over and over again in our communities.
And then I imagine voting for a policy that will effectively force a single mother living in poverty to use her body to grow a baby. For the sake of that unborn baby. This woman comes from a long line of generational and racial trauma and poverty and she’s black. Her household income is around $25,000–and she does not have company funded medical benefits (and don’t even think about paid maternity leave). There is limited access to safe & reliable & affordable childcare & safe schools with access to helpful resources in the area where she lives because the houses in her area are not worth as much as a middle class white small town in michigan. Property taxes fund public schools. So, guess who has nicer school districts?
And if she wants to get food for herself and her growing fetus, her job better accommodate for that addition to her life—but it won’t.
So, she tries assistance programs but there are hoops to jump through to get those resources. And that would require a vehicle (but she don’t have one) and paid leave from her job (nope) and she’s currently struggling to feed just herself. She doesn’t have adequate insurance so she compiles medical debt. And even if she gave her baby up for adoption and some family (best case) pays her medical bills…she has persistent incontinence and painful clogged milk ducts and no money to treat any of it. And so…the baby goes to foster care.
Now it’s 2022. And these anti-abortionists have been touting the same shit for years…so why the fuck is our foster care system so broken if you are insisting these babies be born. Why are there areas of such extreme poverty and desperation in our own communities where circumstances like this exist. And you’re worried about forcing a person to carry a baby for none other reason than that kid…must simply be…born?
Did you forget they’re being born into two IMPOSSIBLE situations. Roughly half of foster youth nationwide never even finish high school. 1 in 5 will be homeless after that. And 1 in 4 will be involved in the criminal justice system—within 2 years of aging out or just simply disappearing from the system.
Oh, if father is long gone and has given up rights to the child (4 out of every 10 children are born to a single parent home where the father has left—and it’s not illegal to do that, the law just takes their parental rights away after a period of time). And that happens all of the time. You can abandon and neglect your child as a father without any form of punishment or real compensation to the mother…and you’re worried about this kid being born? So, just assuming she can easily receive child support it and doesn’t have to go to the trouble of going to small claims—oh wait, we’ve already established it would be pretty difficult with no car, no money, no proper childcare or PTO to speak of.
…even so, child support on average is about $403/month for one kid (assuming a person lives in Michigan). But, she live in poverty. She has medical bills. Childcare. And then the cost of existing as a human in this country. And her circumstances cannot be changed in 9 months.
But it is illegal to abort the fetus. So she has a kid but because of where she lives and what color her skin is…the kid will NEVER have the same opportunities I had. And statistically speaking, they will likely suffer. And how is that fair. Mom suffers physically and fiscally and emotional and mentally just so the fetus comes to term and is born with all the odds in the world against them. So, whose life gets better because of this? …and please don’t tell me her eternal life. We don’t even know if she knows about god or has ever been taken to a church or ever will.
Not to mention, LOOK at how we treat young pregnant women in this country. We literally all sat on our asses and watched a show about children having babies for entertainment. Combine going through puberty and development with unsupportive father figures and unsupportive parents, oh…and take a trig final while you have morning sickness.
So, again, whose life improves? Whose life gets better because this kid is born? The single mother’s? Is the kid’s life better simply because the kid was born?
Or…is it your life that is better if she has this kid?
Because you still get to go to heaven either way but you also don’t have to pay any of her expenses or watch her kid or live in her home or work her job. And if you care for the kid, is it just the fetus? Because that kid’s life is statistically going to be pretty horrible.
…it’s pretty simple. You live in a reality where having a baby would upset your life quite a bit—as it does—but this situation would not be your reality.
Just because I will never know this theoretical woman’s experiences first hand, what kind of American or Jesus lover would I be if I didn’t fight to end racial disparities and poverty and fight the root cause of these issues. We aren’t taking care of our own citizens. People take care of what fulfills them personally...because that’s what they’ve been taught.
And then they tell people they’ve earned everything they have through hard work. No. You were given your life and your circumstances. Because you were born to a family that made it easier for you.
I want this world to be better and I am willing to give up my own climb to wealth and power and bigger houses and nicer cars to make sure of it.
How many times this summer did you stress about having to get your lawn mowed? When there are people living in the city you live in that will never come close to owning a lawn mower. Or a lawn. Ever.
And you just tithed 10% of your pay check to that church that people volunteer their time at to direct traffic toward on sundays to a building nicer than all the community centers that serve the homeless in your community. And everyone there looks like they got to church in a late model SUV to BUY their latte at the church cafe to contribute to…more churches and church cafes? While people starve on the streets less than 15 minutes from the front doors. But please tell me how you’re doing the lord’s work.
I have no qualms with people who have a hard time conceiving a reality where a woman would choose to abort a fetus, rather than bring them into the world or (other option) put them into the foster care system that is irrefutably broken.
But you are not pro-life. You are anti-abortion. And you think it’s your religious duty to vote to prevent murder. But it just doesn’t happen that way. Numbers go up. You hurt our country and humankind by deliberately forcing women/people (and children) to carry a fetus to term when they can’t afford to sustain a pregnancy or another human life and the alternative is just as bad. You take and destroy more lives than you save them. And that’s just a fact.
We cannot stay the same anymore. Look around you—if all your closest friends look the same as you—think similarly and believe the same things as you—if they never correct you or question you or challenge you, how will you ever really know if you’re the one that’s right? If you’re all the smartest people in the room, does that really mean that there is such a huge divide between human beings that we are unwillingly to accept that someone else’s life and family might matter too? …like can you really say that you are just protecting your belief system? Because I don’t understand that anymore. What do you believe? That suddenly everyone is going to become a Christian and be saved from their circumstances and never have an abortion again? How exactly would that happen? What policies should we support?
I cannot say that I would be making the same decisions in any way shape or form…let alone what kind of decisions I’d be even ABLE to make about my reproductive health in that situation.
And that’s assuming I’m straight presenting.
No one, with ABSOLUTE and full confidence, could ever say they would know what is best for someone else’s life without knowing exactly where they came from and the generations and generations that led to them being in their circumstance.
If you really care about saving lives and not a tired rhetoric that you only believe because your mom and your pastor told you to, worry about your own life. Don’t have any abortions yourself and you’ll go to heaven. We’ll be busy trying to build the kingdom HERE. Thy will be done.
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