THE LOSS OF ROE V. WADE:

Where do we go from here?

Abortion-rights protesters demonstrate following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. (Gemunu Amarasinghe / ASSOCIATED PRESS)

We knew it was going to happen. But still, my heart sank today when I heard the news. The sickening feeling in my stomach and the lump in my throat overwhelmed me as I read the headline: “Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.” Women no longer have a federal constitutional right to an abortion.

Fifty years of precedent, gone in a stroke of a pen.

I have never had an abortion in the sense that I chose to terminate a pregnancy. I have, however, lost pregnancies and had to have medical procedures to remove the babies from my uterus.

After I had my first two kids, both boys, I desperately wanted a daughter. While I was able to get pregnant again, I just couldn’t stay pregnant.

Some women realize they’ve miscarried when they suddenly experience heavy bleeding. My body betrayed me. My babies would be there at the first appointments, safe and normal, and then I’d go in for an ultrasound to see my little miracle, and there’d no longer be a heartbeat. But my body would not miscarry on its own.

When I realized that I lost my baby, the first time, my doctor recommended a medication (it was either mifepristone or misoprostol, I cannot remember which one) that would stimulate my uterus to “expel the pregnancy.” I would take this pill and miscarry at home. This is also known as “the abortion pill.”

The waiting was devastating and cruel and even as I type this now, tears are streaming down my face as I remember the pain of knowing my baby was dead inside of me, and I just had to wait to pass it. Like a kidney stone.

The second time, when I realized that I lost another baby, I was a bit further along. I just knew I could not handle going through that again. So, I opted for a DNC procedure. For those who don’t know what that is, here’s the medical explanation: “Dilation and curettage refers to the dilation of the cervix and surgical removal of part of the lining of the uterus and/or contents of the uterus by scraping and scooping.” It’s an abortion.

I would go into the hospital, be put to sleep, and then wake up and my baby would be gone. Less torturous than the agonizing waiting for it to happen at home. But the fact remained that I had my baby scraped and scooped out of me.

It was the most traumatic thing I have ever or will ever endure.

I tell you my stories and I give that graphic detail because no woman wants to go through this. No woman goes into this decision lightly. Not when they opt for an abortion to terminate a pregnancy and not when they choose one of the procedures to aid in miscarrying a lost pregnancy.

Yet one in four women will experience a miscarriage. One in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade robs women of the ability to make that choice for themselves.

A person holds a sign at a rally to stop abortion bans in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Lorie Shaull via Wikimedia Commons)

A majority - 61% - of Americans want there to be access to abortion in all or most cases. Two-thirds of Americans oppose the overturning of Roe. (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/)

Yet here we are.

Here we are, experiencing a momentous setback for women’s rights. Here we are, handing our daughters a world where their intellectual choices and agency over their own bodies are no longer within their control. Here we are, sending a message to the nation that our collective voices do not matter.

How did we get here?

I have some thoughts, and I want to ask three specific groups of people to hear me out: Christians, men, and women without firsthand experience.

First, I want to speak directly to Christians on the matter.

You can be ethically and morally opposed to abortion. Your moral objection to abortion is fine, even understandable in some ways. But you cannot use the Bible to defend that position. While history tells us that abortions did occur in ancient culture, Jesus did not address it. The Bible does not speak to abortion. It generally does not speak to our modern issues. Abortion wasn’t an issue then the way it is today. It’s simply not the same situation.

Of all the injustices in this world, of all the issues the Bible actually does speak to, why is abortion the hill Christians are so willing to die on?

If you can’t explain your opinion except to say that abortion feels wrong and you believe it to be murder, that’s perfectly valid. Feelings are not wrong and I will not argue with that. (Except to say this: if you claim that abortion is murder because you believe life begins at conception, then you cannot believe in any form of birth control. Except abstinence. I’d also question what makes you an expert on when life begins, because the actual experts cannot agree on this.)

You can even say your view of God - or the way you understand God to be - supports your position on abortion. You just can’t say the Bible does.

We do that a lot with the Bible, though. We form an opinion and then we try to find Bible verses to support it. (This is called proof-texting and it can present real issues.) Or we listen to the politicians who tell us what the Bible says, but they clearly don’t understand the historical or cultural context of the Bible.

(Sidenote: why would you go to a politician for biblical wisdom? That’s like going to your mechanic to fix your broken arm, or asking your accountant to finish your basement…it makes no sense to me.)

We like to think the Bible informs our opinions but it’s actually quite often the other way around…our opinions inform the Bible, at least in the way we tell people what the Bible says. In that way, we weaponize sacred scriptures, and this is reckless, dangerous, and harmful.

Second, if you are a man, I honestly don’t understand why you should have an opinion on the matter when it comes to a law about a woman's body.

You have no right to make decisions about a woman’s body pertaining to a matter which you cannot possibly understand. So again, have your opinion - but don’t make decisions about something that doesn’t impact you, your body, your mental well-being, or the trajectory or quality of your life.

(Please don't tell me a pregnancy effects a man, too. Sure, of course. But if we should defer to either party on the decision, I believe it should be the one who will be carrying the baby for nine months and having her body, her mental well being, her job, her relationships, her financial security, and her entire world upended and irrevocably changed for the rest of her life.)

Third, to women...

If you have never been in the position to consider an abortion, perhaps you should withhold your judgements and consider yourself fortunate. Here’s a novel idea: If you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one. Support women who are facing this situation. (Note that I said support - NOT judge.)

All of this comes down to a misunderstanding about privilege.

Privilege is a touchy subject because people often associate it with race, gender, or with affluence in a way that seems to launch an accusation or a condemnation. People get defensive if they feel that they are being attacked for having privilege. They feel that they’re being accused of not working hard for what they have, the implication that they were handed something. That’s a misunderstanding.

I read a great blog post recently about privilege that explains it this way: Privilege “simply means there weren’t additional obstacles for you to overcome on your way to success due to your identity, background, history, or culture.” (read for yourself here Blog on Privilege)

When it comes to weighing whether or not to have an abortion, privilege is the main factor.

And I do know something about this. I began this post with a personal story about my miscarriages, the pregnancies I desperately wanted.

I want to share now about the pregnancy I didn’t want.

I got pregnant my senior year of high school. I remember the day I found out vividly. I was with one of my sisters and we called our other sister on the phone. I was terrified but I knew I had options. I had one sister who offered to take me to get an abortion, and one who offered to help me raise the baby. Both sisters would have done either, they would’ve supported me no matter what I chose. But I am trying to show that I had two options and I had help no matter which way I went. I had the luxury and privilege of choice. (Adoption is also a choice, and I do not mean to invalidate that option. It simply was not one I considered.)

I chose to keep the baby. But I did not do it alone. I had my sisters and I lived with my mother. My boyfriend at the time also had a supportive family that took an active role in helping to raise our son. My mother took my son to daycare and picked him up for me, allowing me to go to work at a job with hours that prevented me from doing that myself. She watched him for me while I went to school at night so I could continue my education, and she helped me with bills.

That’s what my privilege looked like. Because I had access to all of that and I had a support network. Not all women can say that. We must recognize that not everyone possesses equal privilege.

Often, women don't choose to have an abortion because they don’t want the child.

They agonizingly opt for an abortion because they do not have this same privilege. They do not have the support or financial resources to raise a child. This is not even to mention the reasons such as rape, being in an unsafe living environment, or having potential life-threatening health issues for either the mother or the child. Or simply not feeling ready to become a mother.

Or in some cases, needing an abortion to remove your dead baby from your womb that your body won’t expel on its own.

We fail to consider these privileges when we make a decision of such enormity for a woman’s life and body.

When politicians make a blanket rule to cover a complex issue, they are doing a grave disservice to the people they claim to represent and protect.

Photo cred: https://abcnews.go.com/US/women-share-abortion-roe-wade-lucky-survived/story?id=56987190

While trying to better understand privilege is at least a good place to start, it’s meaningless if we don’t know what to do with it. That’s why I am writing this.

When I decided to write a blog about abortion and privilege, I knew it would be potentially polarizing. I feel fairly certain the people I am speaking to aren’t reading this, but my hope is that someone who loves them will. And then in love and respect and in honor of their relationship, share these thoughts and ask them to consider where their opinion stems from and what informs it.

As we as a nation continue to work through our thoughts and opinions on abortion, may we do so in love and in seeking to understand one another better. And with the goal of coming together on a topic that is painful and complicated and where there is no one size fits all solution.

This topic presents questions that demand answers. Here are some suggested questions we can ask one another:

Why do you believe what you do about abortion? What is your experience?

How does it impact you? Can you imagine how it might impact someone else differently?

How can we learn to listen to those who are impacted by something before we speak on it ourselves?

Why do we read things into the Bible that aren’t there? Why do we speak for the Bible instead of letting it speak for itself?