I wrote a lot of this post LAST YEAR in September 2021 at the beginning of this steady decline of human rights, but added some additional thoughts based on the recent events to round out the post. I’ll highlight when those kick in.

I don’t even know where to begin with how infuriating this ruling out of Texas is and the subsequent exclamations about the need to “protect innocent lives.”

Abortion is something that is such an uncomfortable subject to breach because there are so many tender feelings wrapped around what it means to get one, think about one, need one, have access to one, the aftermath, the list goes on. It’s an incredibly personal decision that has been politicized and turned into a mechanism for this extremely weird moral olympics where the winner is no one. As someone who can bear children, seeing the way this subject has been discussed and who’s loudest has always made me angry. Why? So glad you asked…

The Who
Men have been spearheading this conversation for decades, but they are not the only ones dangerously reducing this extremely personal decision to a simple two words full of warring ideals, “pro life.” There are plenty of people who believe in what they have deemed to be Pro life - a statement which screams morality but utterly lacks substance. A jarring declaration of life without really supporting the systems to fully support that life.
What even does pro life really mean? I looked it up on the ol’ Google and one of the top results was from this site called, Focus on the Family, which according to their website is:

…a global Christian ministry dedicated to helping families thrive. We provide help and resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design, and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles.

The article cites a number of sources, including Planned Parenthood, but has an interesting way of describing pro life:

While the term pro-life was birthed from the abortion wars of the 1970’s, the pro-life movement has grown into a thriving community of those who meet political issues with the mindset that all human life is valuable. Whether you are a preborn baby, a newborn, an elderly person, or someone with disabilities and special needs, your life matters. At its core, the pro-life movement is about the value and equality of all human beings. Google search the popular pro-life hashtag #lovethemboth, and the message is clear.

Also, despite being accused of being conservative and religious dogma, the pro-life movement is composed of an incredibly diverse population. The movement includes, but is not limited to, both feminists and atheists.

This is the type of definition that plays in a realm of idealism that plainly doesn’t exist on a national scale. Sure, these conversations about where people stand are complex, but let’s not pretend that the way the government sees pro-life is the same as the above. Pro life as a value for many may encompass these compassionate principles, but let’s not be naive to think that the Texas government has any plans to ensure the lives of all their citizens are protected through heartfelt legislation and provide helpful resources. No, the Texas government isn’t considering the lives of the “unborn” after they are in fact born. They are using this position to be divisive and feed the fire of an impossibly winnable moral war. It’s aggravating how blatantly invasive and useless this legislation is.

While I believe the article tries to be pretty impartial about which stance readers should take, it’s clear it skews pro life which is fine, but I want to be very clear that I wholeheartedly believe that it is a pregnant person’s right to choose. For me, it’s not even about politics or religion or science or society, it’s about a simple notion that each individual person who can give birth should have the ultimate say in what is right for them and their lives. For their health, for their safety, for their wellbeing.

The What: Pro Life but Not Pro Life
As we’ve seen on a plethora of occasions, this country doesn’t truly care about human life, especially the republican party as of late. (newly added from here on out - on 8/7/2022) The amount of rising gun violence, the refusal to provide health, mental, financial support for pregnant people, including federal maternity/paternity leave policies, the gross mistreatment of children in the foster care system, and whole prison industrial complex where even people who are serving time for stealing due to this country’s lack of resources for poor neighborhoods - THE FACT THAT POOR NEIGHBORHOODS EVEN EXIST - are all indicators of how broken everything is and how selfish and greedy people are. So no, when people say they’re “pro life,” but also scoff at raising the minimum wage and don’t lift a finger to help children who have been swept up by the system, I don’t believe them. I don’t believe they genuinely care about others, because pro life usually just means, I don’t want anyone to have an abortion. That is not pro life. That’s enforcing your views on others without providing care or support.

The When
These past few years have been an onslaught of one thing after the other and this ruling comes at the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down gun carry restrictions and strip citizens of the obligation to be read their miranda rights. The decision to overturn Roe Vs. Wade is not something that happened in a vacuum and many, many activists, journalists, and even civil servants predicted this would happen years ago. It was something I remember hearing about before Trump even became president, but got louder the more people realized he was stacking the courts and then sirens went off when he appointed the two most controversial under-qualified conservatives to the highest court. A lot of people knew it was coming, but I naively thought, there was no way something so fundamentally private and vital could be overturned. Yet here we are. As I speak, laws are being written and enforced all over the country that are putting people who can have children at risk because the definition of abortion is so convoluted and the rules some of these states put into place are so ill-informed and downright cruel. Women are literally crossing state lines to get the care they need because states are using that ruling to tear away a right that isn’t just for people who decide they don’t want children, but for people who do but may be experiencing a high risk pregnancy and termination is necessary.

It’s truly wild to me that states are given that much power over someone’s body, and the fear is that it won’t stop there. It hasn’t stopped there. I’m lucky to be living in a liberal state where all of our leaders have made statements about the importance of protecting a person’s right to choose, but honestly, it’s still worrisome. We live in a society and what happens to some of us happens to all of us. There are people who are traveling here to get necessary care they need. This isn’t an isolated event that only affects a select group. We will all feel the weight and brunt of this wholly disappointing decision. I can’t help but think, while I have my freedoms now, who knows what will happen in the future.

The worst part of all of this is it really feels like there is a looming cloud hanging over the country in the shape of the Supreme Court that seemingly has too much power and no limit or accountability.