Red Herring

(Trigger Warning: threat of bodily harm)

June 24th, 2022 the United States Supreme Court overturned a nearly 50-year-old case that ruled for a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. Given the fact that the plaintiff in that case never had an abortion, and given the fact that states still regulated the practice within their sovereignty, this case has done little to impact the issue other than being a banner under which the pro-choice group could gather. However, emotions are high after this outcome. In the current climate, there is a likelihood that what I have to say would not be received in the spirit in which it is meant, but I will start with my own story of life versus choice in hopes of an understanding.

When I was 16, my mother moved out of our house to live with her boyfriend in another city. Feeling unwanted, I turned to my longtime boyfriend for comfort and connection. A month before my 17th birthday, I began to get clues that conception had occurred, and a pregnancy test confirmed my suspicions. It was like a switch was flipped in my heart and mind; my life was no longer about me. There was now another person who would be relying on me for their very existence. My boyfriend had to process the information, but was supportive. My own mother said, “It’s about time you made me a grandma.” When we told my boyfriend’s parents, they were devastated. They had a stipulation that we go before our church and confess our sin to the body of believers.

I was still trying to get my bearings when I went to Planned Parenthood in hopes they could help me develop, well, a plan for parenthood. They said they could help me with an abortion to which I was adamant, no, I will deliver this baby. They told me to apply for Medicaid and find a doctor, and that there were therapists in the area if I wanted to talk to someone; but there was nothing more they could do for me. My life routine became going to school, going to work, taking care of my medical needs, and seeing a counselor.

We entertained the idea of adoption. A classmate had a relative who struggled with infertility, and so she asked me to consider giving my baby to them. After a couple sessions with the counselor, my boyfriend and I worked out that a life knowing our child would not be with us may be more regrettable than we could bare. My classmate was heartbroken for her family and became distant after that.

While at work, one of my coworkers heard that I was pregnant and keeping the child. He looked angry and said to me, “If I punched you repeatedly in the stomach until you miscarried, I’d be doing that baby a favor.” I felt so unsafe and scared for my unborn child. When I could no longer work at that restaurant without the smells making me, it was no great loss to walk away.

Unfortunately, this meant that now I was pretty much living on my own trying to get the best care that I could. My mother was still living in another city, my older brothers made no efforts to care for their sister, and my boyfriend’s parents were not about to have their son’s pregnant girlfriend stay with them. However, his father did approach a couple at our church who were willing to take me in with them. They were loving and attentive and made me feel secure in a world swirling with uncertainty.

There was a program at school for those who found themselves “in the family way”, where I knew other students going through their own minefield of questions. One girl left school to proceed away from the ire of others. Another girl elected to have an abortion and returned to have her life move on. I was resolved to stay in school and to have my child, so I guess I fell somewhere in the middle. I was fortunate that my boyfriend was by my side to see us through. I told him, “You will always be the baby’s father, but if you think we can make it, I’d like to bring her into a family and not just into the world.” We talked through it in therapy and moved forward with that as a stepping stone to our future. My boyfriend’s mother took me shopping for a dress, but since the bridal shop turned me away she ended up making me a dress instead. In the Spring of our junior year, on the two year anniversary of when we started dating, our church threw us a wedding and we were married. We moved into our own place and welcomed our little girl to the world a month later.

I was grateful for my small band of supporters because the opposition seemed to be more empowered. It was as if my staying strong in the midst of everything meant I wasn’t feeling the full weight of my mistakes, and many took it upon themselves to see I felt the pressure. When asked by the accompanist why I wasn’t in the show choir my senior year, my music teacher was heard saying: I will not have an example like her on my stage. When I led VBS music and inquired about being on the worship team, a church member I had long respected pulled me aside and said it is wrong for me to be so visible in my service to the church when they all were aware of my sin. I had friends that said I wasn’t who they thought I was and cut me out of their lives, this continued through adulthood when someone I thought I could open up to heard of my past.

When I had gone on to college, I met a young woman who had been a senior in high school when I was going through my pregnancy in the grade below her. It was a couple years later, but she wanted me to know that she admired me for my strength. She told me that around the time I had my daughter she discovered that she was also pregnant. With tears welling up she said she knew she would not be able to endure what she saw me go through and so she had an abortion. I comforted her and my heart ached for this grieving mother; which was truly what she was.

I’m calling this entry Red Herring because this discord over this case is a side note to the bigger issue. Our society has failed us. How can you beat the drum of pro-life and then punish the women who bear their children? You make their own babies the product of their sin; a sort of scarlet letter for years to mark them. Like the woman thrown before the feet of Jesus caught in the act of adultery, you push for the punishment. I would say that you cannot be pro-life if you are not pro-love for mothers in crisis.

It is true that the Roe v. Wade case has been used as a marketing tool for abortion; that a woman can do whatever she wants for self-preservation. Choice when the mother’s life is in danger is another Red Herring. There is some common ground in these circumstances that both sides acknowledge. However, when abortion is being used as a form of birth control that is when the two sides diverge. Women who end the life of their unborn baby because of social or financial self-preservation are like the mothers in the biblical stories who cooked their own children in times of famine.

We have the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, when one’s right to pursue happiness supersedes another’s right to life, there are no winners in this situation. To have my own mother recently say that she didn’t ask to be my mother, but that it was forced on her, I can honestly say that it does not feel good to be unwanted by a parent. However, life is precious and has value greater than our own desires.

“But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:12-13 CSB