Chewymom

Here’s a thought I was mulling over this morning. Is it possible that because abortion is legal in our country, it allows for a greater testimony of God’s goodness and grace when a person chooses life?

I know a young girl who has learned that she is pregnant. I was thinking about the agony of discovering her pregnancy. And then the fear she must have felt in telling her parents. I know of the distress they felt, wondering even if her father might lose his job, because he is in Christian ministry. (He didn’t.) At so many turns, it must have been tempting to let her mind turn to the “what if” of abortion. Or maybe even the “if only.” What would her life be like if she just quietly aborted the baby and never told anyone?

In so many ways this girl’s life has changed. She gave up life in a college town to move home and go to a community college. Not only that, but she will continue her classes this year, and then she will take a break for at least a semester, and maybe for an entire year. Eventually she plans to go back to school locally and get her degree while her parents help her raise her child. She is not planning to marry the father right away–she is a believer, he is not. She will be a single mom at least for the short-term, and possibly forever. Gone are her dreams of being a collegiate girl, of getting the degree she planned in four years, of finding a mate, enjoying time getting to know him before kids, and then settling down and starting a family. Her life is turned upside-down. Dreams are dashed. If she aborted, life could go on as planned. But she has chosen life.

As her life progresses, she has a testimony. She will be able to tell women who follow after her that even though she could have aborted and had an easier life for herself, she made a choice. She kept a baby who rocked her world and turned things upside down. She chose a hard path. And even if that path proves difficult over and over and over again, there is a little soul who can live and love and learn of Jesus. She will have a story to tell others.

If this girl lived in a country where abortion was illegal, she would never have made a choice. There would have been no choice to make. Her story would simply be, “I had the baby because I had no choice. I had to.” Granted she could choose adoption, but still. The testimony of her journey, of her making the difficult decision would be gone.

There is beauty in having a choice. There is risk, yes. Think of what God risked by allowing Eve to make a choice. Why did he allow there to be tempting fruit in the first place? Without that fruit, without that decision on the part of Eve, we would never know badness and sin and evil. And yet, without knowing sin, would we really know God, completely and fully? Could we get the goodness of God without knowing our own badness?

And in the same way, could we know the goodness of choosing life if we never knew the badness of choosing abortion? Would the sacrifice have meaning if there was no other option?

I found this article by Frank Schaeffer in the Huffington Post Online.

I am an Obama supporter. I am also pro-life. In fact, without my family’s involvement in the pro-life movement it would not exist as we know it. Evangelicals weren’t politicized until after my late father and evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, Dr. Koop (Reagan’s soon-to-be Surgeon General) and I stirred them up over the issue of abortion in the mid-1970s. Our Whatever Happened to the Human Race? book, movie series and seminars brought the evangelicals into the pro-life movement.

(Dad’s political influence persists. Last week one of my father’s followers — Mike Huckabee — was interviewed by Katie Couric, along with all the other presidential candidates. Couric asked the candidates if they were to be sent to a desert island and could only take one book besides the Bible, what would that that book be? Huckabee answered that he’d take my father’s book Whatever Happened To The Human Race?)

Fast forward…

In 2000, we elected a president who claimed he believed God created the earth and who, as president, put car manufacturers and oil company’s interests ahead of caring for that creation. We elected a pro-life Republican Congress that did nothing to actually care for pregnant women and babies. And they took their sincere evangelical followers for granted, and played them for suckers.

The so-called evangelical leadership — Dobson, Robertson et al. also played the pro-life community for suckers. While thousands of men and women in the crisis pregnancy movement gave of themselves to help women and babies, their evangelical “leaders” did little more than cash in on fundraising opportunities and represent themselves as power-brokers to the craven politicians willing to kowtow to them.

Fast forward…

Today when I listen to Obama speak (and to his remarkable wife, Michelle) what I hear is a world view that actually nurtures life. Obama is trying to lead this country to a place where the intrinsic worth of each individual is celebrated. A leader who believes in hope, the future, trying to save our planet and providing a just and good life for everyone is someone who is actually pro-life.

Conversely the “pro-life” ethic of George W. Bush manifested itself in a series of squandered opportunities to call us to our better natures. After 9/11, Bush told most Americans to go shopping while saddling the few who volunteered for military service with endless tours of duty (something I know a little about since my son was a Marine and deployed several times). The Bush doctrine of life was expressed by starting an unnecessary war in Iraq that has killed thousands of Americans and wounded tens of thousands more.

The society that Obama is calling us to sacrifice for is a place wherein life would be valued not just talked about. As he said in his speech delivered on February 6 in New Orleans, “Too often, we lose our sense of common destiny; that understanding that we are all tied together; that when a woman has less than nothing in this country, that makes us all poorer.” Obama was talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but his words also apply to our overall view of ourselves.

Regardless of the official position of the Supreme Court on abortion, a country in which all Americans are offered some sort of dignity and hopeful future would be a place conducive to the kind of optimism each of us must hold in our hearts if we are to welcome children into this world. But if our highest aspiration is to be a consumer with no thought or care for our neighbor, we will remain a culture in which abortion is not only inevitable but logical.

What we need in America is a spiritual rebirth, a turning away from the false value of consumerism and utilitarianism that have trumped every aspect of human life. To implement this vision we need leaders that inspire but to do so they have to be what they say they are. It’s not about policy it’s about character.

Obama’s rivals for the nomination — the Clintons — do not inspire. When the Clintons were in the White House they talked about humane values while Bill Clinton betrayed every single person who voted for him by carrying on an unseemly sexual dalliance in the Oval Office with a young woman barely out of her teens. Since that time the Clintons have enriched themselves through their connections to a point where they’re able to make a $5 million personal loan to their campaign.

For someone who says she has spent “the last 35 years of my life as an advocate for children” and/or “fighting for healthcare” that’s a lot of money to have collected through doing good works. Presidential Mother Teresa wannabes shouldn’t be doing deals with uranium mining outfits in Kazakhstan while schmoozing with the likes of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and wealthy mining magnates — not if they want the moral authority to lead.

Similarly the Republicans have also been hypocrites while talking big, for instance about their pro-life ethic. But what have they achieved? First, through their puritanical war on sex education they’ve hindered our country from actually preventing unwanted pregnancy. Second, through the Republican Party’s marriage to the greediest and most polluting earth-destroying corporations they’ve created a climate (both moral and physical) that has scorched the earth for-profit, with no regard to future generations whatsoever. The Republicans are to the pro-life movement what the Clintons are to selfless public service.

The real solution to abortion is to change the heart of America, not the law. We need to stop seeing ourselves as consumers. We need to stop seeing ourselves as me and begin to think of we. Our country needs someone to show us a better way, a president who is what he seems, someone with actual moral authority that our diverse population can believe in who has the qualities that make us want to follow him. Obama is that person.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of “CRAZY FOR GOD — How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back”

This is just a friendly PSA, reminding you to vote today!

And may I just ask, is everyone as excited as I am about this election? I can’t wait to watch the returns tonight. My dad would be so proud–he was a Political Science professor who lectured me on politics until my eyeballs rolled back in my head and I fell out of my chair in a dead faint. I truly hated all things politics. I think Dad would be so intrigued by this election, and so happy to share that with a conscious daughter who was not up to her usual drama for a change.

The problem (the “elephant in the room” as Craig Schwarze would put it) is that the pro-life movement has failed - completely and spectacularly. Despite 30 years of protests, political action and even violence (albeit from a militant minority), western society has embraced abortion. Despite the efforts of the pro-life movement, support for abortion has increased since the early 1970s. While pro-life people argue and agitate to make abortion illegal, a considerable majority of people wish to keep it legal. Moreover, voting for politicians who support the pro-life camp has resulted in absolutely no change at all in abortion laws. For example, from 1994 until 2006, the US congress was controlled by conservative Republicans who had been voted in by the American people to enact conservative legislation - which included support from pro-life groups. Despite 12 years of congressional control (of which 6 years were spent under a conservative president who would not veto conservative legislation), Roe vs Wade was never repealed, abortions were not reduced and public opinion of abortion did not swing enough towards the pro-life position (if it swung at all).

One Salient Oversight argues (much more eloquently than I have attempted to do on here) that having a pro-life political stance may not be the best way to reduce abortions. He points out an interesting study that shows that countries where abortion is legal actually have lower rates of abortions than those countries where abortion is illegal. If you truly consider yourself to be in the pro-life camp, this is a must read post.

All of my adult life, I have heard people speak and preach about how as Christians we have an obligation to speak up for those who have no voice. The meaning of this was that we were to defend the unborn babies being aborted by the thousands and even millions. There were those who felt that everyone should join Operation Rescue. And then at one church where we had our membership, we were encouraged to participate in a march or at least a silent protest on Right-to-Life Sunday (the Sunday closest to the date of the Roe v Wade decision).

We–Chewydad and I–had family members get in our face and ask us exactly what we were doing to personally end abortion. We weren’t going to D.C. for the Right-to-Life march, and we didn’t picket abortion clinics. We might as well have been helping people get abortions in these well-meaning people’s eyes.

Some of the more radical tactics have died off, but there is still a movement among evangelical churches to pressure members to vote for only pro-life (Republican) candidates. The argument is still that as Christians we MUST speak up for those who have no voice. We must defend those who cannot defend themselves. I am starting to resent that pressure.

And I have a question.

Where are the Christians who have fought to give Brig a voice? Who has defended his right to be educated with his typical peers? Who has walked through IEP meetings with me, when I’m tearing my hair out because someone at the meeting doesn’t even want to allow him to walk through the halls of his high school without an aide present? Who sat with me while I was told that because of George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” plan, my child cannot possibly receive even an occupational diploma from high school, but will only be eligible for a certificate of attendance?

Who is defending Brig’s right to have more than $2000 to his name and still get medical insurance? He will never be able to hold down a full-time job, he can’t remain on our insurance, and the only way to see to it that he can receive the medical care he (and others with disabilities) need is through Medicaid. Who is helping see to it that Brig will be able to have housing and a care-giver? I mean, we are setting aside money for that ourselves, but who is defending the disabled poor who cannot do that?

Who is standing up and giving a voice to the widows and orphans? The disabled? The poor? Sure, some of those have a “voice” and can vote, but some can’t. And some need a stronger, louder, and richer voice. Because let’s face it, money talks. If a homeless man walks into City Hall and demands change, he’ll be laughed out of the building. But let the richest man in town walk in, and people will be all, “Yes, sir. How can we help you sir.” So who of us that has respect because of our assets is defending and helping those who cannot help themselves?

As I have been reminded, no one candidate is going to be and do everything I find important. I am going to have to decide which issues are top priority for me. After years of defending pro-life candidates in the voting booth, I am coming to a point of needing to speak for others. Like Brig. And that is why, although I have in no way decided who I am voting for or even which party I prefer, I keep mentioning the name Obama. I can’t help but be impressed with him. Take a look at his Plan to Empower Americans with Disabilities. If nothing else, at least I can say thank you to Obama for desiring to empower and give a voice to Brig and his peers.