rainy day prayer

I write my prayers; I have trouble articulating them otherwise. I don’t share them. This one, though, I wanted to share. It summarizes what I’ve been feeling spiritually for quite a few years now.

———

I’m at the point where I don’t know if I would recognize Your voice if I heard it. No, that’s not true. Your voice is this quiet, in this room, as cars go by in the rain like steady white noise, like waves. What does the voice say?

Peace, peace.

I can feel myself become calm. My heartbeat slows.

I guess I’m just not sure if that’s “good enough.” Most of my conversations about You now are like seeping wounds, barely just scabbing over. I feel like all I have to tell people is how the church let me down, how Christians let me down, how the different denominations (Lutheran, Episcopal, Evangelical, charismatic) let me down. I don’t really have a silver lining. Is that because something is wrong with me?

I guess the one good thing from all that I can tell someone everything You are not. You’re not loneliness in a crowd of girls at a Christian retreat, or an angry argument over Facebook, or the agonizing fear of demons in every corner. You’re not silence from friends after a church collapsed. You’re not shame. Rage. Hate.

But…what are You, then? Am I starting from scratch? I feel like my insides are scraped clean, ready to be filled with…what?

Easter season is about rebirth, right? I guess that’s what I ready for.

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Our Most Recent Church Small Group Endeavor

It had started snowing by the time we got to the house. It had rained all day, and there were weather warnings for the night and next day. Since Chris and I are both Midwestern, and most importantly, the car was Midwestern, we weren’t super worried. At least, not about that.

We were trying a new small group for the first time. It was connected to Chris’ church, and there were going to be food and games. I was relieved, because it meant I didn’t have to share anything too personal and deep, which it something I have a tendency to do when someone asks me. The last small group we had gone to, I had essentially relayed my whole story with depression, which fascinated the small group leader, like he had never met someone with depression before. He was perfectly nice and appropriate and everything, but I felt really on the spot.

So, I could easily avoid the life history if I wanted to. I started to get really nervous when we went to the door. I could hear children’s voices. When we rang the doorbell, a gaggle of kids opened it. Neither Chris or I really knew what to say. “Hi, we’re here for the small group” didn’t seem quite right, given our audience. The kids screamed, “People are here!” and then proceeded to close the door.

“Just go in,” I told Chris.

“They’re holding the door shut,” he replied.

Oh no.

After an agonizing minute or so, an adult human woman opened it. She had a baby tied to her chest and was extremely pregnant. She had an odd look (at least, I thought it was odd), like she was expecting us to try and sell her something.

“Is this the church small group?” Chris asked.

“Yeah! Come on in!”

We all introduced ourselves and went to the kitchen, where more introductions occurred. I quickly deduced that they were all dads, and it was their brood who had tried to shut us outside. For her sake, I was glad they weren’t all the kids of the woman who opened the door, but that meant that Chris and I were currently the only adults in the room who were not parents. Well, us, and the young guy whose zipper fly was down. I spent the next ten minutes or so trying to make my body as small as possible so kids would stop crashing into me, and sending a telepathic message to Chris to signal to Zipper Fly to zip up. I was not successful in either.

A few more people came, and with them, children. I became more and more uncomfortable. When it was time to eat, everyone stood staring at the food for what felt like an eternity, not wanting to go first.

“This is very Midwestern,” I murmured to Chris.

When we finally ate, Chris and I went first, because we were “the guests.” It was subtle, but then I realized that we were the only ones considered guests. That felt weird. I asked if we were all going to eat at the table in the room next door.

“Sit wherever! Make yourself at home!” the man of the house said.

Okey dokey.

Chris and I went to sit at the table and waited for the others to join us. No one came. I could see them, standing in the kitchen and eating. If I was someone else, I would have gotten up and went back into the kitchen, but I was not confident in my ability to hold a plate and eat. The kitchen was small, and with all the adults and assorted children running around, it was pretty much assured that I would drop my food everywhere.

Eventually, someone did come out. We had a painfully awkward conversation about where we were from, stuff to do in Oregon, and believe it or not, pressure cookers. I became absurdly enthusiastic sharing my knowledge, as if I was a salesperson for the Instant Pot. Another person came out and stood by the table. More painful conversation. All the while, two kids played with their fishing game at the table with us, lightly arguing about who had caught what fish. Eventually, both adults left because their kids needed food/help with the bathroom. I did not expect them to return.

At this point, I had checked out. We had not even reached the “game” portion of the evening, and I was dreading it. But I wasn’t going to say anything. Chris already knew how picky I was about people, so I wasn’t going to be the jerk and make him leave. To my surprise, he said he was going to make an excuse about work, so we could leave. We took our plates to the kitchen and Chris made his announcement. It triggered a few questions about what his career, and I realized that in our two conversations, they had always asked Chris what he did, but never me, even when the opportunity was right in front of them. We had only started talking about pressure cookers because Chris had brought up my freelance writing on my own and my newest project. I chose to not see it as sexism in action, but rather an indication of just how bad people are at talking to each other. The man of the house said we should come back another time.

“Definitely!” Chris said.

We got in the car and I declared that I needed hot chocolate. As I sang along to the radio, I noticed Chris had not spoken. He didn’t speak the entire drive, and even forgot where we were going, so we went to a different Dutch Bros than usual. When we got home and changed into our comfy clothes, I asked him if everything was okay.

“I’m just disappointed,” he said.

He didn’t talk much the rest of the night. I realized that the reason I didn’t feel anything about the bust of an evening was that I didn’t really expect anything. I knew what it was like to feel incredibly uncomfortable (and unwelcome) somewhere. I’ve been to my share of youth groups and churches, and had anxiety long enough to know what it feels like when an entire house seems to want to expel you from its walls. Chris isn’t that way. He’s endlessly gracious about people and optimistic about every situation he goes into. I sometimes think I would like for Chris to have a rough time somewhere so he can relate to me more, but seeing him so disappointed and quiet…it kind of broke my heart. I wanted him to be chatty and goofy with the dog. I wanted him to be himself again.

I think we should start our own small group. No kids. Read interesting books. Go do volunteer work. Be intentional about building a spiritual community that questions and builds up. I would sign up.

5 Things Church-Goers Should Know About Former Church-Goers

1. We don’t want to be invited to church

The reason we aren’t going to church is not because someone just hasn’t asked us yet. We’ve already been there, we know what it’s like. I have this thing where I go to small groups (I’ve been to, like, two) and see if the people are actually invested in people, or just getting people to the church. The first group was structured around the sermons, so right off the bat, it’s clearly intended for people who already go. For one of their outreach things, they went to a grocery store and handed out gift cards, but also included a church business card. It was a PR move, not a service project. It wasn’t about building relationships or meeting a real need (I’m sure people appreciated it, who knows what their stories are, but if the church really wanted to make the most impact, they would not have chosen a grocery store in one of the wealthier areas of town), it was about drumming up attendance. So, long story short, don’t invite us to church. Invite us into your lives. There’s a difference.

2. We didn’t necessarily stop becoming believers when we stopped going to church

When someone stops going to church, there’s an assumption that they’ve lost their faith. However, that is not necessarily the case. A person’s faith can actually become stronger when they leave church, because they’ve realized their convictions are not hinged upon going to a building every week, and that staying in a place where they don’t belong is harming their faith. I’ve never stopped loving Jesus.

3. Church PTSD is a real thing

Yes, someone’s experiences at church can be so bad, they start to manifest PTSD symptoms. People have been physically assaulted at church by church leaders, they have listened to damning sermons, they have been betrayed and abandoned by trusted mentors, and so on. That is trauma, and trauma has consequences. Going to church feels dangerous. It’s not like I can should just shop around or that I haven’t found the “right one,” it’s that the whole concept of church, the rituals, the decor, the music, the language, reminds of me all the bad things that have happened. Anxiety kicks in. Panic. My body is literally telling me to run.

4. We still want a community

It’s really hard to find a shared-faith community that is not a church. Right now, I’d say it is impossible. While the concept of “church” literally makes me want to throw up, I still want to find the people who love Jesus, but are having a real hard time justifying it. I still want that spiritual “mentor” of sorts, who I feel knows more than me, but still asks the big questions and doesn’t act like they have all their shit together.

5. We want to talk about why we left church

I guess I should really just say “I” want to talk about it. I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t want to talk about it. I just know that it’s kind of a weird moment when people have asked what church I go to, and I say that I don’t go, but Chris does, and they don’t ask why. Sometimes I offer a slew of reasons unprovoked, but they don’t dig deeper. They probably don’t want to be nosy, but at the same time, if you’re a church-goer, you should really be interested in why people are leaving the church in droves. The worst that could happen is the former church-goer saying, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

Image source: http://www.sbts.edu/blogs/2016/05/06/should-i-leave-my-church-8-critical-questions/

You can preorder my book!

Here’s the link to preorder my book! It would mean so much to me if ya’ll checked it out!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013HPUO00

I wrote a book!

So, I wrote a little book called “To the Brokenhearted: Being a Christian with Depression,” and it will be coming to Kindle very soon. I’m using their direct publishing service, and I’m super excited for everyone to check it out. It’s about my experiences with depression and anxiety, specifically as a Christian, and the lessons I’ve learned on how to deal with symptoms, people who deny mental illness, and so on. I have an author page on Facebook set up: https://www.facebook.com/eshubertyauthor

“Like” me and stay tuned!

With Unexpected Speed

I did not expect to be dealing with all this so soon.

I had recently passed my two-year anniversary and was looking out the car window at the blur of fields and barns. Occasionally we would pass clumps of trees, but they would fly by so fast, it was like they had never been there at all. When I tried to focus on a small detail like a single branch or house in the distance, it would immediately bleed into the oddly-linear hues of gray, green, yellow, brown, and blue. My mind was wandering. It had only been two years since I signed a piece of paper, said goodbye to my dog as he left for his new home with my in-laws, and woke up a married woman. In a lot of ways, it seemed like yesterday. However, it also seemed like forever ago. In those two years, me and my husband have dealt with mental breakdowns, horrendous medication withdrawals, a crisis of faith (ongoing), employment turmoil, sexual identity questions, loneliness, relationship doubts, and looming financial challenges. I was not naive when I got married. I knew all this and more was part of the deal; I just didn’t expect it all to happen so soon and so quickly.

Isn’t marriage supposed to have a honeymoon period? You know, that brief time when everything is rose-colored and you’re just happy to wake up next to your person every morning? I’m not saying I’m unhappy to be waking up with my person, but there was never a time when that happiness wasn’t mixed with anxiety and questions chewing on my brain like termites.

Is my unemployment a burden to this clear-eyed, optimistic, occasionally goofball-ish man I’ve yoked myself to?

Will the pharmacy screw up my medication again and disrupt my entire week with crippling muscle pain, headaches, and frantic doubts about everything? Are those bone-shaking doubts just symptoms of an unstable mind, or legitimate concerns I should be listening to?

Should I have gotten married when I did? Am I too young and immature? 

Will I ever be in a place to have kids? Do I even want kids? What happens to us if I don’t want kids? 

Even before we got married, we were faced with having to give up our dog Yoshi and the distinct possibility he would never be adopted. Thankfully, Chris’ parents took him back to Indiana with them, but that raises its own issues, like feeling the self-inflicted internal pressure to make enough money to get a place where we can take him back.

Do other married people have these problems? I’m sure they do. And I’m positive that couples have faced worse unemployment, worse debt, worse mental illness, and so on. I want to always be aware of the privilege I have, but I’m selfish and self-pitying. I see other couples with Instagram-perfect lives and go between feeling glad I’m not a fraud, and then furious that we’re not them. I see other couples having or planning babies, and I’m flabbergasted that they aren’t freaking the f*** out every minute of every day. I envy identity/orientation confidence. I envy white-picket fences and Tuesday date nights and dishwashers. But mostly, I fear.

I fear I will never be happy at the same church as my husband.
I fear 9-5 jobs and “work shoes” and imperfect bosses.
I fear eternal debt.
I fear little pink capsules and inefficient pharmacies.
I fear loneliness because I don’t dare get close to other women.

I fear God and His timing, which is so unlike our own, that to Him nothing is “unexpected, “too soon,” or “too late.” 

Depression as a Christian

One of my last assignments for school is to write a personal essay. My topic is my experience as a Christian with depression. I will be posting the full essay when it’s done, so for now, here’s an excerpt:

While seeing depression as a result of spiritual frailty or sin has become outdated, there’s still some odd Christian teachings surrounding it. Depression is viewed as a season and something that – with time and prayer – can be overcome. All my life people have told me to be patient, that they were praying for me, and that I would one day know the freedom and joy that only Jesus can bring. The longer the depression stayed, the less people talked about it. They got tired of telling me they were praying, and I got tired of hearing about it. Believing that depression is a sign of spiritual weakness is not popular, but if you suffer from prolonged depression, people start to wonder.

The Middle East is erupting. There are politicians running around and promoting going to war. Again. To not go to war is being painted by some as a cowardly move, to appear weak. To be strong, we have to kill. We have to blow things up. It doesn’t even matter that we acknowledge how terrible war is, it kind of makes it worse, at least in my mind. We know that war is hell, and yet we still encourage it.

I absolutely hate going to church services that revolve around Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. I hate that the American flag is placed in front of the church alongside the Cross. Why is being loyal to your country so synonymous with being willing to go to war for it? Why isn’t avoiding war, negotiating with hostile nations, and doing everything that can be done to save lives, something that is seen as admirable? And I’m not talking about just American lives. We are responsible for the deaths of so many because we are literally sending out robots to do the killing for us. As if by washing our hands of it, much like Pilate did when he handed Jesus over to the crowd, we are somehow avoiding the damned spot of guilt?

America loves to compare itself to other nations in terms of how “merciful” or “noble” we are. At least we haven’t killed as many as (insert other nation here). Sure, we go to war, but it’s for (insert reason here), which is a good reason. And then we have the audacity to get upset about gay marriage because America is a “Christian nation,” and letting gay people get married isn’t “Christian.” Because the internship of Japanese-Americans, nuking two Japanese cities, and participating in any war that results in the deaths of innocents is Christian. We haven’t been a Christian nation for a long time. Were we ever? America was born from war.

I’m not saying that I wish America never existed. I’m saying we’re not a Christian nation. It’s kind of impossible to be “Christian” and a “nation” in the same sense that all other nations have existed. America has literally been described as an empire. Rome was an empire, too. Maybe we’re like Rome not because “debauchery” exists, but because we wage war to spread our message of democracy. Alexander the Great did it. Genghis Khan did it. Jesus…did not. People expected him to do it, but He didn’t.

I’m also not saying that I don’t respect soldiers. They do what I could never do. I do believe that as a nation, we are grossly unequipped to help returning men and women, because we don’t fully explain to them what war really is. Commercials show strong, sturdy units, and the military is based on the principle that there are no individuals, there is only the group. You work together. But that’s not how the world really works. You can’t ignore your individuality and your own responses to the absolute horror that war is. When you come back, how are you going to deal with it? With continuing your life as an individual, in a nation that is obsessed with individual rights and individual happiness? We’ve seen what happens when soldiers return and they aren’t treated like heroes. The aftermath of Vietnam is notorious for its lack of parades and celebration of victory that WWI and WWII produced. Vietnam vets were bitter and angry. They didn’t know how to handle what they had gone through in a society blissfully unaware of the realities of war. Are parades necessary to somehow justify what soldiers have done in order to survive? That they’ve killed, but it’s different than murder? But what if a soldier doesn’t really believe that? Soldiers are part of a system that is inherently violent and inherently based upon not loving your enemies, but killing them, so how do we deal with this fact?

I don’t know. But as Christians we have to stop treating war like it’s something God would approve of. I know, I know, in the Old Testament, God sent His people into war, and I know it’s risky to draw a  line between the Old Testament and the New, but the fact of the matter is, it’s called the NEW Testament for a reason. When Jesus died and resurrected, everything changed. Including the idea that war was something we would be commanded to participate in. Jesus did not go to war with those who wanted to kill him. He did not raise his whip against the people in the temple who were selling and buying. He overturned their tables, he overturned the system, and when He willingly went to His death, he overturned the entire system of blood-for-blood that the world has completely bought into.

I credit my thoughts on this to the book “A Farewell to Mars,” by Brian Zahnd. It’s pretty much blowing my mind.

Photo: http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/079/5/0/19058_war_is_hell_horst_faas_by_americanrussian-d5yo5r4.jpg

What Does Love Look Like?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what love looks like. Not between two people, but more about the kind of love that Christians claim to represent. Especially when it comes to the Internet.

Before the Internet, people mostly just experienced love through physical interaction with other people. They could get their news from letters and television, but in terms of actual experience, it was mostly through churches or relationships with Christians, either long-term or in passing. The Internet changed everything. Now, I can interact with someone who lives in Malaysia who also likes Rachel Held Evans, or with someone in Louisiana who supports Phil Robertson. There is no limitation to who I can see, and who can see me, at least on public forums (I use Facebook privacy).

If you go to fan pages (especially for conservative Facebookers such as “Barack Obama’s Dead Fly,” and so forth), you don’t have to look very far to see someone who claims to be a Christian. However, many times, what they are saying and how they are representing themselves stands in sharp contrast with how we see “love.”

I understand that I am not supposed to judge who is a Christian or who is not, and so most of the time, I simply fall back on the belief that these people are just not able to see how they are behaving, and how non-Christians will see them. People are not completely bad or good. It is weird to see a person who posts something hateful, racist, sexist, or all of these things, and then moments later, says something about God that I have heard from some of my closest friends or family members. People are complicated. However, representation is important, and if someone is not a Christian and sees the kind of language and talk that is allowed to spread on some of these pages, how can anyone expect them to choose and follow the God these people claim to serve? Is this what love looks like?

A common sentiment I’ve heard from people who are blunt and harsh, is that love isn’t all rainbows and kittens. It’s this idea of “tough love,” of being “cruel to be kind.” They believe that Phil Robertson actually loves gay people and seem confused that anyone could believe anything differently. Really? When people throw around words like “abomination” or jokingly (or not so jokingly) wish death on anyone, is that coming out of a place of love? Would anyone say that Jesus was ever “cruel” to the people he was trying to reach out to? The only times he was really harsh to anyone was when his anger was directed at Pharisees.

Again, I don’t want to judge. I know some people who are great people, but when they get on the Internet, it honestly feels like they hate people. As for the strangers, I have no idea. Honestly, some of them seem like legit horrible people.

How you represent yourself is important. Maybe it’s more important to let go of this aggressive desire to seem confident and strong in your beliefs, and to just listen and be softer and make people feel welcome into your world. 

1 Corinthians 13

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 

Posts are all from public forums or from people whose profiles are open. No illegal measures were used to obtain anyone’s posts. If the post was taken from a personal profile, the names have been removed.

Why I Don’t Call Myself “Pro-Life” (As Defined By A Google Image Search)

I’ve been sitting on this blog topic for a while now, because I have a lot of thoughts and it’s controversial. I like to work through things when those two things collide. First of all, I’d just like to say that I do not like abortion. I don’t like to really think about the process of abortion, because I do not like it. In my perfect world, no woman would ever want or need one. But the world isn’t perfect. So we make due. I would also like to say that this post is about the movement as a whole, and not individual people whom I know. Most of the pro-lifers I know are genuinely kind people. However, there are aspects of their beliefs that I do not understand. 

I cannot buy into the whole pro-life stance because it confuses me on a couple of different levels. It’s inconsistent. It contradicts itself. It approves of certain people who should not be approved of. It lies. It manipulates. 

I have two main issues with the pro-life movement and its numerous organizations: 1) Its emotional manipulation and 2) Its inconsistency.

  I’m not sure when the emotional manipulation began for the pro-life movement, but I’m betting a lot of it was sparked by “The Silent Scream,” an anti-abortion film made in the ’80s that is famous (or infamous) for its graphic visuals and videotape of an actual abortion on a sonogram. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist, was behind the film. During the showing of the abortion, he says, “We see the child`s mouth wide open in a silent scream. . . . It is moving away in an attempt, a pathetic attempt, to escape. . . . This child senses the most mortal danger imaginable.” This is just horrible, and not because it’s true. The fetus was 12 weeks old. Other medical experts denied the fetus’ ability to move with purpose and it’s unlikely that the part of the brain that perceives pain was even formed yet.  It does not sense danger, it doesn’t know emotions. Don’t mistake my skepticism of Dr. Nathanson as callousness about abortion. Like I’ve said, I do not like abortion. I am not “pro-death.” I also do not like being manipulated. “The Silent Scream” is not an unbiased presentation of facts, it has an agenda, and could be called propaganda. This is why I am wary of pro-life and its aggressive attempts to hit upon my emotions; it has a very specific purpose and will not present ideas that contradict that purpose. Like the idea that fetuses can’t feel pain until a certain stage of development.     

This is my problem: I don’t like child prostitution. I think it’s horrendous. Do I go around waving pictures of a child being raped? No. Why? Because it’s unnecessary and is more disturbing than anything else. It shocks people. It doesn’t necessarily move them to action. Now, this isn’t a great example, because pretty much everyone who isn’t crazy also doesn’t like child prostitution. Abortion is different, because a ton of people don’t think it’s that bad or that fetuses aren’t people yet, so pro-lifers wave around pictures to show that, yes, this is actually a pretty violent thing. I get it. A better example would be if I was protesting what happened in Abu Ghraib and other enhanced interrogation techniques, and had signs with pictures of soldiers and prisoners. Images like that mostly just shock people and don’t actually change anyone’s mind. It’s especially troublesome when emotional manipulation involves children. Lots of children are involved in pro-life events, and it disturbs me. I don’t think a six-year old boy who doesn’t know what a vagina or sex is should be holding a grotesque sign of an aborted fetus. That’s just the worst. Even those Pro-Life Across America signs with cute babies saying cute things bother me. People who get abortions rarely have problems with babies themselves. It’s the whole being pregnant and changing their entire lives thing. Seeing a sign with a baby is not going to convince them about anything; it could even have the reverse effect and harden their hearts further. Because they know they’re being manipulated.

      This December, a suit was filed by the ACLU against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops because of a situation where a woman received improper medical care from a Catholic hospital. After 18 weeks, her water broke and she went to the only hospital in her county, which was Catholic. She was given medication for her pain and sent home. She returned the next morning with bleeding and was again told to go home. The third day, she went back yet again, where she miscarried and the baby died. Medical officials reviewed the case and concluded that the hospital should have informed the woman that her baby had next to no chance of surviving and that removing the fetus was an option. The hospital’s actions could have resulted in the woman developing a fatal infection. The ACLU decided to file the suit against the Conference instead of the hospital because this is only one of many cases where religious policies put upon Catholic hospitals has resulted in dangerous medical practices.

      This is just one example of where the pro-life movement (especially in situations involving the Catholic church) is inconsistent in its claim that it values all life. Doctors have been excommunicated for performing emergency abortions to save the life of the mother. In Ireland, one of the strictest countries in terms of abortion law, a woman who was 17 weeks pregnant was told she was miscarrying baby, but was then denied an emergency termination. Despite the woman’s severe pain, the doctors said that they had to wait until the baby had no heartbeat. When they determined the baby had indeed died, they removed the fetus. Savita Halappanavar died four days later of a blood infection.

      In the Dominican Republic, where all abortions are banned, 16-year old Rosa died after her cancer treatment was delayed 20 days because the chemotherapy could have terminated her pregnancy.  The ban in the Dominican Republic made headlines in 2009 when it was put in place and received support from American pro-life groups. LifeNews, a popular pro-life website, quoted one of the Americans involved: “We have witnessed firsthand the grievous slaughter of innocent children in America, and we are committed to helping our friends in the Dominican Republic to avoid the same mistakes.”

Was he thinking about the women who might be affected by this ban? What about their lives? It’s easy to justify outright bans by saying how rare Rosa’s circumstances are, and even how rare pregnancy by rape or incest is, but that’s dangerous thinking. It erases all the women it does affect, which number thousands in the US alone. Each life is important, isn’t it? Or does that only apply to the unborn?

     It’s been a criticism of the pro-life movement for a long time, that they only seem to care about fetuses, and as soon as that kid is born, it’s on its own. We’ve got pro-life politicians voting to restrict abortion and then in the same day, voting to cut food stamps and arguing against minimum wage. I’ve seen people mocking those who want higher wages by saying they deserve what they have, because they aren’t “skilled” enough to get more. So you’ve got a sixteen-year old girl who drops out of high school to raise the baby YOU wanted her to have, and then you’re saying she doesn’t really need those food stamps, and that she shouldn’t be earning more per hour at McDonald’s because “McDonald’s was never intended to be a career.” Oh, the compassion. Again, I’m not saying all pro-lifers are cold-hearted monsters. Most of the people I know would want to help the 16-year old mom and wouldn’t be jerks about it, but what I am saying is look at who you are voting for and look at the inconsistencies. They may wear the Pro-Life badge, but what else are they wearing? Do they actually care about people? Or are they just spouting some emotional tirades about thumb-sucking ultrasounds to get your check mark?

    Another area where the pro-life movement is glaringly inconsistent is when it comes to sex education and contraception. Over and over again, abstinence-only education has been proven to fail. The idea that sex education promotes or hastens sexual activity among teens has also been proven false. Many Christian pro-life organizations continue to push for it. Face it: if someone is going to have sex, a teacher telling them not to is not going to change their mind. People also make mistakes and compromise their values. They need a safety net. You can’t just say that kids should learn about sex from their parents and that it’s not the school’s business, and then when the parents fail at that and a teenager gets pregnant, suddenly leap in the ring and start telling everyone what to do. Why so interested now and not before? Again, is it worth your time just because there’s a fetus involved?

       Most people are also misinformed about contraception, and pro-life groups calling morning-after pills “abortion pills” (which do exist, but are not the same as morning-after) does not help. Christians all too often also promote (or at least passively approve) the idea that women who use contraception are “sluts.” A woman only needs to be having sex with one person to need birth control. So, relax. It’s not like every woman who gets her hands on birth control is going to lose her mind and start having sex with anything that moves. There aren’t some libido-boosting chemicals in those things. People also get upset at the idea that insurance will cover birth control and recently, that Obamacare will cover more women than ever before. Isn’t that a good thing? More birth control means less unwanted pregnancies means less abortions. This ties into the inconsistency thing for me – people get all red-faced about paying for birth control and then get super mad about abortions. One thing could have prevented the other, and if you really believe that abortion is murder, then paying for birth control is waaaaay less morally objectionable than having taxes go towards abortion (which they do not), so what is the real issue here? Is this really about saving babies, or is it about sex you don’t want women to have? It sounds like it’s about sex, especially when people say that getting pregnant is a “consequence” of having sex, so women should just deal with it and not get an abortion. I thought a baby was a blessing, not a punishment. Make up your mind. This is confusing to me. If I’m going to call myself pro-life, I don’t want all this extra “NO SEX FOR YOU” and “NO BIRTH CONTROL EITHER” hanging around.

    Abortion should not be banned. Number one reason: it does not actually stop abortion. In Africa and Latin America (where most countries have very tight restrictions), abortion rates are about 29 per 1,000 and 32 per 1,000. In Western Europe (where abortion permitted on “broad grounds), the rate is 12 per 1,000. In countries where the restrictions are the most strict, abortions are also the most unsafe, so more women die. Now, these numbers are not to be blindly taken as truth (the Guttmacher Institute faces a decent amount of criticism because of its number-gathering methods in certain countries, though I found only one legit source that criticizes them, and then the rest are all pro-life/Christian websites and blogs, soooooo a little biased there), but I’m inclined to believe that in countries that are considered “developing” – where there’s a lack of modern medical care in rural areas, high poverty rates, little access to birth control, and very strict abortion laws – there are going to be a lot of abortions done unsafely (either self-induced or by non-professionals). If a woman wants to have an abortion, she will get an abortion. And she might die in the process.

     Reason two – The women who are the most vulnerable and most at risk will be the ones to suffer most. I’m talking about pregnant women with cancer, rape victims, women at risk for infections, women who can’t bear the thought of their child being born only to suffer for a few hours and then die, women whose babies will be born dead….this is not emotional manipulation, these are facts. People can try and dismiss the statistics, and just focus on a teenager who made a mistake and wants a “quickie abortion,” but the reality is there is no one type of person who would ever want an abortion. That’s important to at least think about, to look at their stories, to hear their reasons, and not to just shame them and write them as “baby killers.” Who is that helping?

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Side Bar:

I also come across this thing where people are all like, “You care about this typhoon in Indonesia/any other horrible thing in the world? Well, babies are dying! Isn’t that worse?” Like it’s some kind of competition. Or this has happened a couple times, where I say how sad those polar bears commercials make me, or that Sarah McLachlan ad about the animals, and I get this aggressive “Abortion is the new Holocaust!” thrown in my face. Yesssss, that is also bad. Which is why I support more birth control, comprehensive sex education, and less shaming about children outside of marriage…what exactly do you think? And, as a head’s up, don’t go around calling things “the new Holocaust” or saying things are “like the Holocaust.” Because it’s not. It’s not the systematic extermination of a certain race and faith by a dictator, and yes, I do in fact know that Margaret Sanger was into eugenics, but did you know that organizations can change and not hold to every wacko idea that their founders had? Henry Ford was way into eugenics too, but we still buy Ford. Calm down.

Also, google “Pro life” and look at what comes up. A LOT of emotional appeals there. And shaming. Like that nice little bumper sticker that says, “The root cause of abortion is selfishness.” Really? Is it? Every time? Ok. I’ll stick that on the car of the politician who said that abortions in situations where the mother’s life is at risk are about “convenience.”

 

Sources:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-03-17/news/8501150835_1_fetus-dr-bernard-nathanson-abortion

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/us/lawsuit-challenges-anti-abortion-policies-at-catholic-hospitals.html?_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/08/world/europe/ireland-abortion-controversy

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/18/world/americas/dominican-republic-abortion/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/11/07/study-finds-abstinence-only-programs-fail-to-reduce-teen-sexual-behavior/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/brian-nieves_n_3640587.html