Mandatory Motherhood

The cover article of a recent issue of New York magazine was entitled "My Abortion". It included first-person accounts from 26 women who had abortions between 1968 and 2013. While each woman's story is gripping and provides vital perspective, there is one I haven't been able to get out of mind.

In 2002, Cherisse, a paralegal, thought she was going to an abortion clinic, but the ultrasound technician she was referred to told her that having an abortion would ruin her uterus for bearing children in the future. Cherise kept that baby, but went on to have three abortions over the next five years before meeting a "reproductive-justice advocate who finally taught me how to understand my fertility."

And Cherisse is but one voice for throngs of desperate women seeking to make the best choices in difficult situations. Why would anyone who opposes abortion not want to equip women with the knowledge they need? Why not teach women to understand and care for their own bodies? Why rely on "lies and scare tactics"? Why give misleading or erroneous information like telling women they can go to college for free if they have a child?

At the ripe age of fourteen and a half, I was already learning and spouting many lies myself, winning a $50 prize from Right to Life for a speech in which I announced that "more abortions have occurred from Christians using the Pill than in all the abortion clinics combined" and lauded a couple in Tennessee with eleven offspring. I quoted the Old Testament: "Be fruitful and multiply" and paraphrased from the prophet Malachi. "God's purpose for marriage is that Godly offspring might be raised from the union."

Parroting arguments I'd heard, I threw myself headlong into subjects of which I was almost completely ignorant: "Islam is the most rapidly growing religion today", I said, "because of their respect for life. The average Islamic woman has six children; that's really pro-life!" And I went on: "Children are blessings, God's rewards to those who fear Him. But why do we place a limit on how many we'll take? With attitudes like that, how can ever expect to persuade the world to abolish abortion? Today many couples are having reversal surgeries and trusting God for more children..."

Little did I realize that I was promoting arguments from the Middle Ages. 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas posited that an unprotected vagina was the only place a man could ejaculate without imperiling his soul. For centuries since, this teaching on sex has been part of the good news of the gospel the Roman Catholic Church has promoted around the world. And if that isn't enough, the Church also opposes all forms of contraception.

Little did I dream standing under a portrait of the Pope on that spring night, that ten years later my own parents would have produced eleven children, that another three years later I would have conceived every time I ovulated since my marriage, that there was nothing natural about natural family planning, that condoms were as essential for my babies' wellbeing as for my own, that birth control is an expression of selflessness, and that one day my husband's vasectomy would be an occasion for rejoicing.

Cherisse was in Chicago, but women in Kansas face similar hurdles to self-care. Take A Better Choice, for example, a crisis pregnancy center operated by the Catholic Church. ABC offers pregnancy testing, STD education, information about abortion procedures, compassion, and "chastity mentoring". On the other side of town, the evangelical Pregnancy Crisis Center of Wichita offers pregnancy tests, STD testing, counseling on abstinence, parenting classes, Bible studies, and adoption information. PCC's website assures clients:

"Everything we do is focused on empowering you to make healthy, informed choices. Here you will meet people who care about you."

However, it also states:

"PCC is a limited medical facility and does not provide or refer for abortions or birth control."

Dr. Scott Stringfield is a family practitioner who is also the chairman of the board at Choices Medical Clinic, an anti-abortion organization affiliated with Via Christi Health that has the stated goal of helping women "come to know Christ". The Bible is his favorite book and his faith his primary passion. Stringfield serves on the faculty of Via Christi's Family Medicine residency program: according to the Choices website, the clinic has served as community rotation for over 200 residents. Nursing students from Wichita State also rotate at Choices, and the clinic offers internships for student sonographers from Washburn University. 

When asked recently--at a Q & A after a film screening in Wichita last month--about how his clinic helps women to avoid future unplanned pregnancies and whether he and his staff counsel women about contraception after delivery, Dr. Stringfield squirmed a bit. He does not see access to birth control as a problem for his clients. According to Dr. Stringfield, a woman can easily purchase contraceptives (condoms) at Walmart. But he had to choose his words carefully because he does, indeed, have a moral objection to any birth control method that might prevent a fertilized egg from becoming a pregnancy.

As a Protestant, Dr. Stringfield does not hold any religious objection to "barriers" that prevent sperm from entering a cervix, but after that...  Information on abortion risks? Oh, my, yes. But information on how not to get pregnant again? Well, no, that is a service Choices Medical Clinic does not currently offer.

My own unplanned pregnancy forever changed my perspective on reproductive rights. I well remember months of guilt and confusion, trying to learn about my body and sort out myth from fact. I often fantasized about visiting the pregnancy crisis center down the street, not that I needed financial help or was debating my options: I just longed for support, compassion, and honest information about controlling my fertility. What could they tell me, I wondered, to help me be there for my babies instead of dazed and sick on the couch? I loved sex, and I loved my husband, but I had no intention of spending the rest of my childbearing years pregnant! I wanted to be a devoted mom, an energetic wife. So what options did I have?

Today, ten years later, I finally called, heart racing as emotional memories flooded my soul. I chatted with a nurse--I'll call her Susan--on the Choices staff. I told her about Cherisse's experience. I told her about my own. I asked her what services are available to help women prevent future unwanted pregnancies. At first she echoed Dr. Stringfield's remarks, saying that women can purchase condoms at the grocery store. I agreed, but pointed out that condoms require a high degree of cooperation and are of little efficacy if a woman finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship.

"Susan" told me that her clinic refers pregnant women to either Via Christi (a Catholic hospital) or GraceMed (with ties to both Via Christi and Wesley Medical Center (HCA)) for prenatal and obstetric services. A discussion about contraception would presumably take place between a woman and her doctor after delivery.

"Do you tell them that the doctors at Via Christi cannot offer contraceptives?" I asked (remembering a conversation in our Catholic doctor's office).

No, the women are not told that. However, if a pregnant woman states that she does not want any more children in the future (i.e., desires a tubal ligation), the Choices staff will recommend she go to GraceMed, because Via Christi doctors are not permitted to perform that surgery.

Our conversation was cordial, and I could feel at its close that "Susan" could see how offering prenatal care is not enough. "We really need to have a talk about that here," she said. Perhaps she really had never pondered the subject before.

Women who don't want to get pregnant need options. They need to be empowered and educated about their own bodies. Right now, anti-abortion groups are focused on "supporting" pregnant women and telling women not to let a penis come near their vagina. As if married women never need to avoid pregnancy! Do they assume that married women don't even want sex anymore? Or that once a woman has borne a child, she knows all she needs to know about how to prevent it next time?

Certainly planned pregnancies account for some abortions, but if opponents of abortion also refuse to educate women about fertility or allow them access to contraceptives they can use on their own, how can they ever hope to reduce the number of abortions? I was largely ignorant of birth control methods when I became sexually active (after marriage, in my case), and I have written elsewhere of my experience trying to educate myself without breaking any commandments or accidentally creating any new human life. 

When Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics are the only organizations offering to help women understand, manage, and guard their fertility, it is time for the anti-abortion movement to realize that it is not about protecting or supporting women--it is about protecting fetuses by controlling women and making motherhood mandatory.

Un-Natural: Family Planning

Libby Anne's post about Natural Family Planning this morning triggered some powerful flashbacks for me. Our experience with abstinence as birth control had life-changing effects, raising questions I had never before allowed myself to ask and permanently altering my worldview. A decade later, the memories knot my stomach and leave my body shaky.

We were young married newlyweds, parents of a tiny newborn. We had spent years immersed in Quiverfull theology and had been virgins all the way up to the honeymoon. Our daughter arrived before our first anniversary; we had zero knowledge of birth control. And after all those years of abstinence, we were far from bored with sex!

But... my fertility cycle resumed eight weeks postpartum. We wanted more children, but we certainly didn't want them a year apart. Still newlyweds, and now first-time home owners as well, we were overwhelmed by the sudden changes and challenges of parenthood  including a home birth, lactation difficulties, sleep deprivation, and friends with various opinions on vaccination! Financially, we were comfortable enough, but we were struggling to find a supportive social network and we had only barely begun to recognize the harmful psychological effects of the cult we had only recently separated from.

Trying to be responsible parents while not compromising our moral convictions, we considered our options. At our doctor's recommendation, we started using the Creighton model of Natural Family Planning, paying $25 a session to meet with a certified trainer and discuss our charts, with our baby in her infant carrier on the floor of the tiny office a few doors down the hall from our doctor's practice. We liked our coach. We visited her church once, borrowed books from her, read quotes from the Pope on the office walls, and even toyed briefly with becoming Catholic.

Practicing NFP involved a steep learning curve, but we are both smart and we had years of experience with following rules to the letter. We wanted each other desperately, but since I was breastfeeding, it seemed there were only about five days a month when the method gave us a "green light" to have intercourse. It was so complicated, we even got a sheet of yellow stickers to use besides the basic set of colors. And it soon became clear that sex would always be forbidden on days when my libido was high. NFP may have been "100% natural", but we were certainly fighting hard against God-designed nature!

When I found myself pregnant again before M was even seven months old, I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe it. We were at a loss to know how this could have happened when the method was promoted by doctors and on city-wide billboards as 99% effective. After all those weeks of stress, tears, and painfully conscientious hugging, how could we be the 1%? We showed up for our next appointment, and told our [to us] shocking news. The method had failed us.

Our coach looked at me compassionately. "Merciful Mother-!" she murmured under her breath. Then she reviewed our chart, to figure out what had gone wrong, I thought. "Here," she tapped on a square. "This should have been a different colored sticker. You had intercourse on a day when you were actually fertile, and you achieved desired pregnancy. The method worked the way it was supposed to." Achieved desired pregnancy! Wha-?

So that's how they get their statistics. NFP works to avoid pregnancy (on infertile days), and to achieve pregnancy (when a couple makes love while fertile). The mystery is figuring out which ones are which ahead of time. When our coach submitted our records, we were considered a "success". We used informed abstinence to successfully achieve a pregnancy. I left her office feeling embarrassed, ignorant, and ashamed. I had to read the fertility signs, after all. Only I could tell if the cervical mucus felt "slippery", "lubricative", or just "smooth". Rather than an excited and responsible couple expecting their second child, we felt like scolded teenagers who'd just been grounded for accidentally breaking a rule. We just loved each other too much.

That was a hard year for me. The next two years are really kind of a blur. I had to wean the baby girl I adored. When she injured her elbow and was taken away crying for x-rays, I had to wait in the lobby with tears in my own eyes. I didn't have the energy to be the mom I wanted to be. I was anemic, slept a lot, and gained a lot of weight. I prayed to miscarry at first, then felt guilty when I had early contractions at 30 weeks. During that pregnancy I rethought my theology, read up on all kinds of birth control methods, and learned a lot about human biology. I wasn't ready to give birth again, but I did it. I only remember the following months because of the photos we took.

After the delivery, our NFP coach called us to set up appointments again. We hadn't come far enough to be honest yet. We said we weren't sure; we were considering other methods. "Condoms aren't effective," she warned, sounding anxious. We said we'd call her. We never did.

Fertility awareness is a wonderful and important part of being a woman, but it is no substitute for contraception when a sexually active couple is unprepared for pregnancy. And it is morally wrong for religious or health professionals to suggest that it is. 

Reflections On My Childhood, Part III

I have been a bookworm since I learned to read at five years old. I loved Little House on the Prairie, Heidi, and Little Women, as well as history and pretty much any biography: inventors, spies, soldiers, presidents, escaped slaves, authors, businessmen, missionaries, and influential women.

I liked to play in an imaginary world of my own. In my imagination, I always went back in time. I was a pioneer, a forerunner on the prairie, an explorer, a scout sent to tame the wilderness ahead of modern civilization. Or I was blind, exploring my world through other senses. Or I was a conscientious mother to my doll baby, whom I carried on my back while performing my chores, papoose-style. What looked like my pink bicycle was actually my horse, Rosalind, stabled in our garage. Sometimes she was a bay, sometimes a chestnut.

My brothers and I, along with the two kids next door, would go mining in the sandbox. We created a miniature river, waterfall, and reservoir for our play figures to explore. We set up a tent in the backyard and cut up young cucumbers, baby carrots, and tiny onions from our mothers' gardens to make soups in little pots on our imaginary campfire. I can still taste the savory warm water and the tender onion-seasoned vegetable chunks, softening in the summer sun.

Nina was my "best friend". Our parents went to church together. When I was about seven, we joined several families for a Fourth of July picnic at her house and I got to try riding a bike without training wheels. I remember Nina's dad and another dad in the group patiently helping me balance and gently giving the bike a push down the path toward the barn, over and over.

I spent the night at Nina's house several times. We would giggle and play and stay up too late listening to cassette tapes or just reading. Her dad would come in and pray with us before we fell asleep. I remember being surprised that she prayed directly to Jesus ("put angels in my pillow") while I always prayed to God, "in Jesus' name". It was a small distinction, perhaps, but I puzzled over it.

I thought Nina's dad was terrific; he was at ease with kids and his sense of humor kept me laughing. He was a veterinarian and we once got to watch while he performed an emergency c-section on a cow. When he taught our Sunday School class, in a classroom full of desks that also served the church's private school, I repeated his puns in the car all the way home.

Homeschooled during the week, Sunday School was my place to shine. I knew all the answers and memorized Bible verses easily. When I completed one class memorization assignment, the teachers presented me with my own copy of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. When I showed my parents my prize, they wouldn't let me keep it. Fantasy was frowned upon in our home, as were witches--which were not considered fantastic. We returned the paperback to the local Christian bookstore and exchanged it for something safe, without witches.

When Nina came to my house, we were known to spend most of the visit swapping books and reading together. Once, I had to run down to my dad's study, where our fathers were deep in conversation, to find the book I wanted. They looked up as I slipped in and headed straight for the bookshelf. Nina's dad seemed a bit surprised when I selected Tortured For His Faith, by Haralan Popov. I was rather proud of my grown-up taste in literature.

By that time many of my favorite books were about danger and suffering, about spirit and faith in the face of terror. The villains in these stories were communists, atheists, Nazis, Russians, Romans, Germans, southern slaveholders, Catholic prelates, or animistic "uncivilized" tribesman. I learned a lot very young about torture--both physical and mental, about cruelty, about interrogation techniques. I read and reread stories of measured starvation, of brainwashing, of monotony, of forced labor, of families kept apart. I was aware of the psychological effects of isolation, overcrowding, and sleep deprivation. I devoured tales of codes, smuggling, and covert communication.

I also read of missionaries who spent years getting themselves into dangerous situations, then prayed and struggled heroically to save themselves or their families from near-death. Some, like the five New Tribes men in Bolivia in 1942 and the five men who died in Ecuador in 1956, went into the heart of the jungle never to return to their wives and small children. I read vivid accounts of men dying alone (Dave Yarwood in Bolivia in 1951) or being murdered in front of their wives and children (John Troyer in Guatemala in 1981). They were all my heroes.

David Brainerd kept a depressing diary while he tried to save the Indians, but died of tuberculosis (at 29) before he could marry his girlfriend, who followed him to the grave a few months later. William Carey left a great linguistic legacy in India, but the poor wife he dragged there after God "called" him suffered so much trauma in the process that she went mad. Adoniram Judson buried two wives and numerous children in Burma. Bill Borden died of meningitis in  Egypt at age 25, long before reaching the Muslims in China that God had called him to convert.

When we got a video player during my teen years, many of our movies weren't any more cheerful. In one of my favorites, a Japanese man threw himself under a runaway train, saving the other passengers. In the film, his fiancee took it even better than I did, glowing in the memory of his selfless love. Roman Catholics were the bad guys in BJU's gruesome "Flame in the Wind" and the Reformation histories of William Tyndale and John Hus, while other Protestants were the perpetrators in "The Radicals", cutting out Michael Sattler's tongue before burning him at the stake.

We never skipped the martyrdom scenes, though we often jumped over romantic parts of movies, especially if the women's costumes even hinted at cleavage. We even fast-forwarded through scenes in movies produced by Worldwide Pictures (Billy Graham's film production company)! Tenderness and sexuality--beyond a chaste married kiss--were repressed, but cruelty and violence were commonplace. Satan was our enemy, after all, out to destroy us. We were soldiers for Christ and had to be ready to lay down our lives for his standard.

Even at ten years old, I took my responsibilities as a missionary rather seriously. Since I didn't often leave my own yard except to go to church or the grocery store with my parents, my evangelization opportunities were few. My Grammie didn't seem terribly receptive to converting, and she didn't seem very unsaved anyway. My neighbors were all churchgoers. But their friends didn't quite look like Christians. Two girls near my age would come over (to my neighbors' house) from time to time and we would all occasionally play together. A. & A. went to gymnastics and would practice cartwheels on the lawn. Somersaults were the limit of my flexibility, but I had a greater gift: eternal life.

One afternoon when A. & A. were visiting next door, I talked to them across the fence and said I had something important to share with them. They should come to my window in an hour and I would have it ready. As luck would have it, Mom was serving dinner when the appointed time came. I slipped away from the table, opened the window, and began to earnestly try to explain to the girl outside why she should care about what I was about to give her. One of my parents came looking for me and wanted to know what was going on. Embarrassed, I handed A. a pocket-size Gospel of John, shut the window, returned to supper, and indefinitely postponed my illustrious missionary career.

The Rights of Women

Quick history review:

One hundred years ago, women in America were still marching for the right to vote.

An American suffrage event in 1913

Jeanette Rankin, the lonely female voice in Congress in 1917, was proud to vote for woman's suffrage. Her male colleagues finally approved women's voting rights in 1920, ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment more than forty years after Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first drafted it. Men in Switzerland did not approve federal female suffrage till 1971.

Much more recently, married women in Wichita still needed their husband's permission to get a library card and women in Memphis could only get a library card in their husband's name.

In the 1980's, I grew up in a religious cult that did not permit women to wear pants (lest they cause a man to lust after them and rape them). Contraception was also considered immoral, so my mother had 15 pregnancies: 4 miscarriages, 11 births. When I realized (just a few years ago!) that women actually have equal rights with men, I was amazed. And then I discovered that those rights are under attack right here in heartland.

For example, our governor and some of our male state legislators are continually eroding, in the name of religion, the rights of Kansas women to not be pregnant. If women were making these rules, that affect only women after all, maybe I would feel differently. But these men were born with the right to never be pregnant. Why would they insist that a woman grow another human inside her body against her will?

My daughters need to know they can be whatever they want to be. That motherhood is their choice--even if they are victims of sexual violence. Even if they are minors. Even if their birth control fails. Even if they are ignorant or irresponsible. Even if they don't discover they are pregnant until 8 weeks later. And if they choose to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion, they should not have to fight a state-mandated obstacle course of shame, fear and lies. 

Men, especially religious men, have a long history of telling women how God intended women's bodies to be used:

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another...
--St. Paul (Romans 1:26-27)

You really wrote that, Paul? "The natural use of the woman"? Oh, God. Got that straight from Him, did you? You'll be glad to know the church in Rome took it seriously. In fact, they've spread the good news all over the globe--letting it be known that the only morally acceptable place for a male orgasm is inside a woman's vagina. Yep. Thanks, Paul.

Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
--St. Paul (I Corinthians 11:9)

Of course. What was I thinking?

But others drink potions to ensure sterility and are guilty of murdering a human being not yet conceived.
--St. Jerome (Letter 22, to Eustochium 13)

How the heck? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Therefore, women do wrong when they seek to have children by means of evil drugs. They sin still more grievously when they kill the children who are already conceived or born, and when by taking impious drugs to prevent conception they condemn in themselves the nature which God wanted to be fruitful. Let them not doubt that they have committed as many murders as the number of the children they might have begotten.
--St. Caesarius of Arles (Sermon 51, 4; CC 103, 229)

Inconceivable!

By that primitive name [Eve], says he, He showed for what labor the woman had been provided; and He said accordingly, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Now, who among ourselves denies that the woman was provided for the work of child-bearing by the Lord God, the beneficent Creator of all good?
--St. Augustine (On Marriage and Concupiscence, Book II, Chapter 12)

 I guess no one else is going to do it...

...We see how weak and sickly barren women are. Those who are fruitful, however, are healthier, cleanlier, and happier. And even if they bear themselves weary—or ultimately bear themselves out—that does not hurt. Let them bear themselves out. This is the purpose for which they exist. It is better to have a brief life with good health than a long life in ill health.
--Martin Luther (The Estate of Marriage, LW 45)

I've seen such women. It is a heartbreaking sight.

Woman is more guilty than man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. It is necessary that woman recognize this, and that she learn to what she is subjected; and not only against her husband. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame.
--John Calvin (author of Institutes of the Christian Religion, cited by Brown in An Apology to Women)

So glad I don't live in Calvin's Geneva.

Woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him. After the fall, she was made subject to man by the irrevocable sentence of God. In which sentence there are two parts.
    (a) A dolor, anguish and pain as oft as ever she shall be a mother.
    (b) A subjection of her self, her appetites and will to her husband and his will.
From the former part of this malediction can neither art, nobility, policy nor law made by man deliver women: but, alas, ignorance of God, ambition and tyranny have studied to abolish and destroy the second part of God's punishment.
--John Knox (First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women)

And so it goes on. From Calvin and Knox to Doug Phillips and Jim Bob Duggar. Let the women kill fleas!

Sisters, we have come far. Occasionally with the support of religious groups, more often without. Our daughters are watching us to determine their own value. For their sake, let's not give up any of our hard-won progress now.

The Catholic Church

In this case, nobody says it better than Stephen Fry. 

Why We Need Abortion

Abortion is nothing new. For as long as sexual intimacy has provided pleasure and birth has been painful and life-threatening, some women have taken their fate into their own hands and attempted to prevent "nature" from taking her course. 

In her article for the New York Times, Kate Manning lists some of the dangerous and horrible methods used by desperate women throughout history to induce miscarriage. In the mid-1800's, newspapers carried numerous advertisements for abortifacient remedies. And in 1930, one-fifth of the reported maternal deaths were caused by [illegal] abortion. 

"What is most striking about this history of probes and poisons is that throughout all recorded time, there have been women so desperate to end a pregnancy that they were willing to endure excruciating pain and considerable risk, including infection, sterility, permanent injury, puncture and hemorrhage, to say nothing of shame and ostracism. Where abortion was illegal, they risked prosecution and imprisonment. And death, of course."

Consider Jan Wilberg's story of her risky and illegal abortion in 1967 after a single sexual encounter with her boyfriend. A teenager, a college freshman, Jan did not have the security of a home herself in which to raise a child. Neither was the boyfriend prepared to provide one. She describes the feeling of being trapped in a dark corner while her boyfriend could be nonchalant:

"It wasn’t right to punish women who have been cornered by circumstances — unplanned pregnancy, no job, no money, no options — by daring them to find the $250 illegal abortionist in their city or worse. It wasn’t right that women should have to pay for a mistake with their fear, risk their future health and their very lives while men could walk away and be free." [emphasis mine]

Today, thanks to brave doctors, good medical schools, and Roe v. Wade, abortion is among our safest procedures. Bearing a child carries more risks than abortion. According to Amnesty International's report on maternal health, nearly half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended and two women die of pregnancy/birth complications every day. African-American women are four times more likely than white women to die of pregnancy-related complications. If the pregnancy is deemed high-risk, those odds are even higher. According to the 2010 report, the state of Georgia has a maternal mortality rate of 20.5 per 100,000 live births and reporting of maternal death is not even mandatory there!

"More than a third of all women who give birth in the USA – 1.7 million women each year – experience some type of complication that has an adverse effect on their health."

According to a study by ANSIRH of the effects of abortion on women's health and economic situation, specifically comparing women who received abortions with those who wanted abortions but could not obtain them (turnaways), the women who received abortions were better off than those who continued the unwanted pregnancy.

"When a woman is denied the abortion she wants, she is statistically more likely to wind up unemployed, on public assistance, and below the poverty line.

"Turnaways were more likely to stay in a relationship with an abusive partner than women who got abortions. A year after being denied an abortion, 7% reported an incident of domestic violence in the last six months. 3% of women who received abortions reported domestic violence in the same time period. Foster emphasized that this wasn't because the turnaways were more likely to get into abusive relationships. It was simply that getting abortions allowed women to get out of such relationships more easily....

"... the Turnaway Study found no indication that there were lasting, harmful negative emotions associated with getting an abortion. The only emotional difference between the two groups at one year was that the turnaways were more stressed.

"...But turnaways did face a greater health risk from giving birth. Even late stage abortions are safer than giving birth. The researchers said at the APHA meeting: 

'We find physical health complications are more common and severe following birth (38% experience limited activity, average 10 days) compared to abortion (24% limited activity, average 2.7 days). There were no severe complications after abortion; after birth complications included seizure, fractured pelvis, infection and hemorrhage. We find no differences in chronic health conditions at 1 week or one year after seeking abortion.'"

 [emphasis mine]

We can see that even if a woman is able to give up her baby for adoption, carrying a pregnancy to term is no simple solution. Of course human life starts at conception, agrees Mary Elizabeth Williams, but the story doesn't stop there: "Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal."

"... We make choices about life all the time in our country. We make them about men and women in other nations. We make them about prisoners in our penal system. We make them about patients with terminal illnesses and accident victims. We still have passionate debates about the justifications of our actions as a society, but we don’t have to do it while being bullied around by the vague idea that if you say we’re talking about human life, then the jig is up, rights-wise." [emphasis mine]

Besides, most women having abortions are already mothers raising children. The choice is as much about those children's lives as about the mother's. Yes, abstinence prevents pregnancy, but how effectively can a married woman use that? Every contraceptive method fails, and not every sexual encounter can be planned against in advance (I am speaking of rape, including marital rape, but one could also include carelessness caused by alcohol). There are women who long to be mothers to the children they have, and another pregnancy would prevent them from caring for the little ones that already need them desperately.

Those families holding signs in the Life Chain, will they pay for a planned-against birth? Will the crisis pregnancy center provide iron tablets? Perhaps the nuns protesting contraceptives will reimburse a woman's employer for missed days of work? Cover antidepressants and counseling? Provide daycare? In ten years, who will help cover college bills for the older children? Or ought their education be sacrificed to provide food and daycare for the surprise addition to the family? Choosing to raise a child is a commitment that far outlasts the free diapers, crib, or donated maternity clothes. It spans decades and affects every life choice from then on.

Personally, I believe there are worse fates a human being could suffer than being aborted before taking a breath. Abortion needs to be legal because we value human life. I was "pro-life" because life was cheap, men were designed to reproduce themselves, women were intended to bear men's children, and we wanted as many Christians as possible. When I realized the value of each human being, the immense responsibility of parenthood, the lifetime effects of childhood nurture on the adult psyche, and the awful societal price of ignorance, poverty, and abuse, my view of abortion evolved, too. This is why I am glad that a courageous doctor is reopening a women's clinic in Wichita, at the same location where the late Dr. Tiller provided abortions until his murder.

Last week, Michelle Kinsey Bruns told her story to a train car filled with Catholic teenagers on their way home from the annual "March for Life" in Washington, D.C. "By eighteen it had begun to seem I might survive my childhood, but I didn’t believe I could survive being responsible for someone else’s. Since then, though, I have survived and thrived in a way that would have quite simply not been possible without the abortion that cleared a path for me to eventually get here." [emphasis mine]

As long as human beings begin their growth inside women's bodies, we will need abortion. As long as women can conceive against their will, we will need abortion. As long as human birth is difficult, we will need abortion. As long as we believe children are precious, we will need abortion.

The Power of Music

Came across an old piece today. Something I wrote nearly three years ago. Decided to stick it up here as a point of reference. Those who grew up in ATI may relate to bits of my experience.

January 8, 2010

Played the piano for the last hour. First time in a long time that I've sat down and played like that. Now I know why. Nearly dissolved into tears twice. The music took me back to some very emotional places, both good and bad...

Ironing Dad's shirts and listening to praise tapes, with the choral worship songs of the early 80's. (Praise Six, "Come and Sing Praises", Maranatha/Word Music) They are still a part of me now. The songs, not the shirts. 

Growing up attending Church of the Living God with its enthusiastic praise style. Then wondering what exactly rock music was and why it made it us leave that church. We used to sing "and blessed be the Rock" there to much clapping. Shortly before we left Living God, a lady taught us a peppy new Scripture song. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being". I suspected that was the offensive song, but I found Paul referring to it later in the book of Acts. 

The wonder and awe when the grand piano with the inlaid roses was delivered to the OKC Training Center, the stunningly beautiful answer to our prayers. Anything in tune would have suited, but it seemed God had just decided to spoil us. Spending many hours worshiping with my hymnal, entertaining myself, or accompanying old-fashioned hymnsings. The thrill when a man I admired told me I sang like an angel. Also, our frustration when the same man asked one talented youth not to play recent sacred compositions but to stick with the old styles. Aaron more than made up for that limitation.

Learning said "recent compositions" at Springdale Alliance Church on Sundays. "Blessed Be the Lord God Almighty". Looking forward to sermons for the first time in my life. Feeling my faith and understanding grow. Being blessed by Pastor Ken Nesselroade and others.

Graham Kendrick. His songs have been meaningful to me, but more so since I learned that he is British. Somehow singing about "this land" and "the nations" feels more catholic now.

Singing out hymns like we meant it on weekends in Indianapolis. The rich harmony, the grand pianists we had, the giggles over the more "daring" selections. "God of Concrete, God of Steel", anyone? "Wonderful Grace of Jesus", with enough men's voices to carry the parts. The feeling that we in our crisp white shirts were right, and important.

Precious solitary piano worship between classes at UND in Grand Forks. In the open-air meeting hall in Nasuli on Mindanao. Or on the "homemade" piano in my generous neighbors' house. Learning new songs and digging out old ones. 

Coming home from Bay Area Baptist "Church" full of outrage week after week. Digging out [Christian] music that would be offensive there and playing it in rebellion. Like a praise songbook from the 70's, or a recent Catholic music issue stolen for me by my aunt when we attended Mass with her. Figuring out how to play chords from music intended for guitar or cantor. Discovering Bernadette Farrell. Fiercely pounding out songs about dancing, fellowship, grace, or unity. The melancholy "God and Man at Table Are Sat Down" was particularly satisfying. 

Many of my favorite albums (both sacred and instrumental secular) disappearing from the family collection overnight. Some to be repurchased gradually a decade and more later when my parents' religious views of music altered yet again. Being asked to evaluate recordings of instrumental hymns with a critical search for a "backbeat". 

Hours spent at the piano when I was a single living with my parents. The anguish I would pour out on the keyboard many nighths as I asked God the hard questions. He never would explain himself, but He would soothe my soul so that I could sleep. The old Appalachian tunes in minor keys, looking forward to Heaven. Ron Hamilton's "Rejoice in the Lord", and "Not My Will, But Thine, Lord". I was ready to die for Jesus. It would have been easier, actually.

Many a weekend hour at the piano in the basement of Brook Manor. I sought out ancient songs during that period. Like the Shield of St. Patrick. I needed to feel that our faith was much deeper than what I could see. I enjoyed all the music around me, though. My horizons were expanding. "Because He Lives" still reminds me of Derek LoVerde leading staff meeting. Philip Raymond led our handbell choir. Phil Garvin played traditional "Gospel piano". Hinsdale Baptist introduced me to the very latest church songs. Life was hard on us, but at the same time it was too good to be true. And then it seemed like it had ended, and again I was back at my "own" piano.

Visiting my mom's friend when I was a kid and listening to her daughter play the piano. Hannah was close to my age and very talented. She played "Isn't He" and the beauty blew me away. I longed to be able to make sounds like that. Today I realized that I can.

Trying to sing hymns with my mom and siblings to tapes of Alfred B. Smith. Wow. That was rough. But a few of those tunes are favorites today. Some of the old hymns seemed shocking then, and still amaze me. Like Frederick Faber's "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy". Faber traded the Calvinism of his youth for the Roman Catholic Church, becoming a theologian and writing the (ana-)Baptist favorite, "Faith of our Fathers". I used to think "dungeon, fire and sword" was talking about things like the Inquisition, but apparently not. 

***********************
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in Heaven;
There is no place where earth’s failings
Have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior;
There is healing in His blood.

There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

. . . 

It is God: His love looks mighty,
But is mightier than it seems;
’Tis our Father: and His fondness
Goes far out beyond our dreams.

But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.

Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?

Strange to read this again. I rarely play the piano anymore. I've tossed half of my hymnal collection. I've found new favorite songs and musical styles. I don't "worship", though I still have intense emotional experiences while singing with my favorite vocalists in my car. Perhaps if I'd been taught a gentler Jesus from the beginning, I'd have more patience with religion now?