Addressing the Youth Pro-Life Rally Disrupted In D.C.

Finding Middle Ground; Can it be done?

If it were possible to sit down, both pro-abortion supporters and pro-life supporters, and calmly discuss the many disagreements, both perceived and confirmed, that we have, I believe many, if not most of our perceived differences would be found to be false. I believe with all my heart that there is a middle ground that can be found, and while that middle ground will not please everyone, it will, I believe, bring us closer to behaving as a society that values life…both that of the mother and that of the unborn baby. Isn’t that our goal?



Do pro-aborts really not value the lives of babies? I don’t believe that is true for the majority; though I am sure there are the extremist who have little value for human life in general. Do pro-lifers really not value the life of the mother? Absolutely not! In fact, pro-lifers care so deeply for the mothers that they choose to look at the abortion dilemma from all angles. I’ll explain later. Though, again, there are extremists on both sides of this issue. At the recent Youth Pro-Life Rally in D.C., several pro-abortion supporters chose to interrupt the assembly by shouting pro-abort slogans such as “pro-life, that’s a lie, you don’t care if women die.” I suppress the urge to rise to anger at this statement. Instead, I am bewildered and wonder why pro-aborts believe this. Really…wholeheartedly, they believe this.




I want to dive right into the idea that pro-lifers do not respect or value the life of the pregnant mother. Unlike the pro-abortion supporters, pro-lifers look at the big picture. Though I understand there are extremists who do not believe in abortions even if the life of the mother is in danger. But these are the extremists, and both sides of the table have them…we have to cancel out the extremes views if we are ever to find middle ground. In general, most pro-lifers acknowledge that there will always be the need for abortions if a mother’s life is in danger and do not support the death of the mother to save the unborn child. Though I admire and deeply respect the women who choose to push forward with their pregnancies at the risk of their own lives. This is the part of abortion that is so personal to each woman and her family. It is her choice what she does in these circumstances, just as pro-abortion supporters claim. I don’t know that there is a right or wrong decision and neither choice can be an easy one to make.



However, I do have issue with these knee-jerk reactions to hasty diagnosis made by doctors who are all too ready to recommend abortion. My own mid-wife uttered the word so casually during one of my visits when discussing options for birth control. It’s almost instantaneous as if no second thought is given to the idea of ending the life of a healthy baby. If I were to be in this situation, where my life was in danger, you better believe I would get several medical opinions before making any choice to abort my child…though I have a strong feeling that if put in this position I would be one of the crazy few who chose to go through with the pregnancy at risk of my own life. I just don’t think I could bring myself to end the life of my own child.



Abortion supports will say, “So, what about all the girls and women who are victims of rape and incest? Do you expect them to have those babies?” Before we get into this let’s talk about facts. Statistics show that less than 1% of all abortions done in this country are done as a result of rape or incest. (http://realweb.ifastnet.com/stats.html#arpinct) LESS THAN 1%!! This is not where pro-lifers are addressing their energy, yet pro-aborts can’t take their focus off of it. Let’s not even pretend for a moment that this is an easy topic to discuss! You will get so many opinions from pro-lifers on this. First of all, let’s get back to the health and safety of the mother. Is this a 12, 13 or 14 year old girl? Their little bodies can usually support a fetus from beginning to birth, but often times at great risk to their own bodies and can cause a lifetime of pain and other medical conditions because their developing bodies were just not ready for the extreme rigors of pregnancy. Again, when the mother’s life is in danger, rational thinking would allow for any and all medical procedures to save the mother…as sad as that may be, it is the right of the mother to preserve her own life.



But, this is not the end. There are, in that tiny 1%, older girls and women who have been raped. Here is where I see the pro-life movement being more rounded in their concern. For a pro-abort supporter they see only the pain of having to carry a child who was created in such a horrendous cruel manner. Pro-lifers, on the other hand consider the physiological welfare of the mother after the abortion. Many women after having gone through this ordeal live not only with the pain of the rape, but also the regret of having ended the life of an innocent child. After all, the child is being punished for the sins of the father.



When considering this, pro-lifers recommend to these moms to give their children up for adoption. These children are not unlovable. They were just brought into the world under unfortunate circumstances. But what better way to heal the mother than to be able to say, “Yes, this absolutely horrible thing happened to you, but you, YOU gave life to a little baby and blessed the world with their innocence and wonder!” Isn’t that a whole lot more healing in the long term than to have to live with the knowledge that you ended the life of that child as an attempt to ease your own pain? I am sure there will be differing opinions here, but the point is that pro-life people do deeply care about women, now and for many years to come…and don’t just seek immediate solutions to circumstances that are much too complex to be solved with one heartrending, absolute and permanent action.



Now, this argument of mine could carry on for a very long time, so for now I want to just wrap this up with some simple facts. Of the thousands upon thousands, upon thousands of babies that are aborted in this country every year, every month in fact, about half of them are aborted for one of two reasons; mother is not-ready for motherhood or lack of finances. (http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html) Let me repeat. A life, a human life, is ended because the women chose to have sex before she was ready to have a child. A mother chose to kill that human rather than give them a chance through adoption for no other reason than the fact that she had not planned on the possibility of pregnancy.


So whose fault is it again that the mother got pregnant? Is it the unborn child’s? They are the ones paying the ultimate price of death for those actions. We hear the words “A women’s right to choose” over and over again. Yes, a mother does have a right to choose…the right to choose not to have sex, the right to choose to use contraceptives that do not create the risk of unintended abortions. They have the right to choose to regard sex as a means to pro-create and to do so only when ready to accept the end result of those actions.


I realize I have only touched the surface here of the complexities of this issue, and rest assured I will write more in the future. My goal in this blog was to get the point across that extremism on both sides of this issue will not help us bring an end to abortion being used as means of birth control. It will not help us end legal abortions at all stages of pregnancy, for any reason (meaning you could abort your child in many states in this country at 39 weeks for no other reason than you just decided you don’t want a baby anymore). I believe rational educated people on both sides can agree that the abortion laws in this country (thanks to Roe vs. Wade) allow for inhumane practices nationwide.

Declutter in January

I am exhausted! Two weeks in to the Simplify Your Life Calendar www.mysimplerlife.com and I am just beat! Week one went well. If you are following along you may recall week one was all about the kitchen; organizing cans, spices, throwing out outdated items in the pantry and freezer, and cleaning off the tops of the shelves. I did fairly well with all this. I really dove right in. The tops of my cabinets had never been dusted since 2005. I had dusted my baskets that I display up there about twice in the past 5 years, but never the shelf itself. It totally needed it! I had in my spice shelf, spices that were at least 10 years old. I never used them, they just sat there…until last week. They are all gone now! It felt so good getting all these things done that I typically would never do! But it wasn’t easy in the least! I really had to motivate myself to get it done.

Week two was a little easier. Most of weeks two’s tasks did not apply to me. I don’t have a night stand with drawers or shelves in my room. So instead I opted to head into the office; one of my most hated places in my home. Up until today, we had a HUGE desk in this tiny little room. It always looked out of place, worse yet, it served mainly as a dumping ground for rubbish! Years and years of junk had accumulated in and around this massive monstrosity and no matter how many time I cleaned it off…a few weeks later it would look the same! I had contemplated getting rid of it before but the task itself was daunting! Did I mention this desk is massive?! But today, I walked in there and made up my mind. The desk had to go….today! A few hours and two full trash bags later, the desk was ready to be dismantled and taken to Goodwill. There was no turning back now! Luckily the guy at Goodwill took it. He seemed to really hesitate taking it.

Meanwhile, back at the house, my daughter is scrabbling to clean out the small desk that has been in her room for a year. A desk she never uses other than to store junk in, a desk that I slaved over to refinish, a desk that is nearly half the size of the one I just got rid of. After cleaning out years of dust from where the once oversized monstrosity once sat, I placed to smaller refinished one in its place. I was feeling better already! The desk is so small that there is no room on it for anyone to throw junk, papers, bills…nothing! And this is good. It will force everyone to throw out those things that once were left for weeks on the other desk. We now have room for a proper coat rack and bench…which I am pleading with my husband to build!

Hope you too, if you are following along, are finding some success in de-cluttering your home!