At The Crossroads

 

As silly, offensive, and wrong as it may sound, I grew up believing that Christians could only be republican.  And by grown up, I mean well into my 20’s!  I honestly do not remember politics being openly discussed in my home or at church, but somehow little me got the clear message if you are a Christian, you vote for the anti-abortion party, aka the republican party.  I did not stray far from the party line.  Not because I genuinely believed in the politics of the republican party, I had no idea what they were, I voted republican because I thought if I did not and a democrat won and there were no laws on abortions then the blood of those babies would be on me.  Dark I know, and very irrational, but my brain was not fully developed, and I was working with what I had.  Around my late high school, early college, days Fox News came onto the scene.  It was on quite a bit in my home.  We stopped trusting the “other” “biased” media and would turn to Fox anchors like all the blonde ladies (seriously can only remember Martha MacCallum), Shepherd Smith (My personally favorite), and Bill O’Reilly (troubling with hindsight).  Funny but I do not think any of these three are employed there anymore….

I, along with thousands of others, bought into the “culture wars” they were selling.  The “us vs. them” mindset was dished out and we were lapping it up.  Them of course being those liberals who wanted to ban our guns and make our country socialist.  They needed their audience to be the good guys so there must be a bad guy or enemy.  Suddenly, I agreed that there was a war on Christmas, Hollywood was actively trying to push its agenda down our throats, and the regular media (ABC, CBS, CNN, and of course Public Broadcasting) was in on the trick.  I believed what they told me even though nothing from my life could back it up.  I was raised Christian and never felt persecuted for it here in America.  If anything, it helped me to fit in and belong to the “in group.”  War on Christmas?  Yes, that is horrible, yet when I look back Christmas was OPENLY celebrated at my public schools, not being stripped away.  The only thing that looking back was “war like” was the language (lyrics) used by the media I was absorbing and that how any infraction was being touted like it was the standard.  A barista at Starbucks says Happy Holidays, “See they are attacking Christmas!”  We must keep Christ in Christmas became regular messages I started hearing at church around a certain time of year as well as reminders that “Jesus is the reason for the season.”  Looking back on it, I feel sorry for the students around me who may have been Jewish, Muslim, or atheist because if anything they had to live through the real persecution during this time.  All these messages and more were seeping into my skin and building a belief system I was taking into adulthood with me.

The first presidential election I can recall paying any attention too was the GW Bush vs Gore race, and I remember very little of it!  I vividly recall being in college in Milledgeville, Georgia and watching the results roll in on Fox.  Sitting on my apartment couch watching the returns with my boyfriend at the time like it was entertainment.   As that election became contested due to some “hanging & pregnant chads” in Florida; the headline “Sore Loserman” (A play on the Gore/Leiberman ticket) was one I thought was funny and stood out to me; I even remember seeing shirts with this printed on them.  I consider this highly ironic in the way this past Trump/Biden election ended.  I considered it all as entertainment; I did not connect at that age as to why people were so upset and angry and fighting over this.  My life had never been affected by a presidential race before so what is the big deal.  Youth and ignorance on display; if it does not affect me it is not even on my radar: Racial injustice: can’t we all just treat each other with kindness; abortion: just put them up for adoption don’t kill them; criminal justice and crime:  commit the crime and do the time; inequality:  all men are created equal!  I had not faced the hardships of others so had no reference for care or empathy, my suburban, white, middle-class privilege was on full display and I did not even see it.

When I was a junior in college and only 21 years old, I discovered I was pregnant.  This was a game changer! I life stopping moment.  I remember being so hopeless, scared, and ashamed.  My whole life I was preached to about saving myself, holding tight to my virginity and purity. (See previous posts for more on this.)  I was at a crossroads where I had to choose to keep this baby and admit I was the wrong type of girl from the one my family raised me to be, or I could end the pregnancy, move forward and act like nothing ever happened and continue with my life trajectory.  On the one hand was acknowledging I was the used-up girl that no one would want because I sinned the sin there was no coming back from (yes, I honestly believed this from my purity teachings), or I could be a murderer of a soul that did nothing wrong and was just the product of MY sin, MY mistake like I always thought of the women who chose the easy way of having abortions.  This choice, this decision I was making led me to an unraveling of my political stances and I was not even aware of it at the time.  My privilege to be able to choose to have my baby and start a family, and still go to my college classes to better my future was one most girls who find themselves in my situation at the time do not have the luxury to make.

I was privileged for so many reasons looking back now.  I had parents who supported me and planned and paid for a wedding; they had me covered under insurance so I didn’t go in debt having a baby;  My professors worked with me to get the courses I needed to stay on track to graduate; My mom drove to my school and watched my baby so I could attend classes or she would take my baby home with her for a few days if I had a particularly stressful work load;  I had friends and a community around me that supported and cheered me on, who celebrated this hardship as if it was the best thing ever; and I had a partner who stayed by my side and never made me carry the full burden of being an extremely young parent alone.  Getting pregnant young and starting a family rather quickly has a marriage success rate that is low.  I can’t speak for my husband, but I felt immense pressure to prove to my church, my family, and friends that I was not a failure or waste.  I felt I had to be extra good; so I followed the rules.  I believed what I was taught to believe and voted how I was supposed to vote.  I forced my family to church and tried to make my husband (who was not raised in church) into the man the church told me he was supposed to be.  This time period lasted for at least 10-12 years of our marriage and It is a miracle he never got tired of the charade and left me!

I mentioned in an earlier post how I began asking questions and feeling uneasy with the teachings especially around purity when my daughter was a pre-teen.  The messages hit a nerve in me and released a lot of shame.  I felt like I had to always form my personal story as a redemption story of a screwed-up girl who got pregnant, but God took my mess and made this beautiful family.  I had to sell my story to the girls in my small group as a cautionary tale: “Don’t do what I did” “You don’t want to end up like me.”  It was shameful and belittling looking back on it; I never felt whole, good enough, or complete as I was.  It was around this time I got into a little debate with another small group leader on the topic of abortion which set off my questioning of all things and ultimately led to my departure from the republican party altogether.  The other leader, after hearing my story about getting pregnant young and before marriage, said “At least you didn’t have an abortion.”  This one little phrase lit something in me.  I was grateful I didn’t have an abortion!  I absolutely adored my daughter and could not even fathom where my life would have been if it were not for her arrival, but would I wish to force my same path onto someone else?  I knew how lucky and blessed I had been to even be standing there discussing the topic with this fellow leader; how could I look into the eyes of someone who didn’t have the family support, the financial means and stability I had and say it worked for me so it must work for you too?  I was not nearly that naïve!  In our back and forth she stated that a woman who finds themselves in that situation could always give the baby up for adoption. (Side note: this church we were attending was heavily into fostering and adoption at this point.)  I was literally stunned into silence because yes they could do that but any woman who has given birth knows how life altering a pregnancy can be.  You are never the same after a pregnancy and giving birth; are we ok with forcing that on someone who already is struggling and at their lowest?  Not to mention the fact we have more kids in the foster system than families to lovingly care for them.  The foster care to prison pipeline needs some serious looking into by our government, why would we force more kids into it?  The conversation ended pretty quickly when I stated I would never force my daughter to carry a pregnancy she was not ready for to term.  Who am I to say what is right for her and her future?  I learned really quickly that that was the wrong thing to say.

This interaction had me really thinking and questioning ideas I had never questioned as an adult.  I began searching out the voices of women on both sides of the issue.  Women who had abortions and were deeply regretful; women who had abortions and were then able to have children later in life when they could financially provide for them; Women like me who got pregnant and life was kind to them; and women who got pregnant and had babies they resented; women who had babies and struggled just to make ends meat.  I started questioning why this issue divides us so much?  When did this become such a hot button issue?  Why is so much placed on the woman?  Why are the men able to skirt the hard decisions scot free?  Why are the laws that govern women’s bodies being made by men who can never understand their experiences?  What could we do as a country to make giving birth to the baby the better choice than choosing to have an abortion?  How can we better support women, especially low-income women, who are affected by the negative effects of a pregnancy the most? 

I dug into research and dug in hard.  I read blogs and books and talked it out with the brave few who would be willing to engage with me.  I learned that the issue of abortion being opposed by the church didn’t happen until years after Roe V Wade was passed.  That originally the evangelical church didn’t care about abortion.  They saw it as a personal issue not one for the church.  In the 1970’s, 6 years after Roe was passed the prominent position of non-Catholic churches was that life began with the baby’s first breath, at birth.  I say non-Catholic because Catholics were against abortion and birth control from the beginning as far as I could tell in my research.  So, when did abortion become the rallying cry for the evangelical church?  When a group of religiously powerful men saw their power shrinking just a bit.  When they were being forced to segregate their private Christian schools to maintain their tax-exempt status, they needed an issue to get the masses behind them and to politically activate their church members to vote in the way they wanted.  The Religious Right was formed and the rhetoric of a “holy war” started flowing through the churches, specifically “a holy war to lead the nation back to the moral stance that made America great.” Sounds eerily familiar huh?

This history shocked me!  I had no idea that “the pro-life and pro-family values” stance I had been raised on really initiated with an opposition to the civil rights movement.  The evidence was there all along, I had just never gone searching.  Of course, it was southern racism that turned long time democratic voters into a voting block that would rally behind Ronald Reagan and elect him as their family values president; even though when he was governor of California, he had signed the most liberal abortion laws into effect in the country just years before.  My research then showed me how the number of abortions has been steadily declining for the past decade. Under Democratic presidents there was a large push for sex education in the public schools which helped contribute to this, also the ability of federally funded women’s health clinic like planned parenthood situated in low-income neighborhoods that distribute birth control and condoms as well as educate and test for STD’s.  I honestly didn’t know Planned Parenthood served as a women’s health clinic, and that that is the majority of its services.  I only saw it as an abortion clinic.  I genuinely believe knowledge and education are power.  I took this knowledge and continued my search for more.  I started learning about racial injustices and inequality, tried to learn more on the mass incarceration issues from the 80’s and 90’s (and will right on racial issues another time- that is a biggie!)

This information concerned me and for the next few elections I voted for a mixture of Democratic and Republican candidates; it wasn’t until Donald Trump ran for president as the Republican candidate that I officially bowed out of the Republican party.  Abortion issues opened the door for me to see issues as less black and white and more nuanced.  Honestly thinking about this issue opened for me a world of seeing people as they are and placing myself in their shoes.  It marked the first, and certainly not the last, time I took an issue deeply ingrained in me and wrestled it until I could really grasp my true feelings on it.  Not what someone else wanted me to feel.  I know my opinion and views on abortion differ greatly from those of some of my family and friends.  Being open about where I came out on this topic cost me some friends and that was hard!  I know we are all just doing the best we can with the knowledge we have available to us and the headspace we can put towards a particular issue.  I love talking to friends who have different views on issues.  I also love hearing how friends and family have wrestled with issues like abortion, homosexuality, race and injustice and have learned new things about themselves and their beliefs. 

The truth is we never know how an issue like this will truly impact us until we are staring it down at a crossroads.  I could not be more steadfast that having my daughter at 21 was the right decision for me.  I also couldn’t be more steadfast in my belief that that was a decision I am glad I had the power to make and that someone else who was far removed from me and my situation hadn’t passed a law to take that choice away from me.    I believe we need to trust women to do what is best for them and their families and futures.  That is just my opinion.  I would love to hear what yours is…and if there was an issue you wrestled with that changed you.