Still, No Closer

 I Wonder…

These are photos from my paternal grandparents wedding day. I love these snapshots for so many reasons...  my love of vintage anything, the glimpse of middle class mid century wedding fashion, the way I can see my dad in my grandfather's face and my aunts in my grandmother's. I especially love the way she is looking at him. She didn't know at the time, of course, that she would go on to have 7 children with this man, not counting the pregnancies that didn't succeed. 

 

Lola was a caring mother to those 7 children and later a doting grandmother to her 9 grandchildren. I was their eldest.

If she were still here today, I would want to ask her how she felt about the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I'm sure she would be happy about it and I love her for that. 

However, I wonder, if we had a conversation and I told her about my ectopic pregnancy, and later my miscarriage that required surgical removal, and how technically those potentially life saving operations could now be delayed because of the overturn, would she reconsider? I've read that operations like those are now being delayed in some states pending approval from legal. 

I am very much a pro-lifer. I believe in God and his hand in creating life. I believe abortion for convenience is wrong. But I also believe a woman who was raped should have every right to an abortion. And I believe a woman who is pregnant with a fetus missing vital organs, but still with a detectable heart beat, should have the right to an abortion. 

I believe child birth is extremely complicated and it occurs within a human being who also has rights. Therefor, I wonder if I could make my grandmother see, that not everyone who wants an abortion is a baby hating monster. I would venture to guess that most aren't. Most are probably scared girls/women who don't have the ability or support to make any other decision.

Abortion by choice, for the convenience of the mother, is a moral problem. And you can't legislate solutions to moral problems. If we are to make any impact on this problem, we must make human connections, educate about all the reasons an abortion might be chosen, and be compassionate to those who are pregnant not by choice. 

I don't believe overturning Roe will bring us any closer to the solution. It definitely doesn't bring us any closer as human beings. I believe it further divides, which I suspect was the real goal.