{"id":1406,"date":"2013-01-21T14:58:01","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/?p=1406"},"modified":"2017-03-09T17:07:33","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T22:07:33","slug":"there-is-no-freedom-in-this-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2013\/01\/there-is-no-freedom-in-this-choice.html","title":{"rendered":"There Is No Freedom In This Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today is day four of the bishops\u2019 call to prayer, penance, and pilgrimage to end abortion. My fellow Patheos blogger, the Crescat, wrote a haunting post this weekend <\/a>that I haven\u2019t been able to stop thinking about. Mostly I keep thinking, \u201cthat could have been me. That could have been my baby, my Sienna, dismembered in that canister. If things had been different, it would have been.\u201d<\/p>\n

This morning it occurred to me that no, in fact, it couldn\u2019t have been my Sienna. Unlike most unwed, pregnant drug addicts at the turn of the millenium, I didn\u2019t have a choice<\/a>. I have a lot of issues with the Protestant culture in the Bible belt, but I will forever be grateful that on this issue of life, it is rock solid. A baby is a baby. No killing it allowed. My parents were absolutely clear on that. I have never, for one instant of my life, doubted that a fetus is a human life. When I got that positive pregnancy test, I didn\u2019t wonder how early it was, how many times the cells had divided, if its heartbeat could be detected or not. I just thought, \u201cshit. A baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was fortunate that the Ogre had similar views on life, or things might have been different. But his family is devoutly Catholic, and though neither of us had been practicing our faiths, the basic principles were there. The issue of abortion didn\u2019t come up, save one time. An acquaintance, when he heard the news, looked at me doubtfully and said, \u201cyou\u2019re so young. I think it would be better if you didn\u2019t have the baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took me a few seconds to understand that what he meant by that was \u201chave an abortion.\u201d The phrasing was odd, and abortion truly was that foreign of a concept to me. There were times, during that pregnancy, when I wished it wasn\u2019t such a foreign concept. There have been dark times in pregnancies since when I wished the same thing.<\/p>\n

I write alot about my struggles with motherhood. Perhaps I write too much about them. Maybe some of you reading this are thinking, \u201cbut you\u2019re miserable as a mother. Motherhood hasn\u2019t brought you anything but despair.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that motherhood is difficult. It\u2019s always difficult to burn our own desires on the altar of serving others. It\u2019s difficult for a million different reasons, and a good part of the difficulty is that it is at once the hardest and most mind-numbingly boring job in the world. It\u2019s hard to recognize that those two things are true without blaming myself and thinking, \u201cif only I were a better mother, I would love this job.\u201d<\/p>\n

What isn\u2019t hard is imagining what might have been. If I hadn\u2019t had Sienna, there are no plethora of paths my life could have taken. There are no alternate universes where I had an abortion and went on to be a successful writer, lawyer, or college professor. Before my daughter was born, I loved drugs more than anything in the world. And she is the only thing that could have changed that. <\/a><\/p>\n

There have been dark times in pregnancies when the idea of abortion seemed appealing. But I have never looked back and wished I could have had that choice. For me, that choice was as distant and unreachable as it must have been to many women before Roe v. Wade. And for that, I am grateful. Ironically, not having a choice bought me freedom, in the end. Freedom from addiction. Freedom from selfishness. Freedom from a life that at times seemed meaningless and bleak. I will take this life with all its hardships and struggles not in spite of my babies, but because of them. They are what make it worth living.<\/p>\n

Kat had the choice I didn\u2019t. She made it, and it haunts her. It torments her. All over our country, mothers and fathers are living in torment after making this choice that was supposed to bring them freedom. But it didn\u2019t bring freedom. It doesn\u2019t. It condemns you to a life of always wondering and regretting. Instead of allowing life to come into the world, letting it change and shape you into someone new, learning to love a baby, delight in a toddler, and find joy in watching a child navigate the world, you are left alone, knowing the child who should have been will never be. That isn\u2019t freedom. It\u2019s a prison.<\/p>\n

I want that choice taken away. Not just legally, so that women are \u201cforced into back allies.\u201d I want it erased from human consciousness. I want there to never again be a moment when a pregnant woman hears, \u201cyou do have a choice not to have the baby.\u201d I want the canisters full of baby limbs and torsos and heads to disappear from our country forever. I want the same people who dedicate their lives to giving women a \u201cchoice\u201d instead dedicate their lives to helping expectant mothers and fathers, arranging adoptions, and safeguarding the lives of American infants. I want men and women to no longer be frightened and manipulated into choosing death but once again free to rejoice in life.\u00a0 No matter how difficult it is, it is always worth it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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