I went walking on the only day it wasn’t raining this week, and as I always do, I was deep into thought. I was thinking about my children – all grown up now - and recognizing how much I love and appreciate them. Each one of them is a distinct personality and I very much enjoy spending time with them. It is a joy when I get to spend individual time listening as they share their ideas or whatever is going on in their lives. Often when we gather as a family, I find myself watching my daughters and sons, their partners, and the grandchildren all interacting with one another. That gives me joy too. As I have aged hearing has become more difficult so boisterous conversations with much give and take can be hard to follow. But I enjoy them anyway. I feel happy when my children are around, and for the precious times when we are all together. I feel sorry for people who are unhappy or disappointed with their children or their parents, especially on weekends like this when we celebrate parenthood.
Being a parent does not come with instructions but there is lots of advice ready for the taking, some good, some not so good. I wasn’t particularly ready to become a mother when my first child was on the way but when she arrived, I was overwhelmed with love and connection. It was the same as each new little person came into my life. Sure, there were issues, difficulties, problems to solve, worries, fears, and some downright scary moments along the way, but I would not want to change anything because it made them all who they are today, and I am immensely proud of them.
Being a parent is not for everyone. Some people find a single child more than they can manage well. Becoming a mother is a precious gift, but it is not a gift for everyone. I grew up in the world before Roe vs Wade. I had classmates who dropped out of school, reluctantly gave babies up for adoption, or faced the stigma of being an unwed mother. I also knew women who opted to find a way to terminate their unwanted pregnancy. Several were never able to have children again. I have a friend who worked for years at a shelter for unwed mothers where girls were sent to have babies out of the public eye before going home, often without the baby they gave birth to, and sometimes with the challenge of being a teen mother with a family that rejected them. The stories my friend told me were incredibly sad. It was an era of rushed marriages, hushed up trips out of the country, a time when parents made decisions to hide the embarrassment of a wayward daughter. It was part of growing up pre-Roe vs Wade when there was no access to birth control, no legal abortion, and little sex education, although there was an abundance of shaming and ostracizing of young women who bore all of the blame and too much of the responsibility for an untimely pregnancy whether or not they gave birth.
I do not believe that abortion is ever a good thing. I am glad that the number of abortions and the number of teen mothers have declined significantly in the last 30 years. However, there are times when ending a pregnancy is what a woman decides is the best option for herself, or for her family and I do not believe that my belief should be imposed on everyone. The issue of when life begins is not as certain as some would have us believe. In years past, before the advent of modern medicine which put traditional midwives out of work, women were considered the best source of wisdom about pregnancy, birth, and the ending of an untimely pregnancy. Women believed, until science told them differently, that life began at the quickening – when the mother felt life in her womb. That moment comes a number of weeks after conception, and it is truly a mystical moment. I remember it well, but what do I know – I am only a woman.
What scares me most about our moment in time is the plethora of new laws and suggestions for laws that are intended to confine women, taking away their freedom to be a person in their own right. With the tracking technology that we have so easily adopted, like Fitbits or cell phones, people who visit abortion clinics can be hunted down. Every search for information on the web can also be tracked. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-your-phone-could-be-used-in-abortion-criminalization/ar-AAWWV3u Some apps that were designed to help a woman track her periods will also be available through data searches to people who want to control women. The idea of tracking people who are vulnerable is so repugnant to me that I took my Fitbit off and turned off tracking services on my phone in solidarity with younger women. Some states want to make pills that terminate pregnancy illegal along with making it illegal for a woman to travel to a state where abortion services are available. Regardless of how anyhow feels about ending a pregnancy, please stop and consider just how tracking laws can possibly be implemented without intimate intrusion into a woman’s life.
And then there are the laws and suggestion of laws that allow the family of a rapist to sue if a pregnancy from the rape is aborted. In some states, rapists can seek custody or visitation. How horrifying this must be for the women.
I carried six children to birth and had two miscarriages. Miscarriage is traumatic even if a child was not planned. There is both physical discomfort and emotional strain, yet in the last few years politicians have considered requiring birth and death certificates and the need for aborted remains to be cremated or buried and they want to be sure a miscarriage was not intentional! Where will this end? It is not possible to write this without Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale coming to mind. These laws and the people who suggest them are interested in punishing and controlling women. The fact that they say they are pro-life is like the doublespeak from Orwell’s 1984.
I spent some time this week being angry at men because they have had the vast majority of legislative votes, power, money, and influence, and that has been true for many thousands of years. Women are not in need of overseers. Women can be trusted, respected and allowed to contribute to the well-being of our society. In the male dominated world that has proliferated, power, profit and control are desirable while childcare, eldercare, healthcare, housing, education, and community take a back seat. These back seat issues make for a child friendly world.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, John 10:27-30, Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.” Fr. Jose Pagola in his gospel commentary wrote that Jesus was challenging a group of people harassing him in the temple precincts. He told them that they were not his sheep because they did not have the two characteristics of his sheep: hearing his voice and following him. In Pagola’s words, “The adventure is to believe what (Jesus) believed, to give importance to what he gave importance to, to defend the dignity of the human person as he defended it; to be with the powerless and vulnerable as he was; to be free to do good as he did; to trust (God) as he trusted (God), and to face life and death with the hope with which he faced both.”(p.73)
Jesus never mentioned abortion. In Jesus’ day no one considered conception to be the start of life. In our day we have traded mystery for scientific exactness and in the process, we have lost sight of compassion and the dignity of every living person. I guess it must be stated clearly, women are full persons, and they have value. Women can be trusted with their own bodies just as men expect that they will be trusted with theirs.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who have brought forth children from their womb – and to all who “mother” the next generation!
once again, Valerie, thank you for sharing. You have a gift for getting to the heart of the matter.