Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Motherhood Was The Road Out

There's a smug view out there that anti-abortion opinions are the purview of the safely bourgeois, and have little to do with the lives of real people with real problems. Calah of "Barefoot and Pregnant" refutes this handily with a powerful post about her experience of being a "woman in crisis":
Amidst the debates swirling around about defunding Planned Parenthood, some oft-repeated catch phrases are being tossed around like word grenades. One of these are "women in crisis." I'm sick and tired of hearing about "women in crisis" and how they need access to emergency contraception and abortions. That is a huge, steaming pile of lies, propagated by people who like to murder babies. Women in crisis do not need access to abortions. What they need is love, support, a safe place to live, and people (even strangers!) who will tell them the truth: that they are more than capable of being a mother. That they can do this. That their crisis, no matter how terrible, will be healed in the long, sometimes painful, always joyful process of becoming a mother.

Think this makes me heartless, speaking from my comfortable suburban home, having never known trials in my cushy little life?

Think again.

When I got that positive pregnancy test, the one that changed my life, I was addicted to crystal meth.

And do you know what the people around me did? They didn't take the secular line and say, "this baby's life would be horibble. You're unfit to be a mother. Better for it to not be born at all."

But neither did they take the typical pro-life line in that situation and say, "you are clearly unfit to be a mother, but all you have to do is carry the baby to term and give a stable couple a wonderful gift."

The Ogre said, "you're a mother now, and I'm a father, and together we'll raise our child."

My parents said, "marry that man, and raise that baby. You've made the choices, you have to live with them."

My friends said, "you screwed up, big time. But we love you. We'll throw you a baby shower, buy you maternity clothes, and babysit while you finish your semester."

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy, being a newly-pregnant drug addict. But it gave me something to live for. Someone to live for....
Read the rest.

2 comments:

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus said...

It's a miracle. I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic and a man. It took tons of AA meetings, a strong AA group and a strong AA sponsor, and a devout Catholic priest who was my AA sponsor's sponsor, to get me sober. I still after 24+ years have to go to meetings bevause I know what I am like. That this woman with her little baby got sober on so little help is a testament to the grace and mercy of God Almighty. I would likely have killed my little one and died myself were I in similar circumstances. I know what drug addiction and alcoholism are like. This, Darwin, is the story that must be told far and wide. This is the best pro-life story I have yet read. Thank you very much.

olivia said...

"Pro-choice" advocates love to accuse pro-lifers of trying to force women just like this to give life to their babies and thus "pushing them into a life of even more hardship and burden." And yet, no one talks about how all "pro-choicers" want to do is force women to have abortions, not by dragging them to the clinics, but by denying them the much needed support that would allow them to be successful mothers. One position presupposes that women are strong and capable and can overcome... the other presupposes that the only support she deserves is abortion.