Why?
Photo credit: New York Times
I am, yet again, in a time of endless doom scrolling. As soon as the Roe v Wade news broke on Monday night, I picked up my phone to check Twitter and I feel like I have barely put it down since. During all the big events over the past few years, I have scrolled and scrolled. Subconsciously, do I think if I scroll enough the news will change?
Historically, during these times of bad news, once I put down my phone, I write. Sometimes I write privately in a notebook and sometimes I put my words out there for the world to see. I have been writing quietly this week but all my thoughts come back to the same idea- how can anyone feel good about this news?
So I am going to ask. I am putting this out there with my fingers over my eyes as I do when I watch scary movies. I am afraid of backlash but I also truly want to understand.
As a woman and a mother to two girls, I can’t move past my confusion. I know that many people saw this coming and are upset but not surprised. I did not think my head was in the sand but I have to admit that I am shocked. I truly do not understand how anyone can support overturning Roe v Wade.
I do not believe that life begins at conception but even if I did, these are my questions…
Why would you force a girl or a woman to carry a baby that was conceived during rape or incest? Would you choose this for yourself or your own daughter or sister?
Why would you choose the life of the unborn over the life of a woman carrying an ectopic pregnancy? Again, would you choose this for yourself or your own daughter or sister?
Why would you force a mother to carry to full term and deliver a baby whose existence will not be compatible with life outside of the womb? Again, would you choose this for yourself or your own daughter or sister?
And even if these situations are deemed exceptions (which seems unlikely in some states) and even if adoption was easy (which is not the case given our crowded and underfunded foster care system)...
Why would you force a woman who knows that a pregnancy will disrupt her ability to finish school or to move ahead in her job (to pull herself up by her bootstraps shall we say?), to carry to term? Again, would you choose this for yourself or your own daughter or sister?
And even if you believe that sex should only occur during marriage, sex during marriage results in ectopic pregnancies. Would you choose death for yourself or your own wife, daughter or sister in this situation?
And even if you believe that sex should only occur during marriage, this type of sex also leads to pregnancies in which the baby, if born, would not survive outside of the womb. Would you choose this situation for yourself or own your wife, daughter or sister?
I know that these questions have all become too emotional, too controversial, too heated to discuss in person. So no one is having these conversations. I know I am scared to take these conversations off the page and into the real world but this is me doing the best I can and dipping my toe in the pool of the real world and asking the questions that I can’t stop forming in my mind.