I grew up a good Catholic girl, attended twelve years of Catholic education, and went to Mass every Sunday. I was taught how precious human life is. We are made in the image of God. His plan for us is written before we were born. My freshman year of college I even wrote an essay about how unfair it was to fathers that a woman could end her pregnancy without giving him a say. My professor suggested I tone down my initial draft as did I really want to see women in jail for ending their pregnancies? I am ashamed to admit, that in my mind I felt a woman had already made her “choice” when she had unprotected sex. If I could wait, so could they. I spent a lot of time thinking about how if abortion had been legal when my mother got pregnant with me, I might not be here. Back then this issue seemed so black and white to me. I admit now I was wrong. That righteous young, privileged, inexperienced girl who held those beliefs would have rejoiced at the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but the much older, more experienced, still privileged woman I am today is sad, angry and afraid for individuals who may find themselves in the gray spaces of that decision.
The incredibly difficult decision to continue a pregnancy or not should lie between the pregnant individual (and their religious beliefs) and their doctor alone. It does not belong to our government. One of the main principles our country was founded upon is the “separation of church and state.” People came to the United States so they could practice their religion without interference from the government. Ohio’s Republican-led General Assembly has deemed that an embryo, which is smaller than a grain of rice, is equivalent to the life of the pregnant individual. They passed a 6-week abortion ban in 2019, which has been blocked until the Ohio Supreme court rules on it. If this law goes into effect, if an individual is diagnosed with cancer and then finds out they are 8 weeks pregnant, they would not be able to get treatments for their cancer should they want to. They would have to wait until after they give birth, or they are sick enough that their life is immediately in danger. In both cases it may be too late to save their life or the life of the fetus.
Being pregnant for nine months isn’t merely an inconvenience for many people. In the case of a person who becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest their mental well being is at stake. While it might mean that an individual misses a semester of college, for others it could mean they never go at all. Some are lucky enough to have the inconvenience of taking six weeks of paid leave and possible being overlooked for a promotion, but many others could lose their jobs completely causing them to be unable to provide for their other children and adding the additional cost of infant childcare. It could mean a 17-year-old teenager is forced to marry the father so that they don’t commit a second sin of having a child out of wedlock (yes, child marriage is legal in Ohio). Proponents of abortion bans often talk about the innocent loss of life of the unborn and how that potential baby might have cured cancer or been the next president. However, they could just have easily been a serial killer. What about the potential of the individual who is alive and breathing now?
Because of religion, people are very emotional and passionate about this issue. If it is God’s will and plan from the womb, who are we to go against His will? Just last Sunday, I sat in a church pew of a non-denominational Christian church as our pastor told us that the issue of reproductive health wasn’t a political 1 as he tried to convince the entire congregation to vote against issue 1 (which is a political issue). He argued that the State of Ohio was asking us to decide when life begins and that “our church” believes it begins at conception. Hmmm he says it’s not political, yet he’s trying to convince people how to vote in an election based on his religious beliefs. You may be surprised that nowhere in the bible does Jesus or God talk about or prohibit abortion. The pastor used Psalm 139:13–16 which says, “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” as his justification for his stance. However, the word conception does not appear in this passage. He’s using a religious statement to encourage people to vote in a particular way in a political election. Interestingly, didn’t mention other Old Testament passages such as Exodus 22-25, which describes a judgement in case where a woman miscarries after being injured by two fighting men. The passage indicates that the life of the fetus is not equal to the life of the pregnant individual. In Numbers 5: 19-22 a priest gives an unfaithful wife bitter water that will cause her to miscarry should she be pregnant as a punishment (sounds like an abortion to me).
According to the Ohio Department of Health, in 2021 87.5% of abortions in Ohio occurred in the first trimester and 60.2% of those happened before week 9 (during the embryo stage). Only 0.7% occurred between 21 weeks and the viability of the fetus (around 23 – 24 weeks). I can’t even imagine the difficult, heartbreaking decision these pregnant individuals had to make late in their pregnancies as something went wrong with their health or that of their fetus. It was their decision to make though.
Issue 1 protects the freedoms of Ohioans that were taken away at the federal level. The amendment does not mention gender affirming care or parental rights. It is about reproductive rights alone. Incidentally, the ballot board changed the language of the proposed constitutional amendment and refers to the embryo and fetus as a child in the ballot language. They also excluded information about protections for access to birth control from the ballot language. Read the actual amendment. God gave us free will. Let people make their own decisions. Keep religious beliefs out of our laws.
If you have made it to the end of my post you may wonder how, I dare to still call myself pro-life? And yet I do. What does it mean to me to be pro-life? To me, pro-life means I promote policies that support life such as:
- Living wages so people can support their families without working multiple jobs.
- Clean water and air so that people don’t get sick.
- Affordable health care so people can get medications, hospital care, mental health care and well visits when they are sick and to prevent getting sick.
- Affordable housing so people have a place to sleep out of the elements.
- Access to nutritious food so they don’t go hungry.
- Education so they can learn and get better jobs.
- Environments free of fear of violence from crime or the police
Undaunted 