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I didn’t want to blog about this…but…

I’ve been having difficulty falling asleep at night since I learned the SCOTUS is preparing to toss out Roe vs Wade. Why should I care? I’ve never had an abortion, nor had to consider one. I’ve never had a miscarriage or a pregnancy that threatened my life. Our two children were both planned and received in love. 

My childbearing years are behind me.  But that doesn’t mean I lack empathy for all the girls and women adversely impacted by this proposed ruling.

This is where the pro-life people ask, “Don’t you have empathy for all the babies who are murdered?”

The thing is…calling them “babies” is disingenuous. 90% of abortions take place before 12 weeks. At 12 weeks the fetus weighs about ½ ounce and its brain is just developing. It won’t be until the last months of gestation that the cerebral cortex develops, which is responsible for things like thought and feelings. When life support is removed from an adult or child, it’s not the heartbeat, it’s the brain function that determines life. Late term abortions are typically for medical reasons, such as in saving the life of the mother. 

So stop with the hyperbole and exaggeration. Pro-choice is NOT about killing babies. It’s not even about pro-abortion. It’s about giving a girl or woman autonomy over her own body. And it’s not just her body you are controlling when you force a woman to grow that ½ ounce embryo (if under 11 weeks) or fetus (11+ weeks), you are controlling her entire life and finances. Who is paying for her extra medical bills? Loss of income? Possible job loss? Who will support her when she is too sick to go to work? (I was sick for months with my first pregnancy.)

I know some people see the answer as making the father pay for her expenses while pregnant. While I agree they should, I fear that will bring greater risk to the pregnant woman. 

According to an online article on Desert News, “A recent study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology found that homicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant women and women who are six weeks postpartum. Indeed, homicide exceeds other leading causes of maternal mortality by more than twofold.” 

Pregnancies also come with medical risks. Our country has one of the highest mortality rates for pregnant women in a developed country. And the risk—threat of death—is even greater for young girls. 

To those people who claim to care so much about “babies” (which aren’t really babies yet) why don’t they care about the girls already born? Such as the ten year old girl who has been raped, and who will already be suffering emotionally from her trauma, but now is told she must carry the  ½ ounce bunch of cells until it grows into an actual baby, possibly risking her own life and health.

For those out there who say women should be using birth control if they don’t want to get pregnant, I ask, why are there people in the GOP trying to make laws that take away birth control? Plus, birth control certainly does not help a rape victim, or someone whose birth control failed. Not even a vasectomy is 100 percent.

As for late term abortions, a typical woman does not carry a fetus for seven months and just decide to abort it. Yes, there are some wackos out there who might do something horrendous, but that is a different issue. We are talking apples and oranges here.

Personally, I totally understand (and agree with some) reservations on late term abortions. Unless it is to save the life of the mother, or there is something severely wrong with the fetus, then I can’t imagine a reason. Once a fetus evolves to a point he or she could survive out of the womb—with a thinking brain—then I don’t find the term baby hyperbole. 

I will wrap this up by dragging religion into the discussion—since religion got us here in the first place.

I call myself a Webster Christian. That’s my own made-up term that simply means I am a Christian by one of the definitions Merriam-Webster gives: “One who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

In my personal religious belief, I believe our body is nothing more than the vessel that holds our spirit. Our spirit was there before the body—and will be there after the body dies.  The spirit’s life is not dependent on one specific woman growing a vessel in her body for it, because it already exists.

Now you can think my belief is silly, but it is my belief. And the last time I heard, freedom of religion was being upheld by the SCOTUS, even if Roe isn’t.   

What if Roe VS Wade was no more?

I asked that question ten years ago when I wrote the short story, American Bondage, and released it in eBook format.

Four years ago, I rereleased the story and added the following forward. . .

I originally released American Bondage under the pen name, Sallie Holt. Sallie Holt was the name of my paternal grandfather’s mother. After several miscarriages and four live births, Great-Grandma Sallie died in 1912. She was just 25 years old. 

I later added my pen name Anna J. McIntyre as a co-author to American Bondage. With the current political climate of our country and recent talks of a new Supreme Court reversing Roe VS Wade I decided to release the short story under my own name.

Now, four years later, my story seems timelier than ever. If you are interested, you can download the eBook at Amazon for just 99 cents. Click here to find it.

Or, if you just want to read the book’s description, here it is!

Vice President Alan Browning keeps his party’s election promise. Reversing Roe v. Wade is just the beginning. In America, abortion is no longer legal under any circumstance, even rape.

Rape victim, Hope Archer must give up her hard-earned scholarship and carry the rapist’s baby to term. After she and the baby die during childbirth, her mother vows revenge on the conservative vice president.

Brilliant scientist, Margaret Archer, finds the ultimate revenge for Alan Browning. Just as he is preparing to make his bid for the presidency, she finds a way to reverse the roles.

A short story. Approximately 5,580 words.

Is pro-choice the same thing as pro-abortion?

When the last occupier of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, David Fry, ranted his grievances against the government before his surrender, one grienvance was a resentment for having to pay for abortions with his tax dollars. It was a tense situation, and no one bothered to explain that tax dollars cannot generally pay for abortions, only in certain cases, such as rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Of course, for Pro-Lifers, even those exceptions are too great.

I grew up in a household where my father was pro-life and my mother pro-choice. Ironically, mom was the parent who believed in God, while Dad claimed the Bible was written by a bunch of smart Jews to keep people in line.

My mother was raised Christian Science (yet she saw doctors) while my father was raised evangelical Christian and regularly attended church at least twice a week while growing up. He rejected his fundamental Christian upbringing, yet he wasn’t an atheist, and by the end of his life, he had reached out to a higher power.

Therefore, his pro-life stand didn’t stem from his early religious upbringing, but by the fact his mother (who had been in an unhappy marriage) once confessed she would have aborted him had it been legal. I can certainly understand why Dad was pro-life.

I’m not sure if it is accurate to describe my views on abortion as pro-choice, yet I do not align myself with the philosophies expressed by those claiming to be pro-life.

I suppose, like traditional Christians, my feelings on abortion are based on my belief system. Basically, I see our physical body as a vessel—what holds our spirit. It belongs to us. It’s our private property—no one has the right to harm or inflict their will on our private property—our body.

I also don’t believe life begins with our physical body—the essence of who we are is our spirit or soul. I don’t believe our spirit or soul is created when our flesh and blood body evolves. It’s just where we settle to live out our time on this earth.

So basically, I believe a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy in the very early stages—especially in the instances of rape. But once the embryo evolves and becomes a viable physical life—I move over to the pro-life category. While I believe a woman has the right to decide who occupies her body for nine months—if she goes past a certain point, then I feel that new body has established squatter rights. The mother has lost her right to evict.

The only time I can agree with a late term abortion is for medical reasons, especially to save the life of the mother. At that point, the rights of the mother’s physical body trumps the child’s, in my opinion.

As for the actual spirit or soul of the aborted fetus, I’m not even sure it has one yet. When does the spirit of who we are move into our body? And if that body is terminated, why wouldn’t we simply move into another unborn body?

For me, this concept was dramatically brought home when my father died. Mom and I were with Dad when he passed away. I sat beside his bed, talking to him, telling him I loved him, that he was a wonderful father, and urged him to follow the light.

Some thirty minutes after he flatlined, I remember looking at his body. It was the first time I had really looked at a dead body—one that hadn’t been tampered with by embalming and make up. It struck me how his physical body was now nothing more than an empty vessel. My father, the man we all loved, was no longer there. He had moved on. His body eerily reminded me of an abandoned building.

If you find my opinons on abortion cockamamie—you aren’t alone. One of my devote Christian friends found it hilarious. Yet, I’m very serious.

How do I know I’m right? I don’t. After all, with over 4,000 religions in the world, which one of us is right?

About four years ago I wrote a “what if” short story—It’s the future and Roe VS Wade has been overturned. American Bondage is just 99 cents and you can find it at Amazon.