On abortion and Toxic Christianity

Whenever I hear someone say abortion should be illegal, it is usually followed by something about those poor innocent babies. However, if it was really about the babies, then you would think things would be really different here, right?

Some things to think about

Mental Healthcare

I have been pregnant 7 times. I have 4 live children. I have had post-partum depression 3 out of 4 of the times I had children and 1 out of the 3 times with the ones I lost. One of the times I had post-partum depression, I was extremely suicidal. I ended up in the hospital because of it and got some of the worst treatment in my life. I still have nightmares about the experience. There was another person in the ward with me that had post-partum depression as well. Neither of us got what we needed.

I say this because we have a mental health care crisis in our country. To receive mental healthcare, you often have to jump through hoops. It isn’t always affordable. Post-partum depression occurs in about 1 in 7 of those having babies. With Roe vs Wade overturned, they suddenly fixed all that for these parents that may have had an abortion (for whatever reason because it is really none of our business). Right? Oh…they didn’t? But they are going to, right? Nope…that isn’t happening either. If this was really about the babies, we would have fixed that, don’t you think?

 

Healthcare in General

We live in a country where healthcare is a privilege, not a right. Do you know how scary that is for someone who is having a baby? Yes, there are programs, but again they aren’t available to everyone. Co-pays are not things that everyone can afford. If this was about the babies, then we should have fixed that first.

 

Affordable Childcare

So I am wondering how many people rejoicing are offering to donate time for childcare for these babies? Probably not a lot. When I had my first child, we didn’t have much of anything. In fact, I sold most of my old clothes at one point for baby supplies for my son. I wanted to get a job, but once we did the math, we realized that it made more sense for me to stay home.

Over the years, I started my own business where I could, for the most part, bring my children with me. I did that for two reasons: one was because of the accident that took a lot of career options and life choices from me, and the other was that my husband was gone for long periods of time because of his job. Not everyone can do that though. Not everyone has supportive families. Not everyone has resources.

 

What does the future hold?

Changes we need to make in “having the talk” with youth today

I remember the talk we all got in school in the 5th grade and then again in high school. It was honestly all rather embarrassing, and we didn’t really learn much. Mostly, we were just trying to hide the tampons and pads we were given so the boys wouldn’t make fun of us.

I grew up in a pretty fundamentalist church. I was taught that relations before marriage (yes I am using terms other than the ‘s’ word because social media outlets don’t like that word), was a sin and you were going to hell if you did anything.

I am gonna be honest, it gave me a warped sense of being for a long time. I did not make it to marriage. If you must know, I did love the person very much (again, things that aren’t anyone’s business). Two of my friends actually had “the talk” with me to make sure I was prepared.

That whole experience made me vow that the subject would always be an open subject with my children on an as-needed basis, meaning that when they had questions, I answered and tried not to make them feel embarrassed.

Not Just My Kids

Being a business owner that hired teens on a regular basis and also being a host parent to exchange students, put me in a position where I ended up having to give “the talk” to some of those kids.

The first time it happened, it was because two of my exchange students asked me to talk to their friend. Her parents believed in abstinence-only, never gave her any type of advice, and made her feel shameful. She had a pregnancy scare because her boyfriend at the time told her that pulling out was a good form of birth control. I remember asking her what she wanted to do when she graduated. What were her plans? Did she really think this guy would stick with her if she got pregnant? It was infuriating how much she didn’t know.

If I had a dime for every time I heard that is SHE didn’t want a baby, then SHE shouldn’t have done anything, I could retire now. The blame is often laid at the feet of the woman, not the man. Yeah, sure, you can file for child support, but it doesn’t mean they will pay it. It takes 2 people to make a baby.

And the fact that we are not educating our children on safe habits and how to prevent pregnancy is deplorable. For those teaching abstinence, that’s great but let’s face it, your kids are not always going to follow the path you lay out for them. Our job is to prepare our kids.

 

Stop with the Just give them up for adoption talk

Adoption is great, but no one should be forced to have a baby because of it. Not only that, have you seen our system? There are so many children that need foster homes already. What do you think is going to happen when unwanted pregnancies go full-term? We will be more overloaded than we already are. Adoption is not an easy process, nor is it cheap. Even with all the children in need of homes, you can pay money, jump through hoops, and still not be guaranteed to get a child. The whole system sucks! There are so many children in the system that get put in homes that are only doing it for the money, that are getting abused and neglected, and nothing is being done about it! If this was really about the babies, WHY AREN’T WE FIXING THIS!?!

Why? Because it isn’t about the babies. It’s about politics. It’s pandering to people and trying to cherry-pick the Bible to make this a dividing issue when we have so many other things that need to be fixed.

 

The Wrap Up

I am sure that some of you reading this are thinking that this isn’t what you think I should say. And that is fine. I am just so tired. I am tired of seeing reproductive rights being taken away. It is not my business who has an abortion and why. It is not my job as a Christian to condemn them either.

Lately, I have been seeing Christianity being used in such a way that I can only describe it as toxic. I actually minored in religion and have done a bit in youth ministry. My journey in faith has been long and hard. My relationship with God over the past 10 years especially has been a lot of, “I am mad at you God” and “I don’t want to do this. Pick someone else.” The latter of which I have been saying over and over as I write this.

Our job as Christians is to show compassion and grace as God shows us. Being pious about overturning abortion is neither. We have many other things that we need to fix, and we are focusing on fetuses…not the actual babies…not the moms…but a concept.

Just some food for thought on this day. God bless you and thank you for reading.