From Pro Life to Pro Choice
I had written this after the Supreme Court draft leak overturning Roe V Wade, but never posted.
“Lay siege against it, build a siege wall against it… Set your face against it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This will be a sign.” (Ez 4:2-3 NKJV)
All I remember thinking during the moment as a group of 100+ of us held hands and prayed is that we would honestly change the world. I suppose I have always had grandiose ambitions at heart.
Standing in silence on the steps of the Supreme Court with red tape on my mouth, the words LIFE written across them, and a genuine conviction for the sanctity of all life while the men and women in suits walking by to their meetings made me contemplate in frustration. I can still remember the glares & how we were looked upon as annoyance by most of them walking by. I kept wondering how a group of teens could show more conviction for a topic than the adults who influenced and made the actual decisions for the nation.
The year was 2008, the event being Student Leadership University SLU 201 held in Washington DC, and I was 17 years old going into my senior year of high school. Student Leadership University is a 4 year Christian Leadership Program, increasingly sophisticated each year. They bring in actual businessman & lecturers to their credit. Example, I met Dan Cathy (Chic-Fil-A CEO) at SLU 201 who gave an hour lecture on integrating christian morality into leadership at the workplace. High level for adults let alone teens.
This experience shaped my mentality going into the senior year, challenging me to be more accountable to myself and develop the leadership skills I naturally possess. Not that this event was a major factor for the next phase of my life, but it certainly influenced my mindset and hardened my resolve to truly “be me”. As a double-edged consequence to that resolve however, my theological ideologies over the next year were eradicated as I pursued a more thorough understanding - which after being quite the Evangelical since the age of 5 - a radical shift.
I have entire posts describing the depths of my Evangelical childhood & the transition out of Christianity so I won’t go in depth here.
By 18, I had started to realize my theological beliefs were just not maintainable to the new information I was starting to understand and explore; this eventually led to an overhaul of my entire belief system, including the concept of life itself, and what that means for varying social issues, like abortion. I have walked both sides of the argument, and while no one may have the exact beliefs or rationales - I have a lot of exposure to both sides of the coin here, which I am hoping to provide my own insights through my journey.
If I had to say what really separates my take on this from most others rather pro life or pro choice is that I do not particularly care about the morality of the situation in the same manner. Liberals view the morality from the autonomy argument, conservatives from the value of life argument. I appreciate both arguments & I think both hold true value - which is what makes the topic passionate for both sides. Neither are inherently wrong.
Autonomy is a good thing, which most conservatives are usually more behind in spirit than liberals….and valuing life is a good thing, which arguably the liberals are usually more behind. (Think PETA, Vegans, Green Party, Palestine etc). Yet here the coins are flipped; liberals argue autonomy, conservatives value life. Everyone has paradoxes in their system, so I have learned to invest less in black and whiting a position and having a flexible position.
From the Pro Life side, the people talking about being pro-life are the first to talk about fire and brimstone. They’ll be pro capital punishment and often call for more executions. Most Pro Life conservatives advocate cutting the social programs that go to families who largely utilize abortion services to begin with. Planned parenthood performs services for the demographic that is over 100% beneath the poverty level….are the pro lifer’s gonna adopt the kids? Nope. Pro Life individuals are also more likely to own multiple firearms and drop something along the lines of “dead men tell no tales” because they would rather be Billy the Kid than turn the other cheek like Jesus. Paradoxes everywhere
From the Pro Choice side there are mental gymnastics attempting to justify the action in order to avoid guilt or stigma. Everyone should remember it's okay that things are negative, not all in life is positive. It should not be a goal of life to have abortions, and taking a potential future should have tradeoff’s. This is not an area where no consequence behavior should be normal, nor should it be shamed. Rather or not we argue for the autonomy of the mother, that future life would have autonomy at some point in anyone’s model of life..where’s their autonomy?
Abortion is “Murder”. Being fair with the rhetoric is usually what we want, but in reality are we being fair to the potential life as Pro Choice? Nope, we sacrifice one for the other. Pro Choice should would worry less about the cultural connotations from others and more about ownership of actions. Sticks and stones. When I state that it is “murder” - My statement is not coming from a “shame them” standpoint, quite the contrary, I think if we are going to take a life, rather we do it by dropping a bomb on a city or in the womb, we honor that life acknowledging our actions for what they are vs hiding behind pointless moral posturing to salvage one’s morality or pride or whatever. No one “wins” in abortion.
Most take the angle of at what timeframe is it acceptable to do such during a pregnancy - most people poll against late term. Meaning most of us at some point value those clumping cells that are dividing equivalent to life. I do not know many Pro Choice humans who take pride in performing the action, & the ones I have seen that did - through Youtube interviews in the past - were the few and far between scum of society most people do not associate with.
For me? I do not see a point in trying to hide from the underlying fact that rather Day 1 or Day 200 those cells represent the potential for human life in a tangible manner. A zygote is usually formed within 4 days mind you. I would rather acknowledge my position that I would sacrifice a future existence for my own if I am willing to give my blessing on the action. For the theologically inclined, the rabbit hole can get quite deep. Some christians believe masturbation is essentially an abortion of could be utilized sperm. The Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos should be considered children in February 2024 lol. There is no standard of how extreme is correct in religious systems.
For me, it is not as if I arrived to this position over night. When I dropped my faith and had to figure out the world one subject at a time - I put in work really nuancing my philosophical take on…well…everything. I felt like an infant learning about this world after 12 years of hardcore indoctrination. At first having a technical point of view mattered. I wanted to know timeframes and development and cognition and be competent about defining what constitutes life.
Life is easy for the religious. It’s clearly defined regardless what tier of rigid it falls. Its origin is provided & even the end destination. Some even get planets and virgins depending on the religious sect. Detailed. For the non-religious….not so much. The more I learned about biology and consciousness the more I understood how difficult defining these concepts technically are, and trying to wrap one’s self in a system was precisely the error I made the first part of my life……so I learned flexibility over rigidity.
For me, I would say I have a more libertarian approach in that I do not particularly care what another human does if it’s not harming me & reasonably under control as to not interfere with my day. Have a methlab or moonshine operation - but keep it to yourself. That type shit. Need an abortion, go for it. The argument that overturning Roe V Wade is libertarian because it allows states to restrict individual liberty - regardless if one disagrees in totality with the action - is simply anti-libertarian if even if notion is on solid ethical grounds of life.