Friday, July 19, 2013

I Feel No Shame

 
Abortion rights supporters demonstrate outside the Capitol in Austin, Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry signed the abortion restriction bill, House Bill 2, on Thursday July 18, 2013. Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed sweeping new abortion restrictions on Thursday that could shutter most of the clinics in the nation's second most populous state. (AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner) AUSTIN CHRONICLE OUT, COMMUNITY IMPACT OUT, MAGS OUT; NO SALES; INTERNET AND TV MUST CREDIT PHOTOGRAPHER AND STATESMAN.COM
Lenell Ripley, second from left, cries as she demonstrates with other abortion rights supporters outside the Capitol auditorium in Austin, Texas, Thursday July 18, 2013. Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed sweeping new abortion restrictions on Thursday that could shutter most of the clinics in the nation's second most populous state. (AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner) AUSTIN CHRONICLE OUT, COMMUNITY IMPACT OUT, MAGS OUT; NO SALES; INTERNET AND TV MUST CREDIT PHOTOGRAPHER AND STATESMAN.COM
(AP Photo--Austin/American--Statesman, Jay Janner)
These are pictures of the protestors at the Texas Capitol building yesterday as the Governor signed into law House Bill 2 that prohibits abortions after 20 weeks and requires doctors performing abortions to have hospital privileges within 30 miles of their clinics.  It also requires the clinics to upgrade to surgical centers.  No matter what view of abortion you have, these are valid concerns for women's health.
I am a woman.  I am not ashamed to protect future men and women's lives.  I do agree we have to provide alternative help.  We cannot close down abortion clinics without aiding in alternatives--paying for norplant or other birth control or incentives to help women and men who would like to give their babies for adoption (because we've already established it is an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy).  For every woman crying, the blood of hundreds of thousands of babies is crying out--remember, these are our sisters and our brothers, and our kids' friends who never were given a chance at living.  If you have not read my previous post, let it be food for thought.  I understand these women are angry, because they feel that rights have been taken away and that government is telling them what they can and can't do with their bodies.  But again, whose rights are we aiming to protect?  Have these babies not been silenced before they ever had a chance to speak?  What about the women who never got a chance to stand up here, because they were aborted?  I don't understand in my head how we can cry about a story where someone kills a 4 month old, but we can't see the connection that we were in the womb once, and we were alive in the womb.  We were vulnerable--our futures lay before us, just like any baby in the womb.  Thank God our mothers and fathers didn't abort us.
Just in case you were wondering if there really is a connection between us and life in a womb, and whether these babies really matter even if they are unwanted pregnancies, I have to share a personal story.  We found out on December 18, 2007 our baby, Grace, had died in my womb at 22 weeks.  My parents live in Ft. Worth, TX.  They had been in Houston and came home to this sight in their back yard the day after I was not pregnant anymore.  You can see it's the middle of winter--later part of December, and the picture was taken at night.
While they thought their rose bush was dormant or dead after a spell of ice and cold, a single pink bud had appeared.  The pink bud never opened--the stem eventually broke off and they cut it off, dried it, and brought it to me.  They felt sure this was a sweet reminder of her, and they didn't even know she was a girl at that point.  When we have lost loved ones and these sort of coincidences happen, we feel a connection (sometimes spiritual) to that person.  If this sort of thing can happen with a baby in my womb, there has to be a validity to her life, whether I wanted her or not.  Her heart beat on earth while in my womb.  I saw her kicking and moving her arms with my own eyes.  She was most definitely alive.  Her heart stopped, so she did not live outside the womb.  But she was most definitely a baby.
I know there are many who are upset and angry at this law passing.  I cannot help it that my heart BREAKS and ACHES for the twin baby girls who were delivered in a toilet last August, because the mom did not want to have more girls.  I cannot change that about myself and how deeply it affects me.   (you can read the story here.  Even though the organization is biased for life, the story is real.).  Many people offered to adopt the baby girls.  She took medication to begin labor, endured labor for a couple of days, and then delivered in a toilet.  This is one type of an abortion at 20 weeks.  The law just signed bans abortions after 20 weeks, and I'm okay with that.  You may not agree with me, but I cannot help it that I am shaken by the thought of this scene.  I cannot help it that sadness wells up within me and for several days my heart sank just thinking about these baby girls and how someone could have raised them. Enjoying my two precious girls (even though they are not twins) and what these two twin girls would have been just hurts my heart.  These girls and boys deserve a voice. 
 
***A side note in case someone mentions that our country can't  handle more people.  We are not overpopulated.  Last reported in 2010, our fertility rate in the US is 1.9.  The replacement rate is 2.1. (http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2012/world-population-data-sheet/fact-sheet-us-population.aspx)  from the Population Reference Bureau.


No comments: