It all begins with this:
Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
That's what the people of Mississippi are voting on November 8th.But first, let me tell you a story.
I gave birth to Thomas in 2007 at South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel, Mississippi. This was certainly not my first choice of hospitals but it was where our insurance covered us. Beaux had just started working there in mid-June and our insurance kicked in July 1st. If you're not from Mississippi, you may be familiar with the demographics of Laurel. It's a funny place - it used to be a booming lumber mill town, and there's lots of "old money" there. There are beautifully restored historic homes that you would give your right arm to live in.
But the overwhelming population is poor and black, if you'll forgive my bluntness. It's also known for being full of Mexican immigrants who come to work in the factories - Howard Industries and Sanderson Farms. You can see the percentages here on the town's Wikipedia page - a median income of $25,000.
I clearly remember a nurse saying to me, after I gave birth to Thomas, after a roomful of family and friends who had stayed up all night to greet our blessed baby all laughed and cried, taking turns holding our new baby, cleared out - "It's so nice to see a couple who are happy about having a baby." I was shocked. I was flush with new love for my child and was already aching to have him back in my arms.
Yet I realized that it wasn't always that way, and certainly not in this particular corner of my home state.
Most of y'all know that Thomas was soon air-lifted to another hospital, the women's hospital here in Jackson. I will never forget walking past rows and rows of sick babies, with no mamas sitting by their incubators. No daddies rocking them. This was not the dark, quiet NICU you see on TV dramas - it was a big room with rows of babies with very few parents by their side. Our precious baby was nearly never alone, even when I could not physically be there. Yet right behind him was a tiny baby that was so small - probably a pound or less. My heart cried out - where was this mama? And slowly the knowledge dawned on me - that some of these babies were here and their mothers couldn't be. Maybe they had to return to work to keep their job. Maybe they couldn't get a ride, couldn't afford the gas for a several-hour drive. Maybe they had more kids at home they couldn't leave. Not everyone was like me, with family resources, with generous family and friends sending money for a hotel room if we needed one, with friends and family willing to sit up all night and make sure our very wanted child was never alone.
It's just not always like that.
The situation here in Mississippi, on both sides, is tense. Discussion is fierce. Facebook has probably had to buy several extra servers with all the extra activity. I stay connected to it as much possible, where new information rolls in and is posted in several anti-26 groups I'm part of. Maybe I'm jumping ahead here, but in case it's not clear: I will not be voting for initiative 26.
The first I heard of it was an out-of-state friend, posting a link to a story on the Huffington Post. I read it and thought, "No way." It didn't surprise me that a group was trying to make abortion illegal, but what about the rest of it? What was this about certain birth controls being limited? Surely not - not in the state with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation. Not when sex education is not taught in schools (though that will soon change) and the cultural expectation is abstinence. What's unspoken (though my father told me directly to please use birth control) is that if you are going to be a sinner who has sex outside of marriage, then please have some sense and use birth control.
So why take away birth control options, specifically, hormonal birth control? It didn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Except, of course, if you believe that when egg and sperm meet - fertilization - is when life itself begins. It doesn't matter that medical science generally believes conception happens when a fertilized egg implants itself in the uterine wall - why worry about a pesky thing like science when you've got the Word of God?
(Paging Galileo.)
What it really all comes down to, for the people behind this initiative (which is backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars by out of state funds, as well what some consider a hate group) honestly believe that you are killing a person when you use hormonal birth control that may keep an egg from implanting. And because they believe that interpretation of the Bible, the rest of us should have to as well. (I'll get back to that in a minute.) Except that the people of Personhood haven't been completely upfront about this belief. They've skirted around the truth, said it's lies of Planned Parenthood and the ACLU that hormonal birth control will be limited or outlawed- when their own information, if you look hard enough, directs you toward the lists the hormonal birth controls it considers abortificants. Many of their affliated OB-GYNs refuse to prescribe birth control in their practices. The intent of this initiative is to make abortion illegal in the state, and to eventually challenge Roe v.Wade.
My main problem with this initiative is far too broad and leaves the decisions of hormonal birth control, IVF, and conditions surrounding abortion (as it is, there is no exception for rape or incest) in the hands of lawyers and legislators. That is who will decide this - not the people who put the initiative together. Doctors and nurses and various medical associations (Mississippi State Medical Association, Mississippi Nurses Association, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, National Infertility Association and the American Chapter of the American Congress of Obstreticians and Gynecologists have all refused to support the initiative.) are concerned it will affect treatment of ectopic pregnancy, women with cancer, and other very specific situations. These very real and important concerns are waved away by the Personhood supporters. Of course that wouldn't happen! Don't be ridiculous - a mother's life will always be saved. But wait - if a fertilized embryo is a full person, how can it just be lightly dismissed? It's a PERSON. A mother's life comes first, except for when it doesn't. A rape victim will be required by law to carry a baby that she in no way chose to co-create. The morning-after pill will not be available. IVF will be virtually impossible to practice in any successful way, which is fine by those in the Personhood camp. Never mind that these families are desperately trying to have children. THOSE children, evidently, don't have a right to life like the rest of the unborn babies that are breaking everyone's hearts.
Children like my friend Sara's two kids. Children like Atlee's. Children like Linda's or Julia's. No. Those kids don't count, apparently.
(Do you see how logical this all is? Because I sure don't.)
My main frustration is that...the inner workings of Personhood come from very specific religious beliefs. And I honestly support anyone who wants to practice a life of natural family planning for their family. I will welcome your children with joy and laughter and celebrate right with you. I will admire you and think that your choice is beautiful and worthy in every single way. But I should not be forced into a law where I have to do the very same. There is a breakdown between the separation of church and state here and I will not be silent in my outrage.
I am so angry about this. Let me say that again. I AM SO ANGRY THAT MY CHOICE IS NOT VALID BECAUSE OF SOMEONE ELSE'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE. I am angry that my private rights as a citizen of the United States of America are being violated BECAUSE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. That my choice to plan my family with my husband as we see best, according to our resources, is seen as deeply selfish and yes, sinful. Never mind that my OB-GYN has concerns about this initiative and how it could affect how he can care for pregnant women. Never mind that my Bishop has spoken out publicly against it and will not vote for it. Never mind that I've never been taught by any church in my life that using birth control thwarts God's will for me or my family.
It's like being blindsided with a bat studded with nails.
Can you imagine if a group of Islamic Americans came together with an initiative to change a state's constitution, based on the Koran? How well do you think that would go over with the Christian population? There would be outrage of unprecendented levels. And this is related to my greatest fear, that many Christians believe that America is a theocracy, without realizing how dangerous it is. Because you may agree with the founding principles, but those principles can slowly spin out of the original meaning and into more oppressive practices.
Long have I pondered over my observation of many of my Christian brothers and sisters: I know they mean well. I know they were raised to believe that the Bible is the authority in a Christian life. I honestly believe all intentions are only to follow God as closely as they can, that they truly want to pursue God's will - but what ends up happening is that the Bible is an idol. It is often the Bible that is worshipped. I don't know that it's given a higher place than God or Jesus, but it's certainly synonymous. Instead of the Trinity, there is a neat little rectangle of God-Jesus-Holy Spirit-the Bible. At least, that's how it often seems. As someone who was not raised in the church, I find myself unable to accept the Bible as easily, even after many years as a believer. I have issues with the Bible. I treasure it, value it, and hold it in serious respect. I do not believe it's inerrant. Inspired, yes, but written by humans. So when someone can focus on a few verses to justify their beliefs - or base a major life decision like family planning around those verses, I just can't go there with them. I'm sorry, but I can't. Not to mention that I can find completely different interpretations for many of the same verses. So who is right? Who can say? I believe God is not contained by a mere book, that He is bigger and broader and wilder and everything that is More - and that I cannot only look through that lens for my life. When I use the Bible, I have to look deeply into it - look past the words I read on the surface to what the original languages said. The context of the time, the situation. It's awfully hard to drop our American perspective and disappear into the time of Moses, Jesus, Paul.
For many, I have dashed whatever Christian credibility I may have against the wall with that statement. That's okay. I believe my salvation is in Jesus, not the Bible. But that is why I cannot - will not - accept that a certain interpretation of verses should shape my life so radically as well as the lives of countless other women and children.
What I believe - what keeps coming back to me, over and over - is that this sort of belief in the supremacy of the children you are born to bear, this Quiverful stance is deeply rooted in the dangerous teachings that are so firmly entrenced in conservative and fundamentalist Christian beliefs. When you teach generation after generation of women that they are worth less than men, that their voice matters less, that they have no authority that could possibly be worth more than a man's, that they are never to preach or teach over a man - that belief wraps itself around the subconcious and hearts of women. When the role of wife and mother is held supreme and the Proverbs 31 woman is the impossible ideal - then there is very little question of a woman's personal needs or emotional capability. God sanctifies you through your children, which - this is true for every Christian mother. But it is not the only path.
I think of the many, many women who are incredibly gifted in their professional lives. My "other mother" is a speech pathologist who raised three beautiful step-daughters and yet made a difference in countless school children's lives. A woman and friend I admire is a vice-principle and passionate about education in the public schools. There are women pastors who deliver a word from God with so much grace and wisdom that I could listen to them for hours. Are these women less of who God called them to be because, perhaps, they utilized birth control in some form to manage their families so they could be wholly present to their children? (And please know I am not saying they did, I have truly no idea, but it is reasonable to assume they did, at some point.) And what of the women who feel truly called NOT to pursue motherhood? Am I less a woman of God because I felt a savage conviction of my own to enjoy as much time as possible with my son before I welcome another child? That I knew and KNOW with all my being that I did not want stairstep children, and furthermore, neither did my husband? Who is ANYONE to interpret my own heart but myself? Did God not give me this heart? It is not that I think no one is called to welcome as many children as possible into their families - not at all. But I think it is presumptous and spiritually arrogant to expect everyone to do so.
It's time for many of my fellow Mississippians and Christians to release these idealistic beliefs about the reality of life for many children born into our state. Not every pregnancy is the result of love between two people. Not every baby conceived will have a beautifully decorated nursery and a dresser full of carefully folded clothes. It's not always a happy event - whether it's a teen pregnancy, a single mother, a mother with more children than she can afford to feed, a woman with many severe physical or mental issues that make it dangerous for her to be pregnant. It's not easy to give up a baby for adoption and those who do make a truly selfless choice.
There are situations that we can't even imagine and we don't want to imagine. But we must be realistic. We live in a deeply broken world. In the ugliest of places, it often seems God is absent. When he calls us to speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves, does he mean only the unborn? Or does He mean the children who are crying from hunger in our own counties, the incest victim who has no safe adult to run to, the underage prostitute used by powerful men and left with no options? Are our hearts only to break for those who are unborn, who will never be born? Or can we find a way to help those who are already here? Are we doing the very best for our future children, for our daughters, our nieces, our friends - to agree to relinquish the rights a previous generation fought for? When our babies have the highest infant mortality rate of our country, when prenatal care is inadequate for much of the state - can we agree that these are issues we should focus upon, as we seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God?
I know this is a lot to read. I am writing in the middle of the night, fueled by what feels like a righteous anger. I am sick to death of being told I'm selfish, sinful, making choices out of convenience. But as I have wrestled with these issues over the past months,thinking deeply while washing dishes in my kitchen sink, running down my street, in endless conversations with my husband and friends, these are the conclusions I have come to. I have prayed and am not getting the same answer as everyone else, it seems. It is not popular to be in support of abortion in any way in Mississippi, even when your support is for abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare". I have found myself in disagreement with my parents, with my most cherished friends. My heart breaks over that, but over and over again I find myself unable to agree with those who would vote for this initiative. I am passionate that women must be free to have reproductive choices - that to limit our birth control options is to take away personal, private freedom. And I am thankful for those who are willing to ask questions over and over, to demand answers, to work unbelievably hard in an unforgiving atmostphere, who have given me courage to keep going. I have held signs and will make phone calls in the next few days and I will not give up. I will stand up for what I believe in. As a woman. As a mother. As a Christian. As all of these identities, wrapped into one human heart.
{For an extensive list of information links on this issue, please go here. Curated by DeeDee Baldwin.}
