The conversation in-between

Pro Choice. Pro Life. As I scroll through the social media, it’s as if every post is whispering to me, ‘choose your side!’

We must be pro/or anti. We must align our stance, with our political leanings.

I was brought up in a very left wing family. I was brought up to understand the values of having an equal and caring society, one that paid people fairly for their work, offered good support services, like free education, health etc.

I still believe in all of these things.

I can remember talking about abortion with my mum, maybe as a teenager, about there being a right time and wrong time to have a baby. That abortion was important because if someone is young, and hasn’t had a career etc. or lives in poverty et.. then what kind of mother would they be anyway?

I remember dreaming about being a mother as a teenager, but as someone from a middle class family, I would not get pregnant when I was young, of course not. I had to have a career first.

There was an exhibition I remember seeing in my twenties called Body-World’s of real human specimens from the body, including, entire dead bodies. The aim of the exhibition, which still travels the world was to ‘educate the public about the inner workings of the human body and to show the effects of healthy and unhealthy lifestyles.’

The part of the exhibition that struck me the most was where they showed foetuses at every stage of a pregnancy. I was surprised to see that even the tiniest stage showed such intricate details of a human baby. I had misunderstood. I thought the early stages were just a clump of cells, a blob floating around.

It was all very unconcious at this stage, but I now recognise that in those moments, deep down in my brain, beyond my societal programming as a left-wing, pro-choice woman, something was stirring. That abortion was a bigger deal than I thought.

When I began speaking up about my side effects from the LLETZ procedure, I began to get messages from women who’ve had the exact same side effects of nerve damage and loss of sexual sensation from abortion. Again, I had this feeling of surprise, or wondering how to process this information. After all, as someone who was ‘left wing,’ it was as if I’d somehow picked up the message that abortion was no big deal. Yet it came with risks, risk that women should be warned about. And yet, because of the divide and rule/pro/anti/choose your side narrative, where is the more nuanced discussion? I sensed that there would be something ‘unnacceptable’ to speak about the risks of abortion. That if I dared say a word, I would be flung into the ‘pro-life camp.’ As if there is no land in-between.

I read some articles about the grief women feel over miscarriage, and how there isn’t much awareness about it in our society, how it can be a struggle to process, because it’s often such a private grief, since we often don’t tell people we are pregnant till after 12 weeks. Also that it is still a grief, a loss of a life, even if that child is unborn.

Looking back at this point my mind was holding dissonance. Because if a miscarriage is the loss of a life, and can be grieved like the loss of any loved one, then what about abortion? Can the difference be simply down to whether it’s a chosen baby or not?

At some stage along the line, I realised that women do grieve babies they have aborted. I don’t know if that is always the case or sometimes, or if these feelings remain buried deep inside or are on the surface. I haven’t had an abortion myself, so I can’t speak from experience.

But what I want to say, is that I do think an abortion is a big deal. Physically and emotionally.

I think that in the pro/versus anti divide, I didn’t grasp, how big a deal it was, because it took me years to disentangle my own thinking, feeling and perception, from what I had been ‘told’ to think as a left-wing person in society.

Am I pro-life? Am I pro-choice?

I wonder how it would be, if instead of rising to the bait, and arguing amongst ourselves in the divide and rule fashion that is used by elites, media, and the medical industry to profit from us, and control us, that we might instead come together to talk about it?

Having recently become a Christian, and starting to talk to pro-life Christians, and listen to some interviews online, I am struck by the fact that these people are not who I thought they were. They are not the people I was told about by the left-wing media. They are not the people who lack compassion for the mothers. They are not the people who judge others for getting pregnant. Maybe I’ve been lucky to meet some good ones.

There is one thing, I feel we have enough factual information to agree on from both sides of the argument and that is that an abortion is a big deal.

I think perhaps this has been lost in the need to defend ‘reproductive rights’ and get angry at men who try to control our bodies.

I am not comfortable with the idea of men controlling our bodies. Perhaps I think of it in the same way that oppressive drug laws, do not prevent addiction and drug use. What I am comfortable with, is thinking about positive ways in which abortion could be minimised. And to come together and think about the power structures of our society and how they use arguments like this to turn us against each other, for political, and financial gain.

In the land in between pro and anti, there may be ideas, and creative solutions, and understanding to be gathered, that no-one is going to find when they write posts saying, ‘’if you don’t believe in body autonomy then unfriend me now.’’

I’ve mentioned this film already in many previous posts, but Accidental Courtesy is a film about a black musician who started befriending members of the Klu Klux Klan. I think it’s a powerful example of the results that happen when people come together and talk.

I will leave you with this interview with Linda Znachko, a Christian who runs a ministry that names and organises burials for unborn babies. One of these babies, was murdered by her mother, a young student, who hid her pregnancy out of shame. She has since befriended the mother, who became a Christian while in jail.

This is a powerful story about the values of forgiveness, non-judgement, and love.

If we choose to be divided on this, we will never hear the full story. We agree on so much. And yet when we choose to argue, align with a particular political camp, without honestly thinking through our opinions, then we will never see it.