Love, Life & Choice: Can We Be Advocates For All Three?

I watch the protests for and against abortion on the news, YouTube, and social media. People on the Pro Life side hold up signs that say “Love for Life,” and people on the Pro Choice side hold up signs that say “My Body, My Choice.” Aren’t all ofthese sentiments true for all of us? Aren’t we all for love and life? Aren’t we all for respecting our bodies and having our children grow up healthy and safe? I think understanding each other is not so much about understanding abortion issues. It’s about understanding each other’s stories and humanness. It’s about love and life and choice and compassion.

When I worked at Hoover High School, we partnered with a nearby middle and elementary school to work on creating smooth transitions for K-12 students. I became close to one elementary school teacher and we often shared our students’ stories. She told me of a ten-year-old student who was accosted and raped while walking home from school. The rapist impregnated her fragile ten-year-old body. The child’s doctorsand family determined it would be too traumatic for her body, mind, and spirit to carry a child to term and then birth that child into a world she didn’t even understand yet.

My heart breaks to imagine my loved one – any ten-year-old – in this predicament. Trying to “see” this invasion for even a complete stranger fills me with anxiety and grief. It is not my business to judge whether her parents made the right decision. They did the best they could. My job is to love and strive for empathy and compassion. I want her parents to love her and help heal her from her trauma. I don’t want them to worry about whether their state will help them, whether they have enough funds and time off work to travel to a different state, whether when they get there someone will be picketing their choice to save their daughter.

I know many more stories. About incest. About carrying a relative’s child. About a mother who will lose her life if she continues with her pregnancy. About a baby who cannot survive outside the womb. About a young woman who had more than one abortion because her parents strict religious background did not allow for communication around sex and birth control. I don’t know the answers to the complex issues surrounding abortion. I do know that when we share our stories and our pain, we become one. I do know that I have no right to judge anyone on any side of these heart-wrenching issues.

I believe that when we listen and love, we can find room to let every human be human. I do not know what your body and spirit can handle. Your life is not my choice.