My Thoughts on the War Against Women

            The internet chronicles so much anger and indignation over what’s going on in legislatures in Georgia and Ohio, Mississippi and Alabama—and throw in Texas where one faction wants to rescind the rape exemption for abortion. It seems redundant of me to want to chime in, but I am so outraged that I cannot keep quiet.

I come at this topic from the perspective of an infertile woman who thinks the ability to bear a child is one of the greatest gifts God can give anyone. My feelings about that are only overcome by my unshakeable belief that every woman should have control over her own body, and what another woman decides is none of my damn business. I am grateful that none of the four girls in my family ever put that attitude to a test.

If you study this issue online—and I would urge you to—you know the arguments behind women’s outrage. Man are acting as gynecologists and assuming an expertise they don’t have; they’re obsessed with punishing women for tempting them (a bit puritanical and certainly misogynistic—though they never admit it); they accuse woman of heinous acts without knowing the emotional trauma that accompanies a miscarriage, a late-pregnancy fetal death, a stillbirth; and there’s the classic argument that once the baby is born the state abandons both it and the mother. Look for instance at the statistics about children in Georgia. Finally, there are so many contradictions and such illogic about the presence of a heartbeat, the way men would have us treat a fetus with a heartbeat as opposed to laws governing the treatment of a brain-dead individual with a heartbeat.

Sunday, for Mother’s Day, our senior minister preached on the strong women of the Bible and the value of women. I applauded his message, but it made me sad when so much is being done in our nation to undermine women’s roles. When I said the war on woman contradicts the love that Christ preached, someone said to me, “I don’t know. Abortion is not a loving act.” That in-the-box, traditional, conservative thinking drives me wild.

Very few if any women use abortion as a form of birth control. Nor do they wake up one day in their fifth month and decide willy-nilly they don’t want to be pregnant after all. Abortion is not a whim like going to get your hair cut. When I was a teenager, abortion was too often illegal, dangerous, and fatal to the mother—and it was done for reasons of “saving face.” Today that reason no longer exists—having a child out of wedlock is not a scandal to most people. Today, abortion is often an act of desperation—to save a mother’s life, to terminate a nonviable pregnancy, to spare a badly damaged fetus a life of pain and suffering. I don’t know statistics, but I am convinced that for most women miscarriage or abortion are emotional traumas that they carry with them for life. You never completely recover. And instead of showing Christian love and compassion, men want to punish.

For what? For being human? For being a woman? That they dare to couple their draconian measures with Christianity is, for me, the ultimate outrage.

I don’t personally believe in hell, but I do believe in karma. My concern is for the women who will suffer today and tomorrow while we wait for what goes ‘round to come ‘round. I think the least any of us can do is vote to retire old white men who have been in power too long and elect men and women of compassion and common sense.

Giving Offense…or Taking It

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me or reads my blog and Facebook posts that I have strongly progressive leanings. What I don’t talk about much is that my politics are mixed with my faith—in some ways it all comes down to two simple tenets for me: Jesus told us we are our brother’s keeper, and “of all of these, love is the greatest.” (I’m not a Biblical scholar enough to quote chapter and verse, but I am a fairly devout Christian.)

Something has been bothering me for a while: how can these Christians, who loudly proclaim they follow the Bible, also follow the current conservative philosophies. Mike Huckabee thinks it was right to for a ten-year-old incest victim to carry her baby to term. Pro-Life people rail against the murder of abortion but don’t seem to give a fig about the health, nutrition, welfare or soul of that baby once it gets here. Congress votes to cut veteran benefits—after we’ve sent those men and women to fight wars that maybe we shouldn’t even be involved in. Conservatives rail against social security—which gives the elderly a guaranteed small amount of money and is money they paid in, not an entitlement. Many of the conservative presidential candidates sound as though all our budget problems would be solved if we cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Thus condemning many older Americans to poverty, illness, and early death. Truthfully, I don’t see how you reconcile these beliefs and others with the teachings of Christ.

When I found an essay on KOS Daily (admittedly a left-wing web site) explaining why you can’t be both a Christian and a Republican, I shared it. It didn’t exactly say things the way I would have said them, and it did cherry-pick Biblical quotes (Republicans never do that!) but it hit so close to home I shared it.

A friend, someone I’d tried hard to help through a difficult time, wrote that she was deeply offended. Being ever the peacemaker, caretaker, nurturer, and so on, I wrote back apologizing, saying I’d hoped one other specific friend would read it, I meant no offense, blather, blather blather. And then I thought: where’s your backbone? Your spine? Facebook is a place where I say what I believe, and I did that. I won’t recant my beliefs or soft-pedal them; I will willingly engage in intelligent discussions of our differences, but when it gets to the level of personal offense, I’m ashamed of myself for caving.

So there you have it. I am who I am, and I am fairly fervent about my beliefs and will continue to speak out. I think it’s important for the future of our country, which sometimes scares the life out of me. If I can get one person to think about our current political structure and their faith, I have nudged a mountain. I hope I haven’t lost a friend.

 

A day of anticipation

I like Easter Saturday. There’s so much anticipation in that day sandwiched between the grief of Good Friday and the joy of Easter.

For kids, it’s anticipation of Easter egg hunts and treats and…oh, yeah. And church. Jacob went to bed last night wishing that it was already Saturday because then Easter would be the next day and the Easter bunny would come. He did have a good discussion with neighbor Jay about the meaning of Good Friday and Easter. To my surprise, Jay taught Sunday school more than once, and he did a good job of explaining what Christians see as the love of God in sacrificing his son and the reassurance of the resurrection. Jacob took it all in seriously, and he replied intelligently, though by today he was a bit foggy on the details. He’ll be at sunrise service with the rest of us, but I know a big part of his mind will be on the egg hunt. Actually he’ll have two egg hunts, but that’s another story.

For many of us as adults, it’s a day of preparation which heightens the anticipation. Jordan says it’s like Christmas Eve—so much to do, so little time. I know it’s been a cooking day for me—German potato salad for a family gathering tomorrow; sloppy Joe for a working dinner tonight; setting the table for Easter breakfast. Jordan prepared for the Easter bunny, straightened what she thought needed straightening about my house including the bathroom, laid out things for the morning I hadn’t gotten to yet. And then she went home to do the same at her house.

I’ve written about the relationship between food and mysteries but it occurs to me you could do a great article on food and Christianity, from the feeding of the multitudes (Jacob was retelling the story tonight and said Jesus’ mother told him there wasn’t enough wine and to hurry up and make more) right up to today when so many of our holidays center around meals and traditional foods. Turkey at Christmas, ham or lamb for Easter…and in my family, a big breakfast on each of those days.

Tomorrow I’ll host breakfast for between seven and nine adults and two children right after the early service. We’ll have breakfast parfaits (strawberries. yogurt, granola), an egg casserole, link sausages and biscuits or hot cross buns. I love the buns, buy them every year, and I think I’m the only one who eats them.

Tonight Jordan made the egg casserole (I really don’t believe in doing it the night before but she told me “that’s how we young people roll, Mom”—I bit my tongue on several counts) and I finished setting the table. So the sloppy Joe sustained us during this activity. Morning will be hectic with the two young ones hunting eggs and Jordan and me getting breakfast on the table.

A break in the middle of the day—for me, a nap. Then it’s off to Jordan’s for mid-afternoon dinner of ham, beans, potato salad with Christian’s family. Preceded of course by an egg hunt for Jacob and his two cousins.

In the midst of it all, I will try hard to keep in mind that miracle that draws us together, the mystery of the stone rolled away, the glory of the risen Christ. A feeling of awe and grace came over me last year at the sunrise service—it’s magic to go in the dark and, sitting in the garden, watch the sky go from gray to pink to daylight. I’m filled with anticipation of the good news.