All Life Matters

All life matters.

Or does it?

The recent abortion issue in New York is making me so sick I can’t even read about it.  I sit here watching my preposterously swollen belly shift in waves as a little boy repositions himself.  Sometimes he pushes his little bottom out so hard I can cradle it in my hand and it almost feels as though I’m holding him.  Occasionally he’ll stick a heel out in a funny little bulge.  These are the side benefits of pregnancy number five and an abdomen that has little muscle tone left.

I stare at his most recent ultrasound picture and want to kiss his perfect little mouth. I feel his hands bumping against my pelvis and his head bouncing as he gets hit with the hiccups.

And then I see the flashing headlines … both from people who feel as though they’ve won a great fight and from people talking about abortion in the gruesome terms it is and my soul feels as though the suction and clamps will squeeze the life out of it.

I hear people outraged about abortion for convenience and how long will it be until we’re allowing people to kill babies who have already been born because moms deserve a choice.  I hear it and I tremble.  Euthanasia and early abortion has already told us that life is not sacred to all of us and I tremble at how many more lives will not be considered worthy.

These are alive, beautiful babies being murdered.

It is so wrong.  So evil.  So horrific.

But there’s an equally disturbing fire in my soul and I don’t know how to wrestle with it well.

Somehow this all feels so much more complex and the questions circle around in my head.

It is right that this new approach deserves a loud outcry, but why has it stirred so deeply for us? Is it because more babies are being killed or because it is harder for us to look at a full term baby being aborted than it is to know the morning after pill is a common thing or because we’ve kind of gotten used to the fact that first trimester abortions happen?  And if it’s the latter, do we really believe that all lives matter equally?

I hear the outrage about women’s choice and how it’s all selfish and bring the baby to me.  I’ll love it.  And this is where it gets a little raw and vulnerable and I realize I’m a lot safer without the pregnancy induced insomnia where the words that bang around like “wrecking balls inside my head” stay inside instead of coming out in midnight blog posts.  I remember in nursing school before I had kids when they were talking about being on the lookout for child abuse injuries and I heard stories about people throwing their babies against the wall and I literally could not fathom.  Then I had a baby myself and for a few weeks he cried and cried and cried and cried some days like newborns do.  I was completely exhausted.  I couldn’t even go downstairs to eat or get a drink of water and I felt as though I would fall over and still he cried.  And in that moment when I could not bring myself to lay him down in his crib and let him cry for a few minutes to care for myself … because I just couldn’t even though I was falling apart physically and emotionally… I thought back to that long ago lecture and realized I finally understood why parents got to that point.  Never in a thousand years would I have considered it, but what if I hadn’t been taught what babies need?  What if I had hard days like that without resources on and on for days on end?  Tonight with the horror of that ruling like a black cloud of death above America, I bent over double from round ligament pain complicated by baby’s position, breathing through the pain as I helped the girls brush their teeth and get their pajamas on and tucked them into bed.  And I wondered, what would it be like to be a single mom needing to get up at five tomorrow morning no matter how I sleep and get my kids to daycare so I can go to work instead of listening to the boys finish up the dinner dishes as David roasts coffee beans.  Tomorrow morning I’ll sleep when my body lets me.  I thought about the nights when I toss and turn in misery or feel raw fear that I’m not going to be able to do this upcoming labor and delivery and the way David wakes up and holds me to pray rest over me and I wondered about that mama who hits the proverbial wall and just can’t do it anymore and there is no one to help her.  Somehow the words, “Bring that baby to me, I’ll love it” sound like hollow, echoing, painful arrows and I wonder why no one is going to them and supporting and loving them through a long, hard nine months?  Those babies matter so very much.  But what about their mamas?  Have you ever been in a really painful situation and it felt like no one wanted to get their hands messy to help you?

I agree that there is politics and greed and horrific motivation behind this.

But something inside of me always wonders, if Christians were actively loving, would this be happening?  What if instead of being incapacitated in horror we would ask ourselves what is abortion offering these women that they can’t find anywhere else and is there a way that we can help to offer that so they can be empowered to choose life?

Maybe it’s not possible.  Maybe this is all a battle of good and evil.  Maybe it’s us expecting that people will act in moral, God honoring ways even when they are not Christian and that’s not realistic.  Maybe I’m completely missing what drives most women to this point and it’s far more heinous than I can comprehend.  I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.

I can’t even fathom how much God is weeping over these babies.  Sometimes I wonder, is it possible that He is also weeping over us?

You know how sometimes people talk about the way it’s easy for Christians to love the story of Jesus in the manger and the story of the resurrection, but it’s a little harder to look deeply into the story of the Cross?  Is it possible that we look at the story of third trimester abortion and selectively see the preciousness of a fresh 48 hours … the scent of amniotic fluid lingering on soft baby skin.  The tiny squirms and the weight of seven pounds of pure perfection swaddled in a blanket.  Do we also see the babies who weren’t aborted and are now eight and in care and burdened with trauma we hardly know how to speak to?  Do we see the kids who come from difficult home lives and when they act out do we see their personhood and thank God that they are alive and full of potential or do we only see their disruptive behavior? What about the woman who sometimes seems on the level of a twelve year old who wasn’t aborted but given up for adoption and now has attachment / abuse issues that you will care deeply about but on some days want to give up because it’s so hard?  Do their lives still matter just as much now that they aren’t vernix covered and innocent?

I hope we never, ever lose our anger and our grief about the babies being murdered.  I hope we never stop valuing our own babies and the precious, miraculous gift of life.  But I hope this drives us to more than posting gorgeous pictures of newborns in our safe, privileged, oh so loved environments.  I hope it drives us to question, do all lives matter?  And if the answer is yes (it is, resoundingly so), than how are you and I showing up and living as though it’s true?

• ← Can We Please Have Spring Now?
• February Fun →