Ann Voskamp wrecks me.

If you’ve not read her blog at aholyexperience.com or her book [ad name=”Amazon One Thousand Gifts Text Link”] I highly recommend both.

She absolutely wrecks me.

Because she doesn’t shy away from the hard things.

I have a hard time writing about hard things. Oh I know I can talk about trial, and pain, and grief, and death, but truly hard things… Hard questions with hard answers, my voice stumbles.

Abortion.

My heart stumbles at the word. I have so much inside to say about this, but the words become caught in my throat.

As I read through Ann’s post An Honest Conversation About Abortion that Asks Us Not to Turn Away — from anyone: The Emmaus Option I was hit right in my chest. Her words were what I longed to say.

Why couldn’t I say them?

Because I was afraid.

Afraid of what?

I am Pro-Life.

Pro-LIFE!

But to many that means “Anti-woman.”

What? How can being for life be against woman?

I’m not against women. I’m not against a woman’s rights, rights to following her dreams, rights to her own body, rights to proper healthcare.

I understand that a woman has more of a chance of education and the ability to build dreams and a career if she can have the ability to control when she has a child.

I understand that many women, desperate for a way out of a pregnancy that was not planned, used to go to back alley places and questionable people, only to have botched jobs that possibly caused their deaths.

I understand all these things. My heart hurts over these women who need a voice.

But I am Pro-Life.

Because, I can’t only just see the woman here.

[Tweet “I am #Pro-Life, because I can’t only just see the woman here.”]

At 16 weeks gestation, on Easter Sunday, my mother was rushed to the hospital. She had an incompetent cervix and the embryonic sac was dropping out. She was literally holding it in with her bare hands.

They happened upon a doctor who understood their beliefs and was willing to stand by them and try to save the pregnancy, but most doctors, given the risk of infection and miscarriage and the very real threat to the mother, would have recommended a termination. After all, this pregnancy only had a 5% chance of making it.

My mother was hung upside down as the sac was coaxed back into her womb and her cervix sewed closed.

This wasn’t the final complication for this pregnancy by a long way.

At 33 weeks gestation, 7 weeks early, they were unable to continue putting off the birth, and this baby who had only a 5% chance, as quoted by the doctors, was born. 5 pounds 6 ounces, a bit jaundice, but lungs fully formed. 12 days in the NICU, then I came home.

My father talks about a moment on that Easter Sunday where they almost lost me, the doctor found my heartbeat, and let my father listen.

It was strong, fast, I was alive. I imagine he cried.

I was alive.

This embryo was not just a clump of cells and tissue. It was me, and I was ALIVE.

[Tweet “This #embryo was not just a clump of cells and tissue. It was me, and I was #ALIVE.”]

Can you understand?

As much as I want to help, and truly care for, the rights of women, I can’t see just a clump of tissue.

Can you?

Have you seen the videos? The planned parenthood videos? I haven’t watched them. I can’t. I know that I will see little hands and organs of little babies and I can’t stand the sight.

I know! I get it! These women need help!

But is abortion help?

I will never, ever, blame a woman for getting an abortion. I won’t ever judge those who work in this industry, not if they really wish to help women. But why is it that abortion is the answer here?

And this is where Ann Voskamps post broke me. Because the answer, friend, isn’t abortion.

It is you and me.

The answer isn’t the picket line, it’s not in the protests, it is not in our vote, not in our laws. It is real people, caring about real people, being involved enough so that when a woman needs help, she’s not alone.

[Tweet “The #answer is real people being involved so when a woman needs help, she’s #notalone.”]

It is absolutely wrong to condemn a woman for having an abortion if you are not willing to give her every help she needs in order to make another choice. Because often abortion seems like the only choice.

So give them another!

Women’s rights and health do matter, and so do babies, no matter how small.

So, friend who is Pro-Life, I want to ask you: What are you doing to help women in need in your life, in your city?

Why don’t you find a local Alternatives Pregnancy Center? Ask how you can help? Here is a link to one in Sacramento.

And for anyone who might be reading this who is Pro-Choice? I am not going to ask you to stop being Pro-Choice, all I am going to ask is that you be willing to listen, to understand that the Pro-Life movement is not just a group of chauvinists who want to keep women down, but rather, hopefully mostly, a group of genuinely caring people, who simply cannot see tissue where there is LIFE.

Joy Aletheia Stevens

Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links. For more about affiliate links and other policies check out our Policy Page