We were driving back from northern Minnesota on Monday, and along the first stretch of our drive through a series of small lakes and small towns, we also drove through a series of faith-laden billboards. One of them simply said "God Loves You" in some seriously fancy script. Cool.
Unfortunately, it was followed by two or three pro-life, anti-abortion billboards. Let me say, from the get-go, that I despise the culture of anti-abortion advertising and maneuvering.
Let me also say from the get-go that I am usually very quiet about my opinions on this matter. If I had to define myself, I guess I'd say that I live with a pretty expansive pro-all-life ideology. Meaning that I value life in all forms. So if you pushed me, I'd want there to be fewer abortions rather than more abortions...but I also really want wars to stop and guns to be controlled and violence to end and the death penalty to be revoked. And if you really really pushed me to put a more political boundary around my beliefs, I would probably have to say that I support a woman's right to choose...but I also have a distinct bias about what choice I would want a woman to make. If that makes any sense.
But back to the topic at hand.
I looked at these billboards and felt so strange and conflicted. These billboards were trying to sell their anti-abortion stance by telling drivers that unborn babies have heartbeats and fingerprints from only a few weeks into a woman's pregnancy. The argument is, essentially, "even at six or seven weeks, this is a BABY, and if you have an abortion, you are KILLING A BABY." It is supposed to convince me that an early fetus isn't just a lump of cells, but is a life.
Except that when you have been through the loss of a pregnancy (or two!), this message is unbelievably infuriating. Because I didn't choose to lose my babies...my body chose it without consulting me. And to be incredibly honest, one of the biggest things that has kept me sane and kept my grief at a manageable level is the knowledge that my losses were early, and that I lost a pregnancy and I lost a potential life...and so for a billboard to unknowingly try to force me to see my losses as living, breathing babies...it was a little too much for me to handle.
I don't know quite how to sum up what I'm thinking here. I am conflicted. Going through the experience of a loss has opened my heart to others who have experienced a loss, whether spontaneous or chosen. I know what it is like to have one day and then not have the next day. And trying to force someone to see that a seven-week pregnancy is a baby is just a rough thing for me to deal with.
Those billboards really just made me realize that because of what I have experienced, I stand in far more solidarity with women who have made that difficult choice than I had realized. The billboards offended me in a deeper and different way than my usual frustration with that sort of rhetoric. Because even if they didn't know it, it felt like they were talking right to me. And it didn't feel good.
Unfortunately, it was followed by two or three pro-life, anti-abortion billboards. Let me say, from the get-go, that I despise the culture of anti-abortion advertising and maneuvering.
Let me also say from the get-go that I am usually very quiet about my opinions on this matter. If I had to define myself, I guess I'd say that I live with a pretty expansive pro-all-life ideology. Meaning that I value life in all forms. So if you pushed me, I'd want there to be fewer abortions rather than more abortions...but I also really want wars to stop and guns to be controlled and violence to end and the death penalty to be revoked. And if you really really pushed me to put a more political boundary around my beliefs, I would probably have to say that I support a woman's right to choose...but I also have a distinct bias about what choice I would want a woman to make. If that makes any sense.
But back to the topic at hand.
I looked at these billboards and felt so strange and conflicted. These billboards were trying to sell their anti-abortion stance by telling drivers that unborn babies have heartbeats and fingerprints from only a few weeks into a woman's pregnancy. The argument is, essentially, "even at six or seven weeks, this is a BABY, and if you have an abortion, you are KILLING A BABY." It is supposed to convince me that an early fetus isn't just a lump of cells, but is a life.
Except that when you have been through the loss of a pregnancy (or two!), this message is unbelievably infuriating. Because I didn't choose to lose my babies...my body chose it without consulting me. And to be incredibly honest, one of the biggest things that has kept me sane and kept my grief at a manageable level is the knowledge that my losses were early, and that I lost a pregnancy and I lost a potential life...and so for a billboard to unknowingly try to force me to see my losses as living, breathing babies...it was a little too much for me to handle.
I don't know quite how to sum up what I'm thinking here. I am conflicted. Going through the experience of a loss has opened my heart to others who have experienced a loss, whether spontaneous or chosen. I know what it is like to have one day and then not have the next day. And trying to force someone to see that a seven-week pregnancy is a baby is just a rough thing for me to deal with.
Those billboards really just made me realize that because of what I have experienced, I stand in far more solidarity with women who have made that difficult choice than I had realized. The billboards offended me in a deeper and different way than my usual frustration with that sort of rhetoric. Because even if they didn't know it, it felt like they were talking right to me. And it didn't feel good.
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