We Had Abortions Too...and Now We Are Pro-life

Ms. magazine plans to release its controversial fall issue next week containing a "We Had Abortions" cover story listing names of 5,000 women - famous and non-famous - who signed a petition stating that they've had abortions.

Fearful of the momentum growing against abortion-on-demand services and any South Dakotans who choose to vote yes on the Referred Law 6 abortion ban on their state's ballot on Nov. 7, Ms. magazine has coincided the release of its controversial fall issue with names of woman who've had abortions in hopes of ceasing the pro-life movement.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'
It's the same tactic Ms. successfully used back in 1972, when its debut issue included a manifesto signed by 53 women stating that they had undergone illegal abortions. The following pivotal year, the Supreme Court enacted Roe v. Wade, making abortion legal.

But I propose that Ms. magazine's "We Had Abortions" maneuver won't work this time. Over three decades later, the public is now armed with much more information surrounding childbearing and abortion that ever before. With an estimated 50 million abortions having been performed since 1973, plenty of women have experienced firsthand the physical, emotional and psychic toll that abortion exacts.

Medical advances have also made lay citizens privy to much more scientific data regarding childbearing from conception forward than in 1973. DNA tests now predict babies' sex at five weeks after conception.

Week 6 of the pregnancy calendars we pore over (whilst carrying wanted children) inform us of developing organs, including the "beginnings of the central nervous system," the same system that sends and receives pain signals.

Growing Up Pro-Choice
Pro-lifers aren't stupid. Pro-abortionists' desire to keep abortion legal is more about parental convenience and abdication of responsibility than anything else. It's a wrong mindset I too employed in the past, especially growing up in a self-centered society whose laws during most of my 37-year-old life told me it was okay to murder children.

But unlike women who boldly declare no regret at having had abortions, I boldly declare the opposite. After irresponsibly having four abortions during college, I tried to bury my secrets and put that part of my life behind me after moving on and getting married. But like all sin not dealt with, my past reared its ugly head.

In 1999, the year I turned 30, my mother died and I miscarried two babies that I really wanted. My devastation drove me to my knees, begging God for forgiveness. He readily bestowed it, blessing me later with a family.

Still, I was on the fence about the abortion issue...

The Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turning
Five years later, as autumn wound down, I toted my kids to the park. A small biplane dragged a banner and buzzed overhead, catching everyone's attention. "What does it say, Mommy?" my then 3-year-old son asked.

"Ten week..." I strained to read the final word then whispered it when it came into focus: "...abortion." Thankfully, he didn't press for details.

This was before the 2004 presidential election, and my swing state of Ohio was a fishbowl of media attention and bipartisan persuasion. A few days later, as I stopped at a red light, a truck displaying the same photo that previously circled in the air pulled up to my left side, giving me the chance to see what I couldn't before: the silver dime placed as a reference point, the contorted skull, the pink and currant-colored streaks, the mangled tissue.

Election Tuesday, I pulled the curtain behind me and did what more than double the amount of African-Americans in Ohio did compared to four years prior: pushed the chad on the other side.

Infanticide's Darker Ages
Abortion advocates decry returning to the illegal back-alley pre-Roe v. Wade abortion days and go on ad nauseum about the risk to women's lives who are "forced" to endure such dangerous wire-hanger procedures. Never do I hear them sympathize with the fetuses that may experience horrific pain during pregnancy termination.

Besides, there have been darker times than the back-alley abortion days. In Sparta, circa 500 B.C., Greeks tossed healthy babies off cliff sides for any number of reasons. Infanticide was the accepted norm in their adult-focused society and reflected in their laws. No wonder many prosperous and egotistical ancient communities were obliterated. Divine retribution lives on.

These days, prenatal 3D ultrasounds in living color make developing babies more real to us than ever before, morphing abortion into an exercise tantamount to infanticide. More people are recognizing this and putting political power behind their newfound understanding.

Despite the horrors of the bloody war on terror, I'm grateful the current administration is winning a different, bloodier and more sinister war. Roberts and Alito sit on the Supreme Court poised to enact change. We watch South Dakota's legislation with bated breath.

Where Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Can Agree
There is a space between the two camps where we can agree, if pro-choice folks stop waving coat hangers and pro-life folks drop holier-than-thou pretenses long enough to foster rationale conversation.

I can't imagine how unspeakable it would be to carry an unwanted pregnancy as a result of rape. Or the shame of being an irresponsible and lost teen birthing an unwelcome baby. Or a parent who chooses to make the heartbreaking decision to terminate a child who has birth defects.

Certain cases are a tough call, not easy to wrestle with because I've never had to endure the wrenching pain those folks have experienced directly. But it still doesn't set right with me to then say, Okay, go ahead and rip those little limbs apart.

I do agree with pro-abortionists on this: Right-to-lifers should put money where our mouths are and support unwanted and disadvantaged kids - financially, emotionally and spiritually - who are already born. But this argument is largely a smokescreen evading the real issue: that it is generally not okay to take the life of a baby, be they on this side of the birth canal or the other.

Will this argument hold up in years to come, if - heaven forbid - some young woman I love has to endure bearing an unwanted child? I pray that by exposing more of my story as a young girl "looking for love in all the wrong places," she'll heed mine as a cautionary tale and respect her body - her God-given temple - enough to never be in the position of wanting an abortion. Not strictly because they are then outlawed, but because she has been raised in a society that puts more value on human life.

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