in which I make myself unpopular.

[elementalhero]

I am pro-life.

I am also pro-choice.






To clarify this:

I strongly disbelieve in abortion on a personal level. Yes, to get this out of the way, I'm Catholic. I'm a member of a large religious group run by a bunch of old white guys. I go to church on Sundays. I occasionally (maybe three or so times a year) pray the Rosary. I don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Once in a while, I go to confession and tell my repertoire of sins to a priest and say a bunch of prayers for absolution. When people around me are sad or angry or in a bad situation, and I tell them I'll pray for them, I actually do.

And when science itself says that life begins long before we're born, I believed for a long time (and still, on a gut level, do believe) that it's wrong to create that life and then take it away without considering other options.

But.

That would apply in a perfect world, where the only people who get pregnant are the people who want to be pregnant: the people who can afford both physically and financially to have a child and to take care of it, who will take care of it and love it and raise it. That would apply in a world where women aren't raped, forced into relationships they aren't ready for, or sometimes biologically incapable of carrying the child to term without grievous harm being done to both their bodies and the bodies of their children.

I believe in the separation of church and state. I believe that morality and free will become meaningless when a choice is not offered to begin with. So I think that a law that prevents women from choosing to have an abortion if they believe it's the right thing for their bodies and their lifestyles is wrong. I think that a law that would prosecute women who have miscarriages is wrong.

And that's why I'm pro-choice.

But.

I don't think that we - and by "we," I mean the so-called moral majority, which I suppose includes me - should continue preaching abstinence in the vain and sanctimonious assumption that severing a limb will eradicate the problem. If the Catholic Church didn't disagree with using birth control and condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place, this crisis would surely abate. If we didn't live in a society that still treats women as property and second-class citizens, this wouldn't be a problem.

If we truly treated all life with dignity - regardless of gender, sex, class, race, creed, ability, and any other category I'm missing - only then could we cast the first stone. So I support women's rights laws. I support AIDS prevention and high school sex classes that actually teach safe sex practices. I think that the self-righteous, short-sighted bastards who passed that law in Utah are wrong. I think that the fuckheads who call themselves pro-life but saw fit to murder a doctor who stood up and did what he believed to be right, I think those people are going to burn in hell. Because if you're going to respect life, respect all life.

And that's what I mean when I say I'm pro-life. It means, "when possible, I, personally, do my best to choose life."



So, when I see people angrily throw around words like "Christian," and "pro-life" as vicious, pejorative words intended to conjure up images of self-righteous, hypocritical pricks, I feel like if I speak up and say I proudly consider myself as a pro-life Christian, I would lose all credibility among the people with whom I agree. Those are stereotypes, just like the ones that every other group faces. The fact that the stereotype is true in many cases (and trust me, I know a whole addressbook-full of cases) doesn't make it any less of a stereotype.

So, please, don't use them without context. That's all. Or at least, not around me.

Thanks.

Comments

[thehopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

I couldn't have said it better, myself. ♥

[thehopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

ETA: This is also why I hate it when scientists make a point of looking down upon strict creationists and going on about how obviously wrong they are. You know what? They are entitled to their opinions, even if they can be wrong (example: age of the earth). More than that? Talking down to them makes a person come across than nothing more than a condescending asshole, and no one will take that seriously.

But of course I can't say that, or my other biology majors will disown me.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

I don't know why you can't be a creationist and believe in the science at the same time. Guess who was there to watch and document creation? NO ONE. I mean, look at the Big Bang, it's totally compatible. "Let there be light." BANG. This has been my pet theory since I was in like the 3rd grade, I remember trying to explain it to my teacher once.

I mean, if you're a creationist, then GOD INVENTED SCIENCE, SO CLEARLY SCIENCE IS AWESOME. :|b

/hugs you ;3;

[thehopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY. EXACTLY. I'm not Christian, but I am pretty religious, and the way I think is that science is the way in which God made things. Which makes it that much more awesome to me! There's so much probability involved in the way things happened, so why not believe it was guided by a higher power?

/hugs you too ♥

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

/hugging party!

/gets out account just for the icon

[regisquefuturi.livejournal.com]

[renaliner.livejournal.com]

That's cool of you to say it so clearly. I'm not especially religious, but I've always felt a bit uncomfortable about abortion in the sense that the thought of it strikes me as terribly sad, and in that scenario, I'm not sure I would be able to go through with it. But at the same time, I don't believe I have the right to chose for another person. Still, though. It's a delicate subject, and I admire you for being able to express yourself so honestly.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

♥ Thank you.

[fyretoppaaa.livejournal.com]

Well-said! ♥ Religion's never been my cup of tea, and unfortunately a lot of the loudest people on both sides do manage to fit the stereotypes, but I've known enough sane, reasonable, awesome religious folk that it's really not an issue as far as I'm concerned.

Let us all be awesome & fight for rights together. :>

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

we're gonna fight

for the right

to paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarty


and also to make informed decisions about our own bodies

lol rp journal

[callmelegion.livejournal.com]

Kuri linked me to this. I hope you don't mind me replying. I wanted to say, first of all, that I'm very glad to see that your feminist consciousness seems to be getting more and more aware. I understand and agree with basically everything you have typed here about how good sex education and access to birth control would limit abortions, and of course the "pro-choice" liberal feminist camp also believes so. The idea that anyone believes that abortion should be a first choice is certainly a strawman, and it's a poor one for the other side to pull out, when you consider that their extremists are the ones advocating for abstinence only sex education (which doesn't work, period, and which is bigoted, too -- how can you wait until marriage if you're not allowed to marry the person you love?) and advocating against birth control.

All that said, I do still have trouble with the term "pro-life". I do not have trouble with the definition you've outlined here or your view, but the term itself? Yes. And the reason I don't like it is because the existence of the term "pro-life" suggests that a dichotomy exists; that there is a "pro-death" floating around out there somewhere in contradistinction to "pro-life". And since those who advocate for abortion rights are very much not pro-death, the implied contradistinction of the term irks me. And furthermore, most of the people who are using the term are not at all using it like you're describing here, so if you identify yourself as pro-life, people may misunderstand what you are suggesting. Of course, it is certainly your right to use the term as you want, and I am not trying to discourage that! But I do think some words are loaded. Some words have a loaded history. And it's hard to take them out of that history without the history complicating the word.

I do not find the term "pro-choice" to be quite as sleight-of-hand and "gotcha!" as "pro-life", because... the opposite of choice is not having choice. "Pro-choice" doesn't imply that the opposition is a bunch of death supporters. It just implies that they don't want women to have this particular choice, which is technically true. On the other hand, as I said, I feel pro-life makes an implicit claim that anything else = suggesting death. Semantically, I don't see how it can really be divorced from this problem.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all! Your opinion is really valuable to me. :)

I do understand your problems with the term "pro-life" (I know for a fact it has actually been developed specifically to invoke that dichotomy); my problem is that there doesn't seem to be another word to really describe the "good parts" of such a stance. Perhaps I could better describe myself as "pro-choosing-life," or "pro-improving-society-to-the-point-that-ideally-no-one-should-have-to-make-such-a-difficult-choice-without-support." The problem, again, with being pro-life even while supporting pro-choice legislature is that there are so many semantic problems that the loaded word "pro-life" engenders. But I don't know how to fix that. :/

[and-sparks-fly.livejournal.com]

This is precisely and exactly what I believe, and in fact I think that it's what a lot of people who label themselves as "pro-choice" believe, actually.
I know this is kind of weird, but I kind of want to thank you. I think you may well have been the first person I've ever encountered who was a Catholic and not one of the bizarre "I will save you by making you see Jesus, it is unacceptable for you to be agnostic!" or "I think that homosexuality is a sin and one would go to hell for it, but I don't have anything against gay people!" people. (Yes, that second one is an actual quote from someone I know. I just... what?)
I was raised in an atheist household and I'm just generally an introverted person, so it followed from that the few people I knew well were atheist/agnostic/had similar beliefs to myself. So I must say, I've been guilty of assuming the same stereotypes you've addressed in this post, and I'm attempting to free myself from them.

Haha wow this comment is so awkward IDEK.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

You know, there's this one quote from the Bible (I forget what book, though, maybe it was Paul, WHAT A GREAT CATHOLIC I AM): "They'll know we are Christians by our love."

And that's what I try to do, generally, every day. To identify myself as a Christian by the love and empathy I show to others, not by hate or exclusion or self-righteousness. And to encourage my fellow Christians to do the same.


tl;dr COME HERE AND GIMME A HUG /(;3;)/

[and-sparks-fly.livejournal.com]

*GIVES HUG /;3;)/*

[sincere]

This is what I want to see more of -- people thinking for themselves and taking real, reasoned stances on the issues. Not just "My god says that abortion and contraceptives are wrong!" or "If you're pro-choice you're advocating that all women should have abortions for fun in their spare time and then deliberately get pregnant so they can have more abortions! HATE FOR PRO-CHOICERS!" or "If you're pro-life then you don't care about women and you want them all to just be cattle to spit out babies on an annual basis and be seen but not heard! HATE FOR PRO-LIFERS!" More people should be able to couch their opinions in terms of what they want and believe, instead of what they believe is wrong and what they hate.

I really respect your ability to say "This is what I believe, but I know the world won't live up to that standard, so until we live in a better world, I support what's going to make it a better world and minimize as much suffering as we can."

This thing in Utah has brought out the ugly in everyone, so I'm glad to hear that it's also brought out something I can respect.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

This is what I believe, but I know the world won't live up to that standard, so until we live in a better world, I support what's going to make it a better world and minimize as much suffering as we can.

dffff thank you so much, this is what I was trying to say, but I couldn't boil it down small enough. XD

[kitsune-prophet.livejournal.com]

*golf clap*

Glad to see there are more sane christians out and about.

/LATE LIKE WOAH

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

♥

THIS COMMENT IS KIND OF LONG AND LATE JFC

[pixie-paramount.livejournal.com]

I wasn't very young when I lost my faith in the church, as well as humanity to a degree, as I grew up primarily in an agnostic household that was open to the idea of God. My mother, though a nostalgic Catholic, firmly believes that the Christian, Islamic and Jewish God are one and the same: merely different interpretations. I like to believe that, and I have since I was very young and learning from other people what it was like to be a Jew or a Muslim while I myself couldn't really identify with that faith. It scared me, more so as I've gotten older in the fact that I don't have faith. I throw the word God around as I do Christian, something I've never been completely proud of because while my meaning of it is directed toward a certain group, I don't mean to be inclusive. But the Christians I've met, Catholic and other denominations alike, I could scarcely call "true" Christians with their rhetoric.

The term pro-life I find misleading, because what is the opposite side of pro-life? It's not the right to choose, but rather the right to allow a person to die. To be pro-life is, again, completely misleading. Women have, or should have, the choice to have an abortion as much as they should have the choice to raise the child either by themselves or with their partner, or to give that child up for adoption. To be pro-life, as you say, isn't completely wrong: the choice should be there, but goals should be made so that such a choice shouldn't have to be made because of the choices other people have made in regards to a woman's body, and what she can or cannot do with it. I do not believe that at all, and it something that shames me about this country that such laws are able to pass. That people actually believe in such things.

I applaud you for your faith and hope I did not come off as hostile, I do not hate Christians (I merely dislike the rhetoric used by the ignorant). But I believe in your idea of what would make this world perfect; because you're absolutely right. In a perfect world people wouldn't hate, they wouldn't make a person disadvantaged because of what they perceived as right without taking facts into the equation. I think in that world you speak of, it would be a much better place.

Re: THIS COMMENT IS KIND OF LONG AND LATE JFC

[pixie-paramount.livejournal.com]

Also, I applaud you for saying this. So many people feel online like they can't be openly Christian or merely admit they believe in God, which I find wrong on so many levels. And I'm sorry that I have, perhaps, contributed to this attitude with my own selfishness and my own ignorance, which is primarily rooted in my laziness. I just think that...I respect you as a person for saying what you've said, because you've done eloquently and in manner I would find it hard for a person to be really offended by, because your logic is sound.

I WAS KIND OF LONG AND LATE LAST NIGHT WITH /YOUR MOM/ that doesn't make sense

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

/MAJORHUGE HUGS