Abortion - Exodus 21:22-23

21:22-23 – Continuing on with case law, if two men are fighting and during the fight they “hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.” This goes back to, the woman was injured badly enough to lose her child, why is it up to the husband to determine what is adequate recompense? But again, these are ancient social issues and they were progressive for their time, I just couldn’t imagine.

Interestingly, the lesson the IM makes about this specific instance is “the seriousness of abortion… if an abortion caused by an accident was to be punished severely, one can assume that deliberate abortion without justifiable cause was far more serious.” I was pretty surprised because in my mind a woman being assaulted to the point that her unborn baby dies and abortion are not even related in the slightest, except that a fetus is involved. I’ve worked in women’s health for 25 years and the reason why I push back so hard on the “Church’s” or “pro-life” or “conservative Republican” stance on abortion is because it demonizes the woman. I can’t even tell you the number of patients I’ve had who were pregnant as a result of sexual assault or because they were coerced or because they were uneducated or because that was their culture to be pregnant at 15 but they actually wanted to finish school.

Growing up my mom was so staunch on “women who have sex are whores who should close their legs,” and she’s still like that, I can’t even talk to her about it, there’s no room for logic or reason or anything other than complete insanity on the subject. The 1986 elections were the first elections that my mom experienced living in California and Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein won their House seats and my mom screamed and banged on the TV crying “they are going to kill all the babies!” And even at 5 years old I knew that that didn’t make any sense. But truly that’s the madness that I grew up with, that the only thing any democrat wanted to do was physically murder all children, especially babies, it was insane. That’s the way the concept of abortion was introduced to me as a small child. Now imagine what it was like taking that view on abortion into my role working in women’s health and the absolute tragedy that I saw for years and years.

The hypocrisy is that no one wants more abortion, no one. I don’t care what lies Fox News tells their viewers, no one is trying to get more people to have abortions, the only goal for any practitioner is for there to be less abortion. Abortion is horrific for everyone involved, especially the mother, it traumatizes her to an extent that is unfathomable. And I have friends who say that women don’t regret their abortions ever or that they are never sad about it or anything like that. That is a lie as well. It is horrific and severely traumatizing for the woman who chooses to get one. No one wants more of that unless we’re talking like eugenics or something like that with Margaret Sanger.

The hypocrisy is that the woman who chooses an abortion is demonized and called a whore, but the man who impregnates her is not even considered at all. Abortion is considered murder, but then politicians defund childcare benefits so that the mother can go back to work to support that child. The politicians defund after school programs and food assistance and all social programs that help that mother raise that child to be healthy, happy, and well-adjusted. By that measure it might be “pro-life” but it’s not “pro-a-good-life.” Abortion rates decline when there is comprehensive sex education and easily access to birth control, but politicians don’t want to do that either, so if they aren’t willing to do what it takes to actually bring abortion rates down, then it’s not really about “life” it’s about control.

No one should be able to have a say in abortion access until they’ve served and cared for and loved the women who have been victimized by sexual violence and poverty from birth with no way out. Until you can root for the success of the woman, no one should be allowed to decide who can do what. Abortion is horrific but making it illegal is not the answer. One of my brothers who left the church said it best “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” I told my son when we were discussing abortion one time, “it’s a woman’s right to choose to keep a pregnancy but don’t you ever put a woman in a position where she has to choose.” Why can’t men be held to the same standards and level of accountability? Why is it “abortion is wrong,” instead of “getting a woman pregnant who doesn’t want to be is wrong?” If it takes two to tango, why aren’t the consequences for both?

Anyway, there are a lot of things that I could say about it, but I was very surprised that the IM put those two concepts together, so since the IM brought up the subject I wanted to give my two cents. I have seen so much horror and tragedy and heartache around pregnancy and abortion and I’ve been surrounded by such a completely inhumane perspective since childhood concerning women that I’m just done with standing by while women are demonized.