The Tragedy of Dobbs

I don’t mean to take over this blog discussing abortion. I really don’t. But it pulls at me to write from my heart about my opinion on the subject.

First, let me say I grew up in a wonderfully warm and loving small town in Texas. Everyone went to church on Sunday regardless of their belief in God, everyone ate BBQ and fried chicken, and we all carried around guns and fired guns in ranges and hunted our deer. This was my life, and abortion was some evil tool of liberals trying to kill babies. We Christians loved children and anyone who thought otherwise live in California.

I have grown since then, and instead of things becoming more black or white, they have become more grey. I am a healthcare attorney so this matter cuts deeply to the heart of what it is to do no harm, and I’m representing scared and confused groups and doctors who just don’t want to be sued or hauled to jail. They all want to help and not hurt, and they, too, want to heal. This remains true even for abortion providers. They are not murderers.

As a lawyer who prides herself on ethical standards, a breach of trust to the degree to release a draft opinion to the public before publication is also shocking and unheard of. Sure, there have been leaks in the past, but not of this magnitude. So it’s a double whammy of surprises.

I don’t know anyone who associates abortion with anything positive. The court states in this draft that abortion presents a “profound moral question.” I think at least that statement is somewhat fair. It’s certainly a divisive issue.  No one is “pro-abortion.” Basically we can agree, I think, that if an abortion occurs, something has gone wrong. Never does a women skip to the abortion clinic on a beautiful Spring day and then go out for ice cream humming pop songs. Often it’s a heavy and tragic situation. Perhaps there is an unviable pregnancy, a fetus is born without important organs vital to survival, or a young girl who is raped by a stranger or even a family member. A woman should not be forced to birth her uncle or rapist’s baby, of that I’m sure. And to the people who say “oh, these state laws make concessions for those situations,” that is not true. Many state laws have ZERO room for these situations. It’s morphed into an all or none position.

I have my own belief about such issues, which as a free woman I have the right to feel, about when an abortion may be necessary and important, and I have my own location on the wheel of this mortal conundrum.  It’s not something to throw around, or to be used to “eliminate a problem” that is not there. I certainly would not advocate that women can knowingly carry perfectly healthy babies to almost full term, simply change their mind, and then – meh- abort them on a whim. That would be sociopathic. I bet that reality is very slim and shouldn’t be the marker here.

And we can talk all day about “if you care about life, what about education and Medicaid and foster children and health care and mental health?”  But the fact remains that people are so rooted in their positions that logic simply doesn’t matter anymore, and civil discourse becomes, as it has generally been over the last four years, simply toxic. If you disagree with someone, you are cancelled, vilified, or blacklisted. It becomes about black and white, right vs wrong, Christian vs non-Christian. I suppose if a child is born disabled, and they can’t get access to the right kind of health services, that’s no longer our problem as a nation? They were born, so that’s the big win, and if they live a miserable lonely life with no access to care or help or a family who loves them, who get caught up in drugs and gangs just to feel a part of something, that’s just not our problem. We have gone to our prayer meetings and attended our rallies and we go to sleep at night very sure of ourselves, so don’t rock the boat talking about mentally unstable children. There are people who take care of that.

My heart aches.

I love babies.  Who doesn’t love babies? I adore the smell, the wiggles, the feel of being a mother. And no, I didn’t have an abortion, thank God, because my children were healthy and I carried them full term. But not every woman is so lucky.  If you are robbing them of the right over their own body to have a trained surgeon work with them during the most painful time in their life to care for their medical needs, who will they turn to?  Doctors will not get training in this area.  Don’t kid yourself. They won’t receive the instruction in residency and fellowship. Insurance companies won’t cover the work. We live in a litigious society, and not only will doctors be sued, but maybe arrested. Women will be turned down at all costs, and forced to travel great distances and perhaps even to another country to have an unviable fetus taken out of their womb that they likely wanted very much but such child isn’t able to live and breathe in our earthly world. Imagine the grief of this mother, who lost this child before he or she was even born, who must now add insult to injury (and risk even death) to resolve it.

I am a devoted Christian.  I believe with my full heart that Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever lived – the point where I devote my life to his teachings. I do not believe Jesus would be accepting of this state of our world where we vilify and attack each other about every possible topic. We are a lost people, and I breathe in heavy sighs at that sad reality. No, of course Jesus didn’t condone murder. But I believe he would want women to have safe healthcare.

And when a woman weeps over losing a child at any stage, whether it’s in the womb or after, Jesus also weeps.

We cannot leave something so fundamental to the whim of the state house run by politicians. The opinion says that Roe and Casey got it wrong, that protecting abortion is not in the constitution, and that they “leave this authority to the people and their elected representatives.” Many rights that we have discovered to be important to our citizens are not, in fact, explicitly written in the Constitution, and we have no trust in politicians to represent the people. This whittling down of human rights has no end. Will contraception be next? Can women be trusted to own a home, have a credit card, or even vote?  If we are rolling back rights, how far will we go?  Is discrimination something we also need to “leave to the states?” This means we must be more vigilant to vote, encourage other like minds to vote, and have our voices heard loudly and clearly. The court will not protect long-standing stare decisis principles any longer. It’s up to us. But can we trust that even if we vote in the right people and get some laws changed, we can change the tide if the courts will not hold the very principles the judiciary has held dear for centuries? Courts are not supposed to be political. But this is new era.

Our country is better than this.  We are built on freedom and independence, holding all people equal. We have made progress in so many ways and we have a long way to go.  But removing protections and saying “this is a state issue” isn’t the solution.  It’s setting our country back hundreds of years, and it simply hurts women in the process.

I am pro baby.  I am pro woman.  I am pro life.  But there is a need and an important role for abortion in our society, period.  Removing access to it hurts us all. I will vote, I will get people out to vote, and we will have to live with the reality that we create.

May God have mercy on our souls in the process.