The Choice of a Lifetime
Let’s get back to basics. Do we want to make our own choices in life, or would we rather have someone else make them for us?
Many other things work like this too. If a tornado is coming and you’re not ready, it still comes. You can’t kill it and make it go away. If you’re in the National Guard and you’re not ready to be called into active duty, you have to go anyway. You can’t kill the officer who sent you the orders and make them go away. If you’re not ready to graduate school and take on some more mature responsibilities, you’re going to sink or swim, because you can’t go back. You can’t kill the person who has prepared your diploma and make your new status go away.
We so desperately need to stop covering over simple obvious facts by using euphemistic terms, and lay them squarely on the table. A baby is a baby. A life is a life. Deliberately ending a life is killing. (Kindergarten again.) It does not matter who is doing it, why they’re doing it, how they feel about doing it, what their views about it are, or what they want to be told about doing it. Killing children is wrong. It always was. It always will be.
But helping people in difficult situations through their crisis periods and on to stability is always right. Pooling resources, sacrificing time, money and sharing what we have (perhaps even a room in our house) to help someone is always good. Surrounding people in need with a community of support is always good. If we made a mistake in the past and have gained the wisdom that time brings, sharing our story and guiding someone else away from making the same mistake is always good. Speaking up for what is right, and then going the extra mile to make it happen is always right.
If your answer to the opening question was “I’d choose to live,” your basic, un-politicized instincts will tell you that everyone else would too. With care and compassion, speak up about it to someone who is frightened or worried about having a baby.
It could influence the choice of a life time.
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