I Am Pro-Life

I am pro-life. I don’t believe in having an abortion, so I won’t get one.

I am almost eighty-one years old, and I would like to live many more years, especially if I can have health, mobility, mental capacity–in short, be as I was at sixty-five. Nice. I am pro-life.

I am also pro-life: for the life of a woman who for a large variety of reasons, may need or just wish to terminate a pregnancy of whatever length of time. It is her body, her life, her future, her mental and physical health. I have no business telling her what she may do, can do, or ought to do. I have no business telling her to let her future go; to let her other children she may have go without–without enough food, without a mother who is healthy and well enough to care for them as they grow. I am pro-life.

I am pro-life: for the lives of myriad children who do not have enough food, whose parents or care takers lack sufficient income to pay for health care–if it’s even available–, for clothes, for school expenses, for adequate housing and for some fun recreation opportunities. Yes, fun times are as important to poor children as to wealthy children. I am pro-life for the children.

I am pro-life. I marvel that opponents of abortion can ignore needs of the children for affordable health care throughout their childhood, for adequate nutrition, for quality education, for safety from gun violence in their schools and other locations. Yet I do not see legislators who oppose abortion rights voting for funding the Affordable Care Act or any local health care programs. I do not see these committed pro-life legislators providing sensible screening legislation for gun ownership. I do not see them strengthening the public schools in their states, but instead diverting state funds to private schools. I do not see them strengthening programs to provide adequate nutrition to poor families.

I am pro-life: for teenagers and now adults who attend or attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and Oxford High School, and Columbine High School, and Sandy Hook Elementary School, and too many other schools. I am pro-life for the parents and siblings of those who died, who carry scars from those tragic events throughout their lives. Most parents mourn throughout their lives the loss of a child. Yes, I am pro-life.

I am pro-life: for men and women, even youths, who are incarcerated in jails, even for those who committed heinous crimes, let alone for the numerous “three strikes and you’re out” victims who are incarcerated for petty, even non-violent “crimes” of smoking or exchanging pot. I am pro-life.

I am pro-life, but not vegetarian, let alone vegan. I enjoy meat, fish, poultry. I have never been a hunter, but I respect the right of others to own and use guns to hunt. I do find, however, that it is incomprehensible that fully automatic and semi-automatic weapons should receive from anyone the same sacrosanct respect as a shotgun or rifle. Using such a weapon to hunt any animal is overkill, just not needed. To try to use such a weapon to hunt birds, would, it seems to me, leave nothing but shattered flesh, nothing worth roasting or frying.

I remember becoming aware of a discrepancy in my belief system. In early 1980s, I was an active Mormon, a graduate student in history at the University of Utah. One of my professors, a Medieval historian and practicing Roman Catholic, indicated in a conversation that anyone who professed to be pro-life should be as committed to abolishing the death penalty as to opposing abortion. I have never found a suitable counter argument to his statement.

I am pro-life; I am also trying to be non-violent. That is still a challenge for me. I do expect others to be non-violent as well. I find the neglect of lawmakers, local and national, to establish universal background checks and competency checks of any person before he can purchase lethal weapons and ammunition–I find that negligence abominable; I find the public’s negligence by supporting and voting for such officials equally abominable.