He would not be declared dead until 24 hours later, but I knew almost immediately. As we returned home, a family of seven rather than the family of eight that arrived at the beach less than a week earlier, friends carried me and the kids through all the next steps, from choosing a casket and burial site to learning how to access our joint bank account. And then, as the funeral passed and the next week wore on, another surprise became undeniable.
I started feeling sick in a similar way to how I was sick with my two biological children and with miscarriages before them. I took a few deep breaths. I willed my math to be wrong. Here I was, a widow, showing all the signs of pregnancy, while living with chronic health conditions that would make pregnancy life-threatening. By mid my views had begun to change, yet three years later, some of that rhetoric rose within me.
I worried, what if people offering us help would rescind those offers if they found out what I was considering? I wondered, would my living children hate me because I chose us over the pregnancy of another child? There was a provider for poor women and a provider for the well-to-do.
Most of the time, authorities in this mostly Catholic country left both alone. The situation is far different in America a half century later. In , millions of Catholics and evangelicals whose voting choice is informed by a single issue — abortion — cast ballots for the current occupant of the White House. What mattered was his implied promise to appoint justices to the U. Supreme Court such that, one day soon, Roe v. Wade would be overturned, and abortion could again be a crime.
I share with those voters the motivation to see pro-life candidates elected to public office. Abortion is the issue that most influences my political choices. I believe in science. The same science that recommends face masks to slow the spread of COVID and warns about climate change also tells me that life begins at conception. As we continue to have these discussions, our heart should be to wrap around a woman and ensure she knows that both she and her baby are dearly valued and loved.
Yes, our laws need to do a better job at providing resources for women who find themselves in vulnerable situations. The community needs to do a better job of caring for women and vulnerable children. The government needs to do a better job at passing legislation to provide women with resources, without compromising the lives of the unborn. American citizens need to do a better job of caring for one another holistically. We need to highlight the dignity and personhood of the unborn baby, but we also need to uplift the worth of women.
She has a name. She has a story. We can do both. We must do both. You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page , on Twitter usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.
To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters usatoday. Still, I spent so much time compromising my beliefs within the GOP that there was very little compromise left for the other side. And then Beto O'Rourke entered the race for Senate, and he seemed different. He talked about working with Republicans and independents alike. He talked about finding common-ground solutions that we can all get behind when it comes to nonpartisan issues such as the veteran suicide rate.
If you ask almost any of my pro-life peers, they will tell you that O'Rourke is a "radical pro-abortion candidate. They shared op-eds about him blocking bills to limit abortions, and they voiced their horror over someone like me, a supposed leader in the movement, supporting such a monster. Here's where I think many of us differ though. I run a large pro-life feminist group, not just a pro-life group.
We were the ones removed as sponsors from the Women's March back in because of our stance against abortion rights. And that was a real shame because while I am percent pro-life, I'm also percent feminist, and I saw the way Trump treated women as an absolute deal-breaker. Sadly, we were one of the few pro-life groups that took this position.
However, during that election I started to see, as an independent, just how deep the GOP had its hooks in the pro-life movement. I saw the way these politicians used unborn children's lives to get out the vote but then oftentimes forgot about those lives soon after. I saw the way pro-lifers compromised so many of their own upstanding ethics and morals to elect a man thrice married, who bragged about his infidelities and predatory behavior.
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