I have been thinking about how split our country is over the issues of life. I want to preface this by giving a scenario. While I am sure that the Pope would love everyone to become Catholic he knows that everyone isn’t. The Catholic Church even accepts its parishioners to attend Orthodox and Episcopal services if I remember correctly. To take that further while The Catholic Church may not accept other denominations of Christianity it still likes the fact you have chosen Christianity. Moreover, Christians accept Judaism even though they don’t accept Jesus. Christians respect Judaism otherwise we would be making the same mistakes of the Holocaust. So we remember the ethic cleansing of Hitler’s was bad, so we learned to accept all religions including Islam, Hindu, and Bhuddism. While we hope they may convert to one or the other we still understand there will always be different religions just as much as people are different.
Now America has always been a mixed salad of different cultures and religions. Years ago we learned that banning interracial marriage was stupid “How dare an English person marry a Spaniard!” To even quote this ridiculous statement seems horrible. Now we have interracial marriage and people didn’t approve of it back then. So we as a country has embraced interracial marriage as a regular event, blended families are everywhere.
So why can’t we accept the right to choose.
Consider this radical thought process. In the past we also didn’t accept pre marital sex though we knew it was happening. We even called children born out of wedlock “bastards” they were actually shunned, blacklisted for not having parents who were married. We realized that a person isn’t bad just because their parents weren’t married. In fact, so many people were divorcing and having sex out of marriage so long went practicing Catholicism and other Christian denominations were born. So many adults were having consensual sex in and out of marriage birth control was invented. People didn’t want large families or have a baby when they weren’t ready and they certainly didn’t want hidden abortions we have all seen Dirty Dancing, those type of abortions really did occur. We love our birth control and are even trying a pill for men. It was all a persons choice, even the Catholic Church has become a little lax on birth control. So why don’t people respect the right for different religions stance on pro choice?
While I believe every life is beautiful and believe me I even avoid killing insects when I can. In fact, I even taught special ed for several years so I know how wonderful people with disabilities are and without the technology we have today we wouldn’t have discovered the mastermind of Stephen Hawking. Yes, every living being is gorgeous in every respect. Though I also understand that as a woman turns older she is more prone to having a child with a disability. So whether you take birth control because you don’t want to have children in your forties for maybe too large of a family, you feel done raising children or for whatever reason you have, including maybe you know you would be a bad parent and resent having the child, the world knows people are having sex in and out wedlock and demanded birth control as a result. Science listened and gave people the right to choose. For we know sometimes people make mistakes and forget or it breaks and the morning after pill was developed as a precautionary measure. Allow people to choose it is their right just as choosing a religion or denomination of Christianity is your right.
-Jennie Nawrocki