The rhetoric. Oof. It’s rough out there. (I’m talking specifically about the life issue, this Roe v Wade leak, this current divisive, politically-charged, but very human experience.) It’s heavy. As it should be. It’s oversimplified. As it shouldn’t be. And it’s problematic. For everyone. 

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What’s missing?

Everyone is entitled to their opinions but so often we would be wise to ask ourselves: ***WHY*** am I talking? Am I offering helpful insights or harmful ideals? Am I informed? Am I being received like I want to be? When I’m talking, what am I saying? When I’m talking, what am I *not* saying. By and large, there is a very very vital element missing from much of the conversation: Empathy. 

First –

Remember that empathy is NOT pity. It is NOT sympathy. Empathy is being able to feel with another person. It’s leveling the playing field. It’s humility and perspective-listening. It’s the ability to acknowledge that you do not have the market cornered and therefore, know a limited, finite amount of information about a topic, even IF you are educated about it. Empathy is not deciding for someone else but seeing them as capable. Empathy is seeing inherent worth unconditionally. Empathy is grace and mercy and love well established, before truth. And empathy is NOT the wall of judgement that keeps people apart, rather it is the bridge of non-judgement that connects.

Second –

A large majority of my years in the mental health professions of counseling and coaching was spent counseling women, couples, and men in the decision process of an unplanned, sometimes unwanted pregnancy. Hundreds of stories. Hundreds of unique people inside of those stories. Take out the politicians. Take out the ink on policies. Take out the party-lines and agendas and toxic overgeneralizations. Take out the biased perspectives. Take out the manipulation of data and “facts.” Take out the “sides” and the labels. 

The bottom line – it’s painfully obvious that empathy is missing and that the collective has lost touch with the individual and it shows. Yi. Does it ever.

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So, with that, I invite you to consider:

Be careful not to oversimplify.

Whether we like it or not, this cannot be boiled down to an Either/Or. We can say all day long that ‘truth is truth’ or ‘life and death is unambiguous’, but reality is, it’s just not that simple. Yes, death is the end of living and living is not being dead, but the existence between the two is far from straightforward. In that – 

The Either/Or leaves no room for empathy and compassion. Grace doesn’t fit when we discount the reality of this issue’s complexity. And the absence of those things, no matter the correctness of the conviction, will always bring harm. The opportunity for influence becomes null. 

Also, we’ve made abortion a singular event. We’ve made it only about the ending of a pregnancy. By doing so, we’ve lost touch with the largeness of the totality of the circumstances. And each of those touchpoints along the story….before AND after….hold considerable significance. We only talk about and condemn abortion. We don’t talk about all of the everything that precedes and follows that outcome. We don’t consider relationship health. We don’t address the dysfunctional systems that color the options. We don’t acknowledge the role religious agendas and manipulation play. We don’t talk about sex…like actually talk about it. We don’t admit double standards (very specifically IVF among others). We punish the supply rather than the demand (traffickers come in all varieties). We don’t handle the opinions of others well. We don’t allow ourselves to be wrong. We don’t coexist well in disagreement. We don’t honor consent when blurting out our ideals. We make abortion THE thing when it is more accurately a byproduct of ALL OF THE things.

One additional thing with this point – There are very real and substantial losses no matter what decision is made in the midst of an unexpected pregnancy, and anyone would be foolish not to concede that. The scenarios are countless. And I’ll tell you, after serving hundreds of people, not ONE of them was excited to be forced into a decision that was only ever accompanied by a complex reality of loss and gain. No matter which way it plays out, loss is permanent and unavoidable, and gain is not a positive-opposite-replacement. And before you say, “well they should have thought about that before they had sex.” Don’t. That response fails in so.many.ways. 

Be careful of the labels and what you promote by using labels. 

The connotations that each come with are like chickens without heads, running around without any brains but just enough energy to cause mayhem. Note – as you are reading the following, notice what happens inside of you. It’ll tell you a lot if you’re willing to listen. And I base my below opinions on what I have heard straight out of the mouths of the clients I have served, not on the news or the politicians that are far too removed.

Traditional “Pro-Life” Ideal

Much of the traditional pro-life ideal misses the point of actually being pro-life by pitting humanity against humanity. One life being paramount to the other. Compassion being selective and dismissive. Conditional. They villainize the woman – seeing her as heartless and worthless unless she carries to term, largely ignoring what happens after term. They see her as untrustworthy and incapable of doing anything right. They can’t accept that carrying to term is not the end-all-be-all. She’s wrong for having sex. She’s wrong for saying ‘yes.’ She’s wrong for not saying ‘no.’ She’s wrong for not running away, or for letting her abuser abuse her, or for causing the abuse by what she’s wearing or doing. She’s wrong for being stupid and trusting a man. She’s wrong for trying to make a decision in the face of everything being against her. She’s wrong for seeing her losses as more significant as her gains. She’s wrong for even contemplating an escape-route (how dare she want an escape route when life gets unmanageable!). She’s wrong for showing up and doing the best she can in the midst of whatever her story of survival is. She’s wrong for being strong. She’s wrong for being weak. She’s wrong for being alone. She’s wrong for staying with ‘him.’ She’s wrong for not using birth control. She’s wrong when she does. She’s wrong for choosing abortion. But she’s also wrong for placing for adoption. And she’s also also wrong for bringing yet another kid into a broken messed up world. She’s wrong. She’s wrong. She’s wrong. 

But is he? It’s hard to hear the answer because it’s either silent or it’s a mere whisper amongst all of the shouting about her. Being “pro-life” loses its impact and its appeal when it’s only used to manipulate the abortion decision. What about all of the other life that there is to be ‘for’? What about unused frozen embryos? What about cancer patients? What about diabetics needing life-saving insulin. What about the unhoused? What about race and LGBTQ+ inequities? What about veterans? What about those facing the death penalty? What about access to healthcare and education and basic human needs? 

Traditional “Pro-Choice” Ideal

Much of the traditional pro-choice ideal misses the point by dehumanizing a human issue. The clump of cells they are minimizing is the very life of a distinct human. Small, yes, though not at all insignificant. Yet they so easily deem it unimportant. (I can tell you, the post-abortive women and men that I have talked to do not feel like that little distinct human was insignificant, rather its named and its honored for their short life.) ‘They’ push women through their doors quickly and secretively, not giving pause because to give pause means the possibility of losing their profit. They make the abortion decision about solidarity and independence, downplaying the grief and loss that invariably comes because abortion isn’t erasing the pregnancy out of their memory altogether even though they’d like us to think so. They don’t admit that abortion trauma is real, and they rationalize that with women dying in childbirth, again, pitting humanity against humanity, perpetuating ‘one must die for the other to live.’ In this, they also pit motherhood against success, making it so those women that want to be professionally successful have no room to have a child. Motherhood means ultimate sacrifice OR, conversely, that biological motherhood is inherently selfish because there are just so many orphans. They say the woman is the only one that gets to make the decision because no uterus, no opinion…even though I’ve talked to SO MANY MEN who would do whatever it took to be a good dad and for them not to have a say is despairingly tragic (and what an amazing way to combat toxic masculinity by having a whole bunch of good men doing the right thing for generations, yet we don’t give them that chance). Not to mention the traditional pro-choice side discounts the value that the entirety of the person, the whole person, is deeply impacted by a decision to terminate a pregnancy as they, too, oversimplify a far-from-simple event.

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Want to Actually Influence Change?

Both “sides” are divisive and myopic to their advantage. Manipulative and harmful. And they each dismiss reality and humanity. It’s wretched, really. We miss the one by generalizing the thousands. We confuse ourselves on our responsibility when we think their decision is our tally-mark, our Admit-One, our right (because of our superior wisdom). We are not responsible FOR this other person’s decisions and circumstances. And if you insist on having responsibility in the life issue, then consider being responsible TO another….and the way to do that – empathy. The very best and most effective way to amplify the voices of the voiceless (not just the unborn, mind you), is to empathize. 

How might you be challenged in this today?

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