Heartsick

I wrote this post in Word and read it, and re-read it, and re-read it. I hate to accidentally offend someone but thought, "hey, it's my blog", I can write what I feel. I hope that you read it (sorry, it's long) in the spirit it was meant.
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I read a blog post from a friend today that made me feel sad. It was an issue that troubled her and prompted her to write. I have way too much going through my head to comment shortly on her blog so I thought that I’d comment on mine and perhaps she may read my response.

Russell M. Nelson wrote an article in the October Ensign titled “Abortion: An Assault on the Defenseless”. After reading this article, she writes to her daughter the following:

“I hope you are never in a situation to even have to question an abortion. I hope you never have an abusive partner. I hope you never face having a child with severe abnormalities. I hope you don't have to go through fertility treatments that accidentally leave you with more embryos than your body can handle. I hope you never face poverty so severe you have to choose between having another child or being able to feed the ones you've already got. I hope you don't get pregnant at 48 after your husband’s vasectomy doesn't take (oops says the doctor). I hope you never find out you are expecting soon after you find out your husband has been sexually abusing your kids.

But the truth is, I've known women in all of these situations and whether they chose to have an abortion or not (and some of them didn't), I stand 100 percent behind the idea that they needed that option to be available. The fact that an apostle is questioning that right is deeply upsetting to me. . . What happens in your and my uterus is our own business and nothing about his opinions would be helpful in a very difficult situation.”

I agree that women should have this option available. I agree that they are still able to choose. I heartily agree that I hope neither of our daughters ever have to wrestle with this decision. However, I believe that the counsel from the Church is that we should not make this choice so lightly. I don’t think that the examples mentioned above are totally out of our control. They aren’t necessarily some bad thing given to us by happenstance. Sometimes, the consequences of earlier choices leave us with an abusive partner or a multiple birth pregnancy or an unexpected baby at 48. Conversely, things do happen to us that aren’t the result of a choice we made. In either case, there are always choices to be made afterwards. Abortion is not the only one. We can always choose to leave an abusive spouse or to change our lives to fit in a handicapped child or multiples – we can always choose adoption. The Lord is not taking away our agency when he asks us to please not lightly consider abortion.
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In my opinion, women choose abortion for two reasons. Either, to make their life easier or because they think the life of the child would be less than perfect. In the first case, I agree 100% with Elder Nelson that I don’t have the right to put my ease above the life of a child when I did chose to conceive them. Where is the accountability for the choice that was made to create the child? A vasectomy gone wrong may not seem a choice but we could have chosen a different or a second method of birth control. An abusive partner may not seem our choice but we could have chosen to not bring a child into the world with that type of partner through birth control or we could have chosen to leave that situation before the child is born.

In the second case, who are we to decide that we know best whether the life ahead for our child will be good or not? We have been counseled in the scriptures to “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6. If we choose abortion, aren’t we telling the Lord that we don’t trust his judgment to send the child to us?

There are always extenuating circumstances. There are always situations that I cannot fathom and we all are able to make our own decisions. I certainly can’t make a decision for anyone else and I don't think that I judge others when they make a decision I wouldn’t as I don't know all their reasons.

As I read the article from Elder Nelson, I was most impressed that he wanted us to be sure we didn’t choose abortion for the wrong reasons – as an escape from things that might make our lives difficult. He said:
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“So it is with people who choose to embark on a journey that leads to parenthood. They have freedom of choice – to begin or not to begin that course. . . Yes, a woman is free to choose what she will do with her body. Whether her choice leads to an astronaut’s mission or to a baby, her choice to begin the journey binds her to the consequences of that choice. She cannot ‘unchoose’ . . . A woman’s choice for her own body does not include the right to deprive her baby of life-and a lifetime of choices that her child would make. As Latter-day Saints, we should stand up for choice – the right choice – not simply for choice as a method”.

I believe with 100% certainty that the words from Elder Nelson in the article are not his “opinion” alone, but that they are the opinion of the Lord. He speaks to us through his apostles and I personally will take the article as not a political attack on women’s choices, but as a plea from a loving Heavenly Father not to make a choice that may detrimentally affect us in our futures through regret and wondering. I think it is a plea from a Father for the lives of his children who with the advent of abortion never get a chance to make a choice.

To my friend, I love you. I hope that you can read my comments with an open heart and without feeling offense that was not meant. I feel strongly in my heart about how I see this issue as I know that you do about how you see the other side. You are tenderhearted and love others and want them to be happy and I am pleased to see that you are on the side of the weak. That shows a Christ-like love that is admirable. Regardless of which of us is “right”, I hope that we both find comfort as we wrestle with this issue and that we each can come to our own conclusion through study and prayer that will leave us with peace in our hearts about what the Lord wants from us and our own families.