My greeting was similar to one I had last year, as I walked up to an abortion facility in Richmond with a guy friend : the person on the shift before me saw me walking purposefully towards the facility and tried to talk me out of having an abortion. Last time, I thought it was a good joke; we had parked deliberately near to the facility, and we all got a good laugh out of it.
Today, Ana dropped me off. To the people already praying, here I come, fitting the age demographic, getting out of a friend's car... Don't worry, ma'am, I'm here to pray with you.
Although I chuckled a bit this time too, the incident set me thinking. When I first started holding signs and praying (as part of a Life Chain, not 40 Days) I was young enough, that I identified with the preborn children. They would have been my friends, my classmates, my kindergarten buddies. As I grew, I attached to the idea of the Death Roe survivor : not only were my classmates missing, but I had survived. Not only was my potential best friend, lab partner, next door neighbor, boyfriend absent from my life, but I was something special for being here, a gift, a choice, an affirmation. At this time, my focus remained with the child. Not that I didn't care about the women who had the abortions, but I wasn't them. I was the possibility that had become reality -- or hadn't, depending upon which perspective you were taking.
Now, I am a young woman age 18-24, out of her parents' house, unmarried, economically stable for now, but with little to spare. At first glance, if I am walking towards a Planned Parenthood, I am not there to protest; I am there for services from them.
My change in perspective came somewhere around college. The president of SFL my sophomore year, a liberal, atheistic feminist, had a huge impact on how I defined pro-life. At the same time that she showed me by example how to reconcile feminism and pro-life beliefs, I was becoming part of the statistic that has most abortions. I began to think : what if I were pregnant? What would it mean for me to choose life? As I get older, I find myself speaking of abortion with my hands on my abdomen, cradling an unborn child in my womb, rather than holding my hands out to a baby.
But... but I am still a Death Roe survivor. I am still missing a potential best friend, colleague, house mate, boyfriend. I am still a miracle, a choice, an affirmation. My generation is pro-life because all of a sudden we are both. We identify with both victims of abortion -- the children and the parents -- because we could have been (or are) one or both of them. We are pro-life because we understand what the other option is both intellectually and emotionally. And even though it hurts for time to pass with abortion still legal, this strange position in which we find ourselves will not change. We will merely raise more children and young adults with similar sensibilities as we grow older.
These were the thoughts that accompanied my vigil today : how long we've been working and how much I've changed. As well as what we still need to do. So once again I return to the question and answer of my calling and vocation to the pro-life movement.
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