Broken

When my sister was in nursing school she worked as a phone counselor for The Women’s Medical Fund.  The Fund, as she called it, provides low-income women and girls with the money they need to get abortions.

Sometimes she would tell me the women’s stories.  They were women who had other children they were trying to support and women with abusive husbands they were trying to leave and young girls who had hid their pregnancies well into their first (and sometimes second) trimesters.  I remember one story about a young girl (14 maybe?) who had been raped by an adult in her family and was in her second trimester.  I don’t remember all the details of her grim story, but I do remember that by the time she came to The Fund the only thing left to do was to sent her, on a bus, to Kansas.

The people in this country who, through both violent and peaceful acts, seek to bring an end to abortions believe that God does not want women to have abortions.  I think that they are not entirely wrong about this.  I also think that God does not want women to be raped, especially by men in their families.  I think that God doesn’t want women’s lives and bodies to be so devalued that they are continually and systematically denied access to reliable birth control.  I think God doesn’t want babies with profound disabilities to suffer, especially in this world that so deeply fears illness and disease and disfigurement.  I think God doesn’t want humans to turn their backs, again and again, on the poverty and abuse and violence that millions of children experience before they even learn to walk.

We live in a broken world, and abortion is but a part of that brokenness.

But because we live in a world where people like to keep things simple, abortion is the part of the brokenness that tends to get the most attention.  When you are trying to save a pregnancy, all you have to do is wedge yourself between a woman and her body, and we’ve been doing that since the beginning of time.  It is not hard to convince people of a fetus’ innocence (and therefore its right to life) but it becomes harder to convince people of much of anything about a child once it has been born.  Once a child is born there are so very many people and beliefs and systems and offices to blame for its struggles and eventual demise.  Once a child is born it’s not hard to forget about her.  We’ve been doing that since the beginning of time, too.

The pro-pregnancy people have made a movement out of dwelling in the promise.  But I don’t think God really wants us to dwell in the promise, at least not for too long.  God wants us to dwell in the here and now.  God wants us to roll up our sleeves and fix the lives of children who can draw breath and speak and who –if they could speak loud enough, and if we would listen– would tell us that they need clean air and food and somewhere safe to go while their mother is at work.

Dr.  George Tiller wasn’t wearing his bullet proof vest on Sunday because he was in church, and I suppose he thought he was safe there.  But as it turns out, he wasn’t safe anywhere.  When I heard about his murder I thought of that young girl on the bus from Philly.  And I thought about Grace and June.  What if they need a late-term abortion someday?  Who will help my daughters then?

Who will help yours?

To find out more about the National Network of Abortion Funds and to find a fund near you, go here.