All my life I have been raised in a gospel where the Ten Commandments were repeated over and over again in attempt to engrave the words into the mind so that each could live their own righteous life. Thou shalt not kill seemed to be shooting or stabbing someone. Not until I was older did I realize abortion could be put in the same category.
For many years I have seen too many families struggle to adopt children when they were not able to have their own. It was so frustrating to me that it was so easy for people to kill the babies inside of them. I wanted to take these women by the shoulders and shake them, making them realize that they could turn their mistakes into a happy ending. Giving the child to family who has worked hard to be able to have a baby would benefit so many people now and in the future. Nine months of discomfort in exchange for a life time of greatness the child could achieve seemed worthwhile. That child deserves to live.
I never thought I would ever be sitting in an abortion clinic. Especially not with a close friend sitting next to me awaiting her turn to be called back for the procedure. It went against my beliefs, my values, but our friendship is very important to me.
As I sat on the soft brown leather couch looking at the mere teenagers who sat in the facing chairs, I couldn’t help but to think how different each girl was.
The judgmental side of me came creeping out as I couldn’t help but think that the woman of Hispanic origin who seemed to know no English was choosing the easy way out. The girl sitting next to her had the young face of a High School girl and made me wonder if a one night stand turned wrong and she believed this was her only option.
The woman in the corner caught my attention for she had tears in her eyes. As time went on it was only her and I in the room. She asked how far along I was, and I explained that I was waiting for a friend to come out. She started into a story of how she took the bus several hours to the clinic without her boyfriend even though he had made a promise to accompany her. When I inquired if it was her first time getting the procedure she told me the struggles of raising three kids at the age of four, two and three months. She did not make enough money to support another child and her boyfriend would only pay for the abortion. She is only twenty years old.
While I sat flipping through Vogue, five lives were ended before they had a chance to begin.
Abortion is something that would never be an option if an unexpected pregnancy ever came my way. But after seeing all the emotions that each woman had streaming across her face, there was no way I could tell any of them that their choice to abort their pregnancy was the wrong one.
Each second of every day is filled with choices that each individual makes. Who am I to judge that someone has made a bad decision? I make wrong choices on a daily bases. I learn from those. Even though it takes a couple times of going down the same dark road to figure out that it was a wrong turn, It still find my way back to the things that are right for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment