Life // Death // In Between

For some it’s about guns, for others it’s about immigration, for others is about abortion, for still others it’s about welfare, but we’re all just trying to address the symptoms and we’re ignoring the disease. We’re ignoring the disease It is continuing to spread, inflicting the young and old, men and women, Christians and atheists. We are apathetic. We could care less. And maybe it hurts your heart. Maybe you shed a tear or share an article. But are you there. 

The beauty of social media is its ability to simulate intimacy while perpetuating our isolationism. How closed off are we to the real world, to genuine relationships, to true love and joy and sacrifice. How often do you stare true poverty or violence or criminals or drug users or immigrants in the face and still love them? 

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this because the value of human life for me is something personal for me. The sanctity of every human, in every place, of any age or developmental capacity, regardless of size or shape or dependence, of any gender, race, religion, creed, ethnicity, identity. Every human is worthy of love, even to the point of death on a cross. Every human is valuable. But why don’t we value their lives or our own. 

I think about depression, anxiety, and suicide, not as a I’m going to commit but as a concept. We devalue our own lives to the point of taking them. I’ve felt the crushing weight of depression and know how utterly hopeless it is. And I know that the one thing that turns it around is love. Am I loving myself well? Am I loving others well? Am I loving God well? If the first two are yes, but the third is a no, there is a gaping hole. And it is pretty bleak. What is the point of a life without a bigger purpose? (For real, read Ecclesiastes)

I’m straying from my point because my point is specific and purposeful. We do not value human life. I make specific daily choices to value the sanctity of human life over my convenience. Specifically, the unborn. I am not on birth control. I have never been on birth control, and barring major changes to the current birth control market, I will never take birth control as a means of contraception. Why? Because I value human life. Imagine taking a loaded gun, blindfolding yourself, then pointing it and firing it. Is it likely you will kill someone , not as likely as shooting unblindfolded at someone, but is it worth the risk of killing someone? Hormonal birth control (the pill, the patch, the ring, the implant, IUDs, etc) act in a three fold way: they prevent ovulation, prevent fertilization (through preventing sperm transport), and prevent implantation (through the thinning of the endometrium). The first two are preventing the creation of new life, the last is preventing a fertilized egg (aka the embryo) already created life from attaching to its mothers womb, by creating a hostile womb environment with a thinner endometrium which makes implantation more difficult. In other words, hormonal birth control, when it fails to prevent the creation of life, causes the body to reject the new baby. The inconvenience comes out as a period and you would never even know you conceived. 

So instead I have babies. Yes, we do use other means of birth control, but our choice to procreate is not one of choosing when it would be convenient to conceive, but choosing to value life over our convenience. I feel so frustrated when I am told that I should really reconsider my birth control methods and that I am young or my babies are very close in age. I am tired of the condescending remarks. I do know quite a lot about the way my body works and I also understand the way the things I put into my body affect me. I know that if I just went on the pill that I could easily prevent an “unwanted pregnancy”, but I want any baby that my body makes.

Even from a pro choice perspective, hormonal birth control doesn’t give women the choice, because they don’t know that they conceived before their body with the help of their hormonal birth control buries the evidence. If knowledge is power, then how is hormonal birth control empowering?