Here I Am: Non-religious Reasons for Opposing Abortion
I see it all over the place. Various articles, social media posts, and talk shows have articulated their reasons for why abortion should be legal, and some that have declared that there are no non-religious reasons for opposing legalized abortion. Bill Nye sought to passionately disarm some of the logic behind pro-life arguments, presumably thinking that if people just understood science better, that everyone could then get on the same page. Joe Biden, devout Catholic, explained how his faith led him to the conclusion that life begins at conception. However, he does not feel that the government should be able to “tell a woman what to do with her body”, thus subtly implying that there are no worthy secular arguments against abortion. Said more boldly, Adam Lee from The Guardian states that “opposition to abortion is an inherently religious position…”.
I am a Christian. I went to Bible college and to seminary and I currently am on staff at a church. So, I certainly have religious reasons being against abortions, and I am solidly against their legal status. However, I am not sure how my religious views affect me differently than anyone else’s worldviews, religious or not. Your worldview affects who you are, your motivations, your personality, etc. But regardless, I am not writing to argue how religious views are valid for influence in public policy. The truth is, I have a reason I’m against abortion unrelated to my religious views: I’m alive today.
Before anyone rolls their eyes, you need to understand that I don’t say that lightly. Given my entrance into this world and the surrounding circumstances, it shouldn’t be assumed that I would be alive today. I will tell my story, but please keep in mind that I have reconstructed this without talking to my birth parents, and have relied heavily on what my adoptive mother and birth siblings know. There may be gaps, or possibly even misinformation. I have done my best to paint as accurate a picture as possible. While specific details may be off, the overall story has been confirmed by all 3 of my sources. Given that I was either a baby or unborn when all this happened, it’s all I can go off of. With that said, here’s what I’ve reconstructed over the years…
My mother was married, but she and her husband were frequently separated from each other for one reason or another. One example of their less-than-stable relationship is that my father was not her husband. In fact, he was an 18-year old kid who had found himself in a relationship with my 32-year old mother. I’ve no idea what happened between the two of them, but by the time I was born, he was out of the picture.
This was not the only instability in my mother’s life. She was in and out of jail, was addicted to painkillers and heroin, and was arrested for prostitution several times. With her husband, they had 3 children, all girls. My sisters Alisha and Andrea are both about 10 years older than me, and my sister Joyce passed away when she was just 8 months old. The official cause of death was SIDS. However, some more digging into that leaves me (and others) skeptical.
My mother’s drug use did not stop while pregnant with Joyce and I. Both of us were born addicted to heroin and suffered health complications in life. I don’t fully know Joyce’s health history, but I was on a heart monitor for the first few years of my life. My adoptive mother fought to make sure I had one given my complications, something she felt Joyce had needed.
I was born in the summer of 1990 in Michigan, about 5 years after my sister Joyce had died. My birth mother feared that she would be arrested because of the drugs in her system, and so she fled the hospital after I was born, according to my sister. It was at that point that I was placed in foster care with my later-adoptive mom. My sisters went to live with their aunt in Tennessee. They had a better life there, but there was still a lot of turmoil and bad relationships.
I am not writing this to bash my biological mother. But my point in sharing these details is that my mother’s situation basically hits every checkmark espoused for why a woman should have the option to terminate their pregnancy (with the exception of seeking education). My birth mother’s situation was about as unstable as it gets, and having another child in the middle of all that, after losing a child and still having two others further complicates things. And yet, here I am. And this is no small thing. I’m here today because of my biological mother, a woman who irrevocably inflicted great harm to my family. I should have grown up with my sisters. It shouldn’t be that I met them for the first time at age 20. And I should have been able to meet all 3 of my sisters, a full reunion instead of partial. We were forever robbed of being a family together, something that is still sometimes painfully clear.
And yet here I am, indebted to this woman for choosing a hard path instead of a far more convenient one. Because despite her many failings in life, she still carried me to term. And I’m eternally grateful for that. At 28, I have a full life. I didn’t become famous, I wouldn’t say I have contributed in any significant ways to society (as if that is what makes a human life valuable), but I have a lovely life. A humble life, but charmed nonetheless. I’m happy to be alive. I love my wife, and I have two amazing and beautiful children. I enjoy my family, work, friends, home, and the hobbies I’ve picked up over the years. I had the opportunity to watch my beloved Vikings win a playoff game in one of the most improbable fashions ever. I’ve been able to experience everything life brings, enjoying the pleasurable parts, and learning from the hard.
I’m not blind or insensitive to the issues women face. There are so many heartbreaking situations that cause many women to consider an abortion. But what I can say is that I’m grateful that my mom didn’t use her legal right to terminate me. And that, at least on my end, it was worth it. And while my religious reasons for opposing abortion exist, they don’t take away from my innate sense of wanting to live. Realizing that I could have been aborted, not just in some hypothetical sense, but in a situation where many consider it, leaves me feeling grateful for and indebted to my birth mother.
I’m sure this has changed no one’s view on whether abortion should be legal or not. But that’s not my point anyways. Hopefully, some of you can look at my life and at least see that sometimes hardship can produce good fruit. No one enjoys struggling through life, and there is no denying that a baby complicates life at any stage. But learning to look more long-term, instead of just the short, we can begin to see value in persevering. It may take a while, but I feel confident that eventually that decision pays off.
I’m living proof.
