Supreme Faith

Let's be honest about something-the supreme court judge appointment comes down to one issue: abortion.

Now, I have moral reservations against abortion, but also know I cannot judge for someone else's predicaments, only my own. I do believe Congress has no business telling a woman what to do with her own body, with her medical choices, and has no business telling a doctor how to conduct his own medical judgment. However, there was a time in my life I walked past the Supreme Court every day for months on my way to work. And I saw the protest on both sides. I saw the absurdely radical Christian right, and the equally outlandish pro-choicers. I've seen the prayer circles, the crazy people dressed up like they belong in the Middle East, I've seen school children come pouring out of the court, fleeing from these people. But I've also witnessed something that stopped me in my thoughts.

One day there was a small group of people, gathered in a circle of prayer. They were there, in front of the Supreme Court building, on a warm Saturday in the early Fall, and they were praying for the spirits of those children who had been aborted. If you were not there, this may seem absurd, but chills ran down my shoulders and I wanted to cry as an overwhelming feeling of understanding came to me. I felt these children there, so happy that someone had acknowledged them, that they had wanted to come, but were given no choice themselves whether or not to experience life. I know not every circumstance is the same, and there are instances where it perhaps would save the mothers life, or prevent an immeasurable amount of pain and suffering for a baby to be aborted. But I felt the power of those prayers, and I cannot deny the feeling there that day.

Jim Wallis, of Sojourners Magazine (a Christian Leftist periodical), often speaks of Faith as being personal, but never private. This is why I share my thoughts today. I am a part of a marginalized lot. But given the major dissappointments of this Administration, we're growing every day. Wallis, incidentally, will be speaking on the O'Reilly Factor tonight 9pm MST, or 11 ET. I don't often watch Fox, or agree with O'Reilly, but tonight I'll be watching anyway.

Happy All Saints Day

Comments

Panini said…
So true that it comes down to that issue. It's such a hard one for me because, like you, I don't support most abortion and wouldn't want to vote for someone that did...however all lot of my other leanings are to other good liberal things. Man it's difficult.
Panini said…
p.s. How about Gold's tonight as a guest to see if you like it... we could catch The Factor. :)
Unknown said…
Yes, and the sad thing about that issue is that it turns a lot of other would be socially concious voters into one-issue voters. They vote for those who proclaim to be pro-life, but are also pro-unjustified "pre-emptive" war and pro-death penalty and think girls raped by their father should have to ask permission from this same parent to go to the doctor to abort an unwanted pregnancy. It makes no sense.
Unknown said…
Okay, so I am against abortion, and it is a hot topic of discussion, affects politics way to much if you ask me. So, for a literary reference, if you want your views on abortion analyzed, (not that mine changed after reading this, but its worth looking at), Read pages 94-99 of Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher. One little note from that book,

"What you've seen in here today is not unusual when we deal with emotional issues. But it dramatizes something important in looking at any contemporary American thought. No issues is isolated. We started out talking about abortion, but the discussion quickly drifted to general beliefs. No amount of effort could have stopped that, because our points of view--the way we perceive things--areinextricably linked to our beliefs....What I hope we can learn is to be aware of how our beliefs color what we see," (98).

Anyway, not that that paragraph sheds too much light, but abortion opinion how so much to do with people's world views and ideaology, that the issues is bounds representativly to overpower issues that arguably/inarguably can be more important to things like the supreme court appointments.
Unknown said…
True, it really does get down to what a person believes the status of a fetus is. It's the struggle between the rights of the mother vs. the rights of the child. The child having rights is really the debate. And it's really like this analogy a friend told me one time. Say a house is burning and there is a mother and a baby inside, in different rooms, and you only have enough time to save one of them. Who do you save and why?

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