January 22, 2013

Today is the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

I was a tender 11 years old when the Supreme Court ruled on this.  An 11 year old enrolled in Catholic elementary school and encouraged to wear the sharp-edged metal bracelet and to pass out literature on the downtown streets in my school plaid to show my opposition to this.  Truth be told, I had no idea what I was protesting more than what I had been told - that abortion was "killing babies" which seemed bad to my eleven year old self (That notion of killing babies still feels bad to my fifty one year old self.  But I notice people are much more interested in the death of babies in utero than they are in the death of babies after they are born and that seems the great oxymoron of this debate to me.)  I had to hunt the internet to find a picture of the bracelet which was so butt ugly.

I don't know who thought this was a good idea anyway, to set suburban Catholic girls free on the streets of downtown Cincinnati to protest something of which they had no personal knowledge, but it was not a good one.

I am appalled to remember that I did this.

I would never support that as an adult woman, not the idea and certainly not the use of small children to forward it.  In fact, I find the latter shameful and reprehensible.  Children are not meant to be political or religious pawns like that.  I think every woman has the right to choose for herself without judgment.  Children should be allowed to be children and to make decisions about what they support ideologically when they reach an age to do so.

 Most of you might be surprised to learn that I am personally very pro-life.  That is my choice.  What someone else chooses, that's up to them.  I do not want or feel the need to dictate that for someone else. Nor would I judge someone who made a decision to terminate a pregnancy.  A few of my friends have done it and it matters not one bit to me.  I still love them.  I don't think they are going to hell or any such nonsense.  On a different day and under similar circumstances, I might have chosen to do the same.

So maybe what rankles me the most is the idea that the eleven year old girl didn't get a choice not to pander literature or wear that cuff of women's slavery.