Mothers and Families Matter To God Too

The pro-life movement catapulted to prominence in 1989 when the first major Supreme Court case to challenge Roe v. Wade hit the courts since the ruling itself. There were pro-life and pro-choice rallies at Rutgers College, Rutgers University every week throughout my junior and senior years. Christian groups sponsored viewings of the 1984 anti-abortion video, “The Silent Scream.” And evangelicals assumed if you are saved, then you must be “pro-life.”

One day that year my mother and I stumbled into a heated argument. With exasperated arrogance, I bent backwards to convince her that her pro-choice position on abortion was immoral, unfaithful and unchristian.

She asked: “What if the life of the mother is at stake? Should abortion be allowed then?”
“No,” I countered flatly.

“Lisa,” she explained, “do you remember that time I was pregnant, a few years ago, and I went into the hospital and the baby didn’t make it?”

“Yes…” I said.

“I had an abortion,” she said. “I almost died and the doctor had to take the baby to save my life.” She paused.

“I could have died,” she said.

I wish I could tell you I responded with compassion and humility, but I can’t. Determined to win the argument, my heart turned to steal. I looked my mother in the eyes — my mother, the woman who almost died to bring me into the world, who worked nights to put herself through college while raising three small children, who would give up anything to make sure we were provided for — I looked my mother in the eyes and said: “They should have saved the baby.”

On November 8, 2011, Mississippi voters voted down Ballot Measure 26, “the Personhood Amendment,” which would have granted the status of legal person to a fertilized egg. The measure would have effectively outlawed abortion in all circumstances within the state, deeming it murder. It would have made protection of the mother’s life a criminal offense, if that protection risked the life of the fertilized egg.

According to a November 2011 Mother Jones article, “Personhood amendment” lobbyists were poised then to introduce Personhood ballots in Montana, Oregon, California, Nevada, Ohio, and Florida.

There are lots of points of controversy over measures like these. They are so extreme that even the Catholic Bishops denounced Measure 26. For me the most haunting question is this: “Who would it harm most?” My conclusion: families — especially poor ones. When mothers — especially poor ones — die of complications in childbirth, families fold.

Thirty-two percent of households led by single women were poor in 2010, as opposed to 6 percent of two-parent households. In the case of Measure 26, Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation with an overall poverty rate of nearly 22 percent and a number of counties with rates as high as 48 percent. If Measure 26 passed, the state’s foster care system would have had to watch out. With no provision to protect the lives of mothers, the system would have likely seen a rise in the rates of children processed and placed in the system. This wave would have included both the fertilized eggs and fetuses born to dead mothers and their motherless brothers and sisters. How’s that for family values?

I often think back to that conversation with my mother. It took decades for our relationship to heal after I knifed her with my words that day. Since then, God has countered the effects of my hardened heart. God has whispered words of truth and health to my mother’s soul, “I care about you… I see you… You matter to me… The well-being of your family matters to me.”

May the mothers of America hear the same for years to come.

Amen.

This article was adapted from an article that originally appeared on the Huffington Post.