When Abortion Was Thinkable-Part 1

To understand the "crisis" that is perceived when a woman/couple become pregnant unexpectedly, it is important to mine the situations, circumstances and emotions that swirl around the panicked moments that feed into a decision to abort. The goal for those of us in the Pro-life movement is to aspire to a future time of making abortion "unthinkable." But to do that, we have to examine the perceived 'truth' of the person in crisis and meet those perceptions with love, compassion, truth and most importantly HOPE!

The vast majority of women do NOT want to abort their children. But for many of us, we could not see a future with that child; and that is the difficult reality that we need to face. Because until we face peoples' perceived "truths," we will not be able to speak to each other from a place of mutual understanding.

We at Arise Daughter do not run from the difficult conversations. We have learned to listen in love and pray into the "hard." And so, we invite you, our grace-filled readers, to listen to our stories of a time in our history when, "abortion was thinkable."

First in our series is an offering from our Artist in Residence, Ms. Roxanne Fields in the forms of painted art, a poem and her video testimony. Speak back to Roxanne in the comments as you are moved to.

Roxanne's testimony on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cyy568I2Yzs

Painting by Roxanne Fields titled, "Call Hank."

"Hank was my big brother. He was the person I was closest to and was who I first called when I found out I was pregnant. Hank was always the one who could talk me "off the ledge" and so I knew I would get comfort and not condemnation from him. Sure enough, he had a listening ear and an open heart for my situation. And although I did not take his advice to keep my child he supported me and cared for me afterwards. Now that he is gone, I miss my brother and his unconditional love more than words can express." Roxanne

Poem by Roxanne titled: "Two Weeks Late"

One line...one line not two.

Two means I'm pregnant and that, I just can't do.

Two lines my life is over, please only one line come thru.

How can one night of, what ever that was,

today fill my mind with dread.

Now I got all these voices inside my head.

Why didn't we just go bowling, on that stupid date,

now I'm peeing on a stick because I'm 2 weeks late.

What are my options, now what do I do.

My parents, my friends, my life, and now...

Please oh please God,

one line, just one line...

Its two.