I wanted to write down some of my thoughts on this weekend’s Some Women’s March. If you are interested then all I ask is that you really read and try to understand my viewpoint. I’m not looking for any fight. I’m not looking to be right. I’m not looking for anything, just a place to write down what I personally believe about the issue. I have a facebook and facebook is going crazy over yesterday’s Some Women’s March so it’s not a safe arena for my thoughts right now…maybe not ever..but this is my blog and my daughter might read it someday so I want her to know what her mom was thinking about.

I read an article, on Facebook, that a pro-Life Women’s group was not being allowed to help sponsor the march and I thought that was weird, since it was a Women’s March and they were Women. Apparently the main goal of the March was to make sure Abortion rights were not taken away by the new president. The new president…sigh…I don’t have any real concrete feelings about the guy but the few I do have lean toward negative ones…just trying to provide full disclosure.

Anyway, I found it weird and divisive that pro-life women weren’t wanted at the Women’s March. To be totally honest, I was insulted. I’m a nice woman. I’m a good person. I could be a better person most days. I’m a smart lady who cares about other women. I care that they are treated with dignity and respect. I care that they are not objectified. I care that men don’t call them bitches, or talk about grabbing their pussies, breasts or any other body parts. I care that we don’t call each other bitches or nasty women. We aren’t and those names don’t empower us and we should not pretend they do. I care that women aren’t sold into sex slavery. I care that they aren’t forced into pornography or prostitution. I care that they have access to health care. I care that they aren’t in poverty. I care about all those things and more. I care that if they decide to get married that they marry men of integrity who see them as an equal and who treat them as such. I care that if they decide to be mothers that they have access to good child care and they have time off to spend with their new babies whether they have adopted them or given birth to them. I care that they earn salaries that make sense for their experience and education. I care about all these things, but that didn’t matter, none of that mattered because of one issue I also care about.

Abortion.

Talk about a single issue separating people. I didn’t matter to some of these women because I was not the kind of woman they wanted representing their cause. None of the things I cared about mattered because the women in charge of the march couldn’t get over their own preconceived notions of what a pro-life woman cares about or who she really is.

The stereotype of the pro-life woman. Evangelical Christian, middle class, republican or an uneducated minority, probably Catholic, probably poor who is too stupid to think for herself and just follows blindly what her church teaches. Hostile, don’t forget hostile. Hostile to other women, unkind, unloving, inflexible, intolerant and unable to understand what is really at stake if we, heaven forbid, lose Planned Parenthood or pass a law that says you can’t murder your own children. Yep I said it murder, kill, commit homocide…it’s all the same.

Let’s see I fit exactly two of those stereotypes. I am a Catholic. I am middle class. I am also tired. I am tired of being considered a second class woman by some because I personally don’t believe other women should have abortions. I am tired of people lecturing me about separation of church and state, telling me the bishops of my church, citizens of this country, shouldn’t be allowed to write letters to their elected officials. I am tired of people telling me they personally don’t believe in abortion but they don’t think it is their place to tell other women what to do with their bodies. I am tired of being told I am a hypocrite because by not supporting universal health care over this one “little issue” I am not caring for the poor and Christians are supposed to care for the poor. I am tired of people talking to me like I am an idiot somehow in need of enlightenment.
I could list all the reasons I believe abortion is wrong but if someone already has their mind made up it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Well maybe I will try anyway. Number one, I can’t seem to get around the fact that if you suck the fetus out of your body it will die but if you leave it where it is and take proper care of it, it will more than likely live. I can’t seem to get around the fact that there is more than ample birth control available. The morning after pill is not birth control, it is abortion. Abortion itself is not birth control it is a medical procedure that can have complications both physical and mental. My own church does not advocate birth control but it is widely available so I see no real need for abortion. You don’t have an abortion because the baby is inconvenient or imperfect, that’s not a good enough reason. Please don’t bring up rape or the health of the mother, those cases are few and far between, they certainly don’t number to the 51,888,303 abortions that have been performed from 1970-2013. Yes that’s 51 million babies, in case you were wondering if you read that right, that were not allowed to see the light of day and if I had to guess I would say predominately minority and poor. This is just in the United States. What would the numbers look like if we included China? Staggering.

Our own constitution guarantees the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How can you pursue liberty or happiness if your own mother kills you? The right to life is a fundamental right, it is the right that all us living people fight for. It’s fundamental, that means it is a foundational right, without this right everything else falls apart.

The same people who are so quick to march for civil rights, rights for LGBQT, rights for animals and the environment are some of the very same people refusing to march for the right for another human being to be allowed to live and you call me a hypocrite?

What has become of a society so worried, so concerned about who can or can not get married, who is or is not getting shot by police, who does or does not get thrown in jail for drug use but yet they can not or will not make room for someone at their march that just wants little babies to be given the chance to live? Am I the only one that sees something very wrong with this picture? I was not welcome at the march for women, but Madonna and her profanity laced speech was? That’s who we want representing women?

Instead I was called a hypocrite. Instead I was called intolerant. Instead I was told I just didn’t understand the real issue. I am irritated. I am mad.

Abortion is a real evil that is destroying our country and the countries of the world. If you don’t believe me just look around, are women really fighting with other women about whether or not they should keep their babies? Why? Why are we separating ourselves over this issue? Why? Life is a fundamental right, there is no getting around that. Period.

The next time you have a march make sure it’s an ALL Women’s March and I will be there, even if the person next to me is not Pro-Life.