Whatever happened to "the meek shall inherit the earth"?: Part 2--abortion

So this series of posts based around meekness and love is an attempt at finding a new perspective to some recent debates in the news. Recently abortion and contraception has been a hot issue in the news, and the NY Times has even admitted that single women are a fast-growing demographic which could very well affect the 2012 election.

While a lot of hurtful words have been thrown around which I'll try not to repeat, I'm going to try to broker some understanding on each side: pro-choice and pro-life.

Charles M. Blow proffers "Even if you are personally pro-life you don’t have to be universally anti-choice." A few of my friends responded positively and negatively to this saying

Pro-life: You can't just say "it's not ok for me to have an abortion, but it's ok for everyone else to." 

Pro-Choice: We can't force our religious opinions on anyone. Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion. 

I can see both sides to this issue. I have almost never met a woman who was "pro-abortion" although I understand they exist. 

Some "moments" from friends who have had touches with abortion. 

A friend who had an abortion when she was 13 (she now has a child), has confessed she wakes up every year on her first child's would-be birthday (due date) with really bad nightmares. 

A friend who is a nurse watched a woman die because her baby was killing her and she refused to abort though if she had she would have lived and would have had to have another baby. 

Praying at an abortion clinic in Harrisburg for a few years, I saw many, many girls forced into the building by parents, boyfriends, and husbands. 

Reading statistics, majority of abortions are performed by successful women who just don't want children at the time. 

Where I feel the real problem comes in is that we want to legislate this. We want to make a law that can encompass every situation that will come up. And lots of pro-choice people ask, "but what about if the mother is in danger? but what if the mother is raped? but what if the baby is the product of incest? what if the baby has significant deformities? what if the baby will be born into extreme poverty?" 

And those questions are very hard to answer. 

And the pro-life people ask, "isn't every life sacred? is it the baby's fault for her/his circumstances? are we qualified to, or justified in ending a life that's been created in us?" 

Even without getting into religious arguments or silly arguments about "legitimate rape," I think the real problem is that no law, no matter how complex, can weigh every situation that will come up when it comes to abortion, and both sides hold passionate and valid points. 

You see, it's easy to dismiss the other argument in a debate, but when you have a 13 year old girl who's been raped by her uncle, it's a different story. 

When you have a woman whose life is slipping away, it's a different story. 

When you've seen rich women have 3 abortions so they don't ruin their figure, it's a different story. 

When you've watched teenagers get beaten by their fathers and dragged to the clinic to get abortions, it's a different story. 

When you have girls so desperate, they will use coat hangers and give their bodies over to strangers to relieve them of this blessed responsibility, it's a different story. 

We want to create a law which will reconcile our hearts to the horror that is abortion, but really we just can't. We can't reconcile our hearts to the (ok I'm totally judging them) callous women who use abortion as a type of extreme birth control. We can't reconcile our hearts to the woman who dies refusing to abort her baby. We can't say in our hearts that justice was done. We can't believe that something good will happen either way. We can only talk in grey comparatives like "it would be better if," or "it could have been worse." 

While I would love for there to be no need for abortion ever, while some may say there never is a need for abortion, I can't say that it's my responsibility to make that choice. I can't say in my heart that it's a judge's responsibility, the government's responsibility, or even the Supreme Court's responsibility. 

I would love to see the education about abortion rise. I would love to see the rates of rape and incest go down. I would love for no woman to ever have health problems related to pregnancy. I would love for every woman to have sex in a loving marriage and be ready for the children she's helped create... but I can't make those things happen. I can only hope and pray. 

I can only talk with women one by one. I can only pray and cry with them. I can only listen to their stories and try to help them live (or die) with whatever decision they make. 

But something deep inside me feels it only right that God cover these decisions. That God's love cover the mothers, the babies, the fathers, the grandparents. God's love is bigger than this issue, and I think we all need more quietness, prayer and counselling, kindness and forgiveness as we discuss it. Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it, and His Love--full of forgiveness, mercy, and hope, is the fulfilling of all laws.