Life is sacred and life is life.

Regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, race, species. Life is life. A woman’s womb weeps tears of blood every month new life is not cradled within. The sight of a wee babe makes our hearts go soft inside. Breathing slows down and anxiety lowers when I step outside and wander the backyard, caressed by the breeze, hands plucking ripe tomatoes, toes kissing blades of green grass. I soak in life and I am reborn.

Life is sacred and life is life. And I am very much for life. I guess, to be politically correct, you could say I am pro-life. But because I am pro-life, I pause at election time and do not vote based on the abortion issue. Being pro-life has widened the scope of my lens instead of narrowing it down to one thing.

Does that shock you? Give you pause and make you want to throw out my words like dirty dishwater? Hear me out first.

The possibility of duality

Being pro-life and pro-choice are not mutually exclusive. The Patriarchy has groomed us to see things in black and white. Right or wrong. Only one way. But femininity has taught me the possibility of duality. It has given me the right to question, to use my own brain and come up with endless possibilities instead of only one way.

I am pro-life. But I do not believe it is right for me to make that choice for another human. That is why I am also pro-choice. It is not my right to make moral decisions for another woman. It’s like expending my efforts to protect the little twigs in the forest from being burned when the entire forest is burning to the ground.

The dominant voices in the American evangelical church have told us that the most important issue to consider when voting is the abortion issue. In reality, this is a guise to distract us from the bigger picture. Are the little twigs necessary in the forest? Do they contain life? Yes and of course! But it does little good to protect them when the entire forest is burning to the ground!

Saving the twigs by saving the forest

It’s time to wake up to reality. We must throw our effort into protecting the whole of the forest. The time is here to come together and look at the bigger picture. Because it will take all of us to save the forest and, in doing so, we can create a place where all the little twigs can thrive.

I am pro-life and that is why I look at the bigger picture of what each candidate and their party stands for. I watch the way they treat the audience during debates. The way they treat minorities. Women. The differently-abled. I look at how the policies they propose will affect children. Single moms. Immigrants. I listen to friends of other races and orientations. When they tell me their lives are in danger because of policies with this administration, I take that seriously. Their lives matter to me. Life is sacred and life is life.

I try to imagine how the policies they make will affect women and children around the globe. I count the cost of future wars and hold the Iraqi and Afghani mothers in my hearts and hold their children with mine – because life is life. My children’s future is not more important than theirs. I think of soldiers blown to bits on foreign soil while their comrades return to us with PTSD, I see them and weep. Their life also has value to me.

Pro-life or pro-comfort?

Pro-life does not build walls and close humans in cages. Look not for the words you want to hear. Rather, look at the life your candidate leads. This is how you determine whether or not they actually stand for life or not. Words on paper, a signature captured to change a law, that is no victory for life. It is only a ploy to get your vote and to enable a life of comfort for a select few.

Look for the walls broken down. The cages open. Wars ended. Peaceful solutions found. Look for compassion, justice, and equality. See if there is regard for the earth itself. Will it be cared for or exploited?

The forest is burning. There are those who are pouring gas on the flames and telling us to only see and save the twigs. But I gather with my bucket of water. Pour out what I have and run for more.

If you burn the forest down, you will have to burn me with it. I stand with life. Black, brown, white. Gay, Straight, Bi, Trans. She, He, They. Immigrant, indigenous, and all who tremble with fear for their lives. They are human first. I see their faces and I stand with them. And we plant our feet on Mother Earth and she shares her water with us and we fill our buckets. There is room for you here too.

Because life is sacred. And life is life.

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