As I typed the words in a comment on social media, I could feel the hot lava flowing in my veins: forced birth extremists. In another comment: enslavers of the human uterus. In our Clergy for Choice meetings we say “the anti’s” for short.
Anti’s. Anti-choice. Anti-child. Anti-mother, anti-parent, anti-family. Anti-sex positive education. Anti-contraception. Those who treat pregnancy like a punishment, a consequence for not taking responsibility. Hardly pro-life, we say. All too true.
There’s a fine line between telling the truth in no uncertain terms and dehumanizing those whom we strive against. From Eugene Cho on Twitter: “Be careful not to dehumanize those you disagree with. In our self-righteousness, we can become the very things we criticize in others…and not even know it.” We derive a certain satisfaction when we call out others, when we allow that hot lava within to flow freely. It’s called power. And it feels good in situations where we feel powerless, where we feel like we’re losing ground.
I get it. They are playing a zero-sum game. We think we’re playing the cooperative game. We keep trying to get the other side to see that we’re human beings. A friend wrote on social media: “I just don’t know what to do. There’s so much that has to be fixed, like *right now*, and I...hate these people. Because they hate us. They must. It’s an absence of love or mercy, at the very least. Which has the same effects as hate.” But to paraphrase the apostle Paul, if we say “Love wins” and we have no love in our hearts for those on the side we want to lose, then we are just as loud and obnoxious as they are.
Irshad Manji, author of Don’t Label Me, said in an interview with Newsweek, “If the social gains we’ve made are to endure, they need buy-in from those who disagree with us. This means seeking common ground, even as we stand our ground. That’s where listening to opposing points of views comes in—and asking sincere questions. Why does my opponent believe what she believes? What experiences brought her there? By listening, you’re working with a basic law of human psychology: that if you want to be heard, you first have to hear.”
Those forced birth extremists are people who are fearful of a free choice. Those who would enslave the human uterus are people who have a negative and wounded view of sexuality, and thus are secure and comfortable in their ignorance and fallacies. Those who treat pregnancy like a punishment are people filled with shame about the human body. Those who we call “anti’s” are people who don’t trust others to make their own decisions because it’s not the decision they would make. Those who ban abortion and harass clients outside of clinics are people. And so am I. And you. And you who have had to struggle with this choice. And you who provide services. And you who fight for our rights. All of us are human beings above all else.
Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am grieving. Yes, my heart is heavy and on my worst days I am fearful about the future. And so I need this prayer, from Laura Jean Truman on Twitter:
God,
Keep my anger from becoming meanness.
Keep my sorrow from collapsing into self-pity.
Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking.
Keep my anger turned toward justice, not cruelty.
Remind me that all of this, every bit of it, is for love.
Keep me fiercely kind.
Amen.
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