Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow, Annie

Below is my response to the most recent post on the Abortion Clinic Day's blog. Please see their post titled: "Annie's Story" - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - before proceeding.

****

I appreciate the realism expressed thus far regarding the difficulty people have with overcoming drug addiction. I too hope and pray that Annie's mother will truly be motivated to reach out for help and find permanent healing from her addiction so that she can be the mother and now grandmother she ought to be. It could very well be that her moral compass isn't so badly broken after all.

Perhaps she realized "I'm a grandmother!" (even though her grandchild is still in the womb) and that this little one's life is in jeopardy partly due to her own failings. Perhaps she was able for the first time in a long time to see beyond herself, her problems, and her cravings. Perhaps she knows the physical and emotional trauma that her own daughter was about to enter into.

I too hope that Annie will not place her hopes so heavily upon her mother's promise that she finds herself regretting the decision to continue the life of her child. But, even if her mother breaks her heart again, it seems that this promise is still a great blessing. For if this emotional outcry from her mother had not occurred when it did, Annie would be today recovering from a long abortion procedure with her head swimming with questions in the wake.

Although carrying her child for another 4 months or so and facing the various medical costs and difficult decisions regarding parenting will be an uphill battle in many ways, hopefully it will allow Annie to also see the world through new eyes. Perhaps she would consider blessing a couple out there who is ready and eager to have a child. It is a courageous and self-less act of love for a child to find him or her a loving home when one feels they are not able to provide well themselves.

[By the way, I know a woman who aborted her first and unexpected child and another who gave her child to an infertile married couple due to great financial and emotional difficulties in her own life. Both have regrets and don't like to talk too much about their experience, but one of them also gets to see pictures of her beautiful daughter and hear updates about her life with her adoptive family - healthy, involved, secure - and hear about her own successes in college.]

Or perhaps one day, several months from now, after hours of intense labor, she'll hold a helpless, soft-haired baby girl in her arms, oblivious then to her pain and fatigue and think, "You are mine! I love you. I would do anything for you. How could I have ever thought of not having you in my life." And perhaps Annie's prerogatives will change. She'll still want to succeed in life and move far beyond the dysfunction she was submitted to, but now she will want to be a strong example to her little girl (or boy) of overcoming adversity and sacrificing oneself for another. (Something her own mother, by God's grace, just might learn to do at last.)

Annie's dreams are beautiful. She has looked at the cards she's been dealt and said, "I don't want to play this same old game. I'm getting out of here and going to go out into the real world and make a life for myself." The problem is, poor Annie doesn't seem to be getting any good advice re: her choices on the front end of things. I am referring to her sexual choices. These choices preceded and directly lead to her pregnancy.

I understand if Annie is sexually active with someone because she wants to feel loved, to enjoy the exhilaration of sexual pleasure or even to feel like she is making someone else happy and is thus "wanted". These are pretty natural longings, but there are unhealthy and imprudent ways to go about seeking to fulfill them. If Annie continues to choose to engage sexually with a man this side of marriage, even if she uses "protection" (as if she is going into battle), she is risking the natural consequences (see below).

And if she doesn't want that man to be the father of her child, all the more reason to abstain. Contraception isn't fool proof, and unfortunately, its use can also lead a couple to a false sense of safety from conception and STDs. (Not to mention the unnecessary, negative, physical side-effects of hormonal contraception vs. no side affects with abstaining from the get go.)

Abstaining is not easy when one is thirsty to feel loved, when one has had their sexual drive stroked by countless perverse examples at every turn in our culture, and when one is in the habit of being sexually involved. Saving sex until one is married to the man they WANT to have children with has many physical and emotional benefits. Annie would be free now to focus on her education, to discern a respectful and loving relationship with someone, and not have to worry about contraception, pregnancy, or the emotional woes of a sexually involved, pseudo-committed relationship right now if only someone had taught her all this sooner.

If you talk to Annie again, please send her first of all to Gabriel Project, a national charitable, pregnancy-assistance organization that can help her find housing, pay her medical expenses, get on her feet before and after the birth, and even pair her up with another woman who can support her through her pregnancy and decisions she will face with the approaching birth of her first, and unexpected child.

Secondly, please let Annie know that she needs to change her course regarding her sexual decisions from this point forward. This really is more loving than arming her with contraceptives and sending her back out into the battlefield that is casual sex. The risks of continued pre-marital sexual activity are clear:
- Future unexpected pregnancy and possible abortion(s)
- Contracting an STD (or two)
- Unpleasant side-effects from hormonal contraceptives
- Bonding emotionally and biologically with someone who is not her ideal husband/future-father-of-her-children or who is not going to be committed to her for the long haul [We can't divorce our body and soul from one another, after all, nor can we suppress forever the desire written on our hearts for an intimate, loving, life-time relationship]
- Habituating herself to compromise
- Damaged reputation
- Lost time and energy spent worrying about any/all of the above
- Loosing the novelty and beauty of sexual union with someone who knows and cherishes her completely, for life [Isn't casual sex a second rate experience in light of all that it could be and is meant to be?]

I'm not advocating mere abstinence-only, nor am I advocating a joyless life in long skirts, high-buttoned sweaters, and a chastity belt. I'm advocating that Annie take a look at the gift of her sexuality and embrace it more fully. She should know that is something to not be wasted or treated casually; it is something to treasure and enjoyed to the fullest, in self-respect and complete giving of self with the man who has taken her as his own beloved partner for life. What woman doesn't want that?! (And who says it will never come so we might as well take what we can get now?! Besides, I'm not going be on my death bed one day thinking, "Man, if only I'd had a whole lot of sexually stimulating experiences before marriage! That's the whole purpose of life!")

She can start fresh. But it takes lifestyle changes. Yeah, she may have invest in a spunky, but modest wardrobe that helps her show outwardly her inward self-respect - not allowing herself to seek love in the dime-a-dozen, lustful gaze of men on the street or at a bar. (Not that I have any idea if this is Annie's lifestyle at all. Just an example of a practical change of action and perspective.) It's about living the attitude of purity (no matter what one has done or been through before) in all of life's little decisions - not just saying, "Hey, I'm not going to have sex with you, but I don't mind getting as close as we can and making ourselves sexually frustrated and tempted to the max."

So send Annie to something like the Pure Love Club website or Dawn Eden's book THRILL OF THE CHASTE for some guidance on this crazy concept of chastity. Choosing (even as a single-mother) to save sexual intimacy for marriage from this point forward is really one of the best steps Annie can take to help her focus her energies well on succeeding in school and a career and ending the cycle of poverty and dysfunction in her life.

Also, once Annie is married, she can consider postponing having children via Natural Family Planning (NFP) if need be. There are several of these all-natural methods to choose from that are: safe, scientific, and highly effective if practiced properly. Plus, it can further unify a couple as they must work together to practice NFP. It can also be used (without any reversal time) to seek conception when desired. And it familiarizes a woman with her body in such a way that she is more likely to notice any abnormalities in her reproductive or general health. It just requires some discipline and communication. Not bad things to have in a marriage I think. :-)

Don't get me wrong, I commend all of the posters and bloggers here for the clear desire to help Annie and women who are in similar situations. It would be strange if any of us wished for her to not succeed in life or to be stuck in a dysfunctional, drug-filled environment. And of course, none of us want her child to have to live through those same things. But there are many charitable groups out there who will help Annie get out of and away from her family of origin, find safe housing and support, stay healthy during her pregnancy, re-evaluate her goals, and make the best decision for herself AND her baby.

Annie is a mother already; her child is merely growing in the shelter of her womb. He or she is utterly dependent on Annie now. It is an inhumane choice for a woman to go against her maternal instinct and will the death of her child. Women choose abortion because they feel they have no other choice, and in that sense it is not a free choice - although we are each ultimately culpable for what we decide in the end.

This is Annie's chance to make a courageous sacrifice for another, a choice for which God will no doubt bless her. She is not the first to choose to say, "This is my body given up for you," and she will be richly rewarded for it! Is not the gift of life itself more valuable than having a life without hardship? I understand why many feel it is a lesser evil to take a child's life in his earliest stages than to risk having him endure horrible life circumstances and also having his mother's life plans disrupted. But we cannot commit a direct evil in order to thwart another potential evil. Evils cannot be avoided in this life; we will each endure them.

Is the purpose of life to have it easy? Is not the human will designed such that it rails against injustice and fights against all odds to achieve what is good? Have not countless people throughout human history bravely fought their way out of horrendous circumstances (such as Annie has been in her whole life) only to achieve great things? (Think of Frederick Douglas!) And none of us yet knows just who Annie's little boy or girl will grow up to be and what he or she will accomplish!

There are groups very willing to help Annie secure a good life for her child as well as herself, so please pass along the info I mentioned above to her and any other women like her. (And may I add Feminists for Life?) This situation is not at all what Annie has wanted or envisioned for her life, but why can she not look back on it in the end and say, "It's not what I wanted. It's not what I would have chosen. It was not easy. But I did what was right and good and self-less in the face of it, and the story has woven together with such a beauty as I could never have imagined. I lived life to the full; I lived it well, and all unexpected things were actually unexpected opportunities for deeper happiness."

I'm glad Annie will now have the chance to stop and think beyond the utter overwhelmingness of her circumstances in this one period in her life.

"Women with unplanned pregnancy deserve to experience unexpected joy." - Patricia Heaton, Actress (Everybody Love Raymond)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

excellent post.

NewsCat said...

I don't know, I agree Annie's got more problems than just her sexual experiences. What little glimpse we got of her life did not make me hopeful for her, her mother or her child's future. Many addicts have promised "I can change" but without taking real steps to move into recovery (working a program, joing a 12-step, making changes in their lifestyle) their promises WILL FAIL.

Annie probably would benefit from counseling and some self-examination about her relationships with men. But I can't condemn a poor young woman who enjoys sex for her desire to have it. Annie's birth control failures are a problem for her, and perhaps her relationships are also problematic. But I doubt it's her "spirit" that is in the most danger for her sex life.

The girl has enough problems without going to a place where one has to say "oh and Jesus doesn't approve of your sex life either."