Diary of a Young Pro-Life Girl
A while ago I was on Instagram tapping through stories when an account I follow, Poplitics, asked a yes or no question: “Do you remember when you found out what abortion is?” I tapped past it without answering.
I couldn’t honestly say yes or no because I have no idea when I learned about abortion and what it does. Growing up in my faith, Catholicism, I just somehow learned and understood that I am a Catholic - I don’t remember my parents telling me that I am, I just am. Likewise, I don’t remember anyone telling me that abortion kills a baby in the womb. I absorbed that information just by observing. I heard my mom’s talk radio shows yell about it, I noted the negative connotation when my mom mentioned Planned Parenthood, and I knew abortion was a bad thing, especially after a few rewatches of October Baby.
At the end of my senior year of high school my family watched Unplanned, and I knew that I never really knew what abortion truly does to fulfill its promises of “pregnancy termination.” It’s a kind of brutality only the cruel and the ignorant can be proud of. Sometime after that, I somehow found Live Action, then Let Them Live.
I looked at all the fundraisers desperate to provide support to a woman with a scheduled abortion appointment and held back tears because I felt useless. The algorithm led me to Students for Life of America, which showed me that people my age can do something. That inspired me to apply to be a Live Action ambassador and posting prolife content on Instagram. Doing this showed me just how badly information about the prolife movement, the female anatomy, and abortion has been skewed.
My Prolife Instagram Stint
My first posts didn’t really get much traction, so I started doing what other pro lifers were doing: I used pro choice hashtags such as #reprorights #prochoice #proabortion, etc. That’s when I got my first hate comment. It claimed that I was pushing Live Action’s “lies and pseudoscience.” I had talked about personhood in the post, which isn’t as scientific as it is philosophical, but in defense of both my integrity and Live Action’s, I shared the scientific backing of life at conception from Princeton University and informed her of Live Action’s certified nonprofit status recognized by the government.
It turned into a heated conversation where she would list the WHO and other organizations that highlight abortion as a human right and I would share my own resources, where neither of us were conceding and at least one of us was being disrespectful. She found me again on a different post of mine that stated, “Acknowledging the humanity of the preborn does NOT dehumanize women.” Our conversation dissolved into my being called a Nazi and me asking if I could pray for her grandmother and her family because of the hardship they still suffer from because of the Nazi regime. She laughed at my offered prayers and told me I was “just like Hilter.” Instagram no longer lets me view any of her comments on either of those posts.
I did a few more posts but was greatly discouraged. I stopped doing them and turned to responding to pro choice comments on other prolife posts. I had a great conversation with a young woman where she actually recognized the strength of my argument, but she quickly turned back to abortion, telling me she wouldn’t know when she would need it again and didn't like the 1-3% risk of conceiving when using NFP and other fertility awareness methods despite having already accidentally conceived when using "protection" with far greater failure rate.
I cried that night for the 7 week old baby she had aborted in the past and prayed for her to experience a change of heart before she would conceive another. That was shortly before my Lenten social media sabbatical, and I was desperate for a legitimate reason to say no to Instagram for 40+ days, but that time with Jesus offered me more than relief from fruitless efforts on an app. It gave me a chance to really consider what these experiences revealed to me.
Modern Feminism
In these debates I would be referred to as a “traitor to my gender.” That was always interesting to me considering that today’s brand of feminism has taught women that to be “free” means to not get married but spend years on any number of guys who may or may not still be there in the morning. It has taught women that sex is something that we can leverage but in the context that it doesn’t matter who it’s with or how it's used.
It has taught women that the outcome isn’t a baby but satisfied pleasure. No wonder so many women don’t know what to do when they find out it’s more than that. They carelessly co created a life with a man who left them, never thinking about the consequences, and now they are on their own because of an ideology that has cheapened fertility and sex. But the modern feminist has a handy fix for that: Planned Parenthood. And if you try to say that the next generation of women have the right to live past their time in the womb? You. Are. A. Traitor. To. Women.
Since 1973, pregnancy has been turned into a social injustice. Keyboard warriors claim that pro life women are letting men tell them what to do and are giving away their rights of bodily autonomy to “parasites,” but they never breathe a word about how true freedom and true bodily autonomy isn’t in being able to kill an innocent baby but resides in the momentary decision of consent. And few will admit that the baby does, in fact, have human genetics. It was determined by nine men that women need abortion to keep up, and it’s astounding how many men and women still hold on to such an outdated and false assumption that’s outright misogynistic.
And for what? Women’s Human Rights? Human rights are irrevocable rights that apply to every member of the human family, male and female, young and old. To believe the murder of the preborn is not only acceptable but necessary for women to be equals in education, career, and personhood - i.e. that abortion is a human right - is a statement concluding women are inherently inferior because of our natural ability to bear children in comparison to the male inability to do so.
Propagating this subliminal messaging has hurt us as women. Modern feminism has taught the young female that she is automatically set back because of what her body does, but never highlights the importance of this function. It’s just a hassle and annoyance that can be momentarily forgotten and erased by ingesting or implanting birth control and seeing men as the enemy in the workplace or classroom and as objects when we want them to be. And it has taught men the same attitude!
Not only does this mindset hinder our gender from truly enjoying and embracing feminity, but it sets the woman against the man while simultaneously leading her down the risky road of sexual “freedom” which results in heartbreak, creating a deepset fear of pregnancy and children because she’s been taught to not rely on men but abortion instead. It’s like women in the 70’s frustrated with men’s unfaithfulness just shrugged and thought along the lines of the saying “If you can’t beat them, join them!” Only, devastatingly, they went beyond unfaithfulness to ending innocent life.
Post-Roe Pro-Life Feminism
There was a time that I resented my body for its cyclical process and function every month, and I blamed my frustrations on womanhood. I thought men had it so much better and easier. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a teensy bit resentful of them because of it. But that was before I really understood what my body is doing. Coming to understand and seek out more information, it has made me wonder if women lacking the knowledge of how their own bodies work could be one of the many root problems that lead to the growth of the abortion weed.
I remember very little of my sex-ed class in high school. It was uncomfortable (and a bit miserable) because there were way too many immature guys laughing about periods, but I can’t really recall more than that awkward class day and some basic review on hereditary genes and numbers of chromosomes. Unless I blocked it out, there was very little discussion about why my body does what it does. I went in that room every other morning for part of a semester just to come out feeling a little embarrassed and still leaving without answers regarding the purpose of my cycle besides the vague reality that it’s necessary to have kids.
In a post-Roe America, the first thing we need to do is to stop doing that. The class should focus on the woman’s cycle so that teens actually understand how pregnancy happens. So many are left thinking that pregnancy can happen at any time, but abortion is a quick fix that no one will ever know about. The truth is pregnancy is super dependent on timing, the fertile window of a woman’s cycle happens in just one of the four phases, and the woman will always know and be impacted by her abortion in some way or another whether that is physically, emotionally, or mentally. Will there still be immature guys? Undoubtedly. Perhaps the best route for some schools may be to have just high school girls learn about their cycle, which would be a huge step in the right direction.
Now, you might be thinking, “So what’s going to stop some girls from being sexually active anyway?” I wondered that too, but I think the Catholic Church has a solution. Somewhere along the way, we forgot the true meaning of “your body is a temple.” I’ve seen some use this as a reason for lavish self-care, and while self-care is important it can sometimes be misused as a disguise for selfishness. The term really comes from verses 19 and 20 in the sixth chapter of 1 Corinthians, fittingly in a section about sexual immorality: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
St. Pope John Paul II knew how important the human body was and sought to guide many to redemption through his writing of Theology of the Body, that God is not only with us but in us. In recognizing that our bodies are gifts from God and that sexual sins can dishonor the temple of the Holy Spirt that we each are, we are given the strength and wisdom to treat not only our own bodies with respect and honor but also that of our neighbor. Whether that be a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, classmate, someone we are going out on a date with for the first time, and even the preborn child. The amazing thing about this is that a woman is a temple for her soul and the Holy Spirit and she can carry another soul and temple of the Holy Spirit inside of her own body. How can we ignore such a humbling and honorable potential capability by shutting it down with birth control and dismembering another sacred temple? This is what abstinence sex-ed could teach every young man and woman.
Conclusion
Prolife feminism has always looked like protecting the smallest human life, donating to organizations that educate about abortion, supporting mothers in difficult pregnancy circumstances, funding ultrasounds for abortion-minded women, teaching expecting mothers and fathers with parenting classes, offering healing resources to qomen and men after abortion, and more, but post-Roe prolife feminism should also do everything that modern feminism hasn’t.
The prolife movement has reached farther than simply debating and still has area to cover. We can be the side that encourages women to take their fertility care into their own hands by teaching them what the ebbs and flows of their cycles mean so that the reproductive system isn’t a mystery. We can be the side that instills the dignity and integrity of the human body in our young generations that they can grow to be the ones that continue to inspire others to value the human body, both male and female anatomy as well as fetal development, so that no one feels the need to rely on false love and life-ending procedures to feel free. This is what post-Roe feminism ought to be. We already have the understanding of it. Now it’s up to the pro life generation to cultivate the healing and teaching that is essential in bringing about the culture of life we have been working towards.
As for me, Lent 2022 taught me that the prolife movement has different opportunities for different types of people. We can make an impact in the ways that we are most skilled. I haven’t posted any serious prolife content since before Lent, and I’m not sure trying to get pro choice and proabortion people to see the light is my calling. And maybe you aren’t either. So what have I been doing? I’ve been donating and volunteering in different ways behind the scenes (which has brought me much more peace than trying to force my way into the prolife influencer sphere ever did) as I pray and discern how I am meant to make an impact in the future. Sometimes you just know an area is your calling, but don’t know how you’re supposed to carry out your purpose in it. That’s how it was for me with the prolife movement, but I haven’t yet found the prolife work I’m meant to do. In the meantime, I’m learning to love God and people - even the ones that tell me I’m like Hitler ;) Keep faith, stay hopeful, and love even when it's difficult. God bless!
Guest Writer Bio
Abigail is a college student entering her senior year and will graduate at the end of 2022 with an AAS in Small Business and Entrepreneurship, upon which she will pursue a bachelor's in business as well. She's a thinker, writer, and dreamer who hopes to publish at least one novel in her lifetime, along with other works. This is her first article. Her current idea of a dream career for after college is working at a pregnancy resource center, but she is trying to do her best at seeking God's will one day at a time. You can follow her on Instagram @abigailbargender.