As always when one hits an animal on the road, the thud of the live body against the weaponized tons of steel of my vehicle moving through its home was sickening. The soft flesh and feathers were no match, and when I stopped to remove the turkey from the road and say a prayer of apology and goodbye to it there were feathers and blood everywhere.
All of life IS sacred. Many humans, however, seem to have a difficult job discerning how to act in regard to the sacred nature of ourselves and the world around us.
Of the many contradictions around this issue, the one that makes me the most sad are "single issue voters:" those who will tolerate many abuses of life while voting only on a “no abortion” platform.
These single issue anti-abortion voters -- I can't call them pro-life because of all the other anti-life issues they not only tolerate, but perpetuate -- encompass a range of so-called Christians. These voters overlook immigration issues, the treatment of the poor, the amassing of unjust wealth, the abuse of workers, mass incarceration and the death penalty as long as a candidate espouses to be anti-abortion.
As the Pope himself has said in regard to the lives of the unborn and the issue of abortion: "Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery and every form of rejection."
We all have a role in achieving social justice, in working toward truly common goods rather than our own individual well being alone.
I am adopted, pre-Roe vs. Wade. You’d think I would be strongly anti-abortion.
Here’s why I’m not.
I was placed by Catholic Charities into a family whose faith stated that the primary commandment is to love our neighbors.
This seemingly simple dictate translated into support for John F. Kennedy, whose photo bore a place of honor on our walls; Lyndon Johnson and ultimately Jimmy Carter for their support for voting rights and a social safety net (Medicare) and the rights of laborers to be protected by unions.
Unfortunately, this broad view of what it means to love our neighbors has been damagingly overshadowed by those who like to have their faith in more black and white terms.
It is one thing to loudly proclaim one is “pro life” and quite another to act as if one really is.
You can’t be “pro life” in America without acknowledging and examining our history as a nation whose economic wealth is built on exterminating the native populations to steal their land and on enslaving African labor through centuries long campaigns of terror and torture.
These are historic facts about which too many white Americans are in denial.
We have, as a nation, systematically dehumanized this continent’s native peoples and the Africans we brought here: and this dehumanization continues to result today in unexamined inequities including mass incarceration, the death penalty, housing, and possible remedies for poverty.
Loving one’s neighbors, and the planet, makes seeing all life as worthy of consideration. So-called religious voters can be anti-abortion because they don’t see women as fully human and with our own set of rights.
These same voters can be supportive of racist policing and justice policies that have resulted in the mass incarceration of our African-American population: because after centuries of dehumanization, they don’t see Black people as fully human.
Believing that women who need abortions and Black people convicted of misdemeanors for which no white person would be imprisoned are criminals allows these voters not to understand how “anti life” their single issue voting actually is.
The first step, always, acknowledgement: in this case, to study and to admit to the brutality against certain groups of people that has built tremendous wealth for some at the expense of others. Truth. The second step is to ask for forgiveness for our ancestors’ and our own roles in this terrible history in which life is not treated as sacred. Reconciliation. And the third step is to publicly reframe our policies to heal and to begin repairing these centuries of oppression and damage, by shifting funding from racist enforcement to education and programs that make up for the years of discrimination and enforced poverty of so many. Reparations.
Truth. Reconciliation. Reparations. The heart of a multi-issue, pro-life stance.
#nomoresingleissuevoting
#lovethyneighbor
#reallyvoteyourfaith
#truthandreconciliation
#reparationsnow
