I’ve heard from a good number of women and men since Life Choices came out in September. Sometimes it’s about their own abortion healing, and sometimes it’s about their desire for more depth, clarity, and kindness in the public dialogue about abortion. Everyone I speak with expresses alarm and sometimes disgust about the current political battles around abortion.
It’s all I can do not to be upended by the severe antipathy of the political debate.There is an urgent need for us to once again fervently and courageously hold our ground. The big lesson is about trusting our own voices. It’s about not being manipulated by people, especially people in power, who claim to have our best interests at heart but who really don’t care at all about our lives. Our real lives I mean, and the real life of our planet.
The attack being waged against women is nasty and ferocious, and led by narrow thinking, usually ignorant, mostly male legislators trying to turn back the most basic of services that provide safety and good health to women. And how are they doing it? By hollering about abortion, as if abortion were the worst thing in the world. By speaking of abortion as a life taker when it is really a life giver. By lying about the real lives of women and men. By playing on the fear and embarrassment most people feel about anything related to sex. And worst of all, by pretending they care about women, which they do not, because if they did, they would know not to wipe out services that are essential to the well being of women and their families.
The current situation can make you a feminist in an instant. There’s no getting around it. In April, Terry Tempest Williams (one of my favorite authors), felt called to write about the furious attack on our health options.
What is good for women is good for humanity. The world’s population is rising as the earth’s resources are being depleted. This is the conversation we need to engage. Tending to women’s reproductive health is tending to the health of the planet.
I was on the radio the other day being interviewed about abortion healing and the ideas in Life Choices. The wonderful people at KGNU, our local community radio station, were passionate, intelligent, committed, and supportive. I’m grateful.
I’ll do a book talk and signing at the Tattered Cover (Colfax Store) in Denver on Friday, November 4, 7:30 p.m.
What a time this is to be re-entering the fray!
“What a time this is to be re-entering the fray!”
Yes. But now is a time when your book and your voice are so deeply needed. “Life Choices” is timeless for the spiritual perspective and understanding it gives to the question of abortion, and it is timely whenever politicians are threatening the deepest rights of women.
Thank you for this empowering and compassionate book!