There’s a fight happening in the U.S. that’s inspiring furor, fear, and division. Actually, there are several fights, all coinciding with one another, and all amounting to the same question that needs to be answered:
Which reality do Americans wish to create and live in? Fear…or Love?
At the Heart of the Debate Over Abortion Rights
I’m ruminating on how this particular fight (as well as fights over mask mandates, and critical race theory, and gender binaries) fits in with what I know to be true about spirituality, higher consciousness, and Love.
I tend to preach the futility of making bold, one-sided declarations as an avenue to peace: If we’re so stuck on being “right,” we’re most likely not going to be happy.
However, wisdom and discernment are not the same as self-righteousness and judgment. The former have flavors and energies of expansiveness, curiosity, and inclusion, while the latter feel heavy, limited, limiting, and angry.
With that as our guide, here is my loving and wise, yet bold and admittedly one-sided declaration:
To be against abortion rights is to be against humanity.
Even more, to turn away from supporting the right for a woman to choose what to do with her own body is to turn away from Love itself.
Let’s take a few breaths, and dive.
First of All, What’s Humanity?
More than just the human collective of which we are all a part, humanity refers to the potentiality of great love we are all gifted with possessing…should we so choose.
Humanity is the capacity residing in each individual human to choose Love at all moments.
Our choice to be and extend Love in all directions is what makes us holy, and brings us in alignment with God (or The Universe, or peace, or whatever you want to call the benevolent energy that creates and expands our consciousness).
When we attempt to restrict or limit another human being’s bodily autonomy – their inherent right to dominion of their own body – be it by force, manipulation, cajoling, or restraint, we’re not abiding in Love. We’re reacting from Fear.
Just a reminder: These two energies can’t co-exist with one another: If we’re in Love, we can’t be in Fear. If we’re in Fear, we can’t be in Love.
So, again, the question begs to be asked:
Which energy do we want to live by, in, and from? Love…or Fear?
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Namely, everything.
Because love doesn’t constrain, compel, or seek to control. It can’t: Such actions are violations of everything Love does and is.
Love is an invitation for all that is good, holy, and beautiful to be made manifest on earth. And what is more holy than fully trusting another human being to make choices for themselves without our input, judgment, or moral opinion?
Love is expansive, not constrictive. What is more expansive than allowing another human being to experience whatever it is they choose to experience, without projecting our own anger, fear, shame, or guilt on them?
Love is kind, more than anything, and benevolent, and just. What could possibly be more just than allowing another human being total and complete freedom to make decisions for their own life and body?
Anything other than the good, holy, beautiful, expansive, kind, benevolent, and just energies that comprise Love is Fear. Full stop.
By attempting to strip away a person’s governance over their own body and life, we demonstrate exactly what we value:
Fear more than Love.
Control more than freedom.
@Writer.Dawn.H
So. If we choose to eliminate bodily autonomy for any one human being (let alone entire swaths of the human population), how can we rightfully claim we are acting from a loving, or holy, place?
If we choose to dwell in honesty, we can’t.
How Ego Fits In To the Abortion Debate
First, remember that ego is composed of all the beliefs we constructed once upon a time when we were in fear for our survival, or feared losing connection with someone we deemed important.
Those beliefs have driven most of us to live quite blindly, unaware of what is truly running our show and unappreciative of the power we’ve given to this invisible foe.
We know we’re operating from ego (whose modus operandi is, first and foremost, fear) when we feel the urge to be in control. To dominate. Or perhaps to tell someone else what they can and can’t do with their own lives.
Ego is in full swing when we feel rigid, angry, and defiant. When we say things like, “I know what’s best for you,” “This is a moral crime,” or “You’re bad for thinking and doing this thing.”
Often, ego is coming from a place of complete hypocrisy wrapped snugly in the pretty packaging of moral superiority.
After all, it’s much more comfortable to point that finger outward toward someone else and accuse them of moral failing than it is to turn inward and ruthlessly question our own thoughts, beliefs, and actions.
Humbling to consider, isn’t it?
Why Don’t We Trust Freedom?
Here’s the question we most need to consider when we find ourselves confused about whether our actions are aligned in Love or concocted in Fear:
“What would you seek to control except that which you distrust?”
Let me ask that another way.
If we fully trust a person or situation, do we feel the need to try and control them or it? No. Because trusting equals allowing.
So, what does it say about us when we seek to impose laws making it illegal – and therefore punishable by law – for an autonomous human to make decisions, on her own, about her own body, health, and livelihood?
It says that not only do we not trust that human being, but we also don’t trust freedom itself.
Correction: What we don’t trust is freedom for all.
Take a breath, and let that really land.
We don’t trust freedom for all.
By attempting to strip away a person’s governance over their own body and life, we demonstrate exactly what we value:
Fear more than Love.
Control more than freedom.
And that is why I claim to be against abortion rights is to be against humanity.
That is why I claim that to turn away from supporting the right for a woman to choose what to do with her own body is to turn away from Love itself.
Because to deny any one human being their own agency is to deny them their freedom. And to deny any living human being their freedom speaks not of Love, or God, or a higher power, or any form of goodness.
It speaks only to Fear.
And that is not a place I choose to dwell.