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We all know that abortion is a heated issue in our country. For years, protecting preborn life has been a critical plank in the Republican National Convention platform. However, the party is considering removing its strong defense of preborn life from the national platform this year, instead referring people to their states to determine when preborn life becomes valuable. We shouldn’t be surprised that the RNC is removing this long-standing plank from the platform. While prolifers have focused on legislation, abortion supporters have poured millions into their marketing campaign to win hearts and minds to abortion. Their message: abortion equals compassion. In an age of feelings over facts, the facts of life have been lost on both political sides to the feeling that women need help. The spin says that women are better off without children. Still, reality reveals that abortion not only destroys preborn life, it also negatively affects the mental, emotional, and, yes, sometimes even the physical health of women. In our Center, we regularly see women burdened, depressed, addicted, scared, and angry in the aftermath of an abortion. So what do we do? How do we bridge the gap between truth and marketing? I have recently had the opportunity to speak with several pro-abortion women and men. They were ready to fight until they heard all of the ways that we work (for years) to help women. By acknowledging hardship and how we help, I diffused half of their arguments before the battle of words could even begin. Once they realized that I truly cared, they were more open to hearing about the facts of fetal development. This led to the point that most prolifers begin with: life begins at conception; therefore, we should protect life. After I agreed with their original point that women need help, they at least listened to my final point of valuing human life regardless of age or stage of development. We need laws that protect life, but to make those last, we must persuade hearts to value life. We accomplish that by valuing the women and families we serve as well as the opposition we talk to in person and online. In our culture of strong convictions, fighting for what we believe in, and never backing down, valuing others may seem weak, yet that is precisely what can win the battle long-term.

In the midst of a heated political election year, one of the top five priority issues for both major political parties is abortion. Nothing unusual there. We’ve been debating abortion since before Roe. What is different this year compared to the last roughly fifty years is the starting position on both sides.  In the 1970s and even 80s, the Left, pro-abortion side, argued for safe, legal, and rare abortions. Today, the Left calls for unrestricted abortion or any abortion at any time, for any reason. Compare that to the political Right, which has openly spoken in favor of ending abortion in the past but now hides behind “state rights.” The more “pro-life” people I talk to, the more I hear echoes of the Left from the past. People tell me that they are pro-life, but they want abortion in some instances….in other words, the Right wants abortion to be rare, legal, and safe. There are those words again: safe, legal, and rare. The more I hear from the Right, the more it sounds like we are just late to the Left’s party. I understand the compassion that got us here. I know that many women face difficult situations. I know that there are health concerns, financial strain, relationship upheaval, career goals, housing instability, violence, addiction….the list is unending. I am not discounting the difficulty of any of those struggles, but I would also ask, is abortion truly the best solution to those situations? Is it even a solution, or does abortion merely address one area of stress while leaving the underlying issues in place, which will then lead to more abortions in the future? The Left changed their platform from rare abortion to every abortion because that’s the natural progression. After all, if it’s fair when it’s rare, why not fair anytime, anywhere? When abortion is treated like a solution, then you might as well try that “solution” with every similar problem. The difficulty is that abortion isn’t a solution; it’s a mask. It doesn’t fix the root issue; it just removes the most prominent symptom. What if, instead of expanding abortion, we focus on high-risk medical care, job training, addiction recovery, and counseling? What if we, as a society, encourage commitment, avoiding STDs (the leading cause of ectopic pregnancy), healthy relationships, and child positivity? We know that all of these are already desperately needed in our culture. Abortion doesn’t end any of those negative situations that lead to abortion in the first place. Abortion merely prolongs the problem situation. If we as a society truly cared about women, we would focus on the things that are foundational to stability and success rather than let abortion continue to mask and add to trauma. Let’s stop showing up late to Leftist party policies and stop showing up to Leftist party policies at all. Instead, let’s focus on real, truthful solutions to the issues people face.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. As ads encourage all of us to take stock of our stress levels, priorities, and overall well-being, we encourage women to also assess their mental health as influenced by hormonal birth control.  Some women take birth control and experience few notable physical or emotional side effects. Many others, however, are reporting increased anxiety, depression, anger, fear, even fits of rage, and suicidal thoughts that they have directly tracked to their hormone birth control. These reports are from personal stories shared with our office by clients and women in the community. At first, we believed the incidents to be the exception rather than the rule. Still, the more women we have talked to, the more we have discovered that having no side effects might be the exception and strong adverse mental/emotional effects the rule. It’s not surprising that a pill affecting hormones would also impact feelings, which are often intensified by hormones. Most women who have shared concerns also report that they weren’t warned about the possible emotional side effects of hormone-based birth control. In fact, a few said that their doctors dismissed or even ridiculed their emotional symptoms, blaming other factors. Yet, each woman said that after she stopped taking the hormone birth control, she started to feel more in control of her emotions within a few days or weeks. This is in no way a formal study on the impact of hormone-based birth control. This is women telling women what they wished they had known sooner. If you are experiencing out-of-control feelings and are on hormone birth control, please consider investigating the impact those hormones could have on your mental health. Talk to a doctor willing to consider you as an individual and your reactions to various hormones. Better mental health could be close.