Pro-life Is More than Anti-Abortion

I am pro-life. And by pro-life, I do not just mean that I am against abortion. I believe that every human life is sacred - those just conceived, those growing in the womb, those born and growing, those who are adults, and those who are dying.

After listening to a conversation yesterday about family-size, contraception, and "I've been on the Pill all this time that when we're done having children, my husband is getting snipped because it's his turn to do the work," I wept. I had no words to contribute partly because I was scared to be different and partly because I didn't even know where to begin. These women (who are dear friends) know my husband and I are hoping for a large family. They know we use Natural Family Planning to determine if we need to avoid conceiving. But there's so much more that I wish I could say and explain about WHY we don't use artificial birth control and WHY I would never make my husband lose his fertility or take mine away.

Where do I begin? How do I tell someone that I refuse to contracept, not just because the Pope says "no?" How do I explain the Theology of the Body in one small conversation? That our bodies were made to be united as one and that when we vow to love each other through sickness and health, rich and poor, til death do us part, that it is all-encompassing? That when I am united physically with my husband that we are saying to each other, "I am giving you all of me and I am accepting all of you" because that is the true meaning of love?

I embrace my husband's fertility because that is part of his masculinity and his masculinity is what makes him male and separates him from me but also is what God created him to compliment my feminity as well. To take his fertility away is to deny God is in control of our lives. To remove what makes him masculine is to say I do not need him, that I do not value his human dignity.

I embrace my own fertility as well. Not everyone was meant to have a dozen children and I know that. I do not know how to say, "While we desire to have a large family, we are perfectly content with the two God has blessed us with, should we be unable to have any more." Maybe that's all I need to say. I am not against two-children families. What I am against is this blatant attack on women by the lie that we need to only have two children and to go about that, we need to ruin our fertility and take the reins from God, telling Him that we know better than He does. How many babies have these women truly lost/aborted because the Pill did its job?

I will not ruin my body by taking a pill that works against nature. I will not take something that can eliminiate my ability to bear children (even permanently), to be feminine. I will not consume a pill that can give me migraines, prevent me from losing weight, assist me in gaining it, cause breast cancer, and only change the symptoms of a possible problem. I, personally, am against using the pill medically, unless every other option has been exhausted. There's a great place to get more information on helping women with problems that the Pill is commonly prescribed to "help" them. It's called the Pope Paul VI Institute (www.popepaulvi.com). They are filled with doctors who help women get to the root of why they are having problems and work on a solution instead of masking it with a pill that can do so much harm to your body.

I believe my marriage, even with the rocky parts, has been so solid because we have been open to life. We have not taken the reins and we have trusted that God knows best. We do not view children as another stepping stone in marriage and we believe they are truly a gift and not a "right." We do not view the marital embrace begrudgingly, but have come to see the beauty in "becoming one" and that we are renewing our marriage vows each time we take part in this act. We are working with God and that brings such joy to our lives.

What I have said is not even an ounce of what I want to say, but it's a beginning. I'm so afraid of rejection when I know the Truth shall set everyone free! They may not want to hear it and I don't know that I will have the courage to bring it up, but I pray that if God wants me to be a light for Him that I will find the strength to say the words He wants me to say.