If you’ve heard of NFP, you’ve probably heard about all of its wonderful effects. You’ve probably heard about how it gets you and your husband in tune with your body. How it teaches you both to be disciplined and how straightforward it can be. How it helps you focus on aspects of your relationship other than sex. How it makes things exciting and how every month you have another honeymoon. You’ve probably heard that NFP strengthens your marriage and makes you more fulfilled, more in love, and happier.

And though I appreciate those sentiments and have no doubt that NFP has improved countless marriages, I’ve always felt like the stuff I hear and read about NFP sounds a little bit like an infomercial. It sounds a little too good to be true. I await the sped up “side effects may include…”

But so often, the side effects of NFP are written in fine print below the many benefits. So I’m not surprised that many people don’t trust it and don’t give it a chance. We sense that there has to be a downside. And I’m going to tell you assuredly that there is. And what is it? It’s not that it isn’t effective. Abstaining when fertile is most certainly effective—it’s in the couple’s hands to decide how liberal they want to be about that abstinence. The problem isn’t about charting—charting isn’t that complex. Plenty of women chart their cycle for all sorts of reasons from hormonal imbalance diagnostics to preparation for conception. The problem with NFP is the abstinence.

Because the truth is, abstinence for the sake of postponing children, while perhaps prudent, is not some glorious thing. It’s self-denial, plain and simple, and self-denial hurts. It varies in its degree of hurt—for some lucky couples the abstinence is a couple of days a month. For some couples it could be weeks or even months at a time if you’ve got really crazy cycles. Either way, NFP means regularly depriving your marriage of sex—that expression which comes physically and emotionally most natural to romantic love.

And what does that do? That hurts you and that hurts your spouse. I’d say it might even hurt your marriage. Yes, NFP may hurt your marriage. That’s the fine print.

But in the end, it’s worth it. My husband and I still use NFP. But not for all the “benefits.” We use NFP to avoid doing what we consider to be wrong—we use NFP to avoid using contraception. The wrongness of contraception (something I’d like to address in the future,) is NFP’s true and only real selling point. We don’t practice NFP to “bring us closer together.” We don’t do it to “spice things up.” And we don’t do it in order for me to “get in touch with my body.” Really, we shouldn’t need NFP to do all of those things. The popular idea of needing NFP for marriage is contrary to the very philosophy of marriage. The philosophy of marriage says that though absence may make the heart grow fonder, it is better to grow fonder by choice, with presence—indeed, with prolonged, evolving, natural presence. The philosophy of marriage says you don’t need “monthly honeymoons.” You need one. And it’s not the end-all-be-all of your entire marriage. It is a step in a journey and adventure together. It is a step in a lifelong commitment to giving and receiving. Given that we believe contraception is a contradiction to that commitment, we have enough reason to practice NFP so we don’t deeply harm our marriage and ourselves in the times when we aren’t ready for children. We practice NFP because we find it better to suffer together than to sin together. And do we benefit despite the suffering? Of course we do—but not because of what NFP is. We benefit because of what NFP isn’t.

“A massive and diverse crowd of protesters rallied in front of [San Francisco] City Hall before marching down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza for the 10th annual “Walk for Life West Coast.” They chanted “Pro Life” and carried signs that read “Defend Life” and “Women deserve better than abortion.” San Francisco police did not immediately provide an official crowd estimate, but at one point marchers stretched across more than a mile of Market Street, the liberal city’s main thoroughfare.”

The size, energy, youthfulness and enthusiasm of this now-entrenched San Francisco event grows each year. Most remarkable to us New Feminists who have participated in this walk over the years is the disappearing presence of counter-protesters who, in the early years, threw red-water balloons, barricaded passage and thrust coat hangers as they angrily taunted us walkers – many of whom quietly prayed and pushed baby strollers.

Opponents to the pro-life presence in San Francisco sought to frighten, bully and shame those they defined as enemies – enemies of women. But it’s hard to sustain a movement fueled by anger and hostility – especially when directed at babies, families and peaceful people who value all lives. It’s hard to motivate people to spend their Saturday jeering and accosting elderly people walking with their grandchildren, devoted parents pushing disabled loved ones confined to wheelchairs and exuberant young throngs happy to be alive and celebrate life. Feminism was never intended to be a movement of angry women bent on creating options to destroy and eliminate “burdensome” lives. Feminism was born from women’s determination and passion for having a voice in nurturing, valuing and protecting all lives.

New Feminism – women celebrating life and their role in nurturing and protecting all life – was on beautiful display yesterday under sunny skies. The air literally sizzled with joy, happiness and gratitude. The occasional angry person shouting for “abortion without apology” seemed more akin to the city’s mentally ill homeless people than people with a considered point of view.  In a such a joyous crowd, anger seems sad, pathetic. I was nearly tempted to offer a hug.

But the West Coast Walk for Life is no longer about pro-life opposition. It’s about the celebration of life by diverse people with both religious and secular appreciation for the unborn – many of whom carried signs personalizing their own reason for participating and celebrating life.

It was the Year of the Sign, 2014.

How to hold a sign for several miles is a challenge. Several people can hold the sign high, taking turns.

Or you can hold it low and pull it along with your other stuff.

You can put the sign around your neck and get your photo taken everytime someone takes a picture of your sign.

Or you can attach your sign to the wheelchair so your sign goes where your Grandma goes.

You can skip the sign all together and make a shirt with your message.

(I’m told Guard Life shirts might be for sale next year!)

There are secular pro-lifers – Monica Snyder of http://www.secularprolife.org/ spoke during the pre-walk rally.

There are religious pro-lifers.

But all the pro-lifers are happy.

 The bulk of them – the generation of the New Feminist – are young!

There is always a sign that steals the day. This year, I found two. My final photo here was the last one of the day. I walked back to my car wiping away my own tears of joy and gratitude for the bravery of people who stand with life.  Amazing.

One of the current popular video trends on YouTube consists of men going through simulated labor. It’s an interesting concept and the men have some funny reactions. But when you read the comments underneath the videos you start to wonder if women get a little more pleasure out of them than simply for curiosity or humor’s sake. It seems as if the videos are being used to back up an accusation, a popular accusation—the accusation that goes like this:

Women are stronger than men. Women suffer more. And men will never, ever, EVER understand.

Women say this kind of stuff all the time. About how men “don’t understand.” We complain about the stretch marks that babies give us but don’t give them. We insist that the father cannot ever know best for the child simply because he didn’t birth the child. We rant about PMS and about countless other “female problems” that we assume far exceed what any man must have to deal with. We expect the husband to change oil and to change diapers and to be an expert at both. And then if he ends up being an expert at both, we dismiss it because it still won’t ever compare to all the sacrifices we do.

And why do we say all this? Because it builds us up. It makes us feel stronger. And a lot of this is a reaction to the many ways in which the strength of womanhood has been overlooked or taken for granted throughout history and today. We want to be appreciated, and rightfully so. But too often we go too far, and unsatisfied with simply being appreciated, we feel the need to depreciate men. We aren’t content knowing we are strong, and so women fall into the trend of delighting in a man’s weakness– delighting when he doesn’t fully understand, or better yet, can’t fully understand.

But what women do not consider is that we may not always understand either. We don’t know what it’s like to be a man. Now I know that eyes are going to roll at that sentence. Women are thinking, yeah, and like being a man is difficult, but who are we to say unequivocally that it is harder to be a woman than a man, harder to be a mother than a father? Who are we to make that sort of judgment? We know that no one fully understands our life and our suffering, so how are we to conclude that anyone else’s is any worse or any better?

And moreover, even if we could come to such a conclusion (which is not possible)—state as fact that men have it easier—why should we hold that against them? It is a dangerous business—tallying up suffering and using it to judge other peoples’ worth and goodness. It is dangerous because it is an incorrect method. Human beings are not good according to how much they’ve dealt with. They are good according to how they’ve dealt with what they’ve been dealt. The fact that they may deal with less does not lessen their worth. If we believed otherwise, then we would think most children the worst people of all. After all, we generally assume that children don’t have as much to deal with as adults (although this too is questionable). And yet, we don’t blame them or hold that against them. We judge them on their own scale. We judge them according to what they do have and the suffering they are dealt. And rightfully so. For is that not how we would like to be judged? What would a woman think if one day, after critiquing her husband for having “no idea what I went through in my thirty hour labor,” he replied, “well, my friend’s wife was in labor for forty hours, so you really shouldn’t be talking.” It would hurt her down to her core! And she would find it such an unfair statement for him to make. After all, it’s not her fault that she didn’t have a longer labor! He should be proud of her for how she made it through whatever she made it through! He ought not judge her according to the difficulty of her suffering.

We know this. We know how we would like to be judged. So why don’t we judge men the same way? This ongoing insistence that “men have it easier” and we are therefore, somehow, “better” needs to end. It doesn’t make men feel bad for us. It doesn’t make them more likely to be helpful or kind. It doesn’t make them want to get closer to us, (in fact, it does the opposite.) And it doesn’t make them better men. Women cannot help men be better until they recognize the good that is already there. If we want men to understand us, we have to at least try to understand them. And most of all, we have to admit that they are worth understanding. There was a time when it was standard to consider women not worth understanding—to consider the woman’s task and life frivolous and easy. We’ve seen the damage this outlook has inflicted, not only on women, but on the whole world. So how dare we test our luck by turning the vice around? How bold we are to assume that devaluing men won’t have a negative effect on the world at large. How bold we are to assume that it won’t hurt all of us, not just men. We risk much by depreciating men. We risk much by treating them as if they “can’t possible understand.” No, simulated labor will never be real labor. And men won’t ever fully understand. But women won’t fully understand either. Nobody will. Nobody ever fully understands anything another person suffers through. But the good news is we can at least begin to. We can see further and further into the depths of another person’s soul, and them into ours—we can see and be seen, appreciate and be appreciated—we just have to be willing to open our eyes.

If a Park City Person is decked out in yellow,

please don’t approach.

The Yellow Person Project, new in the community, extends the use of yellow as we know it and identifies persons that need space.  Some people around Park City will be sporting YELLOW to indicate that they need space from other people. Generally, people who have YELLOW bandannas or other yellow accessory items are signalling that they would prefer that you NOT approach them for directions, conversation or chit chat.

An activist has started a Yellow Person Project in Park City, joining a nationwide effort to make people aware that not all persons like to be approached. The Yellow Person Project involves individuals outfitted with yellow scarves as a caution that they might not react well if someone approaches.  300 of the yellow scarves have been donated to the program.  The scarves are available by request locally.

If you’d rather not ask for a yellow bandanna, you can outfit yourself or others with a yellow ribbon, bow or even shoe strings to the same effect.

“I think this problem is all over. People just don’t know when to back off.  It’s time we have a way to send a signal.   I hope this [Yellow Person Program] will reach throughout Summit County,” an official said.

The elected officials listened to a short presentation.  Posters will be put up advertising the Yellow Persons Project. Positive comments about the program are expected.

The trails coordinator at City Hall, told the mayor and City Council that a similar project, the Yellow Dog Project, does not nullify leash laws for dogs with yellow ribbons. In a report to the elected officials, he said City Hall will allow signs to be posted at trail heads and public facilities about all this new use of yellow.

“It’s really an extension of yellow as we know it,” one official said.  “Yellow lights mean it’s time to stop now because, hey, next is red.  So, yellow scarves and accessories are just the same darn thing.  Slow down there, you, and stop.  Don’t cross my intersection, my man. It’s a beautiful warning system and I am proud to back it.”

Advocacy groups have said they support the natural, organic extension of the use of yellow and will promote both programs, indicating that the government will find broad support throughout Summit County for the Yellow Person and Yellow Dog Project as well. There have already been a few signs spotted in the community advertising at least one of the programs.

The original Yellow Dog Project is used by people in 47 countries, according to the organization’s website. It is described as a program meant to caution people that dogs wearing the yellow may need more space than is typical. The dogs might be in training, recovering from surgery or in rehabilitation, the website says.

The program was recently adapted to persons, who, like dogs, may need more space than is typical.  The person might be on medication, recovering from surgery, in crisis or otherwise generally hostile toward other human beings and unable to interact easily and comfortably with other persons or not-yellow dogs.

It is important to note that persons or dogs wearing yellow bandannas are not necessarily aggressive, but they “don’t really welcome interaction.”

So, just leave them alone.

The recent flurry of critical commentary provoked by the photo featured here set my New Feminist nerves on edge. What could possibly be wrong with a US Marine detailed to the White House holding an umbrella for the President of the United States?

The real story is not in the photo.  It’s in the Marine Corps regulations.  Umbrellas, it seems, are for females. Male marines are instructed,, “never to carry an umbrella from the earliest phases of training.” Female marines, however, are allowed limited use of regulation umbrellas “during inclement weather.” There is unquestionably a gender specific “double standard” in the US Marine Corps when it comes to umbrellas and, like any gender differentiation these days, we are not suppose to mention these differences in politically correct company. Blathering is often a telltale sign of an underlying gender issue. I’ll get back to this.

The photo itself seemed remarkable to me, not as a breach of military uniform policy, but for the utterly amazing umbrella-holding technique demonstrated by the buff US Marine, 25 year old Nathan Previti. This fellow has clearly practiced holding an umbrella so that he looks terrific in a photo of himself holding an umbrella, even though he is standing out in the rain and has his arm in exactly the same position bad boys in my 7^th grade class had to balance a telephone book when Mr. Bailey got very pissed off at them.  I mean, could anyone possibly look more competent and in charge of an umbrella than Marine Previti?

Frankly, I would let this Marine hold my umbrella anytime.  Most men are pretty good at positioning the umbrella over their own heads, but negotiating where to put the umbrella to keep another person dry, is not normally in their umbrella skill set.  Most fellows end up badly miscalculating the direction of the wind and the rain and you end up getting drenched.  It’s better to have no umbrella holder than a poorly trained one like this useless fellow – which is to say that handling an umbrella for someone else is not all that easy.

But most of the social noise about President Obama and Marine Previti utterly ignored umbrella-holding technique and, instead, focused on Marine Corps Uniform Regulation 3035 which provides:

3035. UMBRELLAS (Female Marines). Female Marines may carry an all-black, plain standard or collapsible umbrella at their option during inclement weather with the service and dress uniforms. It will be carried in the left hand so that the hand salute can be properly rendered. Umbrellas may not be used/carried in formation nor will they be carried with the utility uniform.

From this provision – which “does not expressly [delineate]” umbrellas as authorized for men – one commentator spurred a charge that “The commander in chief of the American armed forces today forced a violation of Marine Corps regulations, so he wouldn’t get wet.”

Reactions (primarily from men) immediately grew emotional, leading Cynthia Enloe, a professor at Clark University, to note, “They seem to be very nervous what constitutes un-manly behavior.”  The fact that the Marine in question was detailed to the White House for service in ceremonial duties which, sometimes, means hoisting and holding steady an umbrella – and looking fabulous while doing so – were facts largely lost in the rising gender jitters.  One (male) writer went so far as to agree that the President had forced a Marine to violate the umbrella regulation but he insisted that the umbrella “rule is dumb,” an example of “macho B.S,” in other words, umbrellas are not just for girls!

Is the gender-specific umbrella double-standard in the US Marine Corps “BS”? Why do different protocols based upon gender make us so nervous we cannot even stay focused on the actual facts at hand? Umbrellas, actually, are only the tip of the Marine Corps iceberg of gender differentiation. A quick glance over the Table of Contents of Chapter 3 of the Marine Corps Uniform Regulations spots subtitles like “cuff link sets (men),” “earrings (women)” “handbag/purse (women)” and “suspenders (men)” in addition to the now well known, “umbrellas (women)”. In fact, from the hair on their heads to the tips of their toes, every US Marine is highly regulated in appearance and choice of attire and accessories and, more, those regulations vary significantly based upon the gender of the Marine.

But allowing variations in gender dress and appearance, is not, in my estimation, the sole reason these differentiations pervade the US Marine uniform regulations.  Rather, I suspect that the regulations actually operate to restrict and prevent much more overt expressions based upon gender which, left to their own choice, US Marines would pursue as readily as civilians.  Notably, rule after rule targeting certain gender specific issues restrict the choices Marines can make in selecting apparel and accessories.  There is no rule, for example, requiring women to wear earrings. But there is a 3 pronged regulation, with sub-parts, describing the size, shape, material and proper fit of permissible earrings if a woman decides to wear earrings.  The many, detailed restrictions on male and females expression of gender in their dress and personal appearance suggests that, even highly disciplined individuals like Marines, can drift toward expression of gender differences to the point of overshadowing the military identity a “uniform” is aimed to cohere.

Here are two examples.

Who can forget this May 2012 photo?

The photographer, Crystal Scott, who organized the photo shoot on the Fairchild Air Force Base and subsequently lost her civilian position on base, planned to feature in a show and posters her photographs of “a pair of Air National Guardsman breastfeeding their children in unbuttoned airman battlefield uniforms.” While the mothers apparently were not disciplined, there was widespread agreement that the photos misused the military uniform by creating an over-the-line, gender specific image in which the gender identity of the women out shadowed their identity as Guardsmen. How remarkably chipper and comfortable these nursing moms seem to be with their boobs on display, literally expressing the life-giving nurture women hold dear, while wearing combat fatigues!  This was an image of “women in uniform” that made even the most supportive “difference” feminists a bit uneasy.

Men just as naturally drift toward unambiguous expressions of their gender identity, given the option.  Consider the resources the US Marine Corps spends devising and educating members on appropriate hair styles.  Women are told cut it short or wear a bun.  Men’s style “short and tight” should be even easier to comply with, right? Apparently not. Bad ass mohawks, for example, are not permitted unless they measure out to the appropriate width of coverage.  Variations like a “horseshoe” or a “teardrop” have all been tried, only to be caught, captured and tossed out.

In case any ambiguity remains, there are detailed drawings of permitted styles available.

Differentiation in permitted hair styles was, incidentally, the first “right” to gender difference litigated after women successfully challenged the male only admissions policy at The Citadel. The “equality means sameness” litigant, Shannon Faulkner, who insisted that the male only admissions policy was discriminatory against women, nevertheless, refused to have her head shaved as required for all incoming cadets. The very same lawyers who had demanded “equality” in the admissions policy became, as New Feminist Elizabeth Fox-Genovese observed, “passionate” about “a woman’s right to have an attractive head of hair.” (Feminism Is Not The Story of My Life, p. 38).

All of which brings us back to umbrellas.

Whether an umbrella, any umbrella, is a unique expression of femininity within Marine culture, I am not sure. What I am certain of is that umbrellas can be, and often are, a fun statement of female sensibilities, both in the use of them to protect against rain and sun and, more, in coordinating them as part of a woman’s statement of feminine fashion.  If you leave it up to us, most women will make a gender statement of some sort with their umbrellas.

Like this:

Or like this:       

Or even like this:

And, well, if we can’t make that feminine statement with our umbrellas then, for most of us, the next best thing would be a well trained umbrella handler, like U.S. Marine Previti for example.  But that takes us to a different topic which I’ll save for another day.  

Whether Regulation 3035 makes sense or not, two things are clear.  Marine Previti did a darn good job with that umbrella when his President called upon him – and he broke no uniform regulation in the process. Second, the Presidential umbrella provoked gender anxiety and I think it is just fine to say so out loud. Some men, it seems, are trying to be heard, in a blathering kind of way, about what they would like to do with that accessory. Sometimes, pictures speak better than words.

from Kathleen Sloan, NOW, and Jennifer Lahl, CBC

Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives:

We are writing to urge your rejection of SB 162, a bill that would allow commercial surrogacy or contract pregnancy in Louisiana. The inevitable consequence of this legislation is that it turns women into exploitable commodities through financial inducement that targets young healthy women. SB 162 would entice financially vulnerable women with “reasonable living expenses” in the range of $25-50,000 to undergo medical procedures that pose serious health risks. These procedures involve multiple daily injections of carcinogenic synthetic hormones in order to prepare her body for the transfer and acceptance of an embryo. As Senator Smith said in committee, it turns the woman into an “oven.”

As a national board member of NOW, Kathleen has worked for years against the sexual commodification of women and naturally segued into reproductive commodification. As a nurse, Jennifer is extremely knowledgeable about the medical issues, is the founder and president of a bioethics organization, and has made three documentary films on these subjects, including the award-winning Eggsploitation. We represent the spectrum of women all over this country, pro-choice and pro-life, secular and religious, all united against the exploitation of women as objects for sale.

Commercial surrogacy degrades pregnancy to a service and a baby to a product available to the wealthy. While this exploitive practice is illegal in many countries, in state after state, surrogacy brokers and lawyers who benefit financially from the commercialization of reproduction are behind these bills. Poor and low income women desperate for money are lured to sell their bodies to produce children for others. If passed, Louisiana will join a small group of states like California whose laws give rise to a new profit-driven multi-billion dollar unregulated industry that enriches baby brokers and lawyers at the expense of women.

Lured with the seemingly natural process of providing the “gift of life,” these young women are not aware of the dangers of undergoing multiple injections of synthetic hormones for embryonic implantation. These procedures can have devastating short and long term health consequences. Surrogates are pumped with drugs such as Lupron which is not FDA approved for fertility use; estrogen which is linked to breast and uterine cancers, heart attack, stroke and blood clots; progesterone; antibiotics; and steroids which are linked to high blood pressure, glaucoma, cataracts, peptic ulceration, and an impaired immune system.

Please do not gamble with the health and well-being of the most vulnerable women in your state. We respectfully urge you to defeat SB 162 by Senator Gary Smith.

I recently came across the mother-in-law prenup, in which a mother of a little boy jokingly  lists the things her future daughter in law must agree to in order to marry her son. The basic underlying premise of the post is as the writer puts it,

We have to take a stand against son stealing right now.

Of course, she’s half-kidding and the post is humorous—but the thing is, you know that the fact that she’s half-kidding means she’s also half-serious. And the fact that she’s half-serious is, quite frankly, pretty scary.

Especially if you’re a girl who plans to ever marry a boy.

But I’m already married and my mother in law and I get along great. So when I read the post, it didn’t scare me for my sake. It scared—no rather, alerted—me for the sake of my son. I had recently found out I was having a son when I read it and all I could think was:

Please God don’t let me be anything like this woman.

But the scary truth is that this woman’s feelings are natural. If you scroll down to the comments you may be surprised how many women agree with her and have genuine anger towards their daughter/future daughter-in-laws— sometimes because they have been genuinely mistreated, but often simply because a daughter-in-law guarantees that you’re no longer the number one woman in your son’s life. And that hurts. When you’re no longer the most beautiful woman in the world to your son, when you’re no longer his source of everything, it hurts. Because you’ve lost something that gave you meaning and value. And that loss is real. And as with any loss, in that moment, a mother is presented with an existential crisis:

What is my purpose?

Now the typical human response to this question, in any situation of loss or change, is to not really address it. We either live in denial and keep acting as if the relationship is as it once was, or we deflect our pain through anger at another person. Both of these reactions lead to unhealthy relationships between mother and son, mother and daughter-in-law, and in general, unrest within the family. Even in those circumstances where the feelings are completely hidden (or only revealed in jokes and/or side comments and gossip) they are still doing damage by not being dealt with and remedied. Any time we have hatred in our hearts we are doing damage because we aren’t open to love. So there is no question, that even if the feelings described in the blog post may be understandable, they must be stopped. The question is: how do we stop them? Well, I believe it starts with answering the existential question honestly. And most importantly, answering it long before circumstance shoves it in our face.

My experience as a mother is obviously incredibly small and I know I can’t begin to grasp all the feelings and pains and joys that come with motherhood. But I am a human being. And so therefore I do understand the feelings and pains and joys that come along with love. And that’s what motherhood is all about, really. Love. The problem is, human beings don’t always understand how best to love. We are overcome by the feelings of it all and in the process forget the point of it all. It is wonderful to be loved, but we twist our hearts into a mess the moment we value that feeling we get above the other person’s well-being. We set our psyches up for trauma the moment we allow that feeling we get to completely define us. Because the feeling is never guaranteed to stay. That little boy is going to grow up. One day, quite soon, he may ask me to marry him. And then twenty quite soon years later he may be asking another woman instead. That sweet and tender feeling that I will get from having this adorable little creature depend entirely on me will one day be somewhat taken from me. And that is a fact that absolutely must be dealt with. I must ask myself, now, how I will deal with it then. I must decide that something else is more important than those tender feelings. For tender feelings are not the substance of love.

Tender feelings are beautiful. But they are only the product of love. Love has to be bigger than that. Love has to say I’m going to love you even when you do not give me tender feelings—or, in this case, when you give your tender feelings to someone else. If anyone says this, it is usually mothers and fathers. They get this better than any of us do. Partially because their natural instinct is a little more selfless. But it is not enough to go off of instinct because instinct only takes love so far. If we want to learn to love, we have to consciously decide to do so. Even when it hurts us. Even when we feel rejected. Even when that rejection comes from the human being who we have literally given everything to.

And if we learn to love like this, if we learn to love above and beyond the tender feelings, we will receive an even greater peace and joy, because we are living as we should. We are living the way a human being was meant to live.

And what’s cool about it is that oftentimes when we do learn to love like this we end up finding even more tenderness. We may deepen and enrich our existing relationships or even discover new ones (like a relationship with an in-law.) I hope that one day my son grows up and finds a wonderful woman to spend his life with. Because his happiness, not primarily the tender feelings we share, but his happiness beyond me, is my purpose in his life. If I don’t live up to that purpose, neither of us will ever know our own true potential or the potential of our relationship. He may be a mere three or so pounds right now, and he may have never known anything outside of the little crib he nestles in inside of me—but true love has to start now. Or before I know it, as all experienced parents warn, I’ll be watching him walk down the aisle. And I want to be, as my parents and in-laws were for me, brimming with happiness. I want to be able to watch him give himself to her and think this was the point of it all. This was why he asked me to marry him. So he could learn how to marry her.

Until February 15^th 2013, women were invited to share their abortion stories on CNN Ireport. The picture below is a screenshot of a CNN Ireport user who goes by the name “TheProChoiceMom.” TheProChoice Mom left a series of derogatory comments on abortion regret testimonies posted on CNN’s website.  Why would a woman, a mother – who claims to support choice – lash out at other women who publicly express regret that they once chose abortion?  The slogan at TheProChoice Mom twitter site reads “Showing America Pro-Choice DOESN’T mean Pro-Abortion!”

In my recent interactions with pro-choicers, I have noticed a pattern in women referring to themselves as a “pro-choice moms”:

1- They have one child born before or after they had an abortion (telling people that their child is “raised pro-choice”).

2- They had an abortion for “medical reasons” including genetic disease diagnosis, severe morning sickness, depression, anemia, cysts and arthritis pain.

3- They are angry at anybody who says that abortion hurts women, especially post-abortive pro-lifers.

4- They assert that abortion saved their life and anybody who says otherwise cares more about “non-sentient fetuses than women”, “would want to see them dead” and “deprive their born child from their mother” (quoting from ProChoiceMom).

5- Some of them had an incomplete miscarriage that required a D&C procedure and they call it an abortion.

Let me share a few reflections on this pattern.

It is always a tragedy to lose a child but let us be clear: having a D&C after a miscarriage does not constitute an abortion. Pro-lifers have no objection to the removing of an already dead baby. Many people are misinformed about abortion and, sometimes, we are not even talking about the same thing. Some believe that allowing medical treatment for an incomplete miscarriage = being “pro-choice”.

What causes this misinformation? I think it is the prevailing narrative that abortion = removing a fetus. not killing, not destroying; just “removing something that is too small to be human and alive”.  I have written publicly about my post abortion experience and regret, so I hear from a broad range of people. Last year, after sharing how abortion affects women, I received this Tweet:

Also, my general impression is that some women are told to have an abortion – as their only or best option – by misguided doctors. In this sense, women are sometimes denied health care for treatable conditions, or the opportunity to consider truly viable “other options”. I think we should worry about that trend.

We could speculate on the feelings behind venom-spewing pro-choice moms on the Internet, but, to quote the Letter to the Ephesians, we are up against principalities and powers. This is not a war of pro-life moms versus pro-choice moms. This is a spiritual battle and anybody’s heart can be changed. We have to discern when to speak (always share the truth in love) and when to be quiet. Let us keep all the pro-choice moms of the world in our prayers and trust that eventually, anger will subside and truth will prevail.

Béatrice Fedor is a pro-woman, anti-abortion, anti-violence advocate. The mother of three, she was raised in a culturally Catholic family in France; embraced liberal feminism, atheism and humanism. She has served as a trade union leader, taught a creative writing class and authored an unpublished book of poetry. The scar of her abortions moved her to search for God, and by His Grace, she has found peace and healing. She joined the Silent No More Awareness Campaign in 2008. “Neither do I condemn you” John 8:11. This post is edited and reprinted from her blog 400 Words for Women, the post originally appearing at http://400wordsforwomen.com/2013/02/09/on-pro-choice-moms/.

A student from BC – better known as Boston College – paused in front of an informational table set up during the first days of his freshman year. Several pretty girls manned the table, representatives of “BC Students for Sexual Health.” This “BC” – or Boston condom –  organization has made national news as its pretty coeds posed with envelopes of “brightly colored” condoms they insist on distributing “for free” throughout the Catholic campus.  The conversation that day went something like this:

Pretty Girl.  “Hi you.  Welcome to BC.  Are you a freshman? (giggle, giggle)”

Male Subject.  “Well hi there.  (smirk, smirk).  Yea.  I am a freshman.”

Pretty Girl.  “Well, why don’t you join up with us. We promote sexual fun all across campus and we have a sex party this Friday. (giggle, giggle) I can’t tell you just what sex we’ll be doing this week but I promise you’ll have fun. (giggle, giggle)

Male Subject.  “Well, wow. That’s pretty awesome.”

Pretty Girl.  “Well, here’s some information and condoms and, well, you know, (giggle, giggle), please come. (wink, wink)

I heard this story last fall. As a feminist and activist for women, I was dismayed that young women of the caliber and education I assumed Boston College would admit could behave with such triviality. Was the administration not aware of these coquettes operating under the guise of “sexual health?” Did the College realize the image of women, as flirts, sexual objects and pleasure toys, being flaunted and hawked to incoming first year students? I was further dismayed as I explored the girls’ website and discovered how the girls sponsored not classes or educational sessions; rather, they distributed condoms, party kits and literature promoting sport sex along with referrals to Planned Parenthood for the medical services available to treat the various illnesses promiscuity cultivates. Their online freebies even included solo cups!

Throwing a party? Get a Responsible Party Kit from BCSSH! We will provide you solo cups, condoms, and information about safer sex to post in your apartment to help your guests have a safer night.

I felt so ashamed and sad for these girls, who seemed to have no self esteem or sense of the social concern expected of thinking, educated persons, that I contacted the Jesuit college.

Now, the administration of this college has apparently had enough of the Boston Condom campaign to promote sport sex on campus.  Perhaps the college has concluded that passing out free condoms and designating “Safe Sex Sites” – dorm rooms across campus where free condoms (at least) are available when you knock and enter – does not promote safety, health or even common sense – much less the loftier purposes of the institution, “integrating intellectual, personal, ethical, and religious formation; and . . . uniting high academic achievement with service to others.” The college has reminded the girls that the promotion of sport sex on campus is inconsistent with the college’s policies toward the sanctity of life, and has scheduled a meeting with them on April 29 to discuss their condom and sport sex advocacy.  The girls can disagree, of course, but they’ve been asked to respect the college’s policy, the same way the college might reasonably ask student representatives of Altria Group to desist from distributing free purse packs of Virginia Slims.  Girls might insist that the cigarettes show they’ve “come a long way baby” but the college has responsibility to make its own assessment of the consequences of promoting social smoking to women on campus.

Equally disturbing to observers of the Boston Condom campaign is the apparent collapse of feminism on a campus traditionally dedicated to raising the social conscience and awareness of its students within the Jesuit Catholic tradition.  While girls like Chelsea Lennox and Lizzie Jekanowski posed with their condom symbol for a New York Times photographer, testimony unfolded in a Philadelphia courtroom of the brutal murder of live-born infant children.  North Korea sat poised and apparently ready to fire a nuclear warhead.  Efforts to address the violent death of 20 children in a bloody massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school faltered yet again.  Unidentified persons were executing a plan to detonate IEDs at the Boston Marathon finish line.  And a young woman was found burned and murdered in Jordan, her womb slit open exposing her 4 month old child, in another “honor killing” still practiced against women throughout the world.

The list of atrocities, threats and injustices against women and their children and families could go on and on. Campuses like Boston College have a long tradition of supporting feminists in raising awareness of the continued discrimination and brutality against women throughout the world and in sponsoring clubs and projects aimed at improving the lives of others. The objection of the administration toward the conduct of these girls could fairly arise from their apparent self-absorption with dubious pleasure pursuits and apparent apathy toward real social issues affecting even their local communities. How can these young adults honestly defend the promotion of sport sex as a social concern when the world around them cries out in pain and need? Do they honestly think that their peers deepest needs include free condoms and solo cups – both of which are available within a short stroll to a grocery store or pharmacy? Are these young women oblivious? By their own account, it appears so. As Ms. Lennox told the New Times reporter, she spends her time selecting condoms for her peers.

“We check for the integrity of every package. Everything we make sure is within its expiration date. The package is completely intact. There’s no lube leakage out of anything,” she said with a sheepish laugh.

The college administration is rightfully concerned. These students – who were presumably admitted under high admission standards – have focused their talents and skills and resources not only to promote social sport sex, but, more, to promote an image of BC college students as sexually obsessed, undisciplined and irresponsible.  As the chairwoman Lizzie Jekanowski put it in her interview with the New York Times:

“Students are going to be having sex regardless, and unless they have the education to know that you need to use a condom every time — for pregnancy prevention, S.T.I. prevention — and unless they have them available, they’re not going to use it.”

Ms. Jekanowski’s low assessment of her fellow students, broadcast more in the tradition of commercial sexual services rather than academic excellence, insists that bright, educated young adults have so little control over their sexuality that they cannot acquire condoms for themselves from Planned Parenthood or CVS or other providers.  The sexual impulse, from the Boston Condom perspective, is like a fire, poised to go out of control with damaging consequences unless quickly contained.  Like fire extinguishers hung throughout campus, condoms must be readily available, in easy reach, to grab, open and don lest loosed semen rain ruin within the dorms.

Both fellow students and administrators should find this perspective highly offensive, and, most certainly, inconsistent with a view of the integral formation Boston College values. This is certainly not feminism:  self-aggrandizing through the solicitation and promotion of sport sex runs completely counter to the history and tradition of the feminist movement. That movement, as generations of feminists will attest, seeks to free women from discrimination as sexual, pleasure objects. Its founding mothers launched the liberation of women by their successful demand for the vote, that women could be full participants in improving their communities and the world with the unique voice and vision of the feminine genius.

I applaud the administration for taking this initiative. I hope that the feminists on campus will let their voices be heard and that the coquettish, misguided work of these young women will be challenged and redirected for the wider good. I urge the administration to take back the College back from the Condom, and restore BC’s reputation for fostering concern and action in its gifted students on the challenging and demanding issues facing our world.

In this age of delayed and prolonged childbearing, it is expected that every expectant mother be completely “prepared” for her child. She should know the ins and outs of everything there is to know. She and her husband should have done all the things and travelled the world in all the ways they could ever want so as to ensure they’ve gotten all their other interests and desires out of the way before the baby comes. She should be in charge of her fertility. She should have completely planned such an occurrence and timed it perfectly. (Before long, she may be expected to have planned the baby’s gender or the color of her hair.) The nursery should be painted and furnished and the nanny already selected. Schools should be lined up, with the tuition allotted for them in a savings account. But most of all, in this age of planned parenthood, it is expected that, because she “planned” and “chose” it all, every expectant mother should be completely unafraid.

I don’t have everything completely “prepared” for my baby. And I know I won’t by the day he comes. After all, are we ever truly prepared for anything in life? We do our best. We use our prudential judgment and we definitely should plan as much as we can. We try our hardest and love our deepest. But there will always be delays and unexpected changes. There will always be something to mess up our plans. And if we waited on doing anything until absolutely everything was “ready” we might never experience anything at all.

One of the nice things about having a baby young is that people know I’m not completely prepared. They know there’s no way my husband and I have the nursery painted when, ten months after our wedding, we only now just painted the kitchen. They know we’re new to this. They know we’re going to struggle. They know we’re going to be exhausted. They know we’re going to be even, at least a little, afraid. And that’s okay. Because we’re young. And so we’re excused for such feelings. People want to help us and they do help us. Because they know that we need it.

But it seems like the older you get, the less mercy you’re given for any shortcomings, fears, or needs. After all, if you are the type of woman who did “take charge of her fertility,” (or even if you didn’t, but were unable to have children at a younger age,) then you are assumed to be an independent woman. That is part of this whole concept, is it not? Our modern mentality of being on the pill, of being sexually available, of planning everything, of having the freedom to end an unwanted pregnancy—so much of it is about independence. And it necessarily transfers over to parenting. We expect the older parent to be independent. Oftentimes, they inevitably are forced to be independent due to family members growing older themselves or moving away. You read now of parents throwing their own baby showers because no one offers to throw one for them. And how sad this is! How sad it is that we force so many parents into such complete and cold independence. Because such independence is actually a lie. It doesn’t work. It isn’t human. No parent is ever fully prepared. And every parent needs help.

And we understood this years ago. We understood this in the days when grandparents, extended family members, and neighbors and friends were an integral part of a child’s growing up. We didn’t expect expectant parents to know everything there was to expect. And in many ways, children were better off because of it. In general, I imagine, our children are better off the more we admit our shortcomings—children are better off the humbler we are as parents. Because when our children know that we know we aren’t perfect (but that we do our best,) and that the world isn’t perfect (but that people will be there to love and help them,) they learn to forgive. They learn to forgive us, and they learn to forgive the other people in their lives.

But a child will never learn forgiveness from a parent who is not allowed to be imperfect. A child will never learn forgiveness from a mother who is not allowed to admit she is at least a little afraid of labor pains or postpartum depression—of a mother who is not allowed to admit she’s genuinely concerned that she may gag each and every time she changes a diaper– but is ready and willing to try her best and love her hardest and ask for help when she needs it. A child will never learn forgiveness from parents who are supposed to be completely prepared– because no parent is completely prepared. We must teach our children forgiveness by first admitting that we will fail and that we cannot do it alone. And we absolutely must teach our children forgiveness. For if a child cannot forgive, how will they ever love a child of their own?

And so as a young expectant mother, blessed to have many people ready and happy to help me and forgive me my lack of experience and my shortcomings, I ask the world to do the same for the older “more prepared” mothers and fathers. The truth about planned parenthood is that it doesn’t work. The unplanned may be as significant as the baby himself or as insignificant as a diaper leak—but either way, planned parenthood is an impossibility. We can only do our best and ask for forgiveness and help and for friends and family to laugh with along the way. So let us do so. Let us learn to embrace unplanned parenthood (which is every case of parenthood) at any age and let it teach us better how to love.