What It's Like

I can't get over the "woman's life" air-quotes bull shit from last night's debate. To me, it was a glaring example of what I feel a lot of people in this world lack, UNDERSTANDING and COMPASSION.

For the last two weeks this song has been playing through my mind every day. Every day. I remember when it came out vividly because I was still a "pro-life, anti-abortion Christian". However, I was deeply struggling with the things that I'd been taught were "absolutely wrong", like homosexuality, sex before marriage, and abortion. I listened to the lyrics in this song and they really, really got to me. For an instant I was that girl, being ambushed by protesters while trying to get to the clinic, agonising over the choice I was left to make by the "man" who helped me get into this situation. Then I thought about a woman that was raped and how she would feel, pregnant with the child of her attacker. Or a young girl barely past puberty, her womb violated and impregnated by her father, uncle, the guy next door.

In putting on their shoes and walking for a minute, it all became so clear. What right to we have to judge that which most of us will never have to go through? What right do we have to take away their rights to their bodies? If it were me, would I want people to make that choice for me? NO.

And there you have it, the shift....that moment when the earth shifts beneath you and you know without a doubt that your perspective has been forever altered and you can't go back to the way you were before.

I sincerely wish people would take a moment to step outside their comfort zone and put on the shoes of another in a situation much different than the one they live in. Then maybe, just maybe they could imagine what it's like.