What is a right to life?
Right to life! What does this really mean?
1. Who is there for the 14-year-old whose dad impregnated her while he was drunk and/or high?
2. Who is there for the 17-year-old who is impregnated after a rape caused by a drug slipped into her drink?
3. Who is there for the 30-year-old facing her fifth pregnancy by a husband who rapes her in the confines of their marriage but is seldom home?
4. Who is there for the addicted woman now carrying a child she’s aware she may have damaged by her use of chemicals?
It’s one thing to counsel a girl or woman into not aborting her child. It’s totally another thing, isn’t it, to follow that woman through the pregnancy and the years following so the baby can be raised with loving care and not the abuse so many of these “unwanted” children experience their entire lives?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-life. However, pro-life, for me, means not only physical life but also the right to a healthy environment in which to grow and develop into mentally healthy people - something that cannot happen in a cage separated from their parents.
Sister Julie Wokasch, CDP
Spokane