I’m a Catholic Who Could Never Imagine Having an Abortion

Yet, one thing keeps me from becoming fully pro-life

Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash

So I love babies. My husband and I scroll through cute baby videos before we go to sleep and when we wake up. It’s very highly likely I will get preggies within a year, and he can’t wait.

We’re both Catholic. While I am a little bit more conservative than the typical American and he’s more liberal than most Jordanians, I still find myself having to get accustomed to the constraints from time to time in Jordanian culture.

Some of these, I welcome. I’m tired of being asked about pronouns. I just am.

I’m also happy to live somewhere in which I don’t have to risk being treated like I’m some batshit loony for expressing some religious ideas.

Other things, well, I’ll spare ranting about them, and instead I’ll be grateful for the general ‘look the other way’ approach Jordanians take toward foreigners.

So I mentioned we’re Catholic. You probably know how Catholics generally feel about abortion. Like, they shit their pants if you express any pro-choice tendencies.

To be fair, I see the arguments some of the time. You must be responsible for your actions. Sex is risky. Sex is also really wonderful and beautiful and not something to play around with in a hateful way. Hit it and quit it disgusts me and should never have been normalized.

This is anecdotal but every woman I have ever known who has had an abortion was traumatized and deep down felt it was murder.

I could never have an abortion. I can’t take the idea about murder and relinquishment of responsibility out of my head.

But no matter how you slice it, meandering into pro-life territory inevitably leads to people justifying their strict pro-life views even in cases of incest and rape.

And there’s no way around it. “But one sin doesn’t justify committing another!”, they’ll cry. Women need to take the high road and have the baby.

Then comes the anti science fucks who insist on going through with dangerous pregnancies even when there’s enormous risk. A woman on death’s door from an ectopic pregnancy resulting in sepsis…