Ashley's Story...

November is National Adoption Month and I've decided to share our experience with adoption.

Before my daughter was born I reminded her birth mom to keep being honest with us, and that if she were to change her mind at any point that I would understand and support her in her decision. Of course, I would be in a lot of pain, but having given birth to a child myself, I couldn't imagine the strength and courage it took to place a child for adoption.

Throughout her labor I stayed by her side.

We took this picture after 21 hours of labor, when my daughter's birth mom was able to rest for a bit before pushing. While the room was quiet and tears were streaming down my face, I prayed for God's peace and comfort for her. I needed the Lord more than ever in this moment as I couldn't even fathom what the next couple of hours were going to be like.

After she delivered, my husband followed our new sweet baby into another room to be examined, and I stayed by her side.

I can't even begin to explain the emotions that flooded the room from the nurses and OB, to me and my daughter's birth mom. She closed her eyes and wept. It's a sound I could never bear to hear again. A sound I imagine any woman would make knowing that placing your child for adoption is the best choice, but one that breaks your heart in the most painful way. She turned to me and said "Congratulations. Please go kiss her."

I couldn't. I couldn't even speak. Tears flooded my eyes as I held onto my daughter's mother's hand so tightly. I told her I wouldn't leave until she was ready.

Birth moms don't give away their children. They sacrificially, painfully, courageously, place their child in a home where a life could be provided for them that they cannot at that current time provide for their child. I watched as a brave 15-year-old woman said yes to life, mustered the courage and strength to choose life for her daughter, and with joy, hand her baby to me.

It was one of the most painful yet happiest moments of my life, one that has forever changed me as a woman and a mother. ‪#‎ShoutYourAdoption‬

 

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 Post by Ashley Baldwin‬

"Poor, Uninsured Women" Deserve Better

I was that girl, the one everybody is suddenly talking about: the low-income, uninsured woman in need of potentially life-saving healthcare.

My husband worked for a small start-up. He was given a $200 stipend for insurance that covered him and the kids. However, if he also included me and my baby-making organs it immediately shot up to $600 a month. Evidently, I’m one of those parthenogenesis mammals capable of reproducing all on my own, and that's a liability. 

So I went without. As mothers often do.

Then one day I noticed something was "off" with my body. Specifically my lady parts. I was terrified. I needed to see a physician immediately but because it was likely to require blood draws and lab work I knew that was going to be way out of my fledglings family’s price range. We were on a budget where ten bucks could make or break us for the month. 

This was about five years ago and at the time I remember my resources here in Dallas were incredibly limited. There were no federally qualified health centers in the area offering well woman care. Most were merely ear, nose, and throat doctors. Many had been shut down do to lack of funding, so when you called you'd just get a busy signal. I couldn't afford the hundreds of dollars it would cost to go to a family physician. I knew an ER would be even worse. I had a friend who attended a local mosque and said he might be able to get me an appointment with their female physician who came in quarterly, but the entire time there was one obvious solution to my predicament: Planned Parenthood.

For around $75 I could be seen by one of their physicians and further treatment would then be put on a sliding scale based on our income. When I told people this they thought I was crazy for not making an appointment immediately.

There was only one problem. I was… I am... pro-life.

I know a lot of people might scoff at that, but in my book abortion is the taking of a human life. And knowing I would likely have to see a higher-level physician, one who performed that procedure, was incredibly conflicting. I knew I needed help and that not receiving treatment that could potentially catch an issue in its early stages—thereby saving my life—was just that, pro-life. But I still couldn’t bring myself to make the appointment.

I called the mosque instead but when I never heard back I did nothing. Planned Parenthood, ironically, was my only viable option.  

Fellow pro-life activists get mad when I embrace the “talking point” that PP has a monopoly in this country because they think I’m supporting the belief that without Planned Parenthood poor women like myself would have nowhere to go, but the opposite is actually true. I think it’s completely unacceptable that Planned Parenthood is allowed to have a monopoly in this country simply because so much federal funding (around $360 million a year) is funneled straight to them instead of being evenly dispersed among clinics that offer the same well woman care, just minus abortion. 

Over the last few weeks most of us have seen the undercover videos of high ranking Planned Parenthood staff haggling over "tissue" donations from aborted fetuses and whether you view this behavior as admissible or not, I ask you to respect the fact that many of us will never be comfortable receiving care from Planned Parenthood physicians. Ultimately we disagree on what constitutes a human life, at what point it deserves respect, and when it becomes a human being worth protecting. Because of that many of us will choose not to receive medical attention if Planned Parenthood is our only option.

I know we can't all afford the same level of healthcare, but why must poor women be forced to go to doctors who can't even adhere to the most basic medical oath… to do no harm.

Rich women, poor women, all women deserve better choices.

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Post by Destiny

She'll be back, will you?

I can't help but wonder--every single day--if things would have been different if there was someone on the sidewalk to dissuade me. 

There was. 

She was only a few minutes too late. 

When Brian picked me up from my abortion, he told me about the LOON who said, "Sir? There's still time to save your baby!"

His witty retort? "Well I guess I'm in the wrong place."

He then went to Home Depot to contemplate interior design...

If I could go back in time and thank that woman, I would. And I would ask her to remain vigilant, because I will be back. Every day, I will be back. Every day, four thousand times, I will come to kill my child. Because God will forgive me. Because the timing is bad. Because I'm broke. Because I want to go to school. Because I want him to like me. Because I am an unfit mother. Because she was conceived in rape. Because his father is abusive. Because because because because... Don't you understand? It's all just because...

I. Will. Be. Back.

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Post by one of the best people I know, Brice Griffin

Bodily Autonomy, you say?

I agree with 100% of everything Emma Watson said.

I hate inequality. It’s the absolute worst.

And ending gender inequality will take all of us. Equal rights for women requires male participation too, because males are an intricate part of our civilized society as well, and for women to become equal we must include those whom we deserve to coexist alongside.

Emma Watson says this all quite beautifully. And then she adds the following…

“I think it’s right that I should be paid the same as my male counterparts… I think it's right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body…”

At which point she has to stop because uproarious applause breaks out.

She had made numerous powerful points, with not even a single audible clap, and then came a line which we all know is synonymous for “abortion rights" and the crowd is in a tizzy.

And here's the deal, on the surface I absolutely, whole-heartedly agree with what she is saying. Our bodies are ours. You can no more tell me I have to get a tattoo across my forehead than you can demand I bear children I choose not to conceive.

…However, if that child is already in existence, well, then suddenly we have another body, another set of autonomous rights, to consider. That’s what everyone keeps wanting to forget. I'm fairly certain this fact will receive no applause from the UN.

Yet, if we hop back over to the issue of equality for a second, we’ll find it’s spelled out quite clearly there. If a man murders a pregnant woman, it’s a double homicide. If a male abuses his pregnant girlfriend and kills the baby, it’s murder. If a guy secretly drugs his partner with an abortifacient causing her to miscarry, it’s a crime.

When a woman ends the life of an unborn child however, it’s merely a "choice."

So much for equality, Emma.

Simcha Fisher Rocks My World.