GANDHI IN THE HOOD
I drove past our local Planned Parenthood this morning and as usual, (it’s on my regular route) there were two groups of protesters out front, carrying signs. One group of signs said things like, “Protect the unborn,” “Abortion is murder,” and “defund Planned Parenthood.” The other group had signs saying, “My body my life,” “Keep abortion safe and legal,” and “I support Planned Parenthood.”
I assume the same signs are appearing at Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation. I saw one sign that said, “My arm is tired from carrying this sign since the 1970s.” (Either side could have been carrying that sign!)
Regarding the abortion question, as a contemporary follower of Gandhi, I am passionately pro-life. As he wrote, and it applies to abortion, “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” (I’m not an absolute, blind-faith Gandhi follower. I disagree sometimes. For example, I don’t think evil is ever permanent. The only thing permanent is love! )
And likewise, as a follower of Gandhi, I am passionate about pro-choice. Again, Gandhi wrote, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.” Not that abortion is always an error—sometimes it’s the exact right and necessary thing to do. Other times, a woman looks back and says, “Darn, that was the wrong thing to do.” But the freedom to make that choice on her own is priceless, and even God-given. (Still another sign: “Keep your laws outta my drawers!”)
I find it very easy to be against abortion. My understanding is that there is indeed a living soul implanted there ready to be born.
And I find it very easy to be pro-choice because my life experience and research has taught me that the “living soul” implanted in that womb is an eternal being, making choices of its own, and thus is inevitably aware that this time in the womb might be quite temporary.
For people brave enough to do their own research on near-death experiences and after-death communications—a now fast growing and indisputable literature that nevertheless goes back literally thousands of years—the story is fairly simple. It appears that we choose our parents, choose our family, choose our circumstance. I sense that such a choice is made “on the other side” with the help of others, but it’s not “accidental” or random.
I know this is a big stretch for a lot of people, but I’ve experimented enough in my own life, and heard enough from family and friends and professional researchers to be at ease with the notion that I am not just blood and bones. From appearances it seems as though I started as an embryo. But appearances can be deceiving.
Many Near Death Experiencers (my mother was one) talk about meeting the child—sometimes now a grown being—that was “miscarried,” or aborted, twenty years or more before. Sure, it could be fantasy, but fantasy time and time again? And how about those who have a Near Death Experience (NDE) and meet a brother or sister they never knew about, who was either miscarried or aborted before they were born? And then have their experience confirmed by a parent who had never told the “secret.” Again, many, many such stories in the NDE and after-life literature.
Further, it seems that often the parents we choose, and our siblings, are souls we have known before, and not always under the best of circumstances. Sure, we can choose to come in with eternal soul-mates, or help-mates from eons past. But we can also choose a family member with whom we need to temporarily live in order to “balance the energy.” In my own world view, this makes easy, orderly sense.
So it’s easy for me to assume how the unborn child and mother have had a relationship before the one they now share. A one or two or three month pregnancy might simply be “balancing” out energy that needs to be balanced, or, on the other hand, creating present or future imbalances that will likewise at some point need to be balanced. (All in all, life leans toward balance!)
Many Christian people are now voting for a man they would otherwise quickly shun only because he says he is against abortion, and nominates judges who are likewise against abortion. If that issue were not central to their voting life, that man would not stand a chance of being re-elected. He does not appear to hold traditionally Christian values, such as asking for forgiveness (“there’s nothing to forgive”) or turning the other cheek (I give them back double what they gave me). He does not believe in meekness (“I know more than the generals.”)
The question of abortion seems to be a primary tipping point in our contemporary political processes. It thus behooves us to take a little closer look, and a little broader look at the issue (“issue” both metaphorically and literally.) If we are eternal souls, as most Christians claim, is it possible to “abort” eternity? I’m asking for a friend.
