Be Brave
This is Joni here. When I originally began writing this post, Hillary Clinton had an 85% shot at becoming the next president elect of the United States of America. I wrote a quick Facebook post as I headed to the polls:
This day and vote is for every woman I've ever worked with on making plans for an unplanned pregnancy. Every one of those women who had to hear from medical or legal professionals, or friends and family, that they were just pregnant to trap their male partner. Or that they were making a decision about their pregnancy because they were coerced by an adoption agency or abortion clinic because they don't have the mental capacity to make their own reproductive decisions. This is for every woman who has been told having and raising children you are unprepared for was the only or most important thing they could do in life.
This is for every woman who was told our worth was not in that we could find cures for cancer, or fight for progressive laws as lobbyists, or MAKE the laws as politicians- just that we could incubate pregnancies and bring babies home to homeless shelters. This is the day I will tell my granddaughters about!
So obvioualy I was with her. How could I not be? Our founder and I have spent 6 years missing our own kids birthdays, skipping holidays, taking red eye flights, emergency calls at all hours, helping in the most impoverished areas of our nation because we believed we could create a common ground. We believed we could bring a safe space where women could admit they are good women and still face an unplanned pregnancy.
Legal and safe abortion is a partner to Choice Network which is, judgment free and accessible adoption education. Almost all adoption agencies nationwide are pro-life. We are not. We trust women and their choices. Our stance has allowed us to touch thousands of women. We are bold and brave in our work because we know it matters. It matters for women and it matters for their children.
We have literally taken an infant in an infant carrier out of the hands of a foster care worker who believed only healthy children deserve adoptive homes. That wasn't easy.
We have worked with several birth families whose children came to us and asked if this was the day we could please take them with us. And that wasn't easy.
We have worked with kids who don't believe in love at a very young age. And that wasn't easy.
We have worked with women who attempted hurting themselves because the weight of the pregnancy was so heavy and the repercussions of being pregnant were so enormous. That wasn't easy.
We have worked with the homeless, the additcted, the lost, the college student, the teen, your neighbor, your daughter, the broken. It wasn't easy.
We have worked with women who have loved their child more than anything in the world and wanted the absolute best life for them. That still didn't make it easy.
We have witnessed women share their stories about how they grieved over the frustrating process of getting a safe and legal abortion. Women talk about how painful it was to have to make plans to travel coast to coast to find a medical professional who could provide an abortion while their fetus was sick or dying inside them. Women share the frustration they felt over waiting periods, when they knew each day made the decision more physically and emotionally painful. Each of these women talked about how her abortion decision ws made carefully and sometimes with a heavy heart. This work is not easy.
We are scared for women and families right now. After this election, we know we have years of work ahead of us and miles to go before we sleep. We know we need to be more bold and to be more brave.
We tell our women "it’s ok to be scared, that just means you are about to do something incredibly brave.” The great leaders of important movements didn’t immobilize because they were scared. They channeled their fear and created bravery. That bravery is what propelled us all into a new world. Choice advocates- this is your day to be bold and brave, and this is your day to help make a new world.
We were called to this work because we are unbreakable. You were called to this work because you are unbreakable. Thank you for being brave with us.
