Saturday, January 5, 2013

Freedom and Free Will

Our country is about freedom to choose good over evil, not only about choosing legal or illegal. There are many things that I believe are wrong that are perfectly legal in our country, such as invitro-fertilization as long as there is even one unloved child needing a home.

I know that it's in our animal natures to want to replicate ourselves, but our gift and privilege as humans is that we are free to choose to act by something other than instinct and copying our ancestors. It is incumbent on each of us, as parents, to instill our values by our examples and allow only the freedoms to our children that we feel they are prepared to handle, as they are able to handle them.

As a parent, it made it very difficult to impose any values in my home without the back pressure on my children of the law. Complicating the issue was the fact that the father of my children, from whom I had been divorced before my son's second year, and I had many opposing values. The best I could do was to impress upon my children my expectation that they follow my values in my home.

The law said that, at thirteen, my son was old enough to decide with which parent he wanted to live. My son asked to live with his dad when he reached the age of fourteen. I felt that it was time that I allow him to test his own values and decide which of his dad's values he would incorporate into his journey into manhood. I released him to his father, five hundred miles from my home.

The transition for both my son and his father was extremely rocky, as they had never really lived together as father and son. I ended up relocating in order to referee their power struggles as my son "made his bones," as a man. Many was the time he came to me bragging about what his father allowed him to do, knowing full well how it would upset me. My reply to him was, "You know my rules. Don't blame your behaviors on your dad. You can choose which rules to follow." All I could do was pray that he would be faithful to his higher, more intelligent self.

Here is my point: Simply because something is within, or even required by the law, doesn't mean we have to embrace it. We should, however, be willing to accept the outcome of our actions. People who protested the killing of innocent souls in Vietnam by refusing to join the draft were willing to pay with their own lives to change the law. People who were no longer willing to have their American citizen children spit on because of their skin color were willing to pay with their own lives to change the law. Women who want to love their children are willing to pay with their own lives to give birth to and nurture them, perhaps until the mother's own death. The moral fathers are willing to put their own lives on the line in defense of their families.

Because abortion is available, in any form, doesn't mean anyone has to take advantage of the offer. This is their right, even if we don't agree. Cocaine is available, but I choose not to use it. As a child of abuse, I believe it is worse to give birth to a child whose soul will be crushed by being unwanted than to be given back to God before birth.

As a friend of several women who have sought abortion instead of giving birth to babies' who had already been damaged by their own addictions, I understand that sometimes abortion is an act of responsibility for one's own weaknesses, which were probably passed on from their own parents. Until every child (even the un-pretty, terribly damaged child) is guaranteed a safe place to be nurtured until his or her death, I will continue to object to the parents of children (and children) in war and to the creation of animal life by artificial means leaving much unwanted potential human life, as well as to other forms of abortion.

My taxes pay for all of these efforts. It is the law of the land. I can choose to move to a cave in a country that still lives in the stone age, if I could find one, or I can continue to support the laws of our country and each person's right to follow their own faith and live with their own consequences, earthly and eternal.

Neither Hobby Lobby nor their insurance carrier is going to force anyone to take a pill or procedure that their free will doesn't choose. Would Hobby Lobby have the same objections to artificial means of conception that also produces more unwanted human potential?

We cannot expect the law to enforce our fear of the perceived weaknesses of others. We do not know what is in the hearts and souls of others. Sometimes all we can do is pray that we all become responsible for our own souls and let those of others take care of themselves. We can also walk the walk that we talk, by not judging anyone but ourselves.