What we are missing in taking sides
There are lots of strong opinions and emotions right now about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. I would like to share my perspective as one possible way to look at this and perhaps a middle path between two extremes. We don't need to make this another issue that tears us apart.
I'll say up front that I don't identify as pro-life or pro-choice because in many ways I'm both. I think all life is sacred and should be respected. I also stand for freedom and choice. To me, these are inseparable concepts. To align to a particular camp, which tend to be defined by their ideological absolutes, wouldn't accurately capture my view. Nor would it serve my goal of finding common ground.
If I had to call myself anything right now, it would be pro-unity or pro-love.
My response to the Supreme Court decision is the same general philosophy I apply to just about everything, which is that it is not my place to stand in the way of another divine being's choice. Relevant to bodily autonomy, I believe people should be free to decide what to take out of or put into their bodies, so that we can each make the best decisions for our own health and wellbeing.
There are a million nuances and angles you could argue as to why a choice like abortion should or should not be allowed, but I always come back to choice because choice is how we express our freedom. It's how we create our lives. A choice is a decision (conscious or not) about what we want in our reality. Individually and collectively. We create our individual lives and contribute that to our collective consensus reality.
In my mind, the aim of a society should not be to limit choice but to facilitate more loving, compassionate, and life-affirming choices - choices borne of higher consciousness.
Higher consciousness thinking will naturally result in higher consciousness choices. When more of us are thinking at that level, a lot of what we are fighting or worrying about takes care of itself. When we start seeing ourselves as eternal and divine and thinking more in terms of unity, goodwill, peace, and love, we will make choices that align with those values, which will be reflected out in the world. When making a decision, we may ask ourselves: "Does this move me in the direction of the world I want?" Or perhaps, "Is this choice in integrity with life and love?"
Am I saying that in a higher consciousness world, we wouldn't terminate pregnancies? Not necessarily. That might be the most loving, compassionate, and intelligent choice in a given situation. We can feel at peace with that because we would understand that while an abortion ends that soul's opportunity for that particular incarnation, as an eternal, divine being itself, it cannot be harmed or destroyed by anything that happens here on Earth. But that also doesn't mean we shouldn't care what happens to the unborn or disregard them as anything less than life.
In general, at higher levels of consciousness, I think we will value life in all its forms far more than we do now. We will honor and respect each other so much more than we do now.
We will see the connectivity between us and understand and appreciate all of what has to come together to create the tremendous, miraculous opportunity to be born in the physical on Earth. We will honor everyone's intention to be here and let them do life in their own way without judgment.
With higher consciousness also comes higher intelligence and greater creativity. We will be able to prevent and solve the problem of unwanted pregnancy in a way that uses termination as a rare and last resort. This is not a moral judgment on abortion but a recognition that there are a lot of choices that are made before conception can even occur and that prevention is cheaper, easier, and less emotionally and physically taxing than having to stop the engine of life already underway. Really, we have all the tools to achieve that now, we just don't have the collective will.
Part of the reason we don't is because there is more energy going into tearing us apart than bringing us together for a better future. That should seem pretty obvious to people at this point. This is not to say that abortion isn't a valid issue to debate or a worthwhile freedom to protect, but what I'm seeing is a lot of anger and outrage, as opposed to attempts to understand alternative views or reach for common ground.
Frankly, it also strikes me as a big diversion and major irony.
We are fighting one another about the right to end a pregnancy when we should be uniting in asking why our global birth rates are plummeting.
Why is there so much outrage about being able to stop life and not much being said about what's being done by those in power to stop it from starting?
If we pulled our heads up from the fight we've been led into, we might see how we are being poisoned into infertility through our food, water, air, and the devices we surround ourselves with, as well as other substances, some of which the government is trying to force us to take. We're fighting each other when we should be demanding and actively creating a cleaner world - not just for us here now but for the future of our species.
I cannot think of a bigger issue to rally around. But that is exactly what those in control don't want us to do. The more afraid and angry we are, the easier we are to manipulate into doing what serves them. At higher levels of consciousness, that manipulation becomes clear. And from that clarity, we arrive back at choice. What do we want for our future?
Which brings me back to my main point.
The choices we make are driven by the consciousness we bring to them.
It is in raising our consciousness that we get out of this trap of division, polarization, and hypocrisy, and being duped into consenting to things that are literally killing us. That is why I am pro-love, pro-unity, and for a great human awakening. When we learn to really respect one another and truly value life as an expression of the divine we are all part of, the choices we make will tend toward the common good.
Admittedly, it appears today that we have a long way to go. But we can start by understanding that freedom is a universal truth that applies to everyone equally. We all have the right to make our own choices in life. We may not like what other people do with their choices and may assign consequences to certain behaviors, but if others weren't free to decide their life, we wouldn't be either. We can't have real freedom without a regard for everyone's right to live the life of their choosing. Sometimes that comes with hard choices and difficult situations. But to really be pro-choice is to affirm the right to a free life for all life. When we accept that, the result is greater peace. Individually and collectively.
Interested in how a higher perspective can bring greater peace in challenging times?
Check out my mini-course Resilience Rising.
Watch the video version of this blog below.