Hard Roe to Hoe for Kavanaugh

By Karen Farris, Op-ed contributor Friday, July 13, 2018

Abortion in America. Abortion on demand. When I was a young teen the highest court in the land deemed it was a woman's right to choose the life or death of the baby she carried.

Only that's not how it was sold to our young minds in our 1974 health classes. It was billed as a better alternative to pregnancy for girls and it was just a clump of tissue anyway. Over 60,000 "clumps of tissue" later, here we are.

Having volunteered for well over a decade in a crisis pregnancy center I'm no stranger to the word "crisis" when it's attached to pregnancy. For many of the girls and young women it was a financial decision that led to abortion rather than choosing life. The one thing we lacked in our rural center in the late 1990's was ultrasound technology. Thanks to grant writing, donations, and support from Focus on the Family, our center finally could offer a pregnant woman a view inside her womb.

To say that it changed minds is not accurate enough. It literally saved lives—those babies lives. Along with offering counseling and life-affirming support, our center offered classes in child care, home care, financial budgeting, and connections to support systems in the faith community.

Now, I see photos or protesting women waving coat hangers saying "We Won't Go Back"—a reference to those days before abortion was legal and dangerous back room abortions were the only option. Yet, in 1972 only 39 women died as a result of an abortion—not the thousands like the abortion proponents led America to believe.

With the advancement in fetal studies, we can't deny life in the womb. Those words in my 1974 health class were misleading—yes a clump of cells—but very much a living human.

Which takes us to the latest attempt to keep Roe v Wade and abortion legal in America. With the opportunity to place another conservative justice on the Supreme Court, could America finally have a chance to undo the atrocity of 1973?

I add my prayers to those supporting Judge Brett Kavanaugh through the arduous and contentious confirmation process. While there's a loud liberal chorus shouting him down, I argue there is a more quiet choir singing support for the unborn. I met this choir—they sat in middle and high school classrooms and expressed their disapproval of abortion. They are now voters, so beware leftists—who use abortion rights as a weapon to wield support for your cause. These young voters know better.

And for Brett Kavanaugh, it will be a hard Roe to hoe—but I pray that if you are confirmed to the highest court of the land, you and your conservative justices could be exactly where America needs you to be: for just a time as this.

Karen Farris served in the crisis pregnancy ministry — traveling thousands of miles and speaking to over 10,000 students about their life choices — for nearly a dozen years. She became a grant writer and helps find resources for projects that serve those in poverty, mainly children. She's been a blogger since 2010 — Friday Tidings — sharing stories of faith, life, and purpose to give hope in a hurting world.