On Abortion and Life

I took a few days to collect my thoughts for this one. Should those that come after be in any way confused, about 4 days ago the Supreme Court made a ruling that struck down an important case - Roe v. Wade. This same precedent has been used for decades to build equal rights cases, but its most well-known point is that it guaranteed the right of a female-bodied person to choose whether to continue or discontinue a pregnancy. This also feeds into medical information rights and many other things, but it has caused an outcry among many. It has caused pain, because it will cause death. Other rulings have come in a wave - that police officers cannot be prosecuted for not mirandizing arrestees, that teachers may participate in and lead students in prayer. These are rights and structures of our society that were settled - they were given. But a collection of conservative judges, using the Bible as justification for law in a pluralistic society, are plunging the country into some terrifying things. 

Many pagan faiths are putting out their opinions and stances on the matter, and I have been looked to to do the same. Faith holds much coin in our current society, so my words may be used by those that believe as I do. Days like these are the hardest - my words must be, beyond contestation, what I mean to say. It is in those moments that precision is key. 

I am Paladin Gabriel Gordon, selected and elected by the Polestari as its spiritual leader. I lead by the will of the Polestari, and it is with their faith that my words hold meaning here. 

Let me begin our stance by the blatant statement that it is the Polestari's firmly held belief that a person's right to choose what happens with their body is sacrosanct. We believe that choice is and must be preserved as a matter of law, in that taking another person's rights can be reflected into losing your own. More specifically and precisely, we believe that a female-bodied person may choose to end their pregnancy at any time, for a reason that they deem necessary without requirement of justification, and that this is a divine right in the eyes of the Primal Forces.

In our Ideals, we say we value the Divine Self. Each individual is a reflection of the Universe, sovereign by its own design. This means that to force a Divine Self to give birth when they do not wish to, for any reason, is against our faith. 

In our Ideals, we say we value the Divine Society. Society is composed of a series of Divine Selves, and that it is the duty of each Divine Self to help make the society better. It means that each society may be evaluated by how it treats those less privileged. To force the beliefs of one subset of the Society onto the rest of that Society to the point of death and imprisonment is a great wrong and against our faith. This week marks an abject failure that must be rectified.

In our Ideals, we say we value Divine Choice. Choice and Will are the soul - without the ability to choose our actions and accept the consequences, we are not ourselves. We must protect the right to choose how we live our lives, save that it harms others, above all costs, and to remove that choice for 80 million of us is against our faith. 

In our Ideals, we say we value Divine Defiance. Defiance is survival, for us. It is the moment that we say no, that we plant our feet and find a way to move past what is wrong in the world, whether through direct action or planning a new course of action. To silence those who would speak up for those who will be hurt, imprisoned, or killed because of these decisions is against our faith. 

It is, beyond a doubt, our deeply held religious belief that sovereign bodily autonomy is a basic human right. 

That is not, however, to say that we in any way take joy in this necessary wrong. Abortion is not a preferred outcome for pregnancy or the female-bodied people affected by it. In our outcry for the preservation of choice, we simultaneously demand those things which would remove the necessity of that choice. 

We demand more education - comprehensive age-appropriate sexual education at all levels, free to all socio-economic statuses, from a sex-positive and empirical standpoint.

We demand free access to contraceptives of each person's choice and education in its uses.

We demand more research into more effective and safer contraceptives for all genders with the aim of making pregnancy opt-in instead of opt-out. 

We demand a restructuring of the foster system so that it is demonetized and deChristianized, in that any stable and loving family may adopt children as nature intended.

We demand to set the intent of society on a future in which children who are not wanted are not conceived, that abortion is left to a tragic but necessary medical procedure when those things go wrong, and that children who are born are offered a loving, supportive life with those who want and nurture them. 

But until that day comes, we believe it is imperative that the rights of choice be preserved for every Divine Self while we work towards a better Divine Society. 

Ha-a-i-a.