I may lose a few readers today. I may make a few people mad, but when something comes to my heart, it usually makes its way to my fingers. I know what the Bible says about abortion. Most of you know what the Bible says about human life. It says it is sacred. The Creator of all breaths life into our soul like a flame, and our society is willing to snuff it out for words like “choice” and “rights”. The Bible says this kind of blatant disregard for human is an abomination to God. Who is God though? God can be kind of a tough topic for a lot of people like me
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I’m not an AA big-book thumper. I do believe in the steps though. A lot of Christians hate on AA because of the ambiguity of the “higher power”. I will tell you this, every time God wakes a sinner from his grave, it is a supernatural experience. God can do what he wants. I can’t put parameters around Him, and neither can you. This doesn’t mean that its always a right-then, crazy conversion, where you stop all of your sinning immediately and become a conservative Republican who loves SEC football and dinner on the grounds after Sunday service.
This isn’t how it went down for me. I kept sinning. I still do a good bit; I feel really terrible about times when I miss the mark though. I hate hurting my friends and family. It makes me sad when my love for God and man doesn’t measure up to the level that God has put into my heart and into His Word. When I was using, I felt bad for nothing. I would tell you I was sorry. I may have even cried, but I felt nothing. The spiritual side of me became more and more translucent with each shot. I still loved my family and friends through my addiction. I wasn’t a mean or angry addict, but the most important thing in my life was finding the rawest heroin the streets had to offer. Every time I scored, my view of God shrank, and my view of heroin and Bardin on heroin increased. I suspect its like this for most addicts.
AA began as a Christian organization. What the founders noticed was so many alcoholics coming off the street had forgotten who God was or never knew who he was in the first place. Many, however, did have some idea of God that is often born in addicts during their addiction. Ive spoken a lot about self-pity in addiction. Well, if I have self-pity and do not like myself and believe that there is a creator, then there is no way I can like him. He’s the one that made me who I am. This gives a very distorted view of God for people coming out of addiction.
Many people don’t believe in God before becoming an addict. Short of a conversion and immediate sobriety; they do not believe in him in early sobriety either. How could they? Everything in life sucks for them. If there was a good God like Christians say, then He wouldn’t let this type of stuff happen to me. A good God that is all-powerful and all-good would reach down and touch me. He would keep bad things from happening to me. He would keep me off of drugs.
No matter an addicts view of God before addiction, by the time the addict lives in its cold embrace for a little while, he or she either no longer believes in God or is very fearful of God. Where there is fear there cannot be love. The founders saw this in all addicts. They realized that most people coming into early sobriety had a very small view of God; they were too busy seeing themselves. This is where the 12 steps come in.
They are a practical step by step guide to having a spiritual experience with God. Every alcoholic and addict can have a spiritual awakening from working the steps. God can reveal himself to us however he chooses. He can use others, The Bible, or even the 12 steps. They teach us to humble ourselves and turn our will over to God as we understand him. A lot of people at this point do not understand who God is. They are by definition agnostics. I wonder how many people who aren’t addicts have this same distorted view of God. I bet a lot.
There is a whole section of the Big Book devoted to their questions and thoughts. As an addict works through the steps his view of God becomes clearer. Most importantly, he sees that God is bigger than him. The addict also sees his character defects and learns to deal with them. He thens carries, with gratitude, this spiritual experience found in losing himself to something bigger than he is, to others struggling. Some people do not accept the God of the Bible. This makes sense to me. I believe the Bible, and it says people will always turn away from God. To find Jesus, it is important to incorporate the Bible into these steps. I know some Christians may not agree with me, but I am on the front lines of this battle. I will use every weapon at my disposal. As a Christian, I know God miraculously saves and changes people every day. His method is not my method. I cannot understand his method I just do what I can to know and do His will.
I know many of you may not believe the Bible. If that is the case, then please listen to my practical, non-high and non-mighty thoughts on something. I said all of this for you to know that I have been through the wringer with drugs and relationships. I want to find solutions to problems. I want to live my love.
I have dated 5 women who had abortions before we dated. They probably felt more empathy and love from my side of the conversation during that conversation than in any we had in every single relationship . I could tell they were all scared of what my view of them was going to be. It didn’t change a single iota. I wouldn’t say much; I would just listen. My eyes said everything they were needing to hear. A lot of this has to do with that every single one of them never looked sadder or more fearful, when they were with me, than when they told me about their shame from the past. It was heart breaking. Every one of them carried this secretly with them every day.
They all had abortions for different reasons. One was raped; 2 wanted to hide it from the world; one’s baby-daddy died while she was pregnant; and one was forced by her ex-boyfriend. No matter the reason, they all had similar problems later in life. I have dated a lot of addicts, and more than half had an abortion when they were young. None of them were prepared for the trauma. None of them received any type of counseling after. How could they? They were too ashamed. Everyone in their life wanted to hide it. That is how shame is built. When I looked in my mirror, I saw my junkie-self, and that was bad enough. I cant imagine seeing my child’s face and me as a mother in that mirror every day, or maybe I can, more on that later. It still breaks my heart for each of them. There has to be a better way than sacrificing our children’s lives and our women’s bodies and psyches all for a secret.
I understand a solution is to completely outlaw abortion, and even that’s not a solution our hearts are still sick. I want us to learn more about the long term affects of it on our minds and hearts. Many people turn this into a political argument. I have no desire to argue with anyone. It’s is spiritual problem with us individually and as society. We think freedom lies in shameful secrets, while actually these secrets are the chains that bind us to sickness and emotional unavailability. Instead of arguing, I am just making a plea for us to save our innocents from genocide, and to search and to find women to help women who are carrying this heavy load day after day. It’s not wrong to want to heal from past trauma, even when that trauma doesn’t just hurt you.
When I speak about abortion, I do not judge anything except the evil in our world. My mom was 39 when I was conceived in 1985. That was a late pregnancy in the 80’s. She heard doctors mention words that included percentages and ages and most importantly the word abortion. She and my dad didn’t listen to a single number or percentage, and I am so glad to be here and to be alive. I have always been on the cusp of being a statistic in so many ways, but I am not a statistic and neither are you.
I know every one of those girls were so afraid when they got ready to have the abortion. Every single one of them told me they knew it was unnatural, but they didn’t feel like they had a choice. How ironic is it that the movement is called “pro-choice”. Many women have no qualms getting an abortion. For them, it is no different than getting a filling. They see it as their body and a cluster of cells. Our society is tricking us as individuals into thinking this is a medical procedure. It is nothing more than child sacrifice. We sacrifice our children to further our own agendas. Listen to that baby’s heartbeat; look at him or her as it snuggles in its mama’s tummy, sucking its thumb. Thats a person; thats no cluster. The only cluster I see is us as a people.
These girls were scared to death. They were so fearful for their lives; they were willing to do away with a baby’s life. Why couldn’t they be reached? Not only is the baby saved, so is the girl. She is saved from living with the shame and secrets. 9 months of shame is nothing compared to sleepless nights spent dreaming of something you made nothing. Sure, our world today tells women its their right over their body. They hear this and believe it. They are then left cleaning up the wreckage for years, sometimes for a lifetime.
There are always pro-lifers at the abortion clinic in Jackson. It is the only clinic in Mississippi. I have been there before. It is loud. The pro-lifers are well organized, but the clinic staff creates chaos. They play loud music and say and do profane, sexual signals and signs to adults and children, alike. Often times, to be heard over the noise, the pro-lifers fight fire with fire. They get loud too. Now it’s loud and scary when girls pull up to make the worst decision of their lives. They step out of their car and are met with loud noises coming from every direction. Some they can understand, some they cant.
I told you these girls are fearful for their lives. The Bible says that love drives out fear. Fear doesn’t drive out fear. Chaos doesn’t drive out fear. Only love drives out fear. So on the worst day of her life, a girl gets out of her car to chaos. There are only 2 places she can go to escape this, back to her car or into the abortion clinic. Clinic escorts wrap her up, and her choice is made. When we are scared, we run to cover. How are we to know that our safe house is rigged with explosives? If we cannot educate women on their real choices for them and their baby and give them some options on saving a life instead of killing one before they get to the abortion clinic, then most battles are already lost.
I know what the Bible says. I believe the Bible. Just like I believe that God gives us weapons to use. I know the Bible is living and active. I know it reaches up to us no matter where we are in our story. A lot of times it rises up to us during and after times of crisis. When this happens to a girl who made a mistake, then causing more chaos and fear doesn’t seem like a very practical way to show women and their families that there is no shame in people knowing you had sex with someone and decided not wear a condom. Yes it’s wrong, but for me, as someone who has been forgiven much, and for all Christians, we must remember love covers a multitude of sins including pre-marital sex and abortion. It’s wrong, but Christians talking and laughing about it to their friend’s back does nothing to bring people to a place of true sight.
I know for some, keeping a their secrets and covering their shame is a small reason for an abortion. Some do not have anyway to care for a child. Some female’s home life is so bad that they’d rather kill their baby than make it face the world that she grew up in. Some girls are forced by controlling, toxic men, who do not want to take responsibility for their actions. Some girls are victim’s of sexual assault. The only conversations I ever had with a couple of my ex’s that were sadder than our convo’s about abortion, were the convo’s we had about sexual assaults. I hate someone who uses others as an object. I have never met a woman who was an object. The only women I’ve ever met were God-breathed just like me, but they have always been wayyyy prettier than me. My ex’s who were assaulted felt shame for something a real garbage individual did. If you can’t tell, during these convos, not only did I get sad, I got pissed off too. Not at the girl, obvs, but at the low life who took her from her. Yeah at that dude, I get mad. To guys reading, don’t be that dude, but if you are, please let me know. One thing you learn in lock up is that most dudes who have been made to feel inferior in their lives because of drugs or crime have no empathy for men who take from women like this.
All of these are reasons used to justify abortion. I understand not being able to care for a child as it grows. I understand not wanting raise your child in a terrible home environment. I understand women feeling pressure from controlling men that don’t want a minor loss in control to cost them money or time for the next 18 years. I certainly understand not wanting to see your rapists face every time you look at your baby. I also understand that just as every man and every woman is God-breathed and formed and is not just an object to be used for another “person’s” sick pleasure, so is every child in the womb inspired by the very Creator that makes glorious, awesome wonders in our world that we try to describe with math equations and erosion. He loves his creation. Planets come to form at the sound of His voice, and we think we are so mighty that we can kill his most glorious creation, human life, before it is able to witness the creation the Creator created for His beloved? A God as big and as in love with His creation as much as our Creator is, will not put up something like that for long.
What if the girl didn’t have to worry about getting out of the car into a circus of chaos? What if she didn’t have to worry about how to provide for a child after delivery? What if a selfish guy wouldn’t have to pay child support for 18 years? What if the girl who was assaulted didn’t have to kill the life growing in her just to escape the shame of the evil act that was done to her. In aborting a rapist’s baby is she not viewing her baby as an object, the kind of object her rapist made her into? 😢
What if she could save and create a life without having to live with the shame of what was done to her everyday? This will not save her from the trauma of what was done to her, but it will allow her to not live with the trauma from the abortion, that will show up one day and hit her directly in her beautiful face.
There is hope for women who live with this terrible guilt everyday. We will get to that in a minute, though. Many of the girls I dated felt every bit of the abortion everyday. It made them feel shame, guilt, sadness, and depression. It was one of the things in their lives that led them down the path of addiction. This isn’t the only response I’ve seen to the trauma of abortion. The other main response you see is complete compartmentalization. The girl who had the abortion feels nothing anymore. Trauma does this to people all the time. the Bible does tell us that our hearts can grow cold and hard. I know you’ve seen it. I don’t think enough people look at a past abortion as trauma. It is though; people traumatize themselves on the daily. Its not always things you see; sometimes, it’s things you do that cause trauma. So, the trauma causes the woman to shut her feelings down. She doesn’t want to feel anything, so much hurt is blanketed by numbness. This is the woman who wears the hate of herself on the inside, like I used to. She may feel nothing and call it being healed. Honestly, I’m more heartbroken for these women than I am ones who wear their shame in more public ways. Trust me, if you haven’t dealt with your past, then you are going to have a hard time blooming into your future. If this is you, please talk to someone you see as wiser than you, someone you trust.
I know a lot of you are thinking, “Bardin is a dude; he doesn’t get it. He can’t have an abortion. What right does he have calling abortion murder?”
You see I can’t judge someone who had an abortion in their past or is contemplating one now. I cant see her heart. I don’t know what she thinks of when she thinks of God. How can I do anything but empathize with her. Empathy is an abstract concept unless you have actually been in the situation before. For me, my empathy to the person considering shame and abortion isn’t abstract. It isn’t abstract because Im a killerr too. None of my girlfriends were carrying my child when they had their clinical abortion (don’t get confused, its not a medical procedure). I allowed one of my ex’s to have chemical abortion though, in my 20’s. I was getting high a lot. The girl was getting high a lot. We would have made incredible parents (I know y’all expect one, so there’s a joke). For us, a living, breathing piece of her, piece of me wasn’t worth heroin. That child wasn’t worth cocaine. I knew what IV heroin and cocaine could do to a child, but we didn’t think about that. It wasn’t our plan to abort the baby. We had only one plan. We planned everyday how we were going to get enough money for our real children, a boi (heroin) and a girl (cocaine). We were good at feeding those kids. We were always going to quit the next day. We actually acted excited about the prospect of a child, what a joke. Obviously, no child can survive IV speedballs on the daily. I wasn’t even sure the kid was mine, but that does not matter. That baby belonged to my Father, just as much as I do. Does this make me the same kind of murderer in God’s eyes as the leading abortion doctor in the country?
Absolutely it does. I speak about the shame and guilt in these women, because I recognize it in myself. Doing nothing and letting evil win is just as bad as doing something to help evil win. I don’t want to be apathetic about life. I want to be passionate about destroying evil.
What can we do? How can I go on with all of you knowing the terrible thing I was a part of? I will tell you how. In case y’all didn’t know, I have a hero. My hero isn’t some sociopathic Deadpool, or egotistical Iron-Man, or, even, the immortal Thor. No, see he’s a little more ancient than that. He is I AM. That means exactly what you think. Whatever He wants to be, thats exactly what He is. It’s the most incredible Supernatural ability. Time is nothing for him; sure he can move through time. More importantly, he can move your heart through time to a place where so many hurts did not happen. When He does that, then you’ve been healed. How incredible is that? He can literally repair your heart to better than new condition. You get to live with what you learned, without the hate and hurt in you heart.
If this is something you are struggling with, you may be where I was not so long ago, you may not even be able to look at a Bible. You may not even believe God is real anymore. He may have died to you with the baby or with the first shot of that brown, viscuous fluid I was willing to kill an innocent for. Find someone to talk to who knows the steps and work them. They will lead you to a spiritual place where you can remove yourself and your problems and find healing and find Jesus.
If you are contemplating an abortion, please ponder the words I have written. I have a niece and a nephew whom were pulled from the jaws of the abortionists forceps and adopted into our family as true-born children. If you see them playing with their brothers and sisters or loving on their mom you will know, they are an integral part of our family. You may see no other option but to have an abortion. Please, reach out. If you are willing to suffer for another’s life for 9 months, there are people that can give your baby the life and love that you cannot right now. This is no small request I ask. People will talk about you. They may laugh. You may even lose friends, but you will be mine and that baby’s, your baby’s, hero. 9 months for 2 lives, yours and your baby’s.
I said earlier that the Bible is sufficient for all we need, but therapy doesn’t hurt. Actually, it helps. With problems like abortion or really any problem that changes the way we view ourselves, we have to learn how to see again. Just like the drugs, I had to shed the shame of sitting by, watching, and sometimes supplying drugs as a tiny, innocent soul that was very possibly half of me was poisoned to death. It was hard to do; it still is. I am not that guy. I love life; I want everyone to experience it in the most full way. I want to be a dad not a murderer. I have to remind myself all the time who the real Bardin is. Yes, I am a killer too, but I am also a son. The son of the Most High, I AM.
PS. I know some people say an unborn baby is just a cluster of cells. Most of these people are pro-death. It’s not pro-choice, unless we ask the baby what he or she prefers. It seems very convenient for someone to view our most innocent as nothing. If it’s not a person inspired by God, then it’s not murder. If a baby is not a person, then abortion is a medical procedure removing a tumor. Tumors don’t have tiny fingers and fingernails. Tumors can’t look at their mom and form and immediate lifetime bond with her. A baby can, though. A baby can also be murdered and pulled from its mama’s womb, limb by lung. What baby in this world would make that choice? Just like me, I bet any baby, no matter how hard its future circumstances and hardships are going to be, wants a chance to survive and become victorious.
Disclaimer: I’m may not be the Christian you think of when you think of going to church as a child. I can find something loveable and good in almost every person I’ve ever met. Too many people let one thing about another person keep them from cultivating a friendship with them. Relationships are how we cultivate ideas and love with others. Some people are really bad people and I may not want a relationship with many of them, but with some of the worst, all I have to say is, “If not for for God that could be my life, my situation. I don’t know what he walked through to find himself where and who he is.” I know some of you may not agree with my stance on some issues, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be grow in understanding and live in this space together. I do have strong beliefs and principles. I will fight for them, but I will still love my opposition. I hope y’all can love me back. I know I can’t change people’s minds, but I can always find some common ground.
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