Pros and Cons

My daughter is attending the Pro-Life Rally in Washington, DC on Monday next.  She is travelling, by bus, with some folks from her church.

This news engaged the "frappe" button on the blender in my brain.

I admire the youthful, and in my opinion, somewhat naeive (naturally and understandable, she is 16) fervor with which she is applying her passion to this cause.  Further, I will readily admit that the baggage I'm carrying around on the topic, while minimal, is born of my own biases, which this development now causes me to analyze.

In so doing, I have realized a few things.

I, too, am pro-life.  I love life.  I want everyone to have the opportunity to pursue theirs to the very greatest extent possible.

I am pro-family planning.  I am pro-making conscious decisions about bringing additional baby humans into the world.

I am pro-having children we want and are capable of taking care of.

I am pro-avoiding making choices that will haunt us for the rest of our lives.  Whatever those choices happen to be.

I am pro-respect.

I am pro-having options and choices at our disposal and exercising and executing them thoughtfully.


I am pro-compassion and forgiveness.

And, at the end of the day, while we might be boarding different buses on this topic and heading to opposite ends of this particular rally, metaphorically speaking....I am pro-my daughter and her right to have whatever opinion it is she wants, on anything. 

This somehow makes me feel very grown up.  Weird.