My Body, My Faith

Being a Christian is a difficult place to exist. Biblical interpretations are being debated, deconstruction is taking the spotlight, and then there’s the ever exhausting clarification of ‘Yes, I’m a Christian but please don’t group me in with the people screaming on the streets or the Westboro Baptist Church—I’m not that kind of Christian”. But I’m also a woman and that is unfortunately also (still) a difficult place to exist. I live in Canada and recognize I am able to retain freedoms many are denied, I hold immense empathy for those struggling as they watch more and more restrictions being put on their bodies and their lives, watching more and more autonomy taken from them every single day, not to mention those who’ve never had those freedoms to begin with.

On August 14, 2023 Time.com shared an article titled “She Wasn't Able to Get an Abortion. Now She's a Mom. Soon She'll Start 7th Grade.” Without even reading this article I’m sure you can assume the story and where it takes place in the world. Ashley lives in Clarksdale, Miss. She is 13 years old and just gave birth. She was raped by a stranger in the yard outside her home. After it happened she was so terrified that she didn’t tell anyone until she started showing symptoms of pregnancy. By this time it was too late for action in her own state, she would’ve had to travel with her mother 9 hours to Chicago to get an abortion. Due to loss of work and the costs to her family, she was unable to make the trip and now at 13 years old, still a child herself, she is a mother.