Don't Tell Me

 

Don’t Tell Me

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are— 

     If you’re okay with locking kids in cages

     or allowing them to suffer in senseless wars,

     refusing to feed and clothe them 

     when you have resources and they do not...

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

      If you will not adequately fund education, 

      provide poor women with contraception,

      give food stamps to impoverished families,

      support gun control to help save lives…

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

        If you don’t want to home the homeless,

        welcome a crying toddler into your country,

        rescue folks who’ve lost everything,

        help a scared pregnant teenager...        

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

       If you would criminalize desperate females,

       drive us back into the dark ages of butchery,

       take the easy way out and make abortion illegal,

       all the while thinking you’ve done enough...

       

instead of finally, doing what is necessary to make it all unnecessary.   

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

       If you have ever had unprotected sex,

       breathed a sigh of relief when no consequences resulted,

       but would punish a rape victim, 

       forcing her to continue an unwanted pregnancy—alone and unaided...

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

        If you champion the unborn but ignore the born,

        or think a woman’s life and choices 

        should count for nothing once she conceives.

        If you think God appointed you as judge and jury...

       

 while you ignore your own hypocrisy. 

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

        unless you are willing to cherish and support all life

        will put your time and money where your mouth is

        will pitch in to help build a society that truly reverences life

        one that reaches out to aid the downtrodden...

       

 without begrudging the cost of doing so. 

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

     until there is no longer a need to end pregnancies,

     women have control over their own bodies,

     all pregnancies are wanted, all children loved and cared for,

     and giving life to another is no longer a lonely, terrifying burden...

     

but can be embraced as the miracle it is.

 

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

     because I, for one, will never believe you.

     I will see you as the problem,

     not the answer, not the guardian of life,

     and I will pray that your hard heart softens...

     

and your eyes open, because it is you, in the end, 

     

Who are perpetuating pain and suffering—

     Your lack of empathy will forever keep driving

     the desperate to seek desperate measures,

     while you tell yourself how pro-life you are,

     when, in truth, you are not pro-life at all...

     

Don’t tell me how pro-life you are—

 

...prove it.

Photo: I.am_nah Upsplash