By Derri Crenshaw | Staff Writer

Recently there has been a rise of conservatism in America, tied to a surge in White Christian Nationalism. Vice President JD Vance, is quoted in an article by The Keystone, a Pennsylvania based newsroom, saying, “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children,” Vance said. “When you go to the polls in this country, as a parent, you should have more power, you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic than people who don’t have kids.” 

What happens when we mix religion with politics? What happened to the separation of church and state promised to our country in the constitution? A whole lot of control and not enough logic is injected into policies that affect us every day- all because groups like The Heritage Foundation decided there is one way to live, and anything else is sacrilegious. Of course, there has been the argument that America is a Christian nation, founded by people who, while in favor of separation between church and state, still intended to infuse their values into the core of the country they were building. But do we really want to honor the principles people who owned other people stood on?

Any of us set foot on this land, it was occupied by Native Americans for much longer than America existed. If we really insisted on honoring tradition, things would look much different. There would be more variety, more life and understanding instead of the belief that we all have one simple purpose here, especially in the case of women: to create families and bring children into the world.

I think we have all noticed the strange push of limits and bans on abortions, making it more difficult to access life-saving birth control, ambiguous laws that punish doctors for performing lifesaving surgeries like in the case of Amber Thurman who passed away in 2022. She was pregnant with twins, but because of her financial situation knew she wouldn’t be able to afford more kids and decided to get an abortion. She took abortion pills, but experienced pain and went to the hospital, where it took a reported 19 hours for her to receive a dilation and curettage. CBS news reports that, “It is unknown why the doctors waited 19 hours to take Thurman into surgery. Many doctors in states with restrictive abortion bans have publicly acknowledged fear of losing their medical license or being prosecuted if they break the law.”

Gravestone of Amber Nicole Thurman. Sept 16th 1993- August 19th 2022. Covered with flowers and Happy Birthday balloons.

The acceptance of conformity is because we simply do not have the energy to fight back.

The way that people yearn for a very specific period of time and fantasize about it they make it something it was not. The 1950s, a time that breeds nostalgia, were not purely an era of rich economic success and perfect families. It was a time when soldiers came home and tried to recover from a war started by a few men that killed millions. It was a time when women could not open their own bank accounts, own property; a time when spousal abuse and assault was legal, and in many cases  ignored. A time where fathers didn’t have to take responsibility for their actions. A time when  mothers, in many cases, may not have found fulfillment because they were told what was going to make them happy instead of discovering that for themselves. The kids were well-fed in white families, but black families did not even have civil rights yet.

America is not only for one type of person with one specific belief and I know that despite what people may say, this country has always been diverse. It was built by and fought for and defended by people who have been dishonored at every turn, without repayment. And that is not right. Instead of accepting this old way of thinking, we need to continue to challenge it. Advocate for religious freedom in our country. Speak out against Christian nationalism. Protect your neighbors or different faiths. Do not stay silent when your moral compass is inflamed. 

Source:

https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-bans-deaths-state-maternal-mortality-committees