Idaho Proposition 1: The Power of Yes
Most of the people who could be convinced by that letter were already going to vote that way anyway. But I don't have to be one of them, and I don't have to feel bad about it.
I intend to support Proposition 1. I don't care about that letter. I'm on my fifth or sixth gynecologist in the twelve years I've lived in Idaho because of Idaho's abortion ban. That's how many of my providers have changed specialties or left the state, specifically because it's safer for them not to treat Idaho women at all. There's no continuity of care for women's health in Idaho, regardless of whether we're pregnant or not, because of how many providers we've lost. The abortion ban has made getting treatment for all of my conditions harder—especially my PMOS, formerly known as PCOS. That is my lived reality as a woman in Idaho. The simple fact is, I deserve better. I want better for myself and the women who live here.
Women experiencing miscarriages and pregnancy complications in Idaho have to be Life Flighted, at their own expense, to surrounding states with actual human rights for women. That's what it takes to get basic health care here. Politicians who don't understand reproductive health at all are practicing medicine from the Capitol building. I've seen the effects of that on my own life and on the lives of women around me. Abortion bans endanger women's lives, including women who are pro-life and having very wanted pregnancies. No one is immune to having catastrophic pregnancy complications, and women don't deserve to die because of them.
Abortion bans destroy all women's health care, not just abortion access. Nothing in the letter they sent addresses or acknowledges that in any way. Of course it doesn't. It's about moral posturing and consolidating power to Latter-day Saint elected officials from the Republican party in Idaho's state government.
I'm Sick to Death of These Letters
I've been in the Church long enough to remember California's Proposition 8. I remember witnessing the abuses of power and authority that surrounded that entire issue. It has left a horrible taste in my mouth for letters from the Church, at any level, surrounding political issues of any kind. They're abuses of power and deeply inappropriate for Sacrament Meeting. I never want to hear or see another one.
This brand of letter isn't about demonstrating real leadership. If this were about demonstrating real moral leadership, this wouldn't have come in the form of a letter asking for automatic compliance. It would've been a discussion. That discussion would've invited and involved LDS women, where our true positions were welcomed, listened to, and respected.
In recent days, I have found myself returning so often to D&C 121 on the verses of what real leadership looks like:
41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
42 By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—
43 Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
44 That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death
Women in the Church don't get this kind of respect when men send out letters like this. There's no persuasion, because persuasion goes both ways and involves active listening. There's no love unfeigned, because there is truly nothing more unloving that the abuse of one's leadership position to initiate compulsion over an election. There is no pure knowledge, because knowledge cannot be exchanged in silence. And there is no faithfulness stronger than the cords of death because there is no reconciliation. The men in my faith are involving themselves in a political issue they don't understand, endangering the lives of women and infants as they do so. By sending this letter, they're endorsing the status quo as it now stands for women being denied real health care in this state. The deaths of women in Idaho from preventable pregnancy complications are acceptable collateral damage for the sake of their professed moral purity.
What faithfulness? We've been sold out for a re-election campaign for C. Scott Grow and others like him.
The Area Presidency can ask me to vote against my best interests as a woman and call it the Church's position. That's fine. I don't have to agree with that assessment. I don't have to listen to them. Why would I? They didn't take any of the steps to properly exercise their priesthood authority as outlined in D&C 121, so I'm in a position to genuinely believe they're choosing to operate without it. As a result, I don't have to accept their paternalistic direction. I don't have to believe that they know what's better for me than I do—a woman who actually lives here and is directly affected by these decisions. If they want my trust and support, they can earn it exactly the way God taught them to do it. Since they didn't, I'm going to interpret their actions exactly how they look: that what we think and feel as Latter-day Saint women don't matter to them. And if I don't matter to them, then it is perfectly valid if what they're asking doesn't matter to me.
I have the right to vote. I can use my vote to prioritize myself as a woman and what will make my life objectively better and safer where I live. I can trust myself and my God-given intelligence to judge this issue for myself. I'm saying Yes to myself by saying Yes to Idaho Prop 1.
