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In last week's column I tried to amplify the voice of Dr. Emily Waldorf, who barely survived a miscarriage at 17 weeks because she could not get the health care she needed in her home state of Arkansas. After a harrowing five days at Washington Regional Hospital in Fayetteville, with no hope of her baby's survival and in fear for her own life, she was driven 240 miles across the border into Kansas where she was humanely treated, rescued from sepsis, and given the opportunity to mourn her beloved, dead child.

Emily's hope--and mine--in telling her story is to save other women from such trauma; that by confiding her heartbreak to her fellow Arkansans we may be able to make it safer for women to live and thrive here without fear of dying for lack of reproductive health care.

I received a plethora of responses to the column. They ran the full range: flattery, appreciation, empathy, curiosity, reasonable disagreement, judgment, mockery, scorn.

My favorite one was this one:

"Being pro-life myself and a Southern Baptist minister, I am against abortion, but I also understand that there are gray areas that need to be addressed in the laws that are out there right now, including Arkansas. I thought your article was well written and well thought out. Thank you for that. I hope that it will stir some of our legislators to rework the law for the situation like Emily found herself in.

"I still think abortion is wrong, an abomination to our society, and a terrible thing to say it's a choice. But I see your point and hope that we see some adjustment to our laws and to the laws of other states.

"Thank you for your well thought article."

To show why this was my favorite it might help to contrast it with another one. The writer states that my column "perplexes" but shows no effort to understand, only the assumption that my Christian faith is misguided and in need of his correction. The tone is one I am used to because it is so common, and it grieves me because innocent people are manipulated by voices like this in churches across our nation. It also grieves me because those who will not be manipulated are turned off from Christianity as a religion of people who are incurious, self-righteous judges, and manipulators. But that is not all of us, and it is the gospel of Jesus. Here is the email:

"Good afternoon. Your column today perplexes. Jesus lived in the womb as an unborn baby. John leapt in the womb as an unborn baby. We are created in the image of God. Creation is first evident in the womb, so the image of God--the Imago Dei--lives and breathes in the womb. It would require a highly nuanced faith indeed to support the destruction of that image, the killing of that baby in the womb. The pedestal of Christianity is the Imitation of Christ. To live as He lived. To hold to what He holds as truth and beauty and goodness. The sanctity of every human life is one of these truths. Perhaps the cornerstone. To deny this truth through the acceptance of and support for abortion seems to separate one who is pro-choice from the imitation of Christ. From Christianity. Perhaps you might take this to prayer and discern the voice of Jesus."

I love the Southern Baptist minister. I want to love the person who wrote this too, and I am working on it, because that's what Jesus said I should do. I know this because since I was little I have memorized Bible verses in red letters like "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind ... and love your neighbor as yourself."

What this reader misses is that I have spent most of my life trying to discern the voice of Jesus. Maybe they assume I have not done that. Or maybe, because I have not come to the same conclusion they have about the issue of abortion, they think that I cannot possibly have heard Jesus' voice. And that I need to pray and listen till we agree.

I have no idea the background of this person, whether evangelical, Catholic, or something else. My problem is not with their conviction that abortion is wrong. It seems to me an intellectually honest person must admit that the best arguments on either side have value.

Caitlan Flanagan addresses this in her excellent piece in the Atlantic in 2019 in which she references Arkansas: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/the-things-we-cant-face/600769/. Like most big issues that divide us, this one is not black and white. It serves the public good when we are willing and able to enter the gray area together, even though we ultimately must choose the side we think is best.

That is what the Baptist minister does in his email. I understand his position, respect it, and a part of me empathizes and agrees. I do not think abortion is easy. I, too, wish we lived in a society where there was no need for it. But in doing my best to listen to the voice of Jesus, which guides my life, and consider that alongside the rights of others, and the function of government, I believe it should be a woman's choice. I trust women with that choice.

If my other reader had asked my reasoning, I would have said, respectfully, God trusted women. The reader mentioned the wombs of Elizabeth and Mary. God could have chosen any other way to manifest Himself, any way to come to Earth, and He chose to entrust Himself to women. If creation is first evident in the womb, it is evident in the woman whose body is the womb.

I believe it is a faith in need of nuance that dishonors, disregards, and degrades the Imago Dei that lives, breathes, and nourishes the cells that implant in her womb and feed off her body, in order to grow into a fully formed person.

I also believe it is no imitation of Christ to support the destruction of a woman He loves. It was no imitator of Christ who told Emily Waldorf, child of God, devoid of hope for her baby's survival, and with the growing threat of deadly infection growing in her body as she languished in a hospital bed for five days, "the governor cannot help you. You need to get a lawyer." That was not the voice of Jesus.

To deny the sanctity of Emily's life by acceptance of leadership and support for laws that refuse to help her in her time of need--to devalue her life so much that she had to flee our home state to save her life--this seems to separate our state from Christianity. I hope, like the example of my Southern Baptist reader, more of us take her story to heart, and support leadership and laws that better reflect our shared Christian values.

Gwen Ford Faulkenberry is an author, teacher and award-winning columnist from Ozark. She is a litigant in a case against LEARNS. Watch her vodcast here: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/podcast/smalltowngirl/. Email her at gfaulkenberry@hotmail.com .

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