A Time to Choose

A Time to Choose

For everything there is a season,

   and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to want to get pregnant,

   and a time to want options for birth control;

a time to plan to have children,

   and a time to plan not to have children;

a time to choose to end a pregnancy,

   and a time to heal after a pregnancy;

a time to break down stereotypes about “pregnant teenage girls,”

   and a time to build up boys’ and girls’ knowledge 

      about human sexuality and reproduction;

a time to weep for the lives of female children and adults

      who find themselves with little or no opportunities,

   and a time to laugh at the hypocrisy of politicians who vote

      against equal opportunities but ensure their own are covered;

a time to mourn underfunded health and welfare systems that threaten

      the lives of individuals and families in poor areas, rural or urban,

   and a time to dance whenever interfaith or non-profit coalitions help

      make miracles happen in peoples’ real lives;

a time to throw away patriarchal laws governing females’ bodies,

   and a time to gather women into administrative, judicial, and

      legislative bodies to govern;

a time to embrace the truth that female human beings are created in

      the divine image,

   and a time to refrain from treating females as inferior to males

      or sub-human;

a time to vote one’s clear conscience,

   and a time to lose one’s guilt and shame;

a time to keep hope,

   and a time to throw away despair;

a time to tear up “shoulds,”

   and a time to sew commitments;

a time to keep silence and listen to her,

   and a time to speak and tell her you believe her;

a time to love bodies of all colors, shapes, sizes, and abilities,

   and a time to hate any violence against females;

a time for war against rape and incest,

   and a time for peace — to pray to end the need for abortion.