Authors-choice: Hope & Revival

Just this week, Stevie, a female member of a British rock band called, Fleetwood Mac,   told the world that, thanks to her abortion, she was able to make a success out of her musical career, “If I had not had that abortion, I’m pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac”. Incidentally, this same week, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a beautiful woman of 48, is set to be confirmed as the ninth Justice of US Supreme Court, having climbed to the highest peak of a career in the legal profession that few women can dream of, while being a wife and a mother of 7 teenage children, which includes two adopted children from Haiti and one child with down syndrome. As the world stands in awe of this great woman, perhaps it is a time to take a few moments to reflect on this two very different world views.

The first world view, the world view of Ms Stevie, propagated by the ideologues of a postmodern world, is the world view  that motherhood, family and children are oppressive forces, holding women back from real progress, and ensure that they never actualize their potencies. They sell this notion by celebrating the likes of Ms Stevie, flooding the front cover of their media tabloids with selfies she took in her underwears with Hollywood super star status pinned to her backside like a medal of honor, a media anointed queen of impressionable young girls.

Yet, the same devious ideologues are bending over backwards to gloss over or at best pay only grudging acknowledgment to a better and a more shining world view, that of Amy Coney Barrett, an intelligent, articulate and astonishingly brilliant woman who had faced the odds like other millions of hard working women all over the world, hard at work, while raising children, (future citizens of the world), and yet emerged brilliantly at the very top of their profession. Thus, the false narrative pushed by those who control the media has been deeply debunked by the tremendous success of Amy Barrett. She hurts their narrative, and the narrative of the abortion industry that claims that the only way a modern woman can stride to the top is if she has unrestricted access to abortion. Barrett confirmation ensures that women are deceived no longer.  Women do not necessarily have to choose their careers over family, love of children. It is actually the other way round for it can be argued that Justice Barrett may not have been where she is today but for her family.

True, her record breaking achievement is not a recent thing, having been practically a pace setter all her life. She graduated in English and literature with great honors and went on to study law at Notre Dame, graduating top of her class, a keen intellect, a scholar with formidable capacity, nevertheless evidence shows that having children only makes a sharp intellect keener. This second world view has been confirmed to be a better fulfilling world view, one that leads to even more enduring success by the testimony of so many women who have gone on to achieve surpassing greatness precisely because of their love for family and children. Singer and superstar Adele said that she overcome discouragement and the urge to give up singing when she had her child because she wanted her child to know “what his mother does”. Serena William won top world tennis championship after having a baby.

 At 48, Amy has shattered the entire glass ceiling in the legal and academic citadels and poised to become member of the US Supreme Court all the while juggling children, a husband and a child with special needs, in dramatic refutation of postmodernist feminist claims that family and children are obstacle to a woman’s dream. It would be inexcusable for anyone to believe these falsehoods from now on.

Furthermore, Amy’s nomination has put her in the spot light, bringing to lime light all good she has been doing secretly. She and her husband could have closed themselves up from the troubles of the world, enjoying their sheltered, blessed life of high success all by themselves. Yet they reached out to lend a hand to the less privileged, to the poor and made the decision to adopt two children from one of the most destitute countries in the world, Haiti. They lifted out those children, a boy and a girl, and brought them out of misery and into their own home, into their own lives, thus giving hope and a future to those who could not have dreamed off it.

The Barretts demonstrate that Christianity is not a theory to be espoused and not practiced, but a real dynamics that demands a radical commitment in those who choose to be called by that name. As Pope Francis says in his latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, “The “gospel” of save yourself is not the Gospel of salvation. It is the falsest of the apocryphal gospels, making others carry the cross. Whereas the true Gospel bids us take up the cross of others.” This action of the Barretts restores faith in humanity. Further evidence of Amy’s goodness came from a blind student who testified at the hearing saying that Amy Coney Barrett is the kindest and most generous professor she had ever had at the university and went on to narrate her story of arriving at Notre Dame as a blind student only to find out that the school did not have facilities for the blind, the type of laptop /brail she needed and finally finding herself flunking her grades went to Amy Barrett for help. After she had finished speaking, Amy told her, “Laura, this is no longer your problem it is my problem now,” and went on to solve all her problems.   

Finally, according to three presently serving female Governors in the US, Kay Ivey, Kristi Noem, & Kim Reynolds, “Should Judge Barrett be confirmed, “it will be a win-win for every female—young and old alike during the past 100 years—who has dreamed of seeing women advance to the top positions of our government.”

by Chinwuba Iyizoba