At the very beginning of my life, Roe v. Wade debuted in the Supreme Court. We’ve grown up together, and to say the least, things are complicated between us.

Yes, this is about the recent fetal heartbeat law in Texas. See, Roe is the Forever War of my whole lifetime, and in a freakishly brilliant missile strike against Roe, the new Texas law declares abortion illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is roughly six weeks. To avoid Federal interference, the State will not enforce the law itself. Instead, it opens the door for legal avalanches on any party that aids an abortion. Civil, not criminal lawsuits are encouraged and state courtrooms are provided to legislate them. Abortion providers and even private citizens are now open targets for endless court battles which will tie up time and resources. The law does not criminalize the expectant mother, but adding both insult and injury, it provides no exception for rape and incest survivors.

Try as they may, the Supreme Court is unable to block this. The Heartbeat Law skates around each letter of Roe and then uses its skate blades to eviscerate Roe’s spirit. Speaking academically, I can’t help but marvel at such a thing. It’s the definition of evil genius, as if a Bond villain were asked to write a law on gun control. It solves one problem by opening a Pandora’s box of others. Want to forget about your toothache? Shoot yourself in the foot. Want to stop genocide of the unborn? Raise an army of civil court bounty hunters, and let them loose in the state legal system. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Full disclosure: I oppose Roe v. Wade. I do not like the death of children. I am emotionally triggered by the death of unborn children, and if you need to hate me for anything else, here: I find cosplay protests ridiculous – particularly the ones where I must watch middle class white women like myself, dressed up as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s not that I think there’s no point, I think there is one. But this war of my entire lifetime has taught me that we are fighting over the wrong thing. Roe v. Wade is a zero-sum game where either a baby or a woman must be sacrificed. At the end of it, there is no winner, and each party either dies or comes to harm.

So after 50 years, may I ask a different question? Why is Roe v. Wade really Baby v. Me?

I can partially answer that myself. In a way, Baby v. Me is the mental devolution of an unplanned, inconvenient pregnancy. If you can, imagine yourself preparing for college, only to find out that you’re pregnant. Or, imagine that your family of eight has no money, and you’ve just missed your period. Worse, imagine that you’re on the verge of escaping an abusive household only to find out a baby’s coming. The university may not welcome pregnant students. The money shortage may mean that everyone is already starving. The abuser who discovers a pregnancy will certainly use it to control their victim.

Maybe you don’t have to imagine it, maybe I have just described you. If I have, I am deeply sorry.

Roe v. Wade grew out of a failure of freedom. Women in 1971 rose up in the society of their day with Choice as a battlecry. Choice is a freedom word, uniquely American, and even sacred. It’s the gift God gave in the Garden; a open door to co-creation and a green light for taking risks and owning outcomes. Choice is the root of personal responsibility and gift many Christians believe that God continues to give.

It’s also the first right that a totalitarian system steals from its citizens, and the first thing an abusive partner revokes. American society, backed by law, once held a woman hostage if pregnancy occurred at all, no questions asked, no solutions offered. And so, Roe.

But on the other hand, “choice” in an unplanned pregnancy is where this gets complicated. If abortion were truly birth control, it would reverse the clock and successfully erase conception. Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. Pregnancy is unpredictable and once it happens, it’s as inevitable as a car crash. In fact, if you consider that a baby’s arrival in the womb already takes agency away from their mother, it’s easy to understand the anger of young women who argue that it’s not a person but a “parasite.” Imagine yourself in that position and you’ll also say, “No uterus? Stop talking.”

Well, I’ve got a uterus, so I’m talking. Failure of choice is the problem that Planned Parenthood purports to solve, despite its embarrassing roots in racially biased eugenics. The part that doesn’t make it into their “get your choice back” marketing is that termination is not a one-way ticket out of the pregnancy. It’s just a shortcut to a failed one. Knowing the hell that waits at the end of a failed pregnancy, the term “women’s health” as an equivalent to “abortion” literally turns my stomach. I can report that I experienced every stage of my three pregnancies as an irreversible constant. The baby was conceived, implanted, was born alive or died, but the clock never turned itself back.

So from my perspective, the “choice” that’s left after conception is not how to “undo” it. It’s a choice of who survives, and in what condition.

At this point, I guess it’s fair to expect some boilerplate “both sides” argument. I’m going to skip past the insipid if I can. but if that disappoints you, then here’s a present:

• Planned Parenthood = Evil
• Heartbeat Law = Evil

See, “Both Sides” get to be winners. I am the Oprah of two-dimensional debates. But in my world, both sides are actually losers. I’ll explain.

Remember what I said before: the end of a pregnancy is an injury, not an “out,” and it’s irreversible. Rewind and imagine the college student who may be pregnant. While it’s not legal in a federally funded college, some universities may still reject or shun pregnant students. Hypocritically, a Christian college I attended even recommended abortions for the pregnant young women who wanted to continue studying. Next, imagine the starving family with another child on the way, and then imagine the abused woman. Their choices? End life or end a life. Captivity or death.

And this is why women in America march in white hats and crimson habits that they copied from the Hulu channel: because the idea that a law should determine what happens when our periods don’t arrive is, at its core, invasive. Do similar laws exist to track the fathers of unplanned children? Does a teenage boy go have sex and then receive an ankle monitor? Is rape an easy crime to solve? Well, why not?

And so, speaking as someone “with a uterus,” who would not wish a lost pregnancy on my worst enemy, I’m going to try and help out the Anti-Roes. I’m assuming that the primary objective is to save children. All children, I mean – since many of the pregnant “women” in question are in fact children themselves.

A person who has just discovered she is pregnant, and doesn’t want to be pregnant, needs:

• A listener: Someone please sit with her in silence. No agenda, no expectations. Don’t coach her and please don’t congratulate her. She is changed forever, and she’s grieving. Adjust your behavior accordingly
• Agency: Help her find what power she has, however small.
• Privacy: Give her control of her own information for as long possible. Time to talk to others is coming, but leave her alone for now.
• Information: Rule of thumb for all – Don’t lie, don’t candy-coat.
  • Is it reversible? This realization will be hard.
  • What are her actual choices? If abortion is legal, say so.
  • What happens if the pregnancy ends? Just the facts.
  • What about pregnancy support programs and adoption? How much control does she have over that process?
  • How will she feel about the baby after she sees it for the first time? Don’t lie, but don’t argue with her – she may still be angry at the unborn child.
  • How long to “get back to normal?”
  • What’s the “up-side?” Find one. This matters.
  • Don’t try to sell her your POV, she’s smarter than you think.
• A way forward: There’s the trick. And see below.

Except for bullet #5, “A way forward,” worldwide programs already exist which do an incredible job of dealing with unplanned pregnancies. It would be unkind of me not to acknowledge that there are bright lights in the Pro-Life universe. Among them are groups who fight the death penalty, euthanasia, and abortion all at the same time. Some take up legal causes for young women who might otherwise be forced into abortions, and others provide full financial support for mothers who cannot afford to have their babies.

But despite all of the good deeds done by private organizations, the legal context of unplanned pregnancy still has only two teeth: captivity or death. Baby v. Me. And so with bullet #5, we’re back to “where’s the undo button?” Hard truth: there isn’t one.

In the face of that reality, many Texans are now celebrating a legal victory for the unborn. I wish I could join. Unfortunately, this “victory” lost the hearts and minds of the public, and fueled a firestorm of righteous anger. Many women and girls who need help are now even further out to sea. I fear that this law and its fallout will haunt Pro-Life, and ultimately spawn something that is even more evil.

But I also pray that it’s not too late to make some changes.

Pro-Lifers, if saving people is the end game, I suggest we start with ourselves. For every hammer strike on the monument of Roe v. Wade, strike twice on the hypocrisy of anti-choice. Remembering that choice is God’s gift, become a Title IX watchdog and punish pregnancy discrimination in universities, not a young woman’s friends. Build infrastructure that will guarantee a pregnant high school student success in her studies, and allow her to keep her baby if she chooses. Fight for the rights of pregnancy in the workplace, create or enforce labor laws which safeguard families and encourage new babies. Fund the unplanned children of impoverished families, so they don’t have to die by the scalpel or by starvation. Solve rape and domestic violence cases, help the abused and the suffering, and exorcise the demons who haunt battered women. Heal the hurting, love the abandoned, create a culture of real welcome for new babies and new mothers, and we will save more children than you can imagine.

This civil war may end if one party takes the high road and not the collision course. But here’s a harder challenge: while crusading for the unborn, remember that there are two lives in the balance, two humans with rights. Don’t take choice away. That’s going to require some ingenuity . . . but look, if there’s a legal brain who can write the diabolical Heartbeat Law, surely the same talent could craft a True Choice law. Sounds impossible, it will take a lot of faith, so I will start. I believe it’s possible, and I hope to see it in my lifetime.

Congratulations to Texas lawmakers, sure. But to quote Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), it’s not enough to win. “It’s how we win that matters.”