Week 16: Write about an innocent, but controversial opinion you have

Not sure if you’ve seen How I Met Your Mother, but I had a rather controversial opinion about how it ended. So obviously, if you have not seen the show but plan to watch it, spoilers lie before you.

I loved the ending back in 2014. I thought, “Wow. What a full circle moment! Ted and Robin, together! Finally!” I would argue in favor of this ending with entirely way too much fervor. But at the time, that was the ending I found appropriate. Ted and Robin were always meant to be together, but the timing was never right—at least, that was how I saw it in 2014. Sometimes, we change our minds.

Six years later, I watched the show in its entirely again. This time, the show was completed, and I wasn’t watching episodes one week at a time. This time, I was also six years older and had personally experienced partnership and love in its truest and purest form, and my heart changed. Quite honestly, this moment turned out to be kind of cringy.

In watching it late last year, I saw Ted as Robin’s safety plan. I saw Robin reject him repeatedly in kind, honest, and tender ways, not because she wasn’t ready for commitment, but because she knew he was a better friend to her than a lifelong partner. In other words, I saw a woman make her intentions clear for nine seasons. In the end, he begged, once again, for her commitment at a time when she was lonely and vulnerable. It made my stomach churn.

Now for my controversial opinion: I am sick and tired of this “white knight” mentality. Figuratively and literally, women do not need men to save us.

Listen, I love my husband with every inch of my being. I’m so lucky to have found someone who understands me, is patient with me, listens to me (way better than I listen to him. Sorry, Nathan.), and who does not expect anything from me because I am female. He’d stand by and wait for me to give him the go-ahead to slap someone publicly. I’m so fortunate.

He also wouldn’t make a decision for me on my behalf. When I say that I am pro-choice, I am not saying I am onboard with abortion, however, I am saying that I am onboard with women. I’m onboard with bodily autonomy and the government staying out of my doctor’s visits and my pharmaceutical needs. I’m deeply concerned about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and I have to say something. I can’t sit ideally by and just boil in frustration when I see women post that they think this will create an increase in adoption. Adoption is NOT the solution to abortion.

I want to know that every pregnancy has a chance of being safe, and there are cases where this is just not the case. There are situations where both baby and mother will die if an abortion isn’t an option. What message are we sending to women? What message are we sending to expectant mothers with severe complications? That we’d rather them die?

There are cases that are so dark and heartbreaking that I can’t help but want to scream when I hear that a court of mostly men might choose to make those cases even darker and even more heartbreaking. I can’t stand by and watch people suffer. People who have wealth and/or a light pigment like mine, please know that we are protected in a way that people who are struggling financially, and people who do not look like me, will suffer. All I ask is that you learn and empathize. I ask that you learn more about why this even exists.

I used to be pro-life. I used to be dyed in the wool. But that wool was a costume, and I’ve met people who saw through it. There are people in my life who have transformed me, who opened my eyes to what’s really happening in the world beyond my bubble, and I am eternally grateful. You can be a Christian and be pro-choice. I am. I have prayed extensively about this, and I do not feel less loved.

You can be a Christian who wants the government to stay out of your medical business. You can be a Christian who wants to see “pro-life” played out through gun control, environmental protections, and employer regulations that allow parents to spend more than six weeks (four in the case of my employer) on maternity/family leave to allow the mother to recover from her LIFE-CHANGING procedure and for a new child, that new born who in their most fetal form the government seems to care about only until the second they enter this world. Alas, medical costs are outrageous, employer practices are restrictive, and that little life must rely on someone to save it. Who is going to save it? Are you? Seriously, are you? Truthfully, I’m absolutely terrified to carry a child. Terrified now more than ever before.

So yeah, Ted and Robin should not have ended up together. That restaurant should have been able to keep their blue French horn, and Ted’s kids could have listened to way fewer stories about their dad’s escapades of his 20s.