The book begins with an unexpected and supernatural pregnancy. It also takes place in the modern day. At least at the moment, abortion is a legal option the protagonist would have.

Because of that, I knew I needed to think about the topic of abortion.

It’s Complicated

The situation is particularly complicated for Tara, the main character.

She has no reason to believe that she’s pregnant, as she’s never engaged in sexual intercourse. So it takes her some time to go to a college campus health center when she misses periods. When they tell her she’s pregnant, she assumes there was a mistake, which is what anyone would think in her circumstances.

The Awakening begins when Tara’s doctor tells her the second pregnancy test also is positive.

The two engage in a frank discussion of how pregnancy could possibly have happened. (In retrospect, the discussion was probably a little too frank. I’m sure it got me ruled out of certain advertising sites early on in the book’s life.)

The doctor has known Tara a long time and believes that she hasn’t engaged in activities that could lead to pregnancy. She does follow-up tests to be sure nothing else is wrong.

Once tests confirm the pregnancy the doctor raises the question of abortion.

She tells Tara she’ll need to make a decision quickly. The state where she lives, Missouri, puts a definite timeframe on when a woman can terminate a pregnancy. That deadline is quickly approaching.

This strikes Tara as extremely unfair. She had no reason to think she was pregnant and has just found out about it. It’s hard for her to think this through so quickly.

The Characters’ Views On Abortion

Minor spoiler below:

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Tara opts to continue her pregnancy. (If she hadn’t, it would have made for a very short book.)

Down the road (literally and figuratively) Tara talks with Cyril, an aspiring deacon from a religious Order that believes Tara’s child will have significance for the world as a messiah.

Cyril idealizes Tara. He says he’s so impressed that she never even considered abortion. To him, that adds to her perfection, as he sees abortion as wrong. He assumes Tara feels the same because her family, and her dad in particular, are very Catholic.

Tara says of course she considered it. It would be a way to put her life back to what she feels it should be. She abstained from sex because she understood how much responsibility and work were involved in parenting and she wanted to wait until she finished college and began medical school before taking any chances on becoming pregnant.

I felt no matter what her views on abortion overall might be, she wouldn’t be human if it didn’t cross her mind that terminating the pregnancy would return her to “normal” life.

Specific Reasons

Unique circumstances also surround Tara’s decision to have her baby.

Her youngest sister is struggling with cancer and may well have a very short life. It would be hard for Tara not to see her decision about continuing her pregnancy or not in connection with her little sister’s possible death.

Also, Tara has a wonderful support system.

It’s true that many of her friends and family fail her when she tells them about her pregnancy. But their reactions are about her being unable to explain how she became pregnant and their fears that she is either not being up front with them or is struggling with mental illness.

Had her pregnancy been a typical one, she would have had a lot of emotional support and as much financial help as her parents and boyfriend were able to offer. Her boyfriend and she probably would have gotten married, just a little bit earlier than planned. (Whether that would have been a good thing is another question.)

Why The Open Questions

That no one other than Cyril expresses a strong view on whether abortion is moral in Tara’s circumstances, or any circumstances, was what, for me, fit the story. The plot is about Tara’s unique experience and not about political issues.

It also reflects my belief that well-intentioned people with strong beliefs can differ for understandable reasons, whether or not I agree with them.

As I learned when researching a short nonfiction book about whether Catholic views about women influenced a U.S. Supreme Court decision on birth control (see How the Virgin Mary Influenced The United States Supreme Court: Catholics, Contraceptives, and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc.) they also differ on how they define the terms of the debate.

One reason the abortion debate is so complex is that medicine has a specific definition of abortion, and the Vatican uses a different one.

This difference means that the same statement by two different people can mean two entirely different things. Listeners or other people who join the debate might or might not know that.

What I strove for throughout the entire Awakening Series was to avoid black-and-white answers.

Most characters, including those who oppose Tara, believe they are doing what’s best for humanity.

No one, including Tara, gets an easy answer to “What’s the right thing to do in this situation?”

In the end, I hope this choice made for a more compelling story.

That’s all for today. Stop by next Wednesday when I’ll talk about why Cyril was my favorite character (after Tara) in The Awakening.

The post Questions, Abortion, And The Awakening Supernatural Thriller Series appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

After hearing about my mother’s concerns, the youth group leader pointed me to a section of the New Testament, which I’d also heard quoted in Catholic mass, where Jesus says basically that he comes not to unite but to divide:

“Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; ….They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Years later, I shared a draft of a supernatural thriller chapter with my writers’ group. In it, a character quoted part of the above language. A group member who was Christian said I should not make up Bible verses. He didn’t believe me that the gospel of Luke included this section. When I showed him the source of the quote at our next meeting, he suggested I include the citation in the dialogue. I did. (Luke 12:52-53.) I figured if my friend didn’t believe this statement was in the Bible, readers might not either.

I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot lately with all the publicity about the clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, an elected official, refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. According to a Wall Street Journal article I read, one of her reasons is that gay marriage is against her religion, and she does not want her signature on a certificate allowing it. According to the Journal, she also rejected a proposed compromise where a deputy who was willing to do so would sign in her place. The clerk is Apostolic Christian.

In the Chicago area, which is where I grew up, Catholicism is a fairly common Christian denomination. In 2014, according to Sperling’s BestPlaces, 38% of Chicago residents were Catholic compared to 19% in the rest of the country. Catholicism prohibits divorce, as well as remarriage after divorce. Yet I am not aware of any Catholic Cook County clerks or judges refusing to sign orders granting divorces or refusing to sign marriage licenses for people who, like the clerk in Kentucky, have previously been married and divorced.

There could be a few reasons for that. For one thing, right now at least, divorce is more common than gay marriage. Even Pope Francis recently tacitly recognized that. And the Cook County clerk’s office and court system are extremely busy. So perhaps Catholic clerks and judges would simply find it too difficult to refuse to sign every single order allowing a divorce or license for remarriage that comes before them. Also, many Catholics don’t follow that particular rule of their own church, so perhaps they feel it is impractical to expect people who don’t share their religion to follow it. Or it could be that Catholicism as a whole is more open to the idea that not everyone subscribes to every church rule. There is even a name for people who profess to be Catholics but reject the Church’s teachings on numerous points, from attending mass every Sunday to eschewing artificial birth control to remarrying after a divorce: “cafeteria Catholics.” Perhaps the Apostolic Christian church is more hard line about members adhering to all the rules, and so members also feel more obligated to not appear to condone non-members living by different rules.

The Richard J. Daley Center plaza in downtown Chicago.

Finally, Rowan County had about 23,000 people in 2013, while Cook County had about 5.24 million. The larger county makes it easier to recognize something that seems lost in the current debate. An order issued by a court or a certificate issued by a clerk’s office are exactly that. They are documents issued by a government office, not by a person. As a lawyer, when I file a motion asking the court to issue a certain order, I file the motion with the court itself, despite that it will be heard by a particular judge. And though a particular judge signs an order to grant a divorce or dismiss a case, the judge rules not based on her personal beliefs about questions such as abortion, sentencing of juveniles, divorce, or birth control but based on the law. Likewise, the person who holds the office of Cook County Clerk changes, but whoever holds the office must follow the same laws. Cook County Clerk David Orr’s signature appears on both my parents’ death certificates. But that doesn’t make me think he knows anything about how they died or that he could testify one way or another based on personal knowledge whether they are living or deceased. This sounds obvious in a county of over five million people. In a county with 23,000, it’s probably much easier to forget that the person holding an office is not acting as himself or herself but as the government office. This may be the most important reason that I’ve never heard of officials in Cook County who happen to be Catholic refusing to appear to take part in divorces or in divorcees remarrying.

I haven’t read most of the web traffic about the issue of the county clerk in Kentucky, and I’ve been avoiding the comments from political candidates. If I read everything, though, I’m sure it would show strong feelings on every side, including differences among those who belong to Christian churches. Whether you think Jesus was a real historical figure or not or whether you think he was quoted accurately if he was, the statement about religion dividing people was perceptive. It holds as true today as it did two thousand years ago.

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