Bereavement faces many challenges.

The strikingly contradictory response to our bereavement from our loved ones who espouse strong religious, political or other personal beliefs can be quite jarring and indeed, even traumatizing.

Loved ones who espouse strong pro-life beliefs, specifically if they are someone who would be the quickest to say that elective abortion is the murder of a child, when they shun a mother who has experienced miscarriage or stillbirth be telling her, in word or action, to quickly “get over it”.

Loved ones who espouse strong pro-choice beliefs, specifically if they are someone who would be the quickest to proclaim freedom of a mother’s rights and choices, when they shun a mother who is experiencing bereavement and attempting to deny her the freedoms and the rights to explore and express her bereavement journey, these rights and freedoms they otherwise believe all mothers to have.

Dear loved ones, we need you to have an eye to your own hypocrisy, because it is wounding.  Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, it isn’t actually Roe v. Grief, and we need you to become pro-healing.