To add to the explanation of the complexity, I’d like to tell you a little story that happened to me last week. My daughter and I, and my sister-in-law and niece, were at Disney World to run a Half Marathon and a 10K race. We arrived late on a Thursday night, just past midnight. We were going to sleep in a bit in the morning, aiming to be on our way to get our race bibs by about 9:30 AM.

Now, it is my habit in hotel rooms to lock the door, latch it, but also put out the Do Not Disturb sign. The lock & latch are for intruders, of course, but the DND sign is primarily for Housekeeping. To me, one of the worst hotel things is when you’re attempting to sleep in after late travel, only to have Housekeeping knocking you out of sweet slumber. You are abruptly awakened and need to quickly talk to them and explain why they can’t come in — in the middle of your sleep oblivion.

All that to say: this is my habit, so I looked for the sign, but couldn’t find one. I asked my sister-in-law and she said that she’d heard that since the Las Vegas concert shooting in October 2017, hotels often don’t have Do Not Disturb signs anymore. The shooter had been stockpiling guns in his hotel room for 4 days with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. I don’t know if this is policy or practice or statute or what (or if my sister-in-law is mistaken), but the idea is that hotels should have the right to come in to the rooms at their discretion.

So . . . on the one hand, I get it. The hotel owns the property. They should be able to take steps to avoid their property being used to stockpile weapons for a mass shooting. On the other hand, I had this tiny, little twinge of feeling that my privacy was being violated. Tiny. Just a moment. To be frank, I’m someone that thinks about my freedoms or privacy all that much. And in that moment, I thought that I may have captured how some people feel more broadly about their rights potentially being violated with proposed gun laws.

The truth is that with freedom comes responsibility and with safety comes a loss of freedom. To some extent. It is unavoidable. The question is to what extent are we able to tolerate the loss of freedom.

If we deny that there is loss of freedom with security and safety, I think we dismiss a truth. If we dismiss it, I think we won’t come up with real and workable solutions that we, the people, will actually agree on.

Think about it.

Let’s take another example, maybe one less controversial, so I can explain what I mean. Let’s take home-birth midwives. Now, I recognize that many of us wouldn’t choose birthing with a midwife or birthing at home, but we likely all know people who choose that path. And I would want women who want that to be able to do it. My sister birthed at home. I was there. It was amazing.

There are lots of state regulations about home-birth midwives. In some states, anyone can be the midwife. There is a long history of mentor-ship and apprentice-ship, the way that it happened in the Bible and even in frontier days and around the globe today. Women learned from women. In the U.S., they’re called Direct Entry Midwives. They learn on the job. No particular schooling is required. They’re not licensed. But they know their stuff. Those are some of the safest births and some of the most knowledgeable women about birth that you can find, the world around.

In some states, in the interest of protecting babies, there are laws making it illegal for Direct Entry Midwives to birth babies. Some states have laws saying that you have to be a CNM: Certified Nurse Midwife. This means you have a BSN (Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing), which typically requires 5 years of schooling post-high school. In addition, there is extra schooling and licensing specifically about pregnancy, labor, delivery, and newborn care. So, in some states, the decades of woman-to woman training that has created unmedicated, safe, and wonderful birthing environments for babies is illegal. These midwives, depending upon the state where they practice, could be arrested and jailed for attending a home birth and participating in the care of the mother.

What this means is that there aren’t many Direct Entry Midwives in those states (IL is one), which means that there are fewer birthing options available to Moms in Illinois. Indeed, birthing centers (a home-like environment that isn’t a hospital — another alternative) have been illegal in IL until a couple years ago.

So, if you lived in Oregon, for example, you could choose to birth at home with a woman who’d birthed countless babies as a Direct Entry Midwife, but in IL you couldn’t do that without risking the midwife breaking the law and getting arrested.

Concerns about safety create a loss of privacy and a loss of freedom.

Now, you might fall on either side of this issue. You might feel that women should be able to choose how they labor and deliver. Or maybe you think the risk is too great and Direct Entry Midwives should not be permitted. Either way, I believe we must acknowledge that when you seek to gain security or safety and reduce risk, you often choose to lose freedom.

Hopefully, it’s not accidental. Hopefully, it’s calculated and thoughtful.

Because it’s complicated.

Giving away our freedoms is something that should not be taken lightly.

Complicated. And I’m afraid that both ads (the original and the parody) paint a simplistic picture. I agree with the Sarah Chadwick’s parody. And yet, some won’t even hear her, because they won’t get beyond the fact that she’s not acknowledging the loss of freedom connected with these issues.

I desperately wish there were safe places to discuss these things. Even posting this feels a little dangerous, a little vulnerable. Everyone just shouts opinions at each other. We will never solve anything that way.