August 2012
necessary, about their bodies, the gift of their fertility, how their cycles reflect their health, how to know when they are fertile and when they are not fertile, how a pregnancy begins and develops, how the woman and the child are uniquely bonded, how abortion harms a woman both emotionally and physically, and how to effectively avoid or achieve pregnancy, and so on. We need to revision our sex education and begin treating fertility as a wonder and not a disease that needs to be eradicated. I do this myself by teaching women and couples the Creighton Model of FertilityCare, a well-researched method of avoiding or achieving pregnancy that is based on a woman’s individual cycle and is highly effective. If only I had know about this method when I worked in traditional OB-GYN! The key to reaching women and teaching our society about the sanctity of life is not through shouting or, I’m afraid, even through marching. The key is educating women and men, and that is a slower process than we might like. MN-Having, expressing and living by moral convictions is tough in a society that demands political correctness. How do we stand by moral convictions when faced with those that believe having a choice should be an option? CD-I believe that the personal, honest approach is always best. I can only relate my experience, my conversion, my beliefs and let them be accepted or rejected by another. I do not believe in force feeding either religion or beliefs—I know from personal experience that conversion occurs as it will, guided by the Holy Spirit, and in God’s good time. All I can do is sew seeds, gently and kindly, and trust that those seeds might grow. I remember very casual prolife remarks that were made to me when I was still wearing a “Keep your hands off my body” button or attaching “Pro-choice” bumper stickers to my car. At the time, I shrugged those remarks off—but they played around the edges of my mind and did their work. I now have a “Choose Life”
©August 2012 The Wordsmith Journal Magazine
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bumper sticker on my car. Who knows how many idling behind me at a stop light or passing me on the highway will remember those words, and days, weeks or years from now find themselves choosing life? We change others by our lived examples, much more than through argument. MN-In addition to penning your testimony and medical fiction, you’ve written poetry. What comes most natural for you to write? CD-I think that for many years poetry came more naturally to me, not that poems don’t require much revision and work. But the impetus of my writing more often took poetic form. I find now that prose comes to me a bit more easily, and yet my prose is often leaning toward the poetic. Now I find that one genre influences the other, and I can happily go back and forth between the two. Although I do find that if I’m working on a poetry collection, I don’t write any prose during those weeks, and vice versa. MN-Your single most important passion in life would be...... CD-Just one?! I have many important passions, among them my family, my writing, my work with women. But the most important? I think that for me the most important passion is, as I age, to continue to discover who I am, what I am called to do, how I am called to serve, how I can rightly praise, and how I can become holy within the confines of my earthly life. You can learn more about author Cortney Davis by visiting her website. To order any one of Davis’ books click on the title! To Begin Again Conversion / Return (poems) The Heart's Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing Between the Heartbeats: Poetry and Prose by Nurses
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