Immaculate Deception
--Danieal KellyThey only hit until you cry
And after that you don't ask why
You just don't argue anymore
--Luka, Suzanne Vega
--Ruth, you listen to me! Don't you do it!
What if I'd aborted you?
--Well at least I wouldn't have had to
suck your boyfriend's cock!
--Don't you bring that up again! That's ancient history!
I've been saved!
--Citizen Ruth (1996)
______________
"Abortion: The Ultimate Child Abuse" is the rallying cry of the Right to Lifers. It papers billboards throughout the Southeast. We beg to differ with the sentiment.
The ultimate child abuse IS child abuse, and it happens every day of the week in every city. We only get to hear about the sensational cases.
How about Danieal Kelly, 14, whose mother pled guilty last week to starving her child to death. Danieal, a cerebral palsy victim, was kept sequestered in a room on a mattress soaked in her own excrement, her last words begging her little brother for a sip of water.
Or the mom last month in Orlando who killed her son "to save him" (she must've been reading some COIN from Vietnam days), she being the Antichrist who felt she would usher in 1,000 years of peace by so doing. (To her credit, she was confused as to why she was the Antichrist, since her bible led her to believe that privilege should fall to a man.)
But the ultimate child abuse might be the ongoing verbal and/or physical cruelty suffered quietly by children in dysfunctional families, or lives spent in an impersonal foster care system which merely profits by their presence.
In The Principle at Stake at Notre Dame last week, The WaPo's Kathleen Parker writes on abortion, "It has always seemed to me that the truest form of feminism. . . would be to hold abhorrent the state-sanctioned destruction of women's unique life-bearing gifts."
How very disingenuous of Ms. Parker, who issues the typical conservative clap-trap wrapped in high-mindedness. In fact, the highest form of humanism would be to oppose actual "state-sanctioned destruction" of these "gifts" (=humans), which would be to oppose war. But she and her ilk will never raise themselves to that height.
Abortion is a finality; abuse is a beginning.
Suffer the children, indeed.
Labels: abortion, child abuse
posted by Lisa at 7:45 PM
33 Comments:
Hmm, definitely a subjective subject fraught with pits of arguments, emotions, and no end of banal rhetoric.
I say pox on both houses, but as you well know, that is just my "humble" opinion.
Here, let me go back put in quote brackets my snark...brb...
For me, I see inconsistency on the part of my side of the aisle, and so I will agree...there is an inconsistent positional thinking that allows a punitive statements against abortion, and yet a incomprehensible, quite predatory, lust filled wantonness for war, executions, and all things that subject the mind, will, and spirit to the dictates of a merciless individual, or it's collective without question, or dispute.
Combined with the other side of the aisle where exists a robust arrogance that emphasizes the trite dismissal of the spiritual dimensions of abortion and it's affect on mothers while emphasizing that rather than abortion being a necessary evil, it is a wondrously "good" thing.
Put these two groups together, and there exists a toxic cocktail of irreconcilable differences...an extant divorce before the vows are exchanged.
/sigh
I was asked "what would Jesus do?" by both parties, different times, but both were seeking to "rankle" me, or quite possibly put me in my place.
I'm not sure...but one made me sad, the other...just plain exasperated me to no end.
I said, "Jesus would tell the woman to have faith, to have hope, and to trust in him. If that did not persuade her, I'm quite certain he would go in with her to comfort her as she allowed the life in her to be taken out."
For the pro abortion individual, she was quite satisfied that I wasn't a rabid idiot, and walked away, though I suspect she did not understand what I was talking about when I mentioned the part about having faith, hope, and trust in something she could not see, touch, or smell. For me, I think that was the greater tragedy than the lost of a first trimester fetus.
The other person, he...yeah...that didn't end well.
Sheerah,
I would say it is not as simple as "a pox on both houses," though surely it is a cause celebre for everyone. That is why "Citizen Ruth" is a good film.
I simply cannot stand holier-than-thou hypocrisy -- from anyone. I can't imagine anyone saying or thinking abortion was a "wondrously 'good' thing." It is a bad and sad thing, utilized in desperate scenarios.
Given that, when my grandmother recounted the tale of actual rats in the basement during her abortion in NYC, I think any sane and kind person would say, "Let her have sanitary conditions -- at least that."
My intention in the piece was to raise the thought that there might be abuses worse than abortion. In fact, the ultimate and most subversive "state abuse" -- using Parker's term-- may be growing up those fetuses into children who are later killed in the state's name.
My thinking goes beyond the reality of abortion, in attempting to deny access to facile arguments. The "faith, hope and trust" you mention are wonderful qualities, and a person would do well enlisting them in whatever their choices may be.
There is child abuse worse than abortion.
I find it very confusing - the staunchest right-to-lifers also seem to be the most gung-ho in the "war on terror". Like, American fetuses are sacrosanct but dead and maimed Iraqi kids are just collateral damage. During the bombardment of Fallujah all the American media could talk about was whether or not it was OK to unplug Terry Schiavo. They seem totally oblivious to this disconnect, but it seems pretty schizophrenic to me. How can people be so adamant about protecting a cluster of cells the size of a grape that may someday be human, or a vegetable who used to be a human, while holding such callous disregard for the fate of real live thinking feeling people? I just don't get it.
Kootenay brings up the point that abortion does not entail children, at all. A fetus is not a living being.
I can't stand the partisanship around issues which are simply human ones. Why do Republicans embrace the human "vegetables" or non-human "grapes", yet offer little regard for the very alive incidental losses of war? I am at a loss.
Is it easier for them to stand on the high pedestal of their bible, to agitate for something that doesn't really exist? Real people can be messy, after all.
A false sense of superiority, ethnocentrism, ignorance, hatred, . . .
"How can people be so adamant about protecting a cluster of cells the size of a grape that may someday be human, or a vegetable who used to be a human, while holding such callous disregard for the fate of real live thinking feeling people?" Let us concede that those people are hypocrites. I'm with you there. However,let us also accept basic biology. Those "cells" won't grow into a turnip or elephant. They are human with human DNA. Regarding Schiavo, she wasn't a vegetable that used to be human - she was human! Her inherent dignity as a human was no less than any of ours.
Let's also keep in mind that obscure document that says we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Note the order - life comes first. And we are created by - gasp! - something other than the State, which gives us our rights. Furthermore, we are not guaranteed happiness, only the chance to pursue it.
Do any of our rights matter if our most fundamental right is taken away? If we make the case that the life of an innocent human being can be snuffed out because it's not far enough down the line of physical development, or it's retarded or a vegetable, or simply unwanted...well, think what else can be justified.
Cmarc
Lisa,
You stated that you can't imagine anyone "saying or thinking abortion was a "wondrously 'good' thing." Our culture celebrates a woman's "right to choose." Isn't enacting that choice a good thing? Exercising our right of free speech is good, right?
You also said "It is a bad and sad thing, utilized in desperate scenarios." Sounds a lot like the torture situation to me. Hopefully, we can just make torture "safe, rare and legal."
i come to my support of the right to choose from a very conservative place.
i've never been able to reconcile the differing viewpoints of the so-called conservatives who while trumpeting their "guvmint is eeeeviiillll and incompetent," calls they can also countenence a level of government intrusion into private life and affairs on a scale this large.
do you want "diaper dan" vitter, or larry craig sitting in your doctor's office? i fucking don't.
my support for a woman's reproductive rights stems from the plain and simple fact that what happpens when a woman visits the doctor is none of my fucking business and none of yours either.
and as far as calling abortion "child abuse" that's just stupid. silly, and stupid.
anon,
Again, this is not a religious issue but a human one (which you agree takes primacy.)
Your creator-endowed rights are delegated to humans ["men"] (not even animals), and vaporize as soon as the state sees fit to dissolve its partnership with "the Creator" (which could be cthulu from universe 56.)
That is my only point: Someone like Parker is disingenuous to cry over the "state" destroying of "women's unique life-bearing gifts," when she really has NO problem with the state-sanctioned destruction of those gifts, in the form of often needless wars.
That is all. I believe my point is sound. I am not entering into the abortion debate, for that itself is stupid partisanship. See "Citizen Ruth" for the idea, in which it sounds like you already play a part.
[Conservatives and liberals, atheists and religious affiliates, rich and poor, all get abortions for one reason or another.
Maybe the rhythm method didn't work, and there are already 10 mouths to feed. . . Yes, I know all the rhetoric about the happy families ready to take your crack baby, so please spare me.]
To the other anon,
That's the point: Make it safe, and make it so that it's not the only option, as in Ceauşescu's Romania.
Make no mistake, ignorance on the matter of birth control abounds, and the Pope still can't bring himself to sanction it -- in 2009! As we approach population overload, this is insane.
For many of the rabid conservative stripe, if they could get out of their box for a moment, and were asked, "Do you want more Somali pirates, more poor and angry Iraqis, Palestinians (fill in the blank)," they might blink, and go right back to nattering on about the sanctity of life...
Meanwhile, watch the news to discover how cheap life really is. That is the core problem, and if we could ever truthfully address that one, a large chunk of misery would evaporate from the face of the planet.
I agree about Parker. I'm no fan of her. But when you say "I am not entering into the abortion debate, for that itself is stupid partisanship," what does that mean? Interchange the words "torture" for "abortion" and see what you get. If the term "abortion" is too loaded, then call it something else. What we are ultimately discussing is where do our rights come from. If there is a right to kill innocent human beings, without due process, then there is a right to torture without due process. As the Right has its hypocrites and shodding thinking, so does the Left.
For whom is the abortion made "safe"? Certainly not for the child that has her limbs severed and skull punctured. A few days ago, Ranger said something for a different situation, but the thought applies here: "The term 'victim' should be reserved for someone truly innocent, who had no hand in their situation."
Ad hominem attacks aside, if one were to actually look at the full scope of the Church's teaching (that's where the fire is really being directed - not just the current pope), one would see that the Church has consistent, rational arguements to make against abortion and contraception, as well as unjust war and torture. Neither the rabid left nor rabid right agrees with it. For those who have a moment to step outside their "box," they might read Humanae Vitae or Theology of the Body. Or read what Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies has to say about the pope's contraception take: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5987155.ece.
Minstrel Boy,
You said "my support for a woman's reproductive rights stems from the plain and simple fact that what happpens when a woman visits the doctor is none of my fucking business and none of yours either."
With all due respect, you have written some powerful commentary and poetry about your experiences. You wrote about hearing the cries of dying men. I could ask, why are you relating that? Why do you care? Is that our business? At least they had the ability to fire back and have someone hear their screams. When a baby is aborted, it screams, but who hears it? If you haven't already seen it, watch the Silent Scream: http://www.silentscream.org/
I know Lisa doesn't want to turn this into an abortion debate - but that's hard to do, given the subject of her post. So let me return to the torture issue. Why is it any of my business what the government does to some middle east scumbag?
To an anon (if you're more than one, pls. identify as anon #1, #2...):
Please don't twist my words.
"It is a bad and sad thing, utilized in desperate scenarios." Sounds a lot like the torture situation to me.Abortion is not akin to torture in any sense of the word. Torture is levels beyond abortion; in fact, it is not even comparable.
Lisa,
I think I'm the only Anon. I don't have a username yet, so I'll temporarily sign as "C."
You will have to explain to me how torture is levels beyond abortion. I can only assume you are talking about the amount or duration of physical pain being induced. My point is that both violate the dignity and rights of human beings. Both are morally wrong. And regarding the duration of pain - talk to the women who years later are suffering moral and spiritual anguish over their abortions. There are even long lasting physical side affects, such as infertility. I'm also aware of - through a nurse friend -a woman in intensive care suffering awful side affects from a legal and supposedly "safe" 5 month term abortion.
I don't think I twist your words - I think I'm following them to their logical conclusion. First, what do we classify as a desperate scenario? Of the MILLIONS of abortions that have occured in our country alone, can you classify which ones of those were out of desperation or convenience? Would you be willing to restrict abortions in cases of convenience, but not desperation? That's near impossible to do.
Your criticism of the hyprocrites on the right, like Parker, are justified and correct. But it needs to be applied in the abortion direction as well. Otherwise, those on the right can say "Well, torture is bad and I don't advocate it, but there might be an instance where we have to do it." Isn't that what has been done already? After all, Bush and Co. tout that they kept us safe from another 9/11. They could argue that torture saves thousands of lives. What is the benefit of abortion?
In the case of slavery, we justified that by classifying people as property and not being fully human. In torture, we classify people as "evil doers" and imminent threats to our security. In abortion, we classify developing human beings as a clump of cells or a woman's "choice." Whatever the situation, we seem pretty good at denying the humanity of our fellow men.
I think I've hogged up enough space on your blog for one day. Thanks for your time.
C
abortion was for Republican operatives a very deliberate wedge issue.... a moral conundrum that defies draconian control and can never be satisfied by definitive legislation. by their own alleged standards of maximizing individual liberty, the locus of human decision for such as beginning and end-life concerns should devolve to the individual level.... with perhaps the provision of social and medical resources. instead they made a circus of abortion making it near impossible to manage from the perspective of public policy, and insulted the intelligence of every American in the Terry Schiavo affair (which in so many ways backfired on them). these issues are impossible to manage in an absolutist manner as matters of State. and those hollow men, those Republicans knew that..... it's for us, or against us.... this or that..... black or white. a litmus.... do you believe or not..... no nuance, no shades of gray, no reality.
they have solved nothing.... they can solve nothing. they are small, ignorant, self-aggrandizing, greedy bastards that would have government do anything other than its job regulating their avarice.
f*ck you
c.,
I appreciate that you are attempting to apply reason to the matter, but are still off-topic from the point of my post.
Torture is not commensurate to abortion. My equation was: If one is against the taking of women's dear "gifts", one need be consistent in their opposition.
The equation is taken from the anti-abortion playbook:
If one is opposed to the state "taking a life," then one must be opposed to the state taking a life. It is a tautology. Whether taken on the front end (if you accept a fetus is a viable life) or the back end (as an 18-year-old recruit), the state is taking a life.
Except it is too far of a stretch to apply the state measure to abortion, as no one compels a woman to have an abortion; however, arbitrary state wars are de riguer.
Out.
Perhaps it would be helpful to reframe the debate. The issue to me is not the sanctity of life, but that of sentience. Moral people will always mourn the death of a sentient being, even if it was someone they didn't know personally. Many of us mourn the death of animals we feel to be sentient. There are some who feel close to creatures lower down in the sentience department - fish-lovers, people with pet mantises. Few cry when a tree is cut down. Most people feel a sense of victory when they pull a weed. Personally, I wouldn't consider either a fetus under 90 days or Terry Schiavo to be sentient. To me a quick death is a mercy for someone who has been permanently rendered insentient. Also a quick death for a fetus with no prospects for any kind of decent life, especially when the development of that fetus into a human would destroy the lives of sentient people. By the time a child is borne, it is fully sentient - it's really difficult to make an informed estimate of when sentience develops, but only fringe lunatics think it begins at conception. As far as we can tell, sentience requires a brain - a cluster of cells just doesn't do it. A sentient being is something worth fighting to preserve and protect. The nightmare that some children have to live through (and die in) is unimaginable. To compare their abject misery to the abortion of an insentient fetus displays a dangerous ignorance.
pet mantises?
Mantises are really very charming creatures - I had the privilege of keeping company with a praying mantis for a while. They're quite popular pets in Japan.
i choose not to respond to anonymous cowards.
name yourself.
the position that i take is one of pure self interest.
you come from the position that abortion is murder. it's not. abortions have been around since the beginnings of human culture. there are herbs and other treatments that the apache healers have been using since the beginnings of our time. abortion is older than christ.
you have every right to believe what you will. you have every right do that publicly.
you have no right. no fucking right at all to insist that anyone else believe along with you.
you are taking a moral stand that will not allow for the validity of anyone else's view. we are not allowed to disagree with you without also disagreeing with your god.
i do disagree. insist on all the moral conditions you wish. in your own house. stay the fuck out of mine.
that is not negotiable.
Perhaps another time Lisa, when the quiet of summer morning is lightened by the finches song while they roust about for snacks amongst the grasses and plantings.
I just don't have it in me to compete with hot blooded passion this topic elicits. I'm the quiet sort, a thinker, not a debater.
Sheerah,
I am with you -- mostly a dispassionate thinker. That is the only way to get to somewhere new.
"C" infiltrated the discussion with the typical hot-headed dogma, not attempting to listen, but to impose. (At least he did not offer the usual vituperative; but it certainly wasn't going anywhere.)
My motivation was the Parker piece. It mad me disgusted to hear the high-flown rhetoric aimed directly at the "C's" -- about the "state not destroying women's unique gifts."
It is so obvious that access to abortion is a choice; no one compels a women to partake of this most private decision, while the true "state sanctioned destruction of life is discretionary war.
In war, the lives thereby lost, on both sides, had no decision in their deaths. For all the conservative hoopla about how "the soldiers chose to enlist."
War is state-sanctioned killing.
That is all.
All,
I had no input in this article but I support Lisa's position fully. In fact I go way beyond since I've had numerous friends aborted at an early age but we called them KIA's. We as a society are death oriented and are not LIFE CENTRIC as we like to say. Our budget to kill is profane but that to help is always in peril of cutbacks.
I personally believe that every abortion is a positive thing- we have too many people on this earth. If abortion is killing then so what, we kill people everyday and call it ....fill in the blanks. Every abortion gives the earth some relief and I'm all for this. The Chinese have it right- people do not have the right to breed indiscriminently. Sorry Jesus but that's my disconnect and nothing will change my mind. In fact we should pay people to have abortions and voluntary sterilizations. We should give bonus tax credits for these things. In fact involuntary cut jobs could be a good thing- why allow defectives to breed? Do we need more little wards of the state?
jim
Anon,Why is it any of my business what the government does to some middle east scumbag?
These are your words. Why don't you think about this a little? You don't understand anything about our POV if you can say such things.
jim
Minstrel Boy,
It's ashame you took such offense -I only tried to pay you a compliment about your writing, and then engage in a discussion. I thought this was an open forum for ideas.
I do not "insist" on anything - I only proposed another way of looking at the matter. If that's not welcome, I can live with that.
As for me being anonymous, well, I didn't realize all the commenters here were using their birth names. However, I enjoyed the irony of speaking anonymously for the millions of anonymous voices that never had a chance to speak.
My discussion began with an appeal to basic biology and then the US Declaration of Ind. - I did not initiate a religious discussion or personal attacks. However, another bit of irony in all this is that my "god" was tortured before being crucified.
I only wish you the best. And I truly thought your poem was great. Peace.
C
Anon,the Church has consistent, rational arguements to make against abortion and contraception, as well as unjust war and torture.
I'd like to point out that the church went against Jesus when they backed the Kings with Divine Right to rule and the concept of Just War to support this fallacy.The Church is the source of war theory- in case you haven't noticed.
I could care less of any churches teachings.
jim
ANON,
W here in the Bible does it say that Jesus is a God?
jim
Lisa: Last night, you appreciated that I was trying to bring reason to this matter. This morning, I'm an infiltrator spouting "typical hot-headed dogma." Interesting.
Earlier in this discussion you said: "I can't imagine anyone saying or thinking abortion was a "wondrously 'good' thing." You don't need to look far. See Ranger's comment: "I personally believe that every abortion is a positive thing- we have too many people on this earth." Well, at least he didn't say it's wondrous.
Ranger: My term "middle east scumbag" was used as mockery of the protorturing crowd. Since you are late to this discussion, if you carefully read all the posts, you will see that I'm against both abortion and torture, and the one arguing for the sanctity of all human life.
I guess there's a "disconnect" with me because I don't understand all the vitriol on this blog against Bush, Cheney & Co. when their methods are no worse than what is being endorsed here. Not allowing "defectives to breed," sterlizing, aborting, etc... That's straight out of the Margaret Sanger and Nazi eugenic playbooks.
Well, I've spoken my peace. Thanks for the time. It was a learning experienc.
Ranger,
First, I don't subscribe to sola scriptura. However, Jesus said "Before Abraham was, I am." He also said "I and the Father are one."
Ranger,
I don't wish to get into a theological discussion, but since you asked where in the Bible it says Jesus is God, here is an oldie but goodie:
In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.
4 In him was life: and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it.
anon,
That just says, God is God. I don't see Jesus's name there anywhere.
Jesus appropriated the title for himself when he said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
God didn't say that. (And we are presuming a lot here when we take that lovely book as the word of God.) Read your text closely.
Hermeneutics can be a tricky business, but this one is pretty clear.
anon,
Addenda to "c":
[1] I do not contradict myself. I must confess I was being just a teeny bit snide when I said that you were "attempting to apply reason to the matter." I really did not think you were progressing in your thought, and I'm sure you don't think you are, either.
You are dogmatic and doctrinal, an obviously observant person who can admit of no option to your faith, to the degree that you could not even enter into the discussion of state-sanctioned murder without pontificating for abortion as murder.
But my praise of your non-vulgar tone was sincere. Most of your brethren resort to vile ad hominem when reason fails them, which is usually fairly early in their argumentation.
[2] When you say, "Jesus said 'Before Abraham was, I am.' He also said "I and the Father are one" -- that proves nothing (though I am not sure how it relates to my piece anyway.) It certainly doesn't prove his divinity.
If I entered your church and took that dais, and said the same, would you believe me?
I'm with Mencken: you can't be both Catholic and an adult.
as far as your "i was only trying to compliment your writing" bullshit, i am not flattered in the slightest. to extrapolate my trying to process the brutal deaths of young men, women, and children in a senseless and stupid war into your insistence on intruding upon private medical decisions by strangers is a stretch.
the "silent scream" is as bullshit a polemic as the "reefer madness" and other crap that was put out to try and scare people.
you treat your opinions as fact. i treat them as sanctimonious bullshit.
we will probably never reconcile those viewpoints.
it's best we just mind our own business n'est ce pas?
Post a Comment
<< Home