What does Mother Teresa have in common with 25 white men in Alabama?
The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
I came across this quote on a Quiner’s Diner post trying to reconcile the horrors of war with the goodness of a benevolent creator. Clearly the post failed in its impossible objective, but was compounded in its utter failure by linking to his unhealthy obsession with controlling women’s wombs.
Needless to say, the person who made the impassioned statement quoted above about abortion never gave birth in their life. In fact, it seems unlikely that they ever had a romantic relationship that could have resulted in a pregnancy. And yet, like the 25 white men in the US state of Alabama, the person quoted above felt their opinion is of value and relevance. Mother Teresa may have dedicated her life to attempts to aid poor people, but leaving comments like that in her wake is the equivalent of chaining poverty and misery to millions.
Because the truth is that until you have carried a child inside your body, given birth to that child and raised it to an age where it can do anything for itself, you have simply no idea, no concept of what human reproduction actually entails. You are so far removed from the deeply natural and instinctive impulses that dictate the actions of humans along with every other animal species on the planet, that your opinion is plain irrelevant.
We have no words that can adequately describe the longing and connection between the biological mother and child – the deep-seated need and reliance that creates the ideal circumstances for entering this world. We have no words that can adequately describe the trauma, pain and torture of giving birth and nurturing these children that can only be endured with natural chemicals (or other drugs when nature doesn’t cut it), and still leaves sweet and beloved scars for life. Reproduction may be mundane in its frequency and cold facts, but its profound in every other sense.
And so, while many women down the tribal divide of the ‘religion and control’ camp will declare that having been through this they still think that abortion should be criminalised, a great many women within that very camp, with a full understanding of what it means to be a child carrier and biologically connected parent, understand how devastating and unrealistic banning abortion really is. Even 25 similarly conditioned white women in Alabama would have been unlikely to reach the conclusion those men did.
When a woman aborts a pregnancy, she is clearing the way for a different child to be born later down the line who can be loved and supported as every child deserves. Do you deny that child life? When a woman aborts a pregnancy, she is protecting the existing children she already has by ensuring that they will have the support they need in their life. Do you deny those children the right to a well supported life? When a woman aborts a pregnancy, she is making a choice that no-one can legislate against. And while the ‘religion and control’ camp may find ways in rights-deprived areas to limit a woman’s options, they can never limit her actions. All they do is criminalise care and respect; condemn thousands, if not millions of children to be born to parents who resent, hate and neglect them; and force desperate women to seek desperate measures that result in unnecessary trauma and deaths.
The naive and simplistic view of motherhood that the ignorant Mother Teresa held was informed up by a lifetime of exposure to a religion built on male-dominated views and led by people with no direct experience of creating and raising children. It’s laughable that these people dare to have an opinion on how women deal with their pregnancies.
if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
Mother Theresa, my dear, let me explain, although too late for you to contemplate the serious errors in your thinking:
- A woman can kill her own developing child and all that will happen is that one potential sentient life doesn’t progress. All that will happen is that a child who would have been likely neglected, deprived and/or traumatised isn’t brought in to the world to suffer through a life they never chose to live. What very well may happen is that a much loved and cherished child will be born later on who will have the opportunity to positively contribute to human society.
- When people kill one another, individuals, families, communities and countries get locked in tribalistic cycles of revenge and war that cause chaos, disrupt childhoods, destroy economies, and create brutal societies devoid of human respect for actual sentient beings attempting to live peaceful lives.
When you scratch past the soundbite, there is such a gulf between these two actions and their likely consequences that her audacity to compare them is insulting to actual human life. Much like the decision of those 25 white men in the US state of Alabama.
As I reached the end of paragraph 6 I was ready to stand up and clap. Beautifully laid out.
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Thank you! Rare praise from Pink – I’m more used to a structure and style critique. 🙂
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This is definitely a winner. The kind of text that makes one sit up and think (or rethink).
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I agree with Pink. Nicely put.
Odd that a dead person in Alabama (and Georgia, and Kentucky, and…) has more bodily rights than a living woman.
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Did you read this? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/27/alabama-woman-charged-unborn-babys-death-shot-stomach/
It just gets more and more surreal….and terrifying: “Police said that Ms Jones had initiated the fight and was therefore at fault for the death of her baby.”
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They’re going full-Sharia law in the bible belt.
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I must say, I am curious. If the child had been an actual born baby and got shot in an otherwise similar situation, would it have ever come to the mind of anyone to actually accuse of the mother, for putting the child in harm’s way? They have now dropped the charges, but still it is mad, mad, mad, that she was actually blamed for what happened to a fetus, when it was someone else who pulled the trigger.
Are they now going to charge the person who actually shot the gun for murder? Or is it only possible for them to charge the mother for the death of an unborn? They do have some law against performing an abortion to restrict doctors. What about other people? Some with guns? If the decide to charge the person who took the shot, does that mean, that any person who physically harms a woman, but merely manages to cause a miscarriage on them, is taking the risk of becoming a convicted murderer, as one can not always tell wether a woman is pregnant or not from her outlook? Is it then legally more OK to be violent against women (or anyone really) you know can not become pregnant (like for example elderly women), than possibly fertile women, as one is less likely to be convicted of a murder? This is such a moral mess… How ever did they come to this situation?
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These people, and their laws, are just so removed from reality that it’s hard to even address them in a coherent manner.
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As a white man, I would like to point out, that I do not think I am “so far removed from the deeply natural and instinctive impulses that dictate the actions of humans along with every other animal species on the planet, that your opinion is plain irrelevant.” I think I can relate to the experiences of others, even if I have not shared those experiences. If I and other men can not, then what hope is there for the world?
The moral question about abortion is a question about bodily autonomy. The bodily autonomy of women as the unborn are totally dependant on them. People should understand, that women do not need to provide for their yet unborn children any more than anyone needs to provide for any already born individual. They may choose to do so, but it is their choise, just as it is the choise of anyone providing an organ donation. It is immoral for anyone else to make a choise for you that you make an organ donation to anyone. Equally, it is totally immoral for anyone else to make a choise for you to become a parent and risk your health by giving birth.
It is as if the “pro-life” side of the argument would want to punish the women for having sex. The punishment being the child. Now, what sort of parenthood would that likely provide for the child? That does not only seem immoral, it is down right vile and sick! I have heard arguments, where the pro-lifers have demanded, that abortion should be banned because so many of the reasons women give for having an abortion are so superficial – As if that would make these women somehow ideal parents? Much of the problem is obviously a direct result of the fact, that so many adults have such superficial and poor understanding of the human reproduction. They believe in all sorts of superstitious nonsense about a soul magically appearing in the fetus at point of the conception even though they have no evidence what so ever to provide for this traditional concept of a soul to even exist. Yet they run around the subject in loops looking for some medical data to confirm that they are right about the matter and only appealing to the nonsensical superstions when they expect to be preaching to a crowd, that has already accepted the same superstitious nonsense with equally poor reasons – such as cultural indoctrination to believen in gods and other ridiculous claims.
If the people who find abortion so terrible that they would want to make it illegal, really wanted to prevent as many abortions as possible, they would seek to alter the society in such a way, that less unwanted pregnancies appeared, that the possible parents would have better chances of providing for their child after it has been born, that willing and able adoption parents would have legal possibility to adopt an unwanted child. This could be achieved by providing better and better sex education, free access to birthcontroll, proper education for child rearing, free schoolsystems, free food in schools, better welefare for families, proper free healthcare, more egalitarian society in general, society free of racism and other bigotry and sane adoption rights for people regardless of their sexual orientation. However, it seems most of them want exactly the opposite. Yet, I do not accuse them of hypocricy. I blame them for plane and simple stupidity. Because, they seem all too stupid to even recognize their own hypocricy. All the evidence available, points to egalitarian societies with sex education having less abortions than societies that have simply made it illegal.
In the world today, if one wants to form an opinion on any such issue that involves political descisions to controll the lives of other people, the information is readily awailable. Yes, it takes a bit of an effort to seek it out, but no less can be morally expected of from an adult individual. One can hardly hide behind claims like “I did not know better”, even if the amount of mis- and disinformation far surpasses that of actual researched and peer rewieved scientific data. Instead of relying their moral on scientific factual information, so many people rely it on any source, that confirms their pre-existing biases and preassumptions, coming from their “gut instinct”, or rather the intuition that forms their identity based on their cultural heritage. That is the root of this misconception about abortion, racism, religions and other superstitions.
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“I think I can relate to the experiences of others” – indeed you can! But do you think that would qualify you and 24 other men to make decisions on behalf of all women, that exclusively affects women? I doubt it.
A friend sent me a link to a quote about how supporting the unborn as a concept is that easiest entity to support – they don’t talk back, they have no opinion, they need no material support. The ideal cause. Fight for this imaginary grouping while they are developing inside someone else’s body then ignore and despise their life as individual once they are born. The quote put it much more eloquently. 🙂
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Well, I like to think of people as people, not as men or women, white or any other colour. (This may partly be because of my native tongue, where pronouns are not divided by an assumed gender.) To me the issue about skin colour is a made up method of unnecessary segragation between people and that notion of a gender is a false dichtomy, even in reproductive issues, such as this one. The problem arises from people being brought up with that false idea of dualism and division. A doctor who has had no cancer is perfectly able to treat that condition. 25 doctors who have had no cancer are equally able to treat it, even if none of them has ever had cancer. Of course, if the doctors have some false ideas about cancer, they are not able to treat it. I am not suggesting, that a pregnancy is a disease, by the way. I mean, that it is a part of human condition just like -sadly- the cancer is.
The fact that political power is concentrated on white men who typically happen to be of the sort, that to them their cultural heritage of them being men and white has made them somehow, but rather obviously, invalid to put themselves in the position of others and protect the interrests of people different from them, is an actual problem. It is the real problem behind the entire issue. However, it is a separate issue from them actually being men (having those sort of dingly parts as their reproductive organs), even though the fact that such a crowd gets to decide on the matters of the rest of the people is indicative of the real problem itself.
To me, it seems the fight for the individual rights of a fetus, is merely a puppet to smuggle in other values, that are infact totally contrary to individual rights in general. It is also a fairly clever way to mobilize simpletons and the ignorant to the cause of fascim by appealing to their emotions rather than presenting any straight forward facts to support the notion of social control and punishment of women for choosing to have sex. To get to decide how other people should live their individual lives and especially what is the position and amount of control of women and their sexuality within society. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the concern of the life of the possible unborn baby. That baby does not even exist yet and the pro-lifers are not in any way considering how to make the life of that possible baby better, even though it’s own mother would rather give it up, than put it through the misery of being born into the world. I find this political agenda despicable, despite the fact that many who support it, because they do not know better, do feel they are doing it for all the right reasons.
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“Well, I like to think of people as people, not as men or women, white or any other colour.” A few years ago I would have applauded you for this statement, and I understand the sentiment at it’s most superficial is where human society would hope to arrive if we ever reach something resembling equality. However, we are clearly not there. And we can’t pretend that we all treat each other equally or that indeed everyone is treated equally by society generally. I think it’s important that we are all acutely aware of the traits we have that give us a leg up over other people, and white males saying “well I treat everyone exactly the same so white males aren’t a problem” is missing the entire point. I’ve been delighted to see younger international comedians tackling this issue recently and I’m feeling really positive about how younger generations are much more aware and less threatened by this reality- even the white males! 🙂
If my reply doesn’t make any sense, have a read of this and see if it gives some context: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race
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Just popping by to wish you and yours a belated but nonetheless very happy new year.
Thinking of you …
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And a happy 2020 to you. How’s the garden?
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What did I miss?
Your last post is in 2019 Violet?
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Another year flies by … and here I am once more popping in to say ‘hello’.
Hope you’re keeping well, Dear Violet?
🙂
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Everything else aside, nobody knows what happened to Violet?
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Still here. You seen the real light yet?
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Now jist an endochronologically challenged minute here. Yer tellin us that you went from young to menopause in a year and I’m the science denier? 🙂
Glad to hear you’re ok. I had popped in here a couple times and was beginning to wonder.
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I think it’s been more like 10 years….I was an old birther in the first place. I suppose I could come back and dish out some foggy rage. Tell me about your deconversion and how relieved you are that Trump lost. Or did you join QAnon?
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Hello dear Ark! How are things with you? I moved swiftly from young parent with no time to old menopausal parent with no time. But I will be back 😉 What a year though! Have I missed much chat?
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Probably not! Happy to read you are in good spirits. One of your ankle biters should be good in school by now, yes?
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Both
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Ha ha… So mum is now doing homework and projects!
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