A wall of text you probably won't want to read ...

          As anyone here should know I don't like "organized" political parties. However there is a particular group of people that belong in a special kind of hell.

          That collection of despicable individuals use a variety of identities. Mostly they like to proclaim they are "ProLife".

          I came across this today and found it particularly cathartic. It is fucking graphic, so you are forewarned.

Posted on www.reddit.com by u/my-honestopinion

          AITA for outing the abortion my sister had since she will not allow my niece to get one?

About two hours later this was posted by a protective services investigator:

kristinbugg922

          Your sister was able to have autonomy over her body and make the choice to have an abortion when she wasn't ready to raise a child. Yet, she doesn't feel that her daughter deserves that same autonomy. Isn't it funny how she was deserving of that, but her daughter isn't? We can often find ways to justify anything when it applies to us, but refuse to justify those same things for others.

          I know you stated you didn't want to get into politics on this, but when it comes to abortion, that's like trying to round up horses once they're out the corral.

          I am a child protective services investigator. I work child deaths, near deaths and shocking & heinous abuse cases exclusively. I have seen what can result from forcing a woman to keep a baby that she either does not want or is not equipped to raise. People can say that the baby can always be given up for adoption, but that's not the fairytale you've seen on "Annie" either; there's no Daddy Warbucks waiting in the wings to whisk most of these babies out of foster care into a limousine and off to their mansions.

          Because no one wants to deal with babies born addicted to heroin, whose genetic pool is rife with schizophrenia and who contracted syphilis during their vaginal birth, because their mother didn't receive prenatal care.

          Because these babies aren't blonde headed and blue eyed.

          Because these babies are blonde headed and blue eyed like Mama and Daddy...who share the same father.

          Because sometimes these babies have names like Keyshawn and Trayvon and Kiana.

          Because sometimes these mothers don't realize they aren't ready to be mothers until these babies aren't babies and you can't drop a toddler off at a Safe Harbor Drop-Off.

          Because sometimes these mothers live 45 miles from the nearest Safe Harbor Drop-Off and they don't have a car, so the toilet is their next best option.

          Because sometimes the Safe Harbor Drop-Off is the local police station in a town of 658 residents and the local police chief is Mama's uncle.

          Because sometimes a woman doesn't need a reason for not wanting to be a mother and she doesn't owe anyone an explanation for what she does and doesn't do with her body.

          I once held the body of an 8 month old infant in the back of an ambulance that didn't need to run lights and sirens. He was too small to strap to the gurney. When they handed him to me, he was wrapped in a blanket and he looked like he was sleeping, but no infant should ever be that still and cold or have white foam around their lips. His mother tried to have an abortion, but didn't have the money or resources. She had three children she couldn't afford or care for already and she knew she couldn't handle another one. She was told, "Just have him. You'll be fine. You already have three kids, so you can figure it out. You can't kill your baby. You can't give your baby away to strangers, because no real mother does that. No...no, we can't take the baby in. We won't help you get an abortion and we can't support adoption, but we will help you with the baby." But, when he was born, all the people who promised to help disappeared faster than her patience did when that baby cried and she was on day four of a methamphetamine binge. In the end, the only support she had was a methamphetamine addiction and a boyfriend with a nasty temper and even less patience than she did for that tiny, unwanted soul she brought into this world. So, she had him and eight months later, she proved everyone who told her she couldn't kill her baby wrong by allowing his life to be taken in a fit of rage, methamphetamine and the fists of a man who just wanted him to STOP. FUCKING. CRYING. ALREADY. And the only thing she could say was, "I told them I never wanted this. I said I never wanted him. Why did they make me have him? I want my mother." But her mother had been dead since she was 10. I know this because I was the first CPS investigator on the scene and I covered her little brother's head with my coat and gave her my beanie, so they didn't see the damage their father's bullet did to the side of their mother's head. Amy was a beautiful woman and her daughters look just like her....even in their mugshots. Even when they're trying to explain why their boyfriend shook and beat their baby to death. This one looks especially like Amy. This daughter perpetuated that cycle and her baby was collateral damage, I suppose. Maybe if I had given her my coat to cover her head with, as I led her and her sibling out of the house, so they didn't see their mother's head shattered by their father's bullet, she would have traveled a different path. But I didn't give her my coat. She was older. I thought she'd be able to cover her head better. So I gave her my beanie and I gave her sibling my coat and I covered their heads and told them not to look at Mama. I told them to keep walking and don't look down. I said I was right there with them. That's why I gave her my coat this time and as she was being led out in handcuffs, I told her, "I'm going to cover your head. Don't look down. Don't look at the baby. Just keep walking. I've got you. I'm right here with you." It's funny. After all of these years, that's what I blame myself for. That I didn't give her my coat. That maybe, just maybe, if I had given her my coat instead, I wouldn't have stood looking down at her dead son years later. I don't know what the last thing that baby saw was, but I pray it wasn't the fist that ended his life or the face of the demon that ended his life or the woman who was supposed to be his protector. I still dream about him. I still dream about that coat.

          The people who screech about how a woman does not have the right to terminate a pregnancy are always silent when they are questioned about what THEY are doing for their local foster care agencies. They rarely lobby at their state capitols for more funding for child welfare agencies and preventative programs to assist children and families in need. They rarely, if ever, volunteer their time and money to support children in foster care or foster parents. Instead, they'd rather post hateful, judgmental vitriol on social media about women in difficult situations they know nothing about. They're content to talk about what women should or should not be able to do. They're content to pass judgment about a woman's choices. But when they actually have to look at the consequences of those choices....well, that's a conversation 99.9% of them are willing to sit out on.

          People like your sister can screech about how abortion is murder. They can cry about the poor babies who never drew a breath. But you won't see them doing anything for the babies that are breathing and living in foster care. The children that are living in homeless shelters. The kids that won't get supper again tonight because Daddy's check was short and Mama drank the grocery money again. Because that would mean they'd actually have to look upon the humanity they don't want to acknowledge. It's easier to crusade for a cause they don't actually have to interact with.

          The profoundly wearying challenge is how can we reach these so called "ProLife" people. Is there anyway to reason with them?

RIP

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Raggedy Ann's picture

is the correct term, imho.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

PriceRip's picture

@Raggedy Ann

          … fully functional and empathetic but for all this they are not.

          They may be "Forced Birthers" but only in the very narrow "For Thee, but Not For Me" frame of mind, kind of like Catholics, and Mormons to name those I know oh so very too well.

RIP

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Raggedy Ann's picture

@PriceRip
without humanity.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Granma's picture

I tried to read but could not finish. Very upsetting.

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PriceRip's picture

@Granma

          As a very public person, I have learned to skim so as to not get the full force of this sort of stuff on the first pass, but later …

          "Very upsetting" is as you say is the truth, but somehow, someway we have got to deal with the reality in which we live. It terrifies me somedays to think of what my granddaughter will be learning during the next few years.

RIP

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14 users have voted.

These people. They see it in black and white, evil or angelic, bad or good. While most vote for more war, more austerity for people not them (yet, since most are just stupid enough not to see how much luck or timing may have to do with their own situation and how easily they too could end up forced into some horrible decision to survive) while passing judgement on whoever doesn't share their zeal. I think most are simply virtue signaling, as your essay points out, but refuse to see reality while feeling free to pass judgement. I don't see how you reason with that level of malicious stupidity. As a woman who had an abortion, and I really should probably not even admit that here but fuck it, I own that decision and I stand by it. Anyone who'd like to judge me for it, go for it. I don't have to listen nor do I have to accept that judgement from people who know nothing about the situation and are only too happy to blather away about how good and virtuous they are while hating others and having the audacity to think they're the good people, why waste my time on idiots. Besides, I say mind your own godamned business and quit worrying about mine.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

PriceRip's picture

@lizzyh7

          … I have interacted with students young colleagues going through all kinds of life changes. At times I wonder at the resiliency they as a demographic have displayed.

          The current cultural climate (fueled by he I shall not name) has afforded these people permission to be so much more brazen in spouting their vitriol with an ever increasing verve.

RIP

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WoodsDweller's picture

is "No". They can't be reached by reason, at least in this context, maybe in any context. They need to be politically defeated.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

PriceRip's picture

@WoodsDweller

          … we need to fund, support, create, et cetera educational programs to create generations of us that don't think that way. This sort of insanity can not be allowed to be acceptable.

RIP

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Pluto's Republic's picture

They are only 60 years out of that endless nightmare, which killed one out of two women during childbirth until 1900. A truly shitty fate being a woman.

Abortion laws are an attempt by infantile morons to force them back into livestock status. It will take another hundred years to breed these throwbacks out of the gene pool.

z.moron-rate.jpg

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
PriceRip's picture

@Pluto's Republic

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@PriceRip

One never knows...

We have a lot of eyeballs.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Daenerys's picture

Or Forced Birthers. The ones I really don't understand are the ones who are so anti-abortion that even if the fetus isn't viable and will die anyway they still want the mother to carry it to term. That happens even with babies that are wanted, but they want to force the mother to endure even more trauma and anguish. As others have said it's all about controlling women.

This is one of the reasons I'm not religious any more. I can't understand how people who claim to be "good Christians" can be so lacking in empathy and compassion. I got into an argument with a friend on FB a while ago about this. If God is all-powerful and omniscient there is evil in the world because God allows it. Why would a supposedly loving God allow innocent babies to be born into a world where there is only suffering? So either God isn't all-powerful, doesn't exist, or he is an asshole that gets off on making humanity suffer for no reason. Fuck that. (There's an interview with Stephen Fry I think, about why he is an atheist, on the same subject; it's pretty good.)

Anyway, hubby and I are childfree. I believe every child should be wanted, and I'm so thankful we had the resources we needed (I have a Mirena, hubby got a vasectomy back in 2016).

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This shit is bananas.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Daenerys

Sticking their noses into other people's business.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Daenerys's picture

@Pluto's Republic I like it. They want small government---small enough to fit in a woman's vagina!

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13 users have voted.

This shit is bananas.

Socialprogressive's picture

@Pluto's Republic Keeping_Republicans_Out_of_My_Daughter's_Uterus_-_The_Ballot.jpg

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14 users have voted.

When I offer to wash your back in the shower, all you have to say is yes or no.
Not all this "who are you, and how did you get in here?" nonsense.

PriceRip's picture

@Daenerys

          Btw, "religiosity" exists outside the human realm, mostly mammalian but also avian identified to date. That has some interesting implications for A.I. as we proceed toward its logical development into the quantum computing realm.

          I hope (and dread) living long enough to see some of that future. We have such a penchants for screwing it up so very royally.

RIP

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Daenerys

This is one of the reasons I'm not religious any more. I can't understand how people who claim to be "good Christians" can be so lacking in empathy and compassion. I got into an argument with a friend on FB a while ago about this. If God is all-powerful and omniscient there is evil in the world because God allows it. Why would a supposedly loving God allow innocent babies to be born into a world where there is only suffering? So either God isn't all-powerful, doesn't exist, or he is an asshole that gets off on making humanity suffer for no reason. Fuck that. (There's an interview with Stephen Fry I think, about why he is an atheist, on the same subject; it's pretty good.)

All these so-called "pro-life" dweebs are such because the "God" in which they beLIEve commands them to be such. Now,many of you know that I'm a veteran of the old FidoNet HOLYSMOKE Echo, which was the equivalent of a multi-user blog like c99, and dedicated to open debate on the subject of religion. On that now infamous Echo,there was a challenge, called "McCullough's Challenge", which went something like this:

"Cough up your God, here and now, or admit publicly that it does not exist. One or the other, please, NOW."

(n.b.: I'm the McCullough for which the Challenge was named.)

It's high time all the forced birther crowd were made to take my Challenge, at least in my own humble opinion. And I'm not an atheist; although, as a Pagan, the Abrahamics at the root of this problem probably consider me one because of my disbelief in their god whom they still can't cough up.

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Daenerys's picture

@thanatokephaloides shove their Bible in your face and call it "proof". 9_9

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This shit is bananas.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Daenerys

Oh no, they'd probably just shove their Bible in your face and call it "proof". 9_9

My answer to that: "that's not proof, that's a book of fairy tales!"

Wink

Anyone interested in excerpts from the old HOLYSMOKE Echo can find them here. Lots of fun, at least for disbelieving types!

Biggrin

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Pluto's Republic's picture

@thanatokephaloides

We should all cough up our early pioneering moments on the Internet, back when time began.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
PriceRip's picture

@Pluto's Republic

          … should start just such a stream of consciousness that would guide the rest of us into the appropriate state of mind Smile

RIP

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dystopian's picture

They are zealots, and as such are extremely hard to reason with, if possible at all. Certainly they are not pro-life, or at least pro QUALITY of life. Or that you should be the one that determines that for yourself. They are also not pro anyone making any decisions for themselves. Trying to legislate and codify your religious beliefs in ways that affect my life and my wife's body is zealotry. And idiocy.

If they were really pro life there would be no wars. Funny I don't hear much of that out of the same folk. There would be no homeless, and there would be no hungry. Geez, don't hear much about that from them either. When these anti-abortion folks eliminate the hunger, the homeless, and the wars, they can say they are pro-life, until then it is virtue-signaling role-play for religion.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

orlbucfan's picture

@dystopian viable which means there was no 'breath of life' BS in the developing zygote. I have never been maternal plus hubby is not paternal. Long story short: a woman goes through hell with this decision. She is terminating a major natural process. Her body revolts in its own way. That is why clinical abortion must be available to all women. Thank god it was for me. These Fundie religious aholes need to shove it where the sun don't shine. My oldest friend had to abort because a threat to her health. She's still an ahole Fundie about this situation. Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

enhydra lutris's picture

insanity promoted by charlatans and superstitious true believers, taught, but still madness. This is why I prefer to define humans as "featherless bipeds" instead of "rational animals". We have the capacity for reason, but seldom seem to manifest or practice it.

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4 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

PriceRip's picture

@enhydra lutris

          To begin to explain the problem requires on the order of two hundred hours of discourse.

          To get permission to explain the problem requires the approval of the gatekeeping committee.

          To get the approval of the gatekeeping committee requires its members understand the essence of the problem.

          For the committee members to understand the essence of the problem requires on the order of two hundred hours of discourse.

          Rinse and Repeat.

RIP

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@PriceRip

To begin to explain the problem requires on the order of two hundred hours of discourse.

To get permission to explain the problem requires the approval of the gatekeeping committee.

To get the approval of the gatekeeping committee requires its members understand the essence of the problem.

For the committee members to understand the essence of the problem requires on the order of two hundred hours of discourse.

Rinse and Repeat.

The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't getcha then the lightning will.

[video:https://youtu.be/30n7Rl19l_w]

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides