I have seen a LOT of posts about abortion lately. News articles about the New York law that passed, constant articles of other states (including GA) trying to prevent access or availability to abortion options…. and people claiming it’s murder of a life. And as someone 7 months pregnant with a much-wanted child…. I don’t want to imagine the pain of a mother who has to make a choice at this point.
To me, it goes way beyond the womb.
150 years ago (ok, probably more like 300+ years, but I bet it still happened in the 19th century) if a family had a child they couldn’t take care of, they might take it out and leave it exposed. If you ever read The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, there is a point where they have 2-3 kids and when the next one is born during a horrible famine…. it is implied that O-Lan kills her (I read it as “smothered” the baby). This is tragic, and when I read the book, I (maybe this was just my impression) read the grief of the parents. But with 3 children already starving… what could she do?
This wasn’t abortion – would you call it murder? Mercy? Hard choices for a hard time? Fiction?
Today these choices are different. It would be murder. We take away children from their parents if they are being starved. We put them in the foster system. We don’t allow poor parents to murder their child in an act of so-called mercy or in desperation. Theoretically, no parent should be so desperate – after all, couldn’t they just give their child up??
I see red. I just see red when someone makes this argument – especially someone who HAS children (or had for older people). Would you? Parents, even poor and desperate, probably love their children as much as you do/did. They are terrified of losing their child forever to an abusive foster system or hurting their child more by leaving them feeling abandoned (not to mention the trauma and pain to the parent).
Starvation is obvious. But what about the less obvious. Clean clothes, warm water, access to regular health checks?
The post I was responding to was actually down a discussion that had strayed from direct abortion to healthcare in general and how “we the taxpayers” would cover “anyone who shows up at an ER” as if this is a perfectly reasonable option for people to take advantage of. Specifically, the person said “in this country no one goes without being treated go to emergency room you get help . We the taxpayers pay the bill , where the hell do you live? “
My response:
Something as simple as ear infections (https://www.shoebox.md/longterm-effects-pediatric-ear…/) can have LONG TERM impact on a child – leading to hearing loss, language development delays, reading & learning disabilities, fine motor control issues which can all build up to further complications both in health and in society. The long-term impact on the child who is teased for being “slow” because they can’t hear well… The long-term impact of a child who struggles more in class because of delayed language development…
And for CHRONIC ear infections in children an ER visit won’t get them something like ear tubes inserted to prevent recurrence and further damage. Much less the pain and suffering we inflict upon those children with this neglect.
And NONE of these address the issues for a parent who works an hourly wage missing hours of work to tend to a sick child (day care sends sick kids home!) which can lead to issues for the family who loses those wages for food or housing costs….
Until we are willing to stand up and make sure that AT LEAST EVERY CHILD has healthcare – I am not willing to even engage in the discussion of whether abortion is “murder” – we murder these children’s hopes, dreams, and potential slowly over years of their life by denying them the tools and resources to be successful.
This is my biggest issue with the “pro-life” argument. I said it in my post.
Until we are willing to stand up and make sure that AT LEAST EVERY CHILD has healthcare – I am not willing to even engage in the discussion of whether abortion is “murder” – we murder these children’s hopes, dreams, and potential slowly over years of their life by denying them the tools and resources to be successful.
Ear infections, asthma (whether genetic or under-developed lungs), heart murmurs, cat-scratch fever, lyme disease, ringworm…. all of which can have long term side effects. This isn’t even talking about leukemia or meningitis or obesity/diabetes. And don’t kid yourself- the CDC estimates 5% of children under 18 do not have any kind of health insurance and over 4% do not get regular health care coverage.
Now, once we address the children who ARE already in the arms of their parents and need the best possible society can give them…. then we can start arguing about the unborn ones. Until then….. I don’t give a damn if you think it’s murder. I think murdering a child’s ability to be an adult is murder and I have a hell of a lot more kids in poverty than you have abortions (~15.5 million children in poverty to less than 700,000 abortions in 2015- the most recent CDC data)
Easy math. Let’s deal with the 15 million kids who need our help before we even discuss the less than 1 million abortions. Period.
Dream by Day 