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Oct. 6th, 2006
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Biting Beaver and Plan C
Oct. 6th, 2006 07:35 pmOn September 18, I wrote about Biting Beaver's post, showing the stress a woman goes through when she cannot get Plan B in an emergency.
On September 23, 27, and 30, she posted some of the vitriolic hate mail she has been receiving Her crime was having consensual sex within a stable relationship with a birth control method that failed. When it failed, she sought out a legal remedy. For that she has been called a whore, a slut, and a babykiller. If anyone thinks that there isn't a large, loud group that thinks that women exist solely to incubate sperm, go take a look. Consensual sex. Committed relationship. Use of birth control. And she is getting death-by-torture threats for her attempts to find backup contraceptives.
Today she has posted that the emergency contraceptive was not taken in time. She has also posted a backlash blast against another blogger who expressed concern that pro-choicers have nasty things to say about zygotes and fetuses.
How often can one person hear that a fetus is more important than their own life? Than the lives of their children? How many times can you be reminded that you are, to them at least, a sack of shit and not worthy of even living? ... I'm angry that my life is apparently worth so little because I had sex.
So Z, I can answer your thoughtful question. Some women treat embryos like parasites and say the most awful things about them and act in seemingly cruel ways because they're fucking pissed that something that small can be worth so much more than the life they have struggled to build. And you know what? Maybe it's putting our anger into the wrong place, I know that argument could be made, but sometimes, after you've heard one more person tell you that you should die or be murdered you get fed up.
When... you need to get an abortion that you are about to become one of the most reviled and hated segments of society. When I looked at that fucking test and saw it come out positive I fell apart because I knew, in that moment, that I would be facing some of the most violent and horrific people out there. People who want to see me die, people who say the most vile, horrific things imaginable in the name of the 'life' that is inside of me.
Where is that anger going to go? When you know that you're crossing that fucking picket line where those protestors will be screaming the same sort of shit that those commenters did, well....where does the anger go? When you understand that there are those that would fucking KILL you, leaving your existing children to be raised without a mother you start resenting that potential life more than you've ever resented anything before.
When you next hear someone talking about how life is beautiful, how a reluctant, unready mother "will love it when it's here," or how all life deserves a chance, send them to the Den of the Biting Beaver.
And then ask them two questions:
1) "Do you think it is consistent with a pro-life stance to be so viciously against the life of Beaver? If you resent her for getting contraception and an abortion and feel she should be punished, do you feel it is pro-life to take her away from her existing children, or don't their lives count?"
2) "Assume that she is forced to bear this child against her will. What kind of life do you think that kid would have when the mother hates it that much?
Adoption is not the facile answer. Aside from the complications of a healthy pregnancy (and Beaver has made it clear that she is not physically capable of bringing a pregnancy to term) adoption statistics are pretty crappy. Just ask any of the thousands of unadopted children already in the system. Or read about the formerly anti-choice woman who discovered that nobody was pro-life for her mixed-race baby. I guess some precious lives are more precious than others.
The Emergency Contraception Website Find out where you can get it and then GO OUT AND GET IT BEFORE YOU NEED IT. Bookmark that site, love it, check it often.
And be careful out there. Because when someone's pro-life, it's not our lives that actually count. Not when the attitude is that nonreproductive sex is a capital crime.
On September 23, 27, and 30, she posted some of the vitriolic hate mail she has been receiving Her crime was having consensual sex within a stable relationship with a birth control method that failed. When it failed, she sought out a legal remedy. For that she has been called a whore, a slut, and a babykiller. If anyone thinks that there isn't a large, loud group that thinks that women exist solely to incubate sperm, go take a look. Consensual sex. Committed relationship. Use of birth control. And she is getting death-by-torture threats for her attempts to find backup contraceptives.
Today she has posted that the emergency contraceptive was not taken in time. She has also posted a backlash blast against another blogger who expressed concern that pro-choicers have nasty things to say about zygotes and fetuses.
How often can one person hear that a fetus is more important than their own life? Than the lives of their children? How many times can you be reminded that you are, to them at least, a sack of shit and not worthy of even living? ... I'm angry that my life is apparently worth so little because I had sex.
So Z, I can answer your thoughtful question. Some women treat embryos like parasites and say the most awful things about them and act in seemingly cruel ways because they're fucking pissed that something that small can be worth so much more than the life they have struggled to build. And you know what? Maybe it's putting our anger into the wrong place, I know that argument could be made, but sometimes, after you've heard one more person tell you that you should die or be murdered you get fed up.
When... you need to get an abortion that you are about to become one of the most reviled and hated segments of society. When I looked at that fucking test and saw it come out positive I fell apart because I knew, in that moment, that I would be facing some of the most violent and horrific people out there. People who want to see me die, people who say the most vile, horrific things imaginable in the name of the 'life' that is inside of me.
Where is that anger going to go? When you know that you're crossing that fucking picket line where those protestors will be screaming the same sort of shit that those commenters did, well....where does the anger go? When you understand that there are those that would fucking KILL you, leaving your existing children to be raised without a mother you start resenting that potential life more than you've ever resented anything before.
When you next hear someone talking about how life is beautiful, how a reluctant, unready mother "will love it when it's here," or how all life deserves a chance, send them to the Den of the Biting Beaver.
And then ask them two questions:
1) "Do you think it is consistent with a pro-life stance to be so viciously against the life of Beaver? If you resent her for getting contraception and an abortion and feel she should be punished, do you feel it is pro-life to take her away from her existing children, or don't their lives count?"
2) "Assume that she is forced to bear this child against her will. What kind of life do you think that kid would have when the mother hates it that much?
Adoption is not the facile answer. Aside from the complications of a healthy pregnancy (and Beaver has made it clear that she is not physically capable of bringing a pregnancy to term) adoption statistics are pretty crappy. Just ask any of the thousands of unadopted children already in the system. Or read about the formerly anti-choice woman who discovered that nobody was pro-life for her mixed-race baby. I guess some precious lives are more precious than others.
The Emergency Contraception Website Find out where you can get it and then GO OUT AND GET IT BEFORE YOU NEED IT. Bookmark that site, love it, check it often.
And be careful out there. Because when someone's pro-life, it's not our lives that actually count. Not when the attitude is that nonreproductive sex is a capital crime.