ProWomanProLife

In Brazil abortion is not part of the cultural framework, and abortion laws are very restrictive in the country. As a result when children are born with abnormalities, even very extreme abnormalities, we have women and families who warmly welcome these new lives without hesitation. It’s inspiring really. Welcome to the world conjoined twins Emanoel and Jesus.

A Brazilian woman who has given birth to a baby with two heads, admitted she had initially expected twins. [...]

Mr Vasconcelos added that at no point did the mother, who has three other children, appear distraught that her son has two heads.

He said: ‘On the contrary, the baby was received with much happiness by the family.

‘The mother fed both mouths and the baby stayed with her in her room the whole time. Her desire was to take her baby straight home.’

We are creatures of control. I want to get married at this time, with this job and with this amount of money. I want to know where I’m going and with who. I want XX number of children, spaced YY years apart. I want to be comfortable. I want to be the master of my destiny. I don’t want to have to iron out uncomfortable wrinkles, I want to throw out the whole cloth. We are wholly and completely unprepared for anything that throws us for a loop, be it materially or emotionally.

This used to be called selfish, but today it’s called empowerment.

Those are my thoughts on this article about normalizing mothers who abort.

I have been following, at least a little, the story of the Alberta woman who killed her newborn son, throwing his body over a fence into a neighbour’s yard.

The woman, Katrina Effert, received no jail time, merely a suspended sentence. The judge had this to say:

Judge Veit ruled, according to multiple media reports, that because Canada allows abortions it reflects how “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”

Naturally, this is all very disturbing stuff. But the light sentence, although explained today in light of our abortion-friendly culture, would have likely been given prior to abortion being available on demand, precisely because a mother murdering her baby was viewed as so contrary to a woman’s nature. Lower sentences associated with infanticide, in short, recognize that a woman bonds with her baby over nine months gestation, and that subsequently killing that baby represents a break with normal maternal instinct.

It is in the same way that having an abortion breaks with normal maternal instinct–the desire to protect your baby.

In today’s day and age, we undoubtedly have to get rid of the lower sentences for infanticide, precisely because women have grown more and more distant from their own bodies, how they work, and what pregnancy is and what abortion does.

But if we lived in an abortion-free culture, I’d be in favour of lower sentences for women who kill their newborn infants. Some may well do so in cold-blood. I feel, however, that killing your own baby is such a strange thing that mental disorder may, in fact, be to blame.

I’m still thinking this one through. I thought to myself, hey, I should discuss this with someone. But then I realized I have a blog for such questions as this.

Thoughts?

Worth reading every word of this one. The author, Kay Hymowitz, debunks myths about the gender pay gap (again) but takes the whole idea seriously, identifying and attempting explanations where real problems remain.

When I learned about a local charity and support group for young mothers, SHYM, I was astonished that no one had thought of this before. While SHYM does wonderful work here in Nova Scotia, there is another group in the US. What’s astonishing about this article is that in the whole of a country nicknamed by Michael Moore as “The Big One” they’re the only one.

Americans enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Swaddled within those precious rights is the freedom to be born. Debate rages about a woman’s right to choose, yet many would choose to have their babies if only they had a place to live. For 27 years, Friends of the Unborn in Quincy has given pregnant, homeless women the freedom to keep their children.

Marilyn Birnie, FOTU founder and executive director of the pregnancy crisis center and shelter, has helped more than 2,000 women with this choice. Up to 16 pregnant women, ages 18 and older, can stay for about two years, rent-free, to develop self-supporting skills at the multiroomed Victorian in Quincy. Getting a GED is mandatory. Also offered are additional educational classes and resource assistance. [...]

For close to three decades, FOTU has stayed open through private donations that average $25. Each month is a miracle since the annual expenses exceed $350,000.

“We are never ahead. It’s always month-to-month,” said Penny Romano, a 20-year employee at Friends of the Unborn, the only such private organization in the United States.

[...]

The women are here because of an ultimatum from their families, “Get an abortion or get out.”

Boyfriends abandoned them. A logical option loomed – get an abortion – but they didn’t want to. They found FOTU through hospital or agency referrals, or word of mouth.

[...] Some women endure a long, fierce journey. “Esther,” a married woman with three children, was brutally gang raped by soldiers in the Congo. She and her husband were taken to two separate prisons and her children were lost. She escaped alone and after arriving in the US, she eventually found her way to Birnie’s door.

“Esther came to us with nothing more than the wrinkled yellow dress she was wearing. She didn’t know if the baby was her husband’s or the three men who raped her, but she didn’t want to abort her husband’s child. We took care of her. Later a Congolese priest was able to locate her mother in the Congo who was caring for her three children. Esther was able to talk to them, but we were never able to find her husband.”

Now Esther has a daughter and has moved to Lynn.

We’ve covered a lot about breast milk in the past couple of months on PWPL, and finally, here’s a story about putting it to good use.

Several Nova Scotia mothers have donated their breast milk to help a terminally ill girl in British Columbia.

Julie Bickford was so moved by the story of little Anaya Cassin-Potts, she organized a milk drive through her infant’s clothing store.

The response was overwelming, she said.

“I had so many comments that they’d read it and got goosebumps or cried. It just touches home for so many people.”

Anaya has infantile Krabbe leukodystrophy, a degenerative disorder that attacks the nervous system. The 19-month-old can only digest breast milk.

Anaya drinks about one litre of milk a day. Her mother, Camara Cassin, reached out to nursing mothers across the country when her own breast milk began to dry up.

Cassin’s heart warms every time a frozen package is delivered to her door in Nelson, B.C.

“I pumped myself for 11 months. You know, it’s not fun, and it takes time and commitment, and I just really appreciate every drop,” she said.

Bickford has collected a deep-freeze full of milk — enough to feed Anaya for four months.

Anaya is not expected to live past her second birthday. Cassin hopes the gift of milk gives her more time with her daughter.

If you would like to donate or learn more, here is Cassin’s blog Healing Anya.

“I’m able to really be there for [my kids] in that five or six hours of time,” says this mom who left her kids behind for a new life. To really find herself. She’s a better mom now, says she.

Is it just me or does it feel like this woman is not talking about human beings at all? Let alone her own kids. I’m all over flexibility in mothering, to be able to do things as you see fit but really, I have to say, up and leaving entirely somehow (call me crazy) doesn’t qualify. She appears to be more of a disengaged observer of her own life.

What is it about women feeling like they must be perfect all the time?

Almost one-quarter of mothers admit they cover up how much television their kids watch, and one in five lie about how long they spend playing with their kids, according to a new survey of 5,000 people by website Netmums. Mothers often make each other feel “inadequate,” it notes, and the pressure to seem like a perfect parent leads many to lie. Almost two-thirds of moms also said they’d told white lies to other mothers about how well they were coping, and almost half cover up financial concerns. More than nine out of 10 admitted they compare themselves to other mothers.

What if we just chilled a bit and realized that having kids isn’t perfect and we don’t need to be, either?

A friend in Australia recently sent me Giving Sorrow Words, by Melinda Tankard Reist. It’s a book for women who don’t exist, the author writes, because women who grieve the abortions they had are told it was just another choice and that if they suffer, it’s their fault:

Attitudes towards women overwhelmed by grief following abortion demonstrate a cruel indifference to women’s pain. Their suffering is considered a figment of their imagination; their guilt and remorse a byproduct of social/religious conditioning. In short, they are an embarrassment.

The book allows women to tell their personal stories. I read one last night and cried–a woman followed by the ghost of her child everywhere she went, for whom suicide felt like it might provide welcome relief.

I think I’ll likely quote from this book as a I read it, from time to time, but I wanted people to be aware of the book in the first place. It’s the first time I’m seeing all in one place, detailed stories of how and why these women went for an abortion and what that did to them. And I think it’s important both for women who have had abortions and are suffering right now, but also for the rest of everybody to remember that abortion causes tremendous pain for so many.

Celine Dion comments on her twins, born six weeks ago. Part of what makes “selective reduction” (have you ever heard of such a horrible euphemism?) so terrible is that there are so many women who want children so desperately. She was supposed to have triplets, incidentally, but one didn’t make it:

She also told how she was originally pregnant with three babies, but lost one during the pregnancy. “One little baby decided to step back to help the other two survive. The doctors said to me if there’s something wrong, natures takes it’s course. “I still think of the one who stepped back. I’m sure every woman has the feeling about -the little one that’s not there.”

I wish every woman did have a feeling about the one that’s not there…but that doesn’t appear to be the case.