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The power of mothers

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The picture below has been making the rounds on social media with this caption:

An Iraqi girl in an orphanage – missing her mother, so she drew her and fell asleep inside her.”

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As it turns out the photo is staged.

Why is this such an effective photograph?

I think it conveys something powerful about the family, particularly about the relationship between mothers and children.

I think it also conveys that mothers are safe spaces–they provide love through physical and spiritual strength and protection.

And in this one photo, we can better understand why the abortion issue is so controversial.

With abortion, this quasi-sacred mother-child relationship is in play. Women who abort likely are at least subconsciously aware that they are mothers at the time of the abortion and afterwards. Because pro-life or pro-choice, this relationship with our mothers is an important and valuable one, on which we rely over the course of our lives. Because little children should be, in a perfect world, protected by their mothers. When we as pro-lifers chastise abortion, we may in fact be reminding women who have had abortions, in the deepest and most profound recesses of their heart, that they failed.

So this photo–as art–captures a lot of emotion.

It reminds me to tread carefully in just how I choose to oppose abortion.

If Robyn Urback isn’t pro-life…

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…she should be.

“Outrage over innocents,” her column in the February 6, 2016 Post, perfectly describes how most people who are pro-life feel not only about animal abuse, but about abortion, too.

Urback describes how terrible it is to see an animal mistreated:

I think the explanation has to do with the way we perceive the victims: as wholly innocent, uncomplicated, blindly trusting. That’s not to suggest adult victims “deserve” their fate, but simply that an abuse against a child, for example, isn’t diluted by details. A child is simple, pure and untarnished, which makes it unconscionable that someone would hurt them.

The problem with abortion is, of course, that we don’t see the unborn child as suffering. We don’t want to. Discussions of when the fetus feels pain remain hotly contested, as all things to do with abortion are.

However, it is good to note with this column that the genesis of the concern, the outrage that a pro-life person feels as regards the taking of life in the womb is ultimately the very same concern the animal lover feels. It is the same picture of an innocent being hurt, for no reason at all.

Animal lovers, picturing the face of a devoted dog, who wants to be with people, who just wants to be in the thick of things… playing games, getting treats, putting a paw on our knees, need to see pro-lifers similarly, as compassionate people, concerned for the fate of innocent life, wherever it may be found.

For more on these thoughts, look up Mary Eberstadt.

A much loved pooch who has since gone on to serve with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

A much loved pooch who has since gone on to serve with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

All things in moderation?

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The Center for Disease Control in the States is telling any sexually active woman who is not on the Pill to not drink. Ever. Our tax dollars at work, as one American friend put it.

I’m surprised that feminists are not publicly annoyed about this. After all, it’s a little degrading to presume that women need to either be on a daily regime of hormones OR never touch alcohol, rather than assuming the best, that people can drink in moderation and that this is fine.

Instead, the press piles on, writing a sidebar about a 43-year-old woman whose mother “drank” while pregnant and now she has the mental age of a first grader. One might presume this means the mother had the odd glass of wine or a beer. But no:

Kathy again drank throughout her pregnancy, but usually just with friends. She’d put away a bottle of wine, or four to five beers, during a weekend.

Drinking wasn’t her only risky behaviour: “The fact is, I had poor nutrition, smoked cigarettes, worked in bars and drank alcohol. None of this was conducive to a healthy pregnancy.”

In 1973, just a few months after turning 18, she gave birth to Karli.

More reasonably, one might offer up this story not as an admonition not to ever drink while sexually active and not on the Pill, but rather, to get help if you are struggling with alcoholism, particularly as a teenager.

Women are made to be fearful about so many things during pregnancy. The list grows and grows and if the shadow of a birth defect shows up in some early ultrasound, abortion is immediately offered as a “solution”.

I’m against abortion. I’m also against treating women like children. I’m against drinking to excess such that you cloud good judgment on a regular basis. And finally, I’m against making pregnancy so ridiculously difficult and angst-ridden simply because the culture of the age assumes no one can be reasonable. Here ends the rant.

Me and a glass of wine. Don't worry, I wasn't pregnant.

Me and a glass of wine. Apparently in an empty restaurant. But don’t worry, I wasn’t pregnant.

As it happens: From fetus to baby in one interview

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CBC’s Carol Off interviewed a Brazilian abortion activist who is using the onset of the Zika virus to promote abortion in Brazil. You can listen to the interview here.

Some thoughts:

These are wanted children, presumably. In the contested science of psychological effects for women after abortion, there is an area of agreement and it’s this: aborting a wanted baby leaves women at greater risk for later problems.

Secondly, many women might be right to wonder why there isn’t an all out attack on fixing the virus, finding a cure, finding a vaccine and controlling the spread by controlling mosquitoes. Even the abortion activist alludes to this as a problem in the interview.

Finally, it’s only where you are not thinking of babies that abortion can be a solution. You’ll notice the interview starts with reference to the “fetus” and ends with reference to the “baby.”

Carol Off’s last question is about whether abortion is even an effective solution since microcephaly is only diagnosed later in pregnancy.

According to the CDC “Microcephaly is most easily diagnosed by ultrasound late in the 2nd trimester or early in the third trimester of pregnancy.”

I’m against abortion, so it’s pretty clear where I stand on abortion as a solution to anything. But even if you are not against abortion in principle, second or early third trimester means women have been pregnant for many weeks, are bonded with their babies–furthermore, their babies look like babies, very clearly.

So I believe that advocating for legal abortion in response to the Zika virus gets an epic fail on the feminist front regardless of whether you are against abortion or not.

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Feminism today vs. feminism of yesteryear

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Early feminists were against abortion. Later feminists, including Planned Parenthood, were too. (They thought pregnancy prevention was important, but distinguished between preventing a pregnancy and getting rid of one that was already there.)

This article discusses the early feminists.

Indeed, Anthony and Stanton believed something like the reverse: give women the right to vote so that women might have the power and the influence to do away with the ghastly practice of abortion. Here is Stanton herself: “There must be a remedy for such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?”

The early American feminists presumed that the evil of abortion would be abolished by the elevation of women. Today’s feminists maintain that women’s elevated status depends upon easy access to abortion.

Erika Bachiochi

Erika Bachiochi

I am pro-hope

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“Don’t close the book on me yet.”

That’s a line from this song and video, which I thought was beautifully done. The concept of being pro-life is not that it is easy in the moment but rather that things will get better.

All of our stories are unfinished.

The song writer mentions life is a gift. This is true not merely for cute kids with blonde braids. It’s true for the annoying or acerbic adult you just ran into, too.  I think we forget that, because we stop being cute at some point. If we don’t value our own lives–how can we value those of unborn children, people we never met?

Perhaps I shall stop saying I’m pro-life, which most people are, but only in the limited framework that they grasp of that.

I am pro-hope–the life that is today a burden could be a gift later on. It’s happened so many times. There’s evidence for this idea that I hold so dear.

BrownEyedGirl

 

“The psychological burden of infant loss”

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Interesting article. I’m pretty sure we don’t mourn prenatal loss as we should, given that up until the point of birth, children are choices in this culture.

Priscilla Coleman, PhD, reflects on this issue:

The idea of induced abortion being promulgated by the medical community as a preventable loss seems like quite a stretch when it is seldom acknowledged by the major professional organizations as even carrying the potential to bring harm in the first place.

Priscilla_Coleman1_0

Priscilla Coleman, PhD, Professor at Bowling Green University in Ohio and Director of WECARE, World Expert Consortium for Abortion Research and Education

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