Thursday, November 11, 2010

Four dead babies and a bewildered mom. Because they're asking the wrong damned questions.

HT: Jivin' J

I didn't want 4 abortions but I really couldn't afford to be a mum:

STACY CUTLER listens to her 22-week-old unborn child's heartbeat - and her eyes fill with tears.

The grainy scan shows the fully developed foetus moving around inside her.

But Stacy's tears are not of joy at seeing her baby for the first time. She has made the heartbreaking decision to have an abortion at this late stage.

The 22-year-old mum-of-one has terminated FOUR pregnancies in the past three years.

She felt that she was not financially or emotionally secure enough to have another child.


The article then presents Stacy's rationale for the abortions:

Stacy believes she made the right decision when terminating four pregnancies - one only two weeks before the legal limit of 24 weeks. She says: "It was certainly not an easy decision to abort four of my unborn children.

"But I realised that it would be unfair to bring those children in to the world when I barely had the money to look after my son.


Does killing that child's unborn siblings do anything to improve his mother's financial situation?

Stacy, who was on the Pill when she fell pregnant all four times, feels that abortion is still too much of a taboo in this country.


Evidently not, if you can have four of them in three years and get your picture in the newspaper lamenting how it was totally not your fault.

And so much for the idea that throwing birth control at women is an effective "prevention" strategy. All it does is create a mindset where people are astonished that their sexual activity creates babies. For millions of years, humans understood that sex causes babies. Only in our lifetime have we lost sight of that. Only in our lifetime has the creation of a baby by sexual activity left the parents bewildered as to how such a thing could happen.

Stacy, from Cradley, Birmingham, has a four-year-old son, Jason*, with her partner of seven years, fork lift truck driver David*, 25.


She's been with this guy for seven years. He evidently isn't willing to marry her. (Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?) And he's not doing his job as a breadwinner. Or as a man. Why is he okay with his "partner" climbing tearfully onto the abortion table again and again and again and again. If he's unwilling or unable to support his children, and he's chosen to have sex with a woman this fertile, can't he use condoms? Get a vasectomy? Man up and get a job where he CAN support the children he creates?

YOU can decide whether she is selfish and irresponsible or realistic about her ability to provide.


Personally, I think there's some weird shit going on between Stacy's ears, and we're ignoring it because it's so much easier to focus on what's going on between her legs.

I Googled how much a forklift driver earns. Wiki Answers said "typically £12,000 to £20,000 a year".

This look at household income indicates that with taxes and "redistribution", the family would end up with £20,000 to £25,000 a year. That makes this family solidly working-class, not impoverished.

What is going on here, that she's so convinced that she can't handle a second child?

Is she bad with money? Is she insecure? Does she have mental health issues?

Nobody seems to be asking why she can't make a standard family income stretch to meet the needs of two kids.

We're supposed to take, "I just don't feel I can care for my son and a second child" as an accurate assessment of her situation. That she's really just too poor.

So four unborn children die. Because nobody cares enough about this woman and her kids to figure out what the hell is really going on here.

That's MY spin. We've turned the question into, "Which bad option does she choose?" And we never ask, "Is there a better way?"

Mental health treatment? Budgeting training? A part-time job? Job training for her man so he can support more than one kid? A kick in the ass and an admonition to quit whining and grow up? I don't know what this woman needs. But clearly four abortions weren't the answer. And neither was The Pill.

You have to be "prochoice" to look at that story and think that ANYBODY has been done right.

6 comments:

Lilliput said...

Christina, I read this article in the paper here in the uk. I have to tell you that I could not raise two kids on a £25k salary even though its higher then the average.

Its very obvious what is happening here. This mom is overwhelmed by the emotional and financial commitment required in parenting her son. It overwhelms her to the point she can't even manage to take the pill appropriately never mind make an appointment for more permanent birth control like a coil or implant.

I for one think that the last thing she needs is another human being to look after as she can't even look after herself and as I said before Christina, there are some people who cannot be helped. I am sure she is and has received many different kinds of support available through redistribution - which include free permanent contraception but again - you can take a horse to water but you cannot make them drink! I am just so glad another soul doesn't have to suffer the consequences.

Off the topic - have you heard about the american couple who have opened a voting to see wether they should have their baby or not? Its in the news here?

Christina Dunigan said...

I only just saw about it. I got back today from a mission trip to Peru. We were building bathrooms for a school our church built there. It's gonna take a week to wash all the cement dust out of my hair and skin!

Lilliput said...

Wow sounds like fun.

Next time, why don't you donate the money that your flight cost as a salary for a local Peruvian to get a job and do the manuel labour. Its the latest in charity tourism in the third world. In line with the - "give a man a fish he will be full for a day but give him a rod and he can feed himself forever"

You don't get a holiday in the sun or the warm fuzzy feeling of sainthood - but you don't get that cement in your hair either!

Christina Dunigan said...

I pondered that myself on the way down, Lil. But:

1. We do send money. Enough to keep the community going very well.

2. There's an added value of giving YOUR OWN TIME.

They don't want the money. They want the relationships. To love and be loved. A monetary donation can be a cold thing, when there's no human touch to go with it.

I haven't been in an atmosphere that suffused in love outside of a delivery room.

If you cut a check, you're a faceless Rich Person tossing crumbs at the faceless Poor Person. When you show up, and haul yourself out of bed at 6 a.m. and start mixing concrete and hauling bricks and WORKING BESIDE the people, that's an entirely different story.

And think -- you know the difference between a sweater somebody knitted for you by hand, versus a sweater they sent you money and then you bought the yarn and knitted it yourself. How much does it mean to you, when you own something that you know was lovingly hand-made for you?

Those children go to school in a building that was lovingly hand built for them. They watched the footings poured, the bricks laid, the columns framed up. And now every trip to the bathroom they're in rooms that their American sisters lovingly painted for them. They'll learn a trade in a bakery that they saw built by hand for them, tiled by hand for them, varnished by hand for them.

You can't buy that.

I didn't really get it until I went there myself. Then it became blindingly obvious why just donating money isn't the same as actually showing up -- sometimes several times a year, as many of the team have been doing for nearly a decade now.

One of the Peruvian women at the school got married while we were there. The man who mixed the cement and poured the columns for the new building gave the bride away. The woman who worked long hours hauling bricks and shoveling sand and dressing the joints stood in for the groom's mother. "You're our family" isn't just words. To see that beaming bride on the arm of a man in work clothes, walking down the aisle of a church he'd helped build for her.... Words fail me. I never saw such love in my life.

There's no substitute for giving yourself, and not just your money.

Lilliput said...

That sounds great Christina, but where are all the men? Where are their blood families? Why is it taking years and years and they still need the money?

Make no mistake I myself have been volunteering for years and always have wondered who actually benefits most from the arrangement.

The sweater is a good example. If my gran knitted me a sweater, then I would wear it with pride knowing she loved me enough to knit it for me and she loves me cause I'm her granddaughter. If I was poor, and needed to earn money then I would prefer she taught me how to knit so I could make and sell my own.

Christina Dunigan said...

One of the things we've provided is jobs! We've hired local people to run the place. That means jobs for teachers, cooks, a baker, mototaxi drivers, and some laborers.

The bakery is there both to help the place become self-sustaining and to teach the children a trade.