The Most Important Message

[wlotus]

As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that. It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

~Anne Lamott, "The Born", from Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Comments

[joystreet.livejournal.com]

I love your post. I love your userpic. I think you're grand.

[placate-me.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this.

I'm really worried about the election now with the McCain/Palin ticket. I hate that there are actually people that are switching their votes to back Palin instead of Clinton. Could their political views be more different?

[sixfiftytwo.livejournal.com]

I went and saw Anne speak at a forum downtown Seattle a couple of years ago. She really is a talented writer, and a particularly fascinating woman.

Where my ethics sometimes conflict with hers, her explanations and basis for her decisions always make me consider her side with sincere deliberation...

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

ADORE your icon today!

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Damn skippy!

[amqu.livejournal.com]

I guess some human life is more equal than others.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but your religious affiliation gives me a bad feeling about your intentions for commenting on this post. Do you care to explain?

[amqu.livejournal.com]

I don't have bad intentions. I was simply commenting on the quote. But since you have asked for clarification, I'll be more detailed.

As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life,

She immediately starts out with a declaration of the sacredness of life. Can't disagree with that.

and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that.

I could be wrong, but I'm assuming she is talking about more than contraception here.

It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present.

I certainly don't want people to be forced to bring children into the world. But I'd guess there is a large segment of the population whose parents were not responsible, adoring and present, at least some of the time. I'm wondering who sets the minimum standard of responsibility, adoration and presence. If you didn't get that in your childhood, does that mean there is something wrong with you and you should never have been born? She seems to be intimating that.

We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

If she is simply talking about contraception and people should be careful not to conceive children they don't want, then I don't think it's an unreasonable position. If she is talking about abortion (and I think she is), then people have already "inflicted" life on them, and to terminate that life is to contravene her initial view - the sacredness of each human life.

I think her paragraph is morally incoherent.

BTW, although I don't read your journal all that often, I sometimes go through some of my friends' f-lists when I'm bored looking for other people's points of view. I like your photographs. I also find you to be a reasonable person. I don't generally comment on the journals of people I don't think are reasonable - too much drama.

I am curious as to why my religious affiliation gave you a bad feeling.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Your religious affiliation gave me a bad feeling, because I presume Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in abortion, therefore you would dismiss her paragraph as morally incoherent...which you did.

Her paragraph is morally incoherent only if one assumes people only use abortion as a form of birth control after willfully having sex they know they are unprepared to have, thus creating children they know they are unready to raise. That is not always the case, however. In the most extreme cases, women and girls are raped, usually by men they know and trust (like their fathers, uncles, or the men their mothers bring home). Making abortion illegal will leave those most vulnerable women without a way to reclaim their lives after pregnancy was inflicted on them. (Rich women would continue to have abortions, though; their doctors would write it up as a necessary medical procedure and use some other term. Only poor women and girls would be left to have pregnancy inflicted on them by the men they trusted.) I don't understand why it is okay to sacrifice that life to save one that is not viable, but some folks do not think it is okay to sacrifice the non-viable life for the one that is.

But Lamott's paragraph goes deeper than that. The entire essay talked about how surprised she is (and I am), that what a woman does with her own body is reason for debate and legislation in the first place. Until a fetus can survive outside of a woman's body, it is a part of the woman's body, and as such, is her and only her jurisdiction. It is immoral for anyone else to force her to do or not do anything to her body, and in most cases we would agree with that. What makes no sense to me is that even in the year 2008, people debate about abortion and try to legislate this most personal of decisions (whether or not to continue a pregnancy, regardless of how she became pregnant) as though a woman's body is public domain. I find that reprehensible, particularly when it is done from a position of self-righteousness, and even more so when it is done by men, who don't have to deal with pregnancy at all.

All human life is sacred, not just the one conceived that cannot live on its own.

I think abortion should be a public debate only when those who are against abortion are able to take the fetus from the woman who wants an abortion and carry it to term themselves. When they are able to literally walk in that woman's or girl's shoes, then and only then do they have the right to debate whether or not abortion should be allowed. Until then, it is a private matter between the woman and whomever she chooses to share her decision with, no one else.

[amqu.livejournal.com]

Her paragraph being morally incoherent has nothing to do with what I believe. It was internally inconsistent.

You just wrote an impassioned appeal for abortion which may be completely consistent with your views. But my point was that her paragraph was inconsistent with her own stated beliefs. You and Ms. Lamont may be in agreement overall; however, your argument for abortion is completely different from Ms. Lamont's argument in the above paragraph. That paragraph was what I was commenting on, and that paragraph is internally inconsistent. There may be more context in Ms. Lamont's book that would clear it up, but as far as this quote goes, her moral view is incoherent. This has nothing to do with whether abortion is right or wrong.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. And I'll admit I'm annoyed that your introduction to my blog was to disagree with a quote I feel very strongly is right. That feels a little like going to a stranger's house for the first time and, rather than making polite small talk, immediately criticizing their housekeeping.

It's always interesting how two reasonable people can look at the same thing, have it make perfect sense to one, and have it make no sense to another. I'm always surprised when it happens, though I shouldn't be.

[amqu.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that my comment annoyed you. Truly. I have a tendency to think that something that wouldn't bother me (in fact as long as it's polite I generally relish nailing down why someone disagrees with me) would be viewed that way by everyone. This is obviously false or there would be 6 billion amqu's walking the earth. Very boring.

Although I haven't read your journal that much, I have been reading your comments on a mutual friend's LJ for a couple years and so I guess I already felt comfortable with you. Again, please accept my apology.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I accept.