Why are ardent pro-abortion feminists reluctant to tell their own children about their abortions?
By Dave Andrusko
We’ve
run dozens of stories about the attempt of pro-abortionists to
“normalize”abortion by (among other tactics) “telling their stories.”The
assumption is not hard to figure out. They believe if woman
“openly”talk about their abortions, over time the public will grow used
to hearing the stories and conclude, hey, it’s no big deal to dismember a
baby.
Of course, in reality what happens to the kid is subsumed under the neutral sounding nomenclature of “choice.”My guess is few abortion “stories”talk about separating tiny arms and legs from little torsos.
“What Happened When My Daughter Asked About My Abortion,” by Raven Snook (I’m assuming that is her actual name) appeared yesterday on Yahoo’s Parenting section.
The first third of the story””about Snook’s difficulty in telling her own child about her own abortion””introduces us to the wonderfulness of “Not Alone,”an organization run by Sherry Matusoff Merfish and her two grown daughters.
Merfish had an abortion in college and did not tell her daughters about it until they went off to college. Beth Matusoff Merfish subsequently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times. We commented on it at the time and are reposting it both as background to this post and because it is a fascinating example of burying the truth in the guise of telling the truth.
There’s nothing terribly original in “Not Alone,”except that (a) the accounts are short videos posted on the site, and (b) more “stories” than you might think would be posted on a pro-abortion site talk of pain and depression following an abortion. (We also wrote about that last year.)
Snook asks herself why she “froze” when her nine-year-old daughter asked, “Mommy, were you ever pregnant besides me?”
After all, Snook tells us, she’d been open with her friends about her abortion, was “unabashedly pro-choice,”had talked about the birds and the bees with her daughter “and the fact that women have the right to decide if and when they become mommies.”
Yet…
Which is what led Snook to the discovery that “Apparently I’m not alone.”
Which led her to the importance of “telling stories”and “Not Alone.”
After all, why should any woman who had aborted–let alone someone who is
“unabashedly pro-choice”–dread telling her own kids?
Just to ask the question is to answer it: all the pro-abortion feminist jargon in the word doesn’t minimize the fear that your living children might look at your differently, might feel less secure.
Snook ends with an unintentionally revealing final paragraph:
“By the way, did I tell you about the time I forget to get milk?”
“By the way, have I ever told you that I once forgot to unplug the curling iron?”
Taking an unborn child’s life is not a by-the-way topic of conversation. Snook squares the circle by telling us that she’s going to find an “organic way” to revisit the subject she quickly changed from.
But there is night and day difference between trying to portray abortion as an example of how “women have the right to decide if and when they become mommies”and honestly admitting (if you feel it is right to tell your children) that you made a mistake.
One is rationalizing an evil. The other is confessing human vulnerability and asking for forgiveness.
We’ve
run dozens of stories about the attempt of pro-abortionists to
“normalize”abortion by (among other tactics) “telling their stories.”The
assumption is not hard to figure out. They believe if woman
“openly”talk about their abortions, over time the public will grow used
to hearing the stories and conclude, hey, it’s no big deal to dismember a
baby.Of course, in reality what happens to the kid is subsumed under the neutral sounding nomenclature of “choice.”My guess is few abortion “stories”talk about separating tiny arms and legs from little torsos.
“What Happened When My Daughter Asked About My Abortion,” by Raven Snook (I’m assuming that is her actual name) appeared yesterday on Yahoo’s Parenting section.
The first third of the story””about Snook’s difficulty in telling her own child about her own abortion””introduces us to the wonderfulness of “Not Alone,”an organization run by Sherry Matusoff Merfish and her two grown daughters.
Merfish had an abortion in college and did not tell her daughters about it until they went off to college. Beth Matusoff Merfish subsequently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times. We commented on it at the time and are reposting it both as background to this post and because it is a fascinating example of burying the truth in the guise of telling the truth.
There’s nothing terribly original in “Not Alone,”except that (a) the accounts are short videos posted on the site, and (b) more “stories” than you might think would be posted on a pro-abortion site talk of pain and depression following an abortion. (We also wrote about that last year.)
Snook asks herself why she “froze” when her nine-year-old daughter asked, “Mommy, were you ever pregnant besides me?”
After all, Snook tells us, she’d been open with her friends about her abortion, was “unabashedly pro-choice,”had talked about the birds and the bees with her daughter “and the fact that women have the right to decide if and when they become mommies.”
Yet…
when it came to revealing my own
abortion “a necessary conversation so that my daughter views it as a
personal choice, not a political one” I panicked.
I spoke with a number of moms,
including a few ardent feminists who discussed their abortions with me,
but couldn’t bring themselves to tell their kids. As one admitted, “I
don’t know why! I’m not ashamed of it, and it was the right thing to do
at the time, but I have this mental block about it. The stigma goes
deep.”
Just to ask the question is to answer it: all the pro-abortion feminist jargon in the word doesn’t minimize the fear that your living children might look at your differently, might feel less secure.
Snook ends with an unintentionally revealing final paragraph:
I still haven’t answered my
daughter’s question. The day she inquired, after a few moments of
silence, I blurted out, “Why would you ask that?”and quickly changed the
subject. Now I want to find my way back to that conversation, but in an
organic way. I’d rather she initiate it than me say, “By the way, have I
ever told you about the time I had an abortion?”So I’m waiting, but I
know it will come. And this time, I’ll tell the truth.
“By the way?”“By the way, did I tell you about the time I forget to get milk?”
“By the way, have I ever told you that I once forgot to unplug the curling iron?”
Taking an unborn child’s life is not a by-the-way topic of conversation. Snook squares the circle by telling us that she’s going to find an “organic way” to revisit the subject she quickly changed from.
But there is night and day difference between trying to portray abortion as an example of how “women have the right to decide if and when they become mommies”and honestly admitting (if you feel it is right to tell your children) that you made a mistake.
One is rationalizing an evil. The other is confessing human vulnerability and asking for forgiveness.
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