Re: Ask a Pro Life Pagan
Got it. I figured it was along those lines. Death--not an option at all for unborn children by anyone's say.
Moving on.
I am a danger to myself sometimes. Not so much anymore, but suicidal depression can really strike at any time, especially with the crazy chemistry problems I have. My emotions are extraordinarily hard to regulate, even with mood stabilizers etc.
When I began to suspect that I was pregnant, you know, I freaked out. I was fifteen. I was way on the edge of a dark void. I'd been in an abusive relationship for way too long and didn't see a way out. I was super scared to tell anyone about my situation because of various, various factors that I won't go into. I had a lot of fear and a lot of sadness and anger. I knew I was pregnant deep down; I was having baby dreams and then I missed my period the next week. I had been planning various methods of calculated suicide before this happened. It was my way to freedom. So, okay, we get it. Pre-pregnancy, I was a wreck anyway.
When I suspected I was pregnant. See me chopping vegetables. See me wondering how accurately and quietly I could stab myself to death. See me atop a stairwell, trying to figure out how hard and fast I could throw myself. See me gauging available rooftops for access and a jump. See me wondering how toxic our household cleaners and various medications could be, whether or not I'd just vomit or if I'd die as planned.
If abortion hadn't been an option that I saw. If I had no chance to get rid of these splitting cells conceived from the most horrible violence. If I couldn't cut this tie that would breathe in nine months and have a father who wanted this creature as a new, lasting, better means of abusive control. I would have died. No way around it, not being dramatic--I know who I was, how I felt, how meaningless life was to me, how very gravely hopeless things were in my mind. I would have killed myself. If I'd failed, my methods probably would have ensured that I was too damaged to leave any potential for future life. At least, that would have been the goal.
Okay, so the above is what I use as my personal frame for examining the young potential mother, and it is what I use to hypothesize about the young potential mother where policy made my decision inaccessible. It is a grim state of being, to say the least.
It may be important to add that, having had this experience, I would rather suffer consistent torture than ever suffer through the personal consequences following an abortion ever again. It is... the worst thing. My womanliness has been a source of great and harrowing bodily, emotional, mental, and spiritual anguish due to the actions of those who would appropriate it. None of these torments have trumped the absolute profundity of feeling a flame within me put out.
If I could change what I did now, I wouldn't. But never, ever, ever again. I saved my life when I made that decision in many ways. I only had the strength to escape my seemingly inescapable situation when it became evident that my choices would eventually, and possibly very soon, inflict consequences upon something that never asked to be held accountable for me.
I want you to know that I wrestled with including my personal history, but, as I said, this is my go-to framework for obvious reasons, and it is the lens with which I view policy arguments over accessibility to abortion. I didn't hesitate because I'm shy about talking about my experience; clearly I'm not. I hesitated because I wasn't sure if it was necessary to my question. But it is. Sorry for the short memoir.
Knowing that girls are in these types of positions, young girls with twisted situations rampant with all manner of abuse, girls who begged and wept while their bodies became hijacked in so many ways, then left to deal with what was left, and who already want badly to die, it seems reasonable to me that outlawing or heavily regulating abortion (particularly in traumatic and medically silly ways *cough* probe?! *cough*) would cause an influx in children's lives lost. Children who are pregnant, sure, but children nonetheless. Do I look at a fifteen-year-old girl today and think of her as an adult? No. Certainly not. Those girls are children too.
So, using the above as a reference for Really Bad Situation for Pregnancy, how do you feel that eliminating the option for abortion would be ultimately beneficial for a society chock-full of these horrible lose-lose situations, where girls would rather kill themselves than be forced to carry a child to term? And I'm not talking, like, the 20-year plan where eliminating abortion would be the first step in a set of policy changes which would ultimately have some kind of socialized program that would fix everything eventually. I mean today there is a young teenaged girl somewhere wondering whether or not she should kill herself if she is unable to gain access to an abortion in the next two weeks of a life wracked with obstacles, and I am wondering how making abortions inaccessible is going to be beneficial alongside a situation where this little girl wants to die because she has been infested with something she never wanted in any way.
I'm hostile by your technical definition and not at all in another way. I'm sorry if it all sounds so blunt. Honestly, it was difficult to even figure out my precise question, because coming from where I'm at, it's an extreme struggle to wrap my head around the whole pro-life opinion, but a struggle I want, because I really want to be able to see both sides as clearly as possible. But a big part of trying to see where you're coming from is telling you where I'm at and going from there. I hope you understand that stance.
Got it. I figured it was along those lines. Death--not an option at all for unborn children by anyone's say.
Moving on.
I am a danger to myself sometimes. Not so much anymore, but suicidal depression can really strike at any time, especially with the crazy chemistry problems I have. My emotions are extraordinarily hard to regulate, even with mood stabilizers etc.
When I began to suspect that I was pregnant, you know, I freaked out. I was fifteen. I was way on the edge of a dark void. I'd been in an abusive relationship for way too long and didn't see a way out. I was super scared to tell anyone about my situation because of various, various factors that I won't go into. I had a lot of fear and a lot of sadness and anger. I knew I was pregnant deep down; I was having baby dreams and then I missed my period the next week. I had been planning various methods of calculated suicide before this happened. It was my way to freedom. So, okay, we get it. Pre-pregnancy, I was a wreck anyway.
When I suspected I was pregnant. See me chopping vegetables. See me wondering how accurately and quietly I could stab myself to death. See me atop a stairwell, trying to figure out how hard and fast I could throw myself. See me gauging available rooftops for access and a jump. See me wondering how toxic our household cleaners and various medications could be, whether or not I'd just vomit or if I'd die as planned.
If abortion hadn't been an option that I saw. If I had no chance to get rid of these splitting cells conceived from the most horrible violence. If I couldn't cut this tie that would breathe in nine months and have a father who wanted this creature as a new, lasting, better means of abusive control. I would have died. No way around it, not being dramatic--I know who I was, how I felt, how meaningless life was to me, how very gravely hopeless things were in my mind. I would have killed myself. If I'd failed, my methods probably would have ensured that I was too damaged to leave any potential for future life. At least, that would have been the goal.
Okay, so the above is what I use as my personal frame for examining the young potential mother, and it is what I use to hypothesize about the young potential mother where policy made my decision inaccessible. It is a grim state of being, to say the least.
It may be important to add that, having had this experience, I would rather suffer consistent torture than ever suffer through the personal consequences following an abortion ever again. It is... the worst thing. My womanliness has been a source of great and harrowing bodily, emotional, mental, and spiritual anguish due to the actions of those who would appropriate it. None of these torments have trumped the absolute profundity of feeling a flame within me put out.
If I could change what I did now, I wouldn't. But never, ever, ever again. I saved my life when I made that decision in many ways. I only had the strength to escape my seemingly inescapable situation when it became evident that my choices would eventually, and possibly very soon, inflict consequences upon something that never asked to be held accountable for me.
I want you to know that I wrestled with including my personal history, but, as I said, this is my go-to framework for obvious reasons, and it is the lens with which I view policy arguments over accessibility to abortion. I didn't hesitate because I'm shy about talking about my experience; clearly I'm not. I hesitated because I wasn't sure if it was necessary to my question. But it is. Sorry for the short memoir.
Knowing that girls are in these types of positions, young girls with twisted situations rampant with all manner of abuse, girls who begged and wept while their bodies became hijacked in so many ways, then left to deal with what was left, and who already want badly to die, it seems reasonable to me that outlawing or heavily regulating abortion (particularly in traumatic and medically silly ways *cough* probe?! *cough*) would cause an influx in children's lives lost. Children who are pregnant, sure, but children nonetheless. Do I look at a fifteen-year-old girl today and think of her as an adult? No. Certainly not. Those girls are children too.
So, using the above as a reference for Really Bad Situation for Pregnancy, how do you feel that eliminating the option for abortion would be ultimately beneficial for a society chock-full of these horrible lose-lose situations, where girls would rather kill themselves than be forced to carry a child to term? And I'm not talking, like, the 20-year plan where eliminating abortion would be the first step in a set of policy changes which would ultimately have some kind of socialized program that would fix everything eventually. I mean today there is a young teenaged girl somewhere wondering whether or not she should kill herself if she is unable to gain access to an abortion in the next two weeks of a life wracked with obstacles, and I am wondering how making abortions inaccessible is going to be beneficial alongside a situation where this little girl wants to die because she has been infested with something she never wanted in any way.
I'm hostile by your technical definition and not at all in another way. I'm sorry if it all sounds so blunt. Honestly, it was difficult to even figure out my precise question, because coming from where I'm at, it's an extreme struggle to wrap my head around the whole pro-life opinion, but a struggle I want, because I really want to be able to see both sides as clearly as possible. But a big part of trying to see where you're coming from is telling you where I'm at and going from there. I hope you understand that stance.
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