Oct
17
October 17, 2006
Hey, let’s talk about abortion and religion!
(Wait, where are you going?)
Two things:
1. JB and I went to the Bodies exhibit a couple weeks ago. I highly recommend checking it out if it’s in your city, the specimens are truly amazing and give you a unique chance to appreciate the fascinating machinery under your skin.
One section of the exhibit is devoted to fetal development, and it includes many actual fetus specimens floating, ghostlike, in their containers. You can choose to bypass this room; I imagine it would upsetting to some people. There are heartbreaking examples of birth defects which are particularly difficult to view.
Most intriguing to me was the area depicting gestation week by week, from chorionic sac to embryo to 32 weeks in development. In the first couple weeks you see what you might expect: a tiny blob of cells. By five weeks it takes on the form of a living creature, preliminary arms and legs are there.
The eighth week specimen was so perfectly formed it took my breath away. Fingers. Toes. Eyes. I can’t explain it, except to say it’s one thing to see photos of this stage, and it’s something else entirely to see the actual body from all angles.
I have felt differently about abortion since Riley, which is not to say I have changed my pro-choice stance entirely, but rather that the subject feels much more emotionally charged. It is now difficult for me to be objective or clinical about a process that prevents a viable baby from being born.
I had an abortion when I was a teenager, which I hope is not such an intimate confession it will make you feel uncomfortable – it’s just the truth. I was maybe eighteen and was in no position to feel anything but an overwhelming desire to end the pregnancy. I have no lingering sorrows over that choice. At the time I was incredibly relieved to have the option available to me.
When I think about abortion now, my mind can’t quite escape the image of that eight-week-old fetus. Fingers. Toes. I don’t know how to view it any other way than ending a life.
For my own situation, I didn’t want to have a child. I had nothing to offer a baby: no stability, no money, nothing. I believe my life took a better course for not being a teenage mother, although who can say for sure. I believe Riley would not exist today had I made a different choice back then.
But was it morally wrong? I feel less certain that I know the answer to that question.
2. I have also felt differently about religion since Riley, which is not to say I have changed my personal agnostic, uh, nonbelief system. I am more empathetic to the desire to believe, I guess. I understand that there are things in the world so glorious and good there is no better word for them than miraculous. I understand, in some small scared way, the unspeakable enormity of a child’s death, and the need to believe that this world is not our last.
I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (which I picked up because she is a great and funny author; she also wrote Bird by Bird, one of the best books on writing I have ever had the pleasure of reading), and while I do not share Lamott’s spirituality, I find her point of view inspiring. She talks about Jesus and God and Mary and so on, but her faith is completely without judgement. She uses her faith as a supporting pair of hands, the motivation to get out of bed on a day that offers no comfort, and a reminder to love her fellow man without exception.
Her perspective is a beautiful thing to read, in my opinion. It is quite different from the ‘family values’ bullshit that is really just hatred and intolerance with a halo drawn on top.
She fundamentally lives her life by a set of what I choose to believe are mythological constructs. But her flavor of Christianity offers a moral compass I can respect and even envy.
Lamott herself believes in a woman’s right to choose, by the way. She wrote, “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.”
I want to support this right. I really, really do. I have many reasons for believing that women should have legal access to this procedure.
And yet. Fingers. Toes. Visceral reminders of the machinery being built, with all its potential. It’s complicated. It is more complicated for me than bumper stickerisms or yelling lunatics with signs or choices made in the name of God.
Oct
15
October 15, 2006
First of all, I have to say how much I enjoyed reading about your weekend plans. That was unexpectedly interesting and cool and I’m going to ask you every single Friday from now on.
My own plans revolved once again around a farm and some fall-themed activities, although I am very sad to report there were no trebuchets involved, nor quarterstaffs, culverins, siege hooks, or petards.
(Ah, medieval weaponry terminology, how quickly it nerds up a blog entry. Let us all bind our heaving bosoms in low-cut gowns and dance the estampie. Have you a flute?)
We joined the throngs of stroller-pushing parents who visited the Kelsey Creek farm, which was having its annual October festival, which for some mysterious reason included llamas.
JB is apprehensive, as well he should be.
I mean, when you look at these guys close up, you can’t help wondering what influenced their genetic background. Radiation exposure, maybe? Because they are essentially giant mutant pissed-off looking rabbits with hooves.
The placement of this sign and the proximity of the massive pig made things fairly unclear, but I think there were pony rides at the farm.
Oh, and there were pumpkins, carefully placed at such precise, Rainman-esque intervals in a field it was both pretty and faintly disturbing.
There were also children riding very small tractors.
Riley found all the activity questionable and perhaps in need of a thorough investigation.
This fellow was demonstrating blacksmithing, or maybe he was beckoning children into the cauldron in order to cook up their tasty, tender flesh.
We stopped by the swings, and swang swunged did some swinging.
We also checked out this riding thing, which Riley deemed to be acceptable entertainment.
He returned to a state of skepticism on the way back to the car, though. Did you know my son can look suspicious even with a milk bottle protruding from his face? Because he can.
I also made a very tasty soup featuring cream AND sugar (but also a vegetable, so is actually v. healthy), which I lovingly detailed here, and rice krispy treats with M&Ms in them. JB happily tooled around in his new shop and produced some nicely stained wood trim for the bathroom, I bought a fabulously attractive Eddie Bauer sweater at Goodwill for $3.99, Riley officially started walking (in a hesitant, IT’S ALIVE! Frankenstein kind of way). It was a good, good weekend.
(Suctopus!)
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