Actually it more often hits at night, but it does indeed drag down the morning. It’s the same old thing, really. I just can’t get over the cruelty of forcing children to be born into a world that, by definition, doesn’t want them. Which means, of course, that they spend their first nine months housed in a uterus washed in stress hormones or other toxic pressures. Their lives from then on are not, by definition, predictably healthy. What can be predicted is that society will be paying the price in eighteen years or so for the damage done by the circumstances of their lives – very likely poverty. And the sad thing is, folks will blame it on the individuals instead of the system that created the problem in the first place.
And yes, my heart aches for the agony of women forced to suffer any number of possible agonies at the behest of politicians who have little or no understanding of the complexity and potential complications of pregnancy and birth. And for their families suffering the consequences. Beyond that, it horrifies me to see the movement toward branding women as criminals should circumstances lead them to avoid inappropriate pregnancies.
Is all this a variant on animal husbandry?
What’s bothering me to the point of insomnia is the awful cruelty to children and the lifetime of effects they are likely to suffer because of political interference in the complex process of insemination, pregnancy, and birth. I’m concerned about the generation of poor (and they will be mostly poor) babies who, by definition – indeed by law — will be force-born into a world that can’t afford them or can’t care for them for one of many possible reasons.
If the folks behind the ban on abortion were truly concerned about the welfare of the children and the people they will develop into there’d be massive efforts to assure a healthy first nine months by way of financial, medical, and social support. How about enlisting the person who helped create the fetus in the first place. Wouldn’t it make sense for men to register their DNA like registration for the draft so they can accept their share of the responsibility?
Once the baby is born if the forced-birth folks really cared for the little ones there would be recognition of the importance of a continued loving relationship with the parent whose body has been home during those essential developmental months. They’d be advocating like crazy to provide everything necessary for a good heginning. That would require maternal, parental, and childcare funding at every level for every person. At the same time they’d be advocating for good nourishing lives – physical, psychological, social, educational — all through childhood and beyond. There would be lifetime structural support for every individual to “be the best that they can be.” And women would continue to be counted among those who count.
Otherwise, based on what we know about human development, those same forced birth advocates will be complaining in twenty years or so about the use of their tax money to support a generation condemned by them to the need for special services.
I love the diapers adds showing a beautiful newborn baby gazing trustingly into the mother’s loving eyes. That’s how it should be. We can help assure that kind of love for the newly born and the rest of us to the end of life if we focus on the love, unimpeded by cold “righteousness.”
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