:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Sunday, February 02, 2003 ::

Today the subject of dads (and parents in general) came up again in friendly conversation. Someone went to my website and read about my dad's idea of how important the work ethic is. It's so important (to him) that when my illness became disabling and threatened my job status, he advised me to abort saying, "You CAN'T lose your job." He knew my husband had a good-paying job. He knew I had $30,000 in the bank from a recent inheritance, but somehow staying home to fight out my illness was absolutely unacceptable to him. I will never forget the urgency in his voice as he adamantly stated that I couldn't lose my job. Losing my second trimester child, his grandchild, was somehow not an issue at all.

In 4 months of raging illness he came to visit me for one <24hr period. At an average rate of once per hour he encouraged me to abort my child saying, "You don't have to do this, you know," as if I was being silly entertaining all this unnecessary trouble. "In the time it would take to pull a tooth, all of this suffering could be over." What an unspeakable carrot to dangle in front of a tortured body. He got one of his friends to call me and tell me how quick-as-a-flash a D&E was. I asked her how she felt about killing her child. Shocked, she said the child was already dead. Dear old dad had neglected to inform her that he was involving her in an abortion coup. (These two later had an affair, but my dad never questions his ethic.)

I'm not saying I was blameless, but I was extremely vulnerable in that physical state, and my dad was somewhat of a beacon. When so utterly sick, I reverted to a child somehow and commended my care into his hands. His urgency about the job was infective and frightening and the lure of a "five-minute cure" proved to be unbearable. For the first time in my adult life he made himself my "friend"; he took my vulnerability and turned it into death, because by his moral compass losing someone to share your life with is better than losing a job.

Four months after I lost my child, my perpetually tipsy father confided that he too had lost a child in an abortion. He thought he would be helpful by relating that he sometimes wondered about that child. Thanks, Dad, for your role in inducting me into your sad and twisted club where we could be pals unto eternity lamenting the "necessary sorrow" together. Well we are not pals; we will never be pals since the day you defined your perception of my intrinsic value by telling me that my child, a part of me, your grandchild, meant less than a job teaching other people's little children their ABC's. You killed me, Dad, when you needled and encouraged me to kill my child. We can never exist when your apology is that I am abnormal for hating you for it.

That unpleasantness being rehashed and done... I find that I am not alone in the negative parent-child dynamic of the abortion experience. I witnessed it with my own eyes when a particularly intimidating mother literally dragged her frightened teen into Orlando Women's Center by the shirt. And over the years I have heard it time and again in broken-hearted anecdotes. I remember a friend whose mother told her abortion was the consequence of her sin of premarital sex, and that she should pray to God for the strength to abort her 25-week-old baby girl. This mother told her daughter that if she died on the abortion table that also would be a consequence of the sin of premarital sex (no mention of the wrong of abortion from this sin-obsessed, Steven King Carry-esque mother). Those of course are glaring examples, but just as insidious are subtle encouragements.

In the last two days one friend writes to say her father said the same thing as mine, while another friend tells me how "ironic" her father was. He supported her first choice to abort, but when she chose to make adoption plans for the next child, dear ol' dad withdrew his support. Since she wasn't going to abort, he wanted her to KEEP the baby; he was worried about the effect that losing a child would have on her life. Consider his concepts of loss and mercy. I don't think my friend really knows what to make of it. Earnestly sitting down to contemplate it all might cause more anxiety than it's worth dealing with at this point. It's easier to call it "ironic" and move on. But it's more than ironic, isn't it? It's a poverty.

The parent who encourages abortion doesn't understand the philosophy they impart. Instead of giving their child the perverted message that human life is expendable, they think they are being compassionate. Perhaps they don't consider that half of the gestating child's genetic material comes from the mother and so, to encourage the mother to abort is, on some psychic level, equivalent to parent-sanctioned suicide (not to mention the worst kind of surgical rape). After all, how much can the daughter be worth, if her daughter is worth nothing and even deemed refuse? Oh, it's a double-edged sword, my friends, and it cuts both ways.

In this day and age when techonolgy and intellectualism abound it seems absurd that anyone would need to know the basic definintion of love. However, it is clear that people are being twisted, whether by federal law or the social law enforced by their own parents and peers. For those who want to know what compassion is, I end today's entry with a catchy little number I like to call "Love 101":

Love 101...
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

Abortion is not love. And without love we have nothing. That is all that's left of us, dear Daddy.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 12:01 PM # ::
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