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

:: Thursday, February 10, 2005 ::

I have been given permission to post an interesting exchange between myself and the blogger over at AmbivaBlog.

In regards to her post here, I responded very clearly (in lower-case for efficient, casual emailing):

"it is wonderful, wonderful! and tragic. i cried through much of it. you may find that curious, but i did, and i have my reasons.

you are a great writer. terribly great! i-want-your-autograph-great.

yes-but...

i have to say that some of what you said confused me. from them mention of part 2 in your email, i sort of get the idea that abortion is not acceptable to you... but from part 1 it almost looks as if the idea is that abortion is a necessary sorrow. perhaps this is just brilliant strategy on your part... something that will lure the abortion-advocate in and hold them steady long enough to catch a quick glimpse of the truth that is coming in part 2. i don't know. i'm merely, at this point, tonguing a "magda denes" aftertaste around feeling confused and a little wounded.

i'm for spiders. i'm for women. i'm for individuality, aspiration and self-direction. but i'm not for abortion. not for the sake of spiders or individuality, aspirations or even self-direction. i'm just not for killing children. it's not an ethical solution. i can't justify killing children to solve our problems or merely to enjoy certain freedoms.

i know a woman who aborted because she has my disease and it kept ripping her throat open. she almost bled to death in the snow in a hospital parking lot. they put her in a drug-induced coma and eventually aborted her baby because she really didn't have a snowball's chance. i can understand that. it was tragic, but seemingly a necessity. that is real. that is tangible. but none of this "budding young individual" philosophy, no matter how much i love it, impassions me into an acceptance of child killing. i do not believe that it is a necessity in such a situation. in a case where a parent absolutely does not want her child, not A child, but her child, then the pain of adoption, horrible as it is, should be endured in order to preserve the child that already lives. i would say this to a mother who felt she simply could not parent her 1-year-old. i would say this to any mother with a living child. it's just a civil rights thing with me. it's just the humane, evolved thing to do. that other aspects of my life also support the opposition of abortion is merely coincidental.

as i say, i am confused by some of your exquisite writing, so i may not be conveying an appropriate response. you may feel as i do. it may only appear that you are sad about your own child loss and yet support abortion. so forgive me if i've got it wrong.

you are, as i've said, an incredible writer, and i look fwd to reading your other installments and very possibly blogging about it. look fwd to dialoguing with you as well.

imho, particularly wonderful:

*the concept that suprise children before or after a death are "a smile through the tears"
(my aborted child was conceived 9 months after my precious mother died and killed 7 days after Mom's 1-year death anniversary)

*"...a sharp invasive pain in a place so inward that i could feel it was meant to be inviolable. i didn't make much noise and the young male doctor said, 'Good girl.'"
i cried just reading the perfection of the first part. the putting to words of such a personal feeling. it killed me. but then to hear the doctor's paternal pat on the head sent me into a scarlet, blinding rage. i wanted to smash my window and scream on my front lawn like a wild woman in the night.

*"it wasn't A baby. it was THAT baby."
amen and amen.

*"...growing and unfolding"
i saw a rose, a precious, beautiful rose. delicate, perfect, miraculous. a child. apart from opinion or circumstance... a growing child. an accuracy, a sweet photograph, a sonogram of words. unfolding, unfurling... breathtaking. thank you.

truly,
ashli"

:: ashli 6:46 PM # ::
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