Pro-Baby and Pro-Mother: The Logical Feminist Position

Some of you will wholeheartedly agree with this article, some of you will completely disagree - I know I am broaching a touchy subject but one I feel is worth "rocking the boat" for. This is not meant to offend or in any way meant to be harsh or judgemental, rather I have decided to take a stand for those without a voice because I believe in the value of human rights and that "a persons a person no matter how small." So after stumbling across this article that so eloquently voices my feelings as a Pro-Life Femenist, I felt I needed to share it with all of you ...

Pro-Baby and Pro-Mother: The Logical Feminist Position
by Jeanette Pryor

"The philosophical foundation of all Feminism is the belief in the transcendent value of human life, both male and female, and the subsequent, radical equality of every individual. The objective morality of just behavior cannot be predicated upon thin air. When a woman asserts her right to educate herself, to select a spouse, or to choose a career, it is because she believes that self-determination is an exigency, ontologically rooted in a rational, free nature.

Many Feminists include, in the list of rights to which they lay claim, the reproductive right to Abortion. Several aspects of this “right” are called into question by the new laws regulating Abortion in Oklahoma.


Reporter Susan Donaldson James details Abortion advocates’ objection to the newly mandated sonogram. This detailed picture of the baby living in the womb must be made available to the mother, along with an explanation of the status of her baby, so that the child’s mother is fully aware of all aspects of the terminal procedure she and her baby are about to “undergo”. This is known, in every other medical procedure, as facilitating informed consent. The article portrays this presentation of information as a violation of Reproductive Rights.

 But under a new law in Oklahoma… (women are) required to undergo a sonogram…The doctor must then turn the screen towards her and describe fetal dimensions and details like the number of fingers and toes and heart activity. Already, one of the three abortion clinics in Oklahoma is reporting that women are so upset about the sonogram procedure, they are leaving the clinic crying. ‘Not one patient would look at the screen and they all closed their eyes or turned their heads,’ said Linda Meek, director at Reproductive Services in Tulsa, which does 3,000 abortions a year.

 ‘But it’s hard to turn your ears off,’ she said. ‘Several of the patients were in tears afterwards. No one changed their mind.’

 The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights has filed a legal challenge to the controversial law, arguing it violates both the patient’s and doctor’s freedom of speech and intrudes upon a patient’s privacy in her relationship with her doctor.

 The sonogram confronts us, individually and socially, with the reality of the independent human life at stake. The developing child is contingent, yet fully in possession of personal existence. This baby’s right to live and fully develop is based upon the same foundation evoked for every Feminist claim to equality.

 There are brilliant warriors for women’s rights with whom I gladly link arms to establish equal standing in society, but logic demands that I part company, in all charity, with these women when they assert that they are inherently endowed with the right to kill another human being.

 The James article begins with the story of Joelle, a young girl who was raped for two years by a music teacher and, finding herself pregnant, went to a clinic in which she procured an Abortion. Her story is heartbreaking. Her pregnancy, resulting from repulsive sexual abuse, confronts us with the test of how sincerely we, as a society, believe in this intrinsic value of the gift of life.

 Even in the face of this horrendous violation of a woman’s right to dispose of her own body, the sonogram denies us the ability to blithely commit another crime against humanity, in a torturously tempting effort to alleviate one woman’s unjust suffering.

 The sonogram stands as an unimpeachable oracle. Turning back to gaze at the perfectly formed toes and fingers, at the beating heart, and cord bonding the baby to the mother who the baby’s whole universe, the nature of the choice at the heart of the “Pro-Choice” question can no longer be camouflaged. The mother can choose to endure temporary suffering, or she can sever the cord, burn and cut the little toes and fingers, and stop the beating heart.



If we establish that women have the right to thus slaughter their babies, we establish as moral one’s right to kill another in order to avoid personal suffering. We cannot, however, destroy another life, without obliterating the very foundation of our rights.


Some women suffer emotional trauma if they carry the baby resulting from rape. Others find relief in carrying the child and giving the baby to a loving home through adoption. Some women are physically tested to their limit by such a pregnancy, while others die as the result of infected Abortion clinics or hemorrhage. The article speaks of the awful mental anguish experienced by women asked to look at their babies before allowing them to be killed. Few Abortion advocates bother to speak of life-long guilt and depression some women feel after Abortion. All of these sufferings are real and terrible. And yet, the individual, subjective emotional effects of Abortion do not change the intrinsic value of the child.

Feminists must be logical. Pro-life is inherently pro-woman, because it is pro-human rights. A Pro-Life-At-Any-Cost position solidifies the justification for all the improvements that rational feminists desire to see in society.

 Instead of childishly screaming that the Oklahoma Abortion Laws were specifically designed to oppress women, it is time to behave maturely and consider that perhaps the law was motivated by the desire to affirm and protect the human rights of an innocent baby, and, in so doing, affirm the value of every person gifted with life.



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Article printed from NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com/



URL to article: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/30/pro-baby-and-pro-mother-the-logical-feminist-position

Sarah Amber

So I have decided that this post will be dedicated to my baby sister Sarah. Call it prophetic, call intuition, call plain crazy, but before my mom was even pregnant with my sister, I knew she was coming. I was eight years old when I told my mother, who at that time had four children, that she was going to have a baby and that her name was going to be Sarah. She laughed, she told me that it would be my daughter, but I somehow knew intuitively that my sister was coming! When she was born, my mom told me that I just took over, I was her second mom. I can remember rocking her to sleep, feeding her bottles, and singing to her when she cried.


Now she is seventeen, she is beautiful, vivacious, strong, and full of possibility. I am amazed sometimes at the person she has become. Five and a half years ago, she moved ten hours away from me and I miss her a lot. This is her last year of high school and she has promised to come home, to come back to live with her second mom. A part of me wants to hold her to this, but another part of me knows that there is a big world out there waiting for her to explore and so my wish is that no matter what, she will do more than I ever did - I hope she will travel, that she will live and live and live before she settles down.


I love you baby girl! You are the closest I get to peeking ahead into Madison future … And if she’s like you, I am one very blessed Mama, twice over.

To “Those” moms: Why Can’t We All Just Be Friends?

The most unexpected thing that I have experienced in becoming a mother has had nothing to do with my daughter; instead, it has everything to do with other mom’s.


I had no expectation whatsoever of other mom’s beforehand, in fact they really didn’t factor into my ideas of my impending motherhood at all. Towards the end of my pregnancy though I decided that I should try to find a mom’s group to join for two reasons: a. for friendship with other women who were also moms and b. for something to occupy my newly open schedule, as I’d always been working and/or going to school before pregnancy so the thought of hours at home with no “duties” or “assignments” seemed rather bleak.

Oh if I’d only known the disaster that was ahead of me … Instead of finding support, understanding, and friendship I ended up with cattiness, judgment, and enemies. Oh, lordy! I was too open, shared too much, and was too nice so basically I was trampled on and left for “dead.” Is it really any wonder that some mom’s high tail it back to work as soon as possible? It was like high school all over again, complete with the entire unspoken BS, underlying expectations and of course the “in crowd.” I was part of the “in crowd” and then for reasons I still am unsure of, I was “out.”
I could go on but why? There is no purpose in glorifying the drama. All I want to say is that this is RIDICULOUS!! We are supposed to be the example for our children of how to be respectful of others, to embrace difference, to treat others with kindness, and to be proponents of peace – how is that possible if we can’t even operate this way with our own peers?


Motherhood should not be treated like a competition, rather as a journey. Imagine we all traveled on the highway the way many moms’ go about motherhood – there would be an overwhelming number of tragedies and deaths!! Instead we should go about motherhood as we do a highway drive, with respect for the other “drivers,” with the knowledge that our choices have consequences. We cannot drive without regard for the law, if we do so we jeopardize the wellbeing of ourselves and of others. In the same way, being a “mean mom” not only harms others it will harm yourself as well. You hurt other people and isolate yourself. Negative energy breeds negative energy and no one likes a Negative Know it All Nelly.

I am a firm believer that “it takes a village” to raise a child so lets do this together and stop trying so hard to prove that we are perfect, that we have it all together, that we are better …


“The way of peace is the way of love. Love is the greatest power on earth. It conquers all things.” - Peace Pilgrim


“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” - Mother Teresa

Wabi Sabi - Beauty in Imperfection

Perfection will never be attainted, beauty is found in the mistakes we make, and true happiness is found when we let go and just live! I read this article today and thought it was worth passing on:
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“In Japan there is an entire world view that appreciates the value of the imperfect, unfinished and faulty. It's called Wabi Sabi, where the first term refers to something simple and unpretentious, and the second points to the beauty that comes with age. Wabi Sabi is the aesthetic view that underlies Japanese art forms like the tea ceremony, calligraphy and ceramics. It's an aesthetic that sees beauty in the modest and humble, the irregular and earthy. It holds that beauty comes with the patina of age and in the changes that come with use. It lies in the cracks, the worn spots; in the green corrosion of bronze, the pattern of moss on a stone. The Japanese take pleasure in mistakes and imperfections.



Day by day, tiny specks of us float away. No matter which exercise or diet regimen we follow, no matter which self-help guru or meditation practice we follow, nothing will dispel the reality that we are not built to last. Death is our supreme limitation, the final proof that perfection was never meant to be part of the human experience. A hundred years from now, there will be all new people. Sooner rather than later, we shall not be here: no eyes, no nose, no ears, no tongue, no mind, no you or me -- gone, and who knows where, if anywhere.


Yet knowing the extent of our limitations, feeling our soon-not-to-be-hereness in our bones, is the best condition we can have for waking up to the miracle that we are here at all. That is the brilliance of the human design plan -- the built-in "defect" is the very thing that can spur us to drink down the full draught as it comes to us.


How did this happen? This incredible feeling, thinking, sensing, moving, joyous, painful, doubting, wondering life -- what keeps it upright even now, right now in this unrepeatable moment that is already gone? No answer to that, merely the gasp of the breath as it moves in and out, and the pleasure of knowing that for now we are here and not elsewhere.

Better to taste it now -- this gritty, imperfect life that we have -- than to defer it to some more perfect future that may never come.”


- Excerpt from “The Pleasure of Not Being Perfect” by Roger Housden
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-housden/not-being-perfect_b_912731.html

Raising my Independent Girl

My daughter has always been a force to be reckoned with since the day she was born - I'll never forget the moment they laid her on my chest screaming her lungs out. Obviously there was no doubt she had arrived! I was a force to be reckoned with as a child as well, bossing my siblings and classmates around, telling my kindergarten teacher that she was doing things wrong! Somewhere along the lines though I learned to "sit down and shut up," my strong willed tendencies we're discouraged and I was made to feel as if my true voice was better left unheard. I needed to be "lady like." So here I am twenty something years later trying to develop my independence and regain my voice at the same time as I am raising a daughter of my own.

Thankfully my husband and I are both on the same page and our aim is to make gender matter as little as possible when it comes to raising our kiddo. What is difficult are those who are not on the same page and insist on calling her a "little princess," telling their boys to "be gentle because she's a girl," or having little children ask why she is playing with "boys toys" just because she likes to play with her cars and my husband childhood action figures. Personally, one of my proudest moments was when she walked into the Disney store, which I don't advocate but is slightly unavoidable now that she can walk, and she didn't have any idea or interest in the Princess aspect of the store but refused to leave the Cars section! If she so chooses on her own to become interested in Princesses that is one thing, but I am certainly not going to encourage it because what is the value? There are very few real life Princesses, I'd rather encourage her interest in women of action, women who make a difference, women of courage, REAL WOMEN.  

In light of my own experiences as a child, I have become deeply aware of the need to channel my daughters personality not change it. I will not teach her how to be lady like, I will teach her to be well mannered and to treat everyone with respect. And in those moments when she pushes my buttons to the max, I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that her strength of personality is a gift and it will serve her well in life. I am overwhelmed and honored with this breath taking task of raising her and I only hope that I am able to meet the challenge with the right amount of love, patients, and wisdom required because I never want her to feel that I have tried to make her be something she is not. Although it is my duty to walk ahead of her and forge a path, I find that at times I am also walking beside her as I learn to see life from another perspective. Just as she is growing, so I am growing.

Me & Myself Combined

So for months now I have had two separate blogs - one that focuses on my life in general and one that focuses on how I identify myself as a feminist and what it means to me. For some reason it never occurred to me until reading some other wonderful blogs that these two things should not be treated as mutually exclusive topics but rather go hand in hand. So from here on out I will write from both perspectives, I will write about what ever comes to mind on a given day, and stop trying to manage two blogs when I barely have time for one! More to follow, so stay tuned!

The Bittersweet Irony

I love my jobs ... I am an assistant to an Insurance Agent who specializes in Long Term Care Planning. I love what I do and I am learning so much. My boss has provided me with amazing flexibility and a wonderful opportunity to grow. I love being a mom, my daughter is such an amazing little person and I feel very privileged to be raising such a tenacious, strong-willed, and intelligent little woman. She has made my life so much more meaningful and fulfilling.

So where in lies my dilemma? I feel as if I am being pulled in two different directions and either way it will break my heart. I know that if I committed to longer hours, I could grow tremendously in this industry and become successful but ... I am having a hard time being away from my daughter for even the two short days that I work. I don't want to drop her off at her Preshool and leave her there and when I do it makes me want to quit my job. But then there are nights like last night where I got dressed up, went out for a nice dinner, and learned even more about the business, had a wonderful time and I loved it! Everyone tells you that you can have it both ways, but I wonder can you really? Ultimately will I be forced to sacrifice something?

In this case, I know in my heart of hearts that I would never do anything that would sacrifice my daughter's happiness. So I will instead, swallow my guilt, hold onto my belief that "it takes a village," and remember that I am my daughter's role model. Will I choose to model an attitude of guilt and defeat or will I instead teach her that Life is about balance? Just because I work part time doesn't mean I love her less, I can let go and realize that a healthy, happy mommy is the best mommy. I have to change the prevailing attitude of "good dad's work," and "good mom's stay home," by being that change.

Oh and PS ... I think I'm going to have to order Madi this cool t-shirt :)