Re-prayerfully pro-choice, for Dan

[Guest guest]

Dan wrote in reference to abortion:

To repeat, if we are going to kill, then let's kill - and let's do it with a good conscience. Eschew the pale criminal within, and embrace the joy of the knife. It isn't complicated. It isn't essentially a wrenching, deeply personal, agonizing decision, or any of that .... nonsense. All of that fevered, overblown rhetoric serves only to obfuscate for the purposes of calming the conscience - that is, for the purposes of self-deception. If you would do it, just do it. Draw your sword and cut the knot. Access your inner Lady Macbeth, if need be. I can tell you are not a woman!

Mothers go thru 9 mos of pregnancy, n usually at least another 20 yrs of loving care, concern, love, pride etc.

It only takes about 3 minutes to kill that child on the battleground or in the street! Now if that is not a waste of time management, I don't know what is! I myself have raised 4 n lost one thru miscarriage n, at the time, almost died myself - out-of-body experience. I am profoundly grateful that my only son , a Conscientious Objector, came back safely from Vietnam. Exempt as a student at Stanford. he had refused not to be drafted, because he thought that was unfair. He became a CO n then had to write Senators, etc. to get permission to be sent to Vietnam to help undo the harm. He succeeded n worked in the pharmacy sector. In his free time, he volunteered to work in a Vietnamese hospital, n within weeks he was helping in the OpRm n so found out that he wanted to go back to Stanford to study to become a doctor. He returned safely, got his degree in Philosophy, n then went thru the years of study there to become an MD n later a psychiatrist. Today he is a gerontologist teaching and working at a Veterans Hospital in Madison, WI n is now known for developing a program for treating patients in five different aspects - as human beings not just cases. His name is Dr. Howell. He married Meg Little, a fellow student, now also a child psychiatrist, n they have 4 grown children. Anyone interested can google him.

I am sharing this because it gives me an opportunity to relate an archetypal [Jung!] experience, wh I have never forgotten. Before leaving for Vietnam, came home to say goodbye. As he stood leaving, in his uniform, on the stoop, I reached out to give him one last hug, not knowing if this were the last time! As I put my arms around him, I suddenly became aware - on another unexplainable level! - that I was uniting with the collective Mother in all of history, in all the world, who had been, were, and would be saying farewell to a son she bore who was heading to an uncertain future. The uniform that youth wore was death-defying courage, the task to defend an ideal.

The experience was shattering.

Today, of course, alas it would include daughters as well.

In haste,

love

ao

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