It's quite something when you are awoken on a Saturday morning with phone calls saying in effect "WTF is wrong with your cousin?"
Then you are told that your Christian fundie cousin, queen of the inappropriate comment, struck again.
This is the woman who when I posted on facebook that my [Pakistani] mother-in-law, and Muslim btw (my in-laws are Muslim) passed away, instead of offering condolences and leaving it at that, just had to interject her own beliefs in the comment. Saying that without Christ my mil was just dead.
I couldn't let the comment slide and possibly hurt my in-laws (most of whom I am friended to on facebook) I apologize for her in my comment section. My parents were livid with her.
Now, almost exactly a year later, she has pulled the another bone head move (I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't a form of "seasonal affective disorder") on facebook.
Yesterday my daughter, kossack, TattooedLiberal posted her most recent sonogram on facebook. She is in her 5th month of pregnancy and wanted to share it with everyone.
Instead of just "liking" the sonogram picture, my pro-life fundie cousin couldn't help herself and just had to comment. That wouldn't have been so bad except she made the comment about abortion.
It was something to the effect of "What a beautiful thing of God's creation this is why abortion is wrong."
Why? I don't know, maybe to get my daughter to drop to her knees and recant her pro-choice position by seeing and emotionally feeling how wrong she is. Maybe to get my pro-choice family (and her in-laws) to see how wrong they are (which would be kind of strange since I have four kids, sonograms of all and am pro-choice.)
What my cousin got back what something I don't think she saw coming:
(below the fold)
After the earful I got, I got out of bed, did morning things and thought about how to respond. I could go many ways in my comment, but I wanted to reach for something higher. I came downstairs and wrote a response to my cousin.
Here's what I wrote, the names have been changed.
Cousin, we celebrate the CHOICE my daughter (and your daughters, and granddaughters) are allowed to make, because we (like you) do not know what is going on in that person's life. We have not walked in their shoes. For example this pregnancy is extremely high risk, my daughter or the fetus could lose at any time.
If her [TattooedLiberal] doctors were to say to her that the pregnancy is causing so much stress on her system and body that it must be ended to save her life, the pregnancy will be ended. That decision will not be made with any joy or be made frivolously, but it will be made to save her life.
That exact decision was made for another member on my friends list. And I was/am one of the most vocal supporters of the decision. As I will be if the decision is made here.
There are many reasons women chose to abort. Since I do not walk in their shoes I do not judge them, but celebrate that they can legally make that choice and seek it in a safe environment. Of all my friends who’ve had to make that choice, none of them have done it lightly or frivolously.
Since you did not know how precarious this pregnancy is, I know you did not mean to anger people (which you have and for which I have already gotten an earful) I have asked them to give you a pass at the inappropriate comment. But in the broader since you do not know why or the reason any woman seeks an abortion, so you shouldn't judge them, or remove the legality of this choice. Because it won’t stop abortions, it will only stop safe abortions.
That said, since it seems you are anti-abortion for any reason, it would stand to reason that you support Obamacare and/or an expansion of Medicare to cover all people. Because the ONLY reason TattooedLiberal has been able to proceed this far in the pregnancy is because she has been able to get onto Medicaid (her husband's work does not give health insurance), and that’s always being threatened with cuts and throwing people off it.
I am pro ObamaCare (and actually I want single payer) because I want every woman who makes the choice to continue their pregnancy to be able to do so safely and not to subject to the kinds of maladies that commonly took the lives of pregnant women in our grandmother’s day, and continue to take the lives of pregnant women in other countries. Save other industrialized, westerner countries, where we are among the lowest. I also want the healthiest out comes for babies. There is a direct link to favorable pregnancy outcomes and healthy babies being born when the mother has had good and consistent obstetrical care.
It only stands to reason that someone who is believes every fetus should be born will want to insure that every pregnant mother has good health care.
We celebrate that TattooedLiberal (and her husband) legally were allowed to make that choice. We all understand the risks and know that another choice may have to be made, and we are all there to support them if it comes to that – because her life is more important.
You'll notice that I said above the orange squiggly my cousin's comment was:
It was something to the effect of "What a beautiful thing of God's creation this is why abortion is wrong."
Because a few minutes after posting my comment, she deleted her own. No one thought they would need to do a screen capture, but all are glad that her comment is gone.
Most of all TattooedLiberal