I just read something that gave me chills.
It was in a Q and A interview in the San Fran Chronicle with a writer named Ayelet Waldman who wrote “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace.”
Waldman’s previous claim to fame came from writing an essay in 2005 saying she loved her husband, the writer Michael Chabon, more than her children which got her on Oprah. (I hope her children can’t read.)
But as much as her saying that disturbed me, that’s nothing compared to the sad,
bold, and confused things she has to say about murdering her own child. This really disturbed me:
Q: How hard will it be to talk about your abortion on your book tour?
A: I don’t know how I’ll get through that. Of all the things I’ve revealed about myself, that’s the absolute scariest, not because I’m ashamed of it, but I feel horrible about that decision. I’m completely convinced that I did the right thing, and I’m completely convinced that I killed my baby and there was nothing wrong with him. It’s this duality, this horrible ambivalence.
But if there’s one woman who’s going through this alone and reads this essay and realizes it’s not her private agony, or it is but she shares this with other people, then it’s completely worth it.
What? At one moment she’s saying it’s emotional and scary and then she says she’s ambivalent.
This woman is obviously very sad and confused. I fear, however, that she’s more indicative of our time than we know.
May 7, 2009 at 10:40 pm
The mixed message about the abortion really doesn’t surprise me. She probably at one and the same time is convinced that she did the right thing and knows in her gut that she did not.
I used to be pro-choice, eons ago, and I also thought that it was really killing a child. Don’t ask me to explain that one: I’m not sure I even want to go there. I also don’t know how typical that is. By the grace of God, the question was never more than theoretical for me or any of my friends.
The pro-choice position is completely irrational: By any measure you care to use, the fetus is an innocent human being, and it is no less murder to kill an innocent person inside the womb than outside. QED. Nevertheless, society really brainwashes people. Changing from pro-choice to pro-life was very difficult for me, and involved a huge paradigm shift.
I’m not sure what my point is, except to say that this sort of scrambled thinking is inevitable with someone who is pro-choice, but is probably not evident to the person who is doing it. Possibly this is a way to reach someone who is pro-choice: to keep poking at the inconsistencies and trying to get them thinking about them.
May 7, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Karen
Thank you for your honesty
May 8, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Steve:
I just wanted to let you know that I quoted your comments in the comments box here:
http://www.620wtmj.com/shows/charliesykes/44581212.html?blog=y.
Hope you don’t mind, and thank you. Your observation was very appropriate for that topic as well.