My name is Acyutananda (“c” pronounced as in “ciao”). All posts are by me unless otherwise mentioned, and express my personal views. The purpose of this blog will be to raise consciousness about the unborn, and awaken our consciences about the rights of the unborn.
The August 2013 post “Personhood and Citizenship” gives a basic explanation of why there should be no termination without representation.
Email: acyuta_ananda@yahoo.com
Facebook: No Termination without Representation
Twitter: @NoTerminationWR
More on why there should be no termination without representation:
The unborn are members of our human family, and normally it is wrong to kill our family members and right that they should be protected by the law. Abortion is a complex issue, so it may under certain circumstances be justifiable to kill (terminate) them – but not without representation. That is, since they cannot speak for themselves, they should be represented by those who are willing to stand up for their lives, and the final decision should be made by society, not by one person alone.
That does not mean, however, that abortion, even in violation of the decision of society, is exactly the same as murder. Please see “Why It’s Not Murder.”
My name is Kathleen Barker and I care very deeply about ending abortion. I have recently learned that there are a small number of abortion survivors who are speaking out in defense of the 57 million innocent children we have lost through abortion.
These men and women truly give voice to the voiceless and must be heard on a national platform. I recommend we share the stories of these abortion survivors to put a human face on the atrocity of abortion.
Information about the survivors of abortion can be found at The Abortion Survivors Network http://www.theabortionsurvivors.com.
1) Sarah Smith – survived abortion – twin brother was killed by abortion
2) Dr. Imre Teglasy – abortion survivor
3) Heidi Huffman – abortion survivor
4) Melissa Ohden – survived saline abortion
5) Claire Culwell – survived abortion – twin was killed by abortion
6) Gianna Jessen – survived saline abortion
7) Carrie Holland-Fischer – abortion survivor
8) Josiah Presley – survived abortion
9) Hope Hoffman – survived abortion
Thank you for your time and work in this very important cause of ending abortion.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Barker
Thanks for this information. I have visited the link, and will share it on Twitter and Facebook.
My post The Reasons Better Be Good is about the importance of abortion survivors for the pro-life movement.
Acyutananda
Hi, sorry I didn’t get a notification when you commented on the Life Training Institute blog and then I couldn’t post a reply there either, I seem to have some problems with Blogspot. Thank you for the rap poem, I didn’t know it. I do know the Anne Sexton poem, I put it on my site http://www.prolifepoetry.space, but like many of the poems I collected it is about the sadness of having undergone an abortion without it (or the author) being pro-life. Take Gwendolyn Brooks’ famous “Mother” poem, for instance.
In abortion poetry there is a lot of “I’m sorry it had to happen” and very little “I’m sorry, this should never happen” (or in my case “how did this happen and what separates us from our unwanted siblings”). The explicitly pro-life poems that get shared on social networks are so melodramatic and unrealistic (fetuses can’t speak, why imagine them addressing their mothers when there is the perfectly chilling reality of a biohazard container ready to be expressed?) that they have the potential to put off anyone who isn’t already pro-life. I think good art needs to be promoted, not badly written stuff that simply has the right motivation behind it. If you know of any pro-life poems that are well-written, I would really like to share them.
Thanks very much for these thoughts.
“fetuses can’t speak, why imagine them addressing their mothers”
Two years ago the Pro-Life Humanists Facebook page started a discussion about this very issue (specifically more in relation to videos than poetry): https://www.facebook.com/ProLifeHumanists/posts/911823552210159 As you will see there, I replied saying in part:
“I don’t think the imaginative device used is much of an issue. Any device can be fine, it depends on the treatment. I liked this video, where the device was not used in a schmaltzy or particularly overdone way.
“But even the overdone videos probably save some lives (though personally I might wince), and I think they do little, on the counterproductive side, to discredit the pro-life movement. (As compared to false factual claims, for example.)
“Fantasy can be very powerful psychologically and doesn’t have to equate with religion. Our subconscious minds are not scientific and literal.”
It seems you would take issue with my “I think they do little, on the counterproductive side, to discredit the pro-life movement.” You said, “they have the potential to put off anyone . . .” I don’t really know.
I’m familiar with “Mother.” I didn’t know that Brooks and Sexton were pro-choice, but I guessed that Brooks was and I’m not surprised about Sexton.
“In abortion poetry there is a lot of ‘I’m sorry it had to happen’ and very little ‘I’m sorry, this should never happen’ . . .”
I’m completely or almost completely unfamiliar with abortion poetry apart from those Brooks and Sexton poems, but you have put it very nicely. Sorry about your siblings.
I have started appreciating your “An Ending for Biological Hazards,” and am very happy to know about your blog and will read all the poems there.
Probably you’ll take it in the right way, though, if I observe that to make abortion unthinkable in the Western world, sophisticated poetry alone, no matter how good, will not impact the necessary number of hearts. We need an Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
“If you know of any pro-life poems that are well-written, I would really like to share them.”
Well, er, how about a poem that features a speaking fetus, dead no less? Well, but then in the last stanza it all becomes more ambiguous. Maybe nothing magical is really being claimed after all. Please see my “The Ghost in the Garbage Can”
If somehow it meets your standards, I would of course be happy for you to share it. Credit should be given to Life Matters Journal.
I would also like to invite you to check out an attempt at pro-life satire: “A Civilization That Was”
And another attempt at humor: “Not My Reality”
Indeed I do not expect poetry to save the world – not mine and not the Western one either. But then I don’t write just to convince people, I do it because poetry shows me things I would not otherwise see and because we deserve good literature. Art is about truth and beauty, not propaganda. Art based on pro-life values should be beautiful and impressive. Awe-inspiring. Awesome. :)
Greetings!
I am Judy Friederich and am a passionate supporter of the rights of the unborn. I come from an interesting background, having had an abortion at age 18, before Roe v. Wade. Because of my guilt in what I had done, I tried to justify my actions by becoming pro-choice, even writing college papers on the effects on the baby from being unwanted. I grieved every time I saw a baby, though, and my pain caught up with me a decade later after I birthed my first child. I re-examined my position, forgave myself, and found freedom in fighting for the rights of the unborn. I’ve spent 50 years working with children and pregnant/postpartum women as a teacher, counselor, and mentor, breaking the myth that pro-life people only care up until birth. Lately, I’ve taken to writing about my support of life on various forums. Blessings to you in your efforts to educate and advocate for the unborn!
Thanks so much for saying hi. Now that your post was approved, if you write again giving the same email address, it will appear immediately and will not require approval.
Unfortunately, my software does not send automatic notifications to your email when I or anyone replies to you. So to see replies, you would normally just have to check back here from time to time. But if you would like me to manually email you notifications, I’d be happy to do that.
Also, up above on the About page, I provide an email address.
I’m deeply touched by your background. It’s late right now where I am, but I will write some more in the morning my time.
–Acyutananda
Getting back to you now, first let me mention, on a light note, that those Yahoo News comments sections (where we met) are not a place where I normally expect any useful engagement. The pro-choicers there are normally angry people and not philosophically inclined. I write there when I get challenged by the thought “What would be an ideal thing to write here if I were talking to serious people?,” but not because I expect to actually be engaging with any serious people. So out of the many times I’ve left some comment on those Yahoo pages, the occasion of that “Pro-life advocates don’t villainize women who get abortions” article was the first time I felt my time hadn’t gone only for some mental exercise.
Under that article, two surprising things happened: One was that Quinn seemed willing to admit having misunderstood the logic of the discussion going on and to thank me for the correction (which is very rare and which I have to respect). And the other was that I had a chance to learn about this background of yours.
The story of my having become a passionate pro-life advocate is harder to explain and doesn’t revolve around anything that happened to me personally. When I was young I never thought much about the abortion issue, but the unborn seemed completely inconsequential, and if you had asked me, I probably would have said that abortion seemed like a good thing for the sake of the environment. I really don’t know what led me after some decades to start thinking more and more about the unborn. I have written about that process as best I can remember it in “What’s in It for the Born?” But however it may have been, thinking about it enough led me to understand the enormity of the injustice that is going on.