The belly button is a reminder to all of us that we relied on another human being to keep and protect us while we prepared for our birth. This mother’s child is living solely through the nutrients and oxygen supplied though their umbilical cord and will someday soon have a lifetime reminder of their mother’s sacrifice.
Provide your child with a symbol of your love and commitment. Provide them with a birth and a belly button.
How true is this?!
Next time you want to argue that a woman has the right to kill her baby, look at YOUR belly button, the visual reminder that YOU were once helpless and totally dependent on someone else. And then go thank your mother for not killing you.
I look at my navel, and I’m very grateful that my mother gave birth to me and (along with my father) raised me. That was kind and generous of them.
But because I love my mother, I would NEVER begrudge her the ability to make her own choice. I hope that even though abortion was illegal in New York when I was born, my mother had the education and resources to get a safe abortion if she wanted one. She deserves that, and I would prefer that my birth was a choice freely made. The idea that people who don’t even know my mom and couldn’t care less if she lived or die should make that decision for her by force is repulsive to me.
If my mother had aborted me, I wouldn’t have minded. How could I? I wouldn’t even had known.
If Mom had aborted me, probably it would have been to control her timing of when to give birth (which is why most women who get abortions have abortions). Another baby would have been born to her, at a more convenient time for her. And that baby would have become someone weird and miraculous and unique, and just as deserving of life as I am. The world would lack wonderful me, but it would have my wonderful sibling instead.
And you know what? She’d have a belly button,too.
My mother did have an abortion before I was born, back when it was illegal. Since her parents were wealthy, they just flew her to Japan, where it was performed. Thus, of course, reinforcing the oft-ignored fact that abortion restrictions are just yet another way of punishing poor people while letting the wealthy do as they like (just as they always have).
How do I feel about it? I feel really good about it – great, in fact. Though this was her exploiting her economic privilege, it’s a privilege that I (and she, and her parents) want everyone to have access to). Had my mother not had access to abortion, I would have to worry that my birth was not a birth of choice, but rather a birth that she was forced into by legal or economic necessity. I love my mother very very much, and I would hate the thought that my birth was something that was forced on her.
Ready access to abortion mean, optimally, that every child is a wanted child, and I like that. I’m glad I was wanted. :)
—Myca
Myca, it seems dubious for you to say “Had my mother not had access to abortion, I would have to worry that my birth was not a birth of choice.” If you mother had not had access to abortion, then odds are you would never have been born, and therefore you wouldn’t have to worry about it at all. :-)
Okay fine Nitpicky McPickypants …. were I born, to a woman who hadn’t had access to abortion, I would worry that my birth hadn’t been a chosen birth, and I would worry about the effect my birth would have had on her.
Better? :P
(I see your point, though, and I don’t disagree.)
Wow. I’ve never felt that my kids owed me gratitude for not aborting them.
Now you have license to feel that way and, therefore, demand more from them. You’re very welcome.
“I didn’t carry you to term and fail to abort you and give you a bellybutton just so you could refuse to eat your broccoli!”
I know somebody who doesn’t have a belly-button. Therefore, I assume she need not give thanks for having been born.
Did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?
And when they say “Provide your child with a symbol of your love and commitment. Provide them with a birth and a belly button.” do they suggest that it is possible to provide them with a birth and NOT a belly button?
But whatever. I am going to go thank my mother for not killing me. Although frankly that was a lot more likely when I was 12.
I can’t say I feel my kiddo owes me anything for her birth. The stereotypical teenage comment about not asking to be born is true: It was my idea, not hers. I owe her the best upbringing I can provide. Why should she owe me for something I forced on her?
My kids are twelve and sixteen. I absolutely refuse to provide them with an additional birth and bellybutton. If they want a symbol of my love and commitment I’ll buy them a damn card.
I mean, they’re both taller than I am; I’m pretty sure neither would even fit in my uterus at this point.
“Provide your child with a symbol of your love and commitment. Provide them with a birth and a belly button.”
So… no vat-grown babies? Can do.
Why in hell would I care if my mother had been able to have an abortion or not?
I’m glad I was born, but it kind of disturbs me to know I was born into a country where my right to life was dependent on my mother’s whim.
The slogan ‘every child a wanted child’ has always struck me as viscerally disgusting. The value of a child, unborn or born, shouldn’t have anything to do with how their mother feels about them. and it’s simply not the case that what we want is always the same thing as what’s good for us.
Huh. I find the thought that my mother would be forced to have a child, and moreso the idea that I would (unwillingly) be the cause of that, disturbing and disgusting.
I love my mother, and it upsets me when I am the cause of great pain and suffering for a loved one.
I won’t assume that this is true of you. Your mileage may well vary.
—Myca
Re: Huh. I find the thought that my mother would be forced to have a child, and moreso the idea that I would (unwillingly) be the cause of that, disturbing and disgusting.
In life, we’re forced to do things we don’t want to do all the time. That’s the human condition.
In life, we’re forced to do things we don’t want to do all the time. That’s the human condition.
And yet, without establishing that forcing people to do things is morally neutral, its frequency is irrelevant. All people die, it is the human condition; therefore, it’s okay for me to shoot you in the head, or drive 90 mph through a school zone, or to dump carcinogenic waste in the local river. Physical pain is a frequent and unavoidable part of life; therefore it’s okay for me to torture you. Life’s not fair, therefore we should do away with civil suits. (“Forced to do things all the time” is not how I see my life as an American adult, but again, irrelevant.)
We’re forced to do things all the time. Therefore it’s okay if I force you to wear your least favorite color every day, just because, hey, I like that color. Or if I force you, at gunpoint, to give me your money.
Or maybe you believe that forcing people to do things is good if we think they should do those things. So maybe it’s okay if I force you, at gunpoint, to give your money to Planned Parenthood.
Oh no wait, probably you believe that it’s okay to force people to do things as long as they have the stamp of Hector’s personal approval. So it’s not okay for me to force you to give money to Planned Parenthood, but it’s okay for you to force me to give money to NOM.
I know that you are A-OK with the state forcing people to do things and treating them like children, as long as you agree with those things, based on your previous comments. Good luck getting a dictator to take over who agrees with you in every particular.
But even leaving aside all that, I’m not in the habit of going around forcing people to do things for my particular benefit. Why wouldn’t I find it disturbing that someone would force my mother to give birth, allegedly for my benefit, when it would be something I would consider immoral to do for myself?
Re: And yet, without establishing that forcing people to do things is morally neutral, its frequency is irrelevant
It would be fairer to say I don’t think forcing people to do things (in this case it’s actually preventing someone from doing something) is inherently bad. It depends on what you’re forcing (or preventing) them to do.
I don’t think forcing someone to refrain from killing their baby, born or unborn, is a bad thing. Decisions about human life are too important to be left up to the individual.
Don’t twist an ankle backpedaling, Hector.
What am I back pedaling on?
I think forcing people to do things, in itself, is morally neutral. Sometimes it can be a bad thing, sometimes it can be a good thing.
The natural human condition isn’t to be masters of our own destinies all the time.
Hector,
Saying it’s “natural” is the naturalistic fallacy, and saying that it’s common, likewise, has nothing to do with whether it’s morally neutral. I mean, abortion is pretty common and has been happening during most of history, and naturally occurring miscarriages even more so, but clearly you don’t believe that that’s enough to make it morally neutral because it’s natural and part of the human condition.
Technically, if you believe it’s only okay to force people to do things to achieve some goal such as not killing human embryos, and not okay to force people to wear orange because I like orange, then you don’t think forcing people to do things is completely morally neutral.
Hector, maybe it would be fairer to say that you can’t even keep track of your own arguments. Forcing people to do things is part of the human condition, it’s not inherently bad, it’s morally neutral? These are not at all the same thing.
If decisions about human life are too important to be left up to the individual, then you must also believe using deadly force in self-defense is wrong; after all, the decision about killing an attacker is far too important to leave it up to the individual being attacked. Similarly, I expect you would believe a recent widow who finds out she is carrying her deceased husband’s child should not decide on her own that she wishes to carry the baby to term, since that’s a decision about human life, and not one she should be making on her own.