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[ocelot]

I never really understood quite why people objected so much to those giant pictures of aborted fetuses that the pro-lifers like to put up. They're gross and distasteful, sure, but I'm generally not all that affected by pictures.

But today the pro-lifers were on campus with their pictures, including several of aborted 21 and 22 week old fetuses, which is lemurbaby's age. It took me half an hour to stop shaking, and I'm still randomly bursting into tears.

I'm not sure why. I don't know if it was the pictures, or the protestors, or the people who proudly declared they killed their baby and would do it again. Maybe it's that the pictures had their intended effect - making me feel that, if I supported abortion, I was as bad as the Nazis, or the KKK, or any group intent on exterminating a group of people. Or maybe it's all just hormones and my fears about baby's welfare.

I do know that part of it is the thought that I could go into an abortion clinic any time during the next few weeks, and they'd do an abortion, and she'd be gone. And that's just a really scary thought.

And the thing is, it didn't change my view on abortion at all. I still consider access to legal abortion the lesser of two evils in our society, even after looking at those pictures while feeling lemurbaby kick inside me.

(I realized afterwards that this is the first time I've consciously noticed her kicking while I'm standing up and walking around.)

If the pro-life people gave the slightest sign of having any shred of caring for the mothers or for the welfare of the babies past birth, perhaps I'd be more willing to associate myself with them. But they don't. At least not the ones I normally see in public - I know that there are plenty out there who do care. But the most outspoken ones don't seem to care about anything but the unborn babies.

But then, most of the outspoken pro-choicers don't care about the unborn babies at all, so I can't really relate to them, either.

I wish I lived in a society where none of this was an issue.

Comments

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

I know. I wasn't really clear in what I originally said - I understood at an intellectual level why people didn't like them. I just didn't understand at an emotional level.