My previous post explained why I stand with Planned Parenthood on Pink Out Day, so naturally it had to attract ridiculously offensive comments from people who have never read anything I’ve ever written, including that particular post. My initial reaction was, of course, to hit the delete button. But I’m feeling in a pillory mode, so instead I will post the comment in its entirety, unaltered, and then I will respond. Because sometimes all you can do with a dog that pees on the carpet is roll up a newspaper.
Mary
The commenter wishes to be called “Mary” — this is not private information since it would have appeared with the comment if I had approved this submittal. Of course, I believe in calling people what they want to be called (except for Republican politicians who want to be called “President,” right now I’m very much against that.) But to be honest with you, when I read Mary’s post I see the weird old guy with a bazillion surreal signs, religious tracts, and plastic Virgin statues like lawn gnomes who’s always hanging out in front of the local PP clinic. Let’s call him “Mary”, shall we?
The author of the comment uses an email associated with a church volunteer in a Midwestern state, itself accompanied by a phone number from Cheyenne, Wyoming; the full name associated with this information is common to 19 white pages listing in the church’s Midwestern state, most of them elderly, and several of them recently dead; and the comment was posted from a mobile IP registered in a different Midwestern state. So really, this could be a prank, a real person, a pseudonym, an identity theft, etc.
Here is what Mary had to say to me:
Do not trust birth control handed out by a company that makes its money off conception. Do not trust anyone who thinks your baby is better off dead. Do not trust people who will slice your baby into the most valuable cuts and sell them. Do not trust a business that must do a certain # of abortions to provide pay checks to its workers. PP sees us coming and sees $ signs. Factory farming of women and children. Livestock. Planned Parenthood cares about women and children the way farmers care about breeder sows and piglets. Wrap all this gut-sucking and baby mutilation all up in pink to look innocent and good? No- just bloody.
All righty, Mary. This is going to take some unpacking; there is so much rolled up together.
The Medium is the Message
Let’s break this down in smaller bites so we can fully appreciate it.
Do not trust birth control handed out by a company that makes its money off conception.
Nice start! You’re saying that Planned Parenthood is doing what, giving fake contraceptives? Is that what you’re saying? Because I can tell you, the stuff comes in the manufacturer’s wrapping, all sealed. You’re so desperate, you won’t even cite a third-hand anecdote to back this up?
Do not trust anyone who thinks your baby is better off dead.
What baby? The live babies I saw going in there were cared for — all too often for free since the parents are only there because they have no health coverage. Oh, you mean the small mass of non-viable cells I might decide to have removed from my uterus before it becomes a real baby that I would be unable to care for? That baby? Mary, it’s as much a baby at that point as a pinecone is a tree. Even a really nifty pinecone is not a tree. An egg, even a fertilized egg, is not a chicken.
Do not trust people who will slice your baby into the most valuable cuts and sell them.
You don’t have a whole lot of familiarity with your topic, do you? What is it you picture, a rosy ham carved spiral-style? If you mean stem cell culture, we’re talking about getting a few cells from the egg or the pinecone — or in this case, the tiny blob of reddish jelly, to grow them on glorified agar plates. It’s too small to slice, see? Also too small to be a human being, let alone a viable one.
Do not trust a business that must do a certain # of abortions to provide pay checks to its workers. PP sees us coming and sees $ signs.
Oh, you betcha! That sweet, sweet reproductive health care cash! All those Benjamins they collect from, uh, giving away medical examinations, classes, laboratory testing, vaccinations (oh wait, that’s evil too, isn’t it?), contraceptives, and referrals to battered women’s shelters. Boy, they sure are rolling in it, as I can readily see every time I go in there. That 1970s office furniture — don’t let the looks fool you, you can’t get that stuff for love or money these days! Priceless antiques! The jobs at 60% of what the health care workers would be making in private practice? It’s a cover! All that money is ferried to the Cayman Islands on steamers entirely powered by the combustion of baby corpses.
Factory farming of women and children. Livestock. Planned Parenthood cares about women and children the way farmers care about breeder sows and piglets.
Unlike, say, religious people who think sex should only be for conception, and women should be at home producing children. People who think abortion should be outlawed even in cases of pregnancies that put the mother’s life at immediate risk, or force her to carry for weeks a fetus that is non-viable, or even already dead. Totally.
Wrap all this gut-sucking and baby mutilation all up in pink to look innocent and good? No- just bloody.
Ooooh! Was this an attempt at allegory? Alas, what you gave us was bathos instead.
Reading is Fundamental
I do love how this paragraph, this collection of non sequitur, was thrown like a plateful of noodle (rAmen!) at the wall to see what would stick, but really had nothing to say about my post. It had to do with the words “Planned Parenthood”, not with anything else I had written. Mary, if that’s all you get from your readings, I recommend Twitter; it will be less effort for you. Heck, I’d like to make your life easier, you seem like you can use a break. Why don’t I just give you some writing prompts for the next writer’s block:
- Sex education
- Social justice
- Wage parity
- Single-payer health care
- Marriage equality
- Free child care and preschools
- Maternity and paternity leaves
- Access to contraception
- STD screenings
- Recreational sex
- Teaching consent
- Secular humanism
- Living wage
Just pick whatever frightens you most, and write me another essay.
I will leave you with a reading assignment: The Horrifying Reality of Abortion Before It Was Legal in America.
Edit: And here is the follow-up reading assignment: Real stories of late-term abortions.
Credits: Photo by Dorothy Marder, taken at the International Women Year National Conference, Houston, Texas, November 18-21, 1977
The Reef 