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Friday, July 15, 2022

10-year-olds, abortion, child abuse, and CPS in my yard

I admittedly live a privileged life. My parents did not abuse me or neglect me in any way. I was sheltered, and I shelter my children from harmful things as much as I can within my own home. 

We don't have the news on nonstop. We don't yell at our children. We have never spanked our children. We don't do drugs or abuse alcohol and there is no domestic violence in our home. My husband and I have gotten therapy on our own and together as a couple to ensure we provided our children with love and stability. 

Within that secure foundation, though, I have thought it wise to let them experience the world. They go to public school and meet all kinds of kids. They can read whatever they want. They have phones and Internet access, and I encourage them to talk to me about what they see or hear and educate them to verify everything. They do not get in trouble or lectured for asking questions or being naturally curious. 

But their home is secure. 

This week, I got to see up close and personal what it is like for kids whose lives are very, very different from my children's. 

Without going into detail that would violate privacy, I can say that child protective services was in my yard this week. I can say that I was a witness to the sadness of a mother who chooses a man over a child (which is probably because she is abused too), a woman who loves her child as best she can but has problems of her own and is not meeting her child's needs. 

Most importantly, I saw a child who is in need of a lot of counseling because the adults who are supposed to protect her and love her are not doing it in the way it needs to be done.

With this on my mind, it makes me furious to read about the rigamarole over the 10-year-old in Ohio who got a medication abortion for 6 weeks of pregnancy that resulted from rape by an adult. Having looked at the face of a neglected and emotionally abused child this week IN MY FUCKING FRONT YARD, I take the side of that 10-year-old over a 6-week fetus that is the size of a Chiclet piece of gum.

How do I know a 6-week fetus is the size of a Chiclet? I looked it up. 

And it INFURIATES me that people are choosing something that doesn't speak and has no consciousness and cannot eat or breathe on its own OVER the life of a 10-year-old child who can walk, talk, eat, shit, and feel. 

How can we do this to living, breathing, outside-the-womb children?

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