Category Archives: Sexuality

March 12, 2013 · 6:33 pm

‘Transgendered’ Kids in School: The Big Lie

“Tommy,” my childhood playmate, thought he was Superman.

He wore a cape, fought imaginary bad guys, and insisted on being called Superman.  His mom and dad played along—until the day “Superman” decided he could fly and jumped off the garage roof. Fortunately, he only broke his arm, not his neck, and his parents went back to calling him Tommy.

Tommy was limited, you might say, by a very concrete, physical reality: he was a boy, not Superman. No matter how hard he imagined, how strongly he believed, and how soaring his lift-off, he would plummet straight down to the ground. He could not fly.

Initially, his parents indulged his childish, wishful thinking. But Tommy’s painful collision with reality jarred them back into their authoritative role as parents. Tommy needed their guidance.  He needed them to explain the truth inscribed in his body: the ‘real Tommy’ wasn’t Superman—he was a boy. And God made him for something far better than being “Superman.” His happiness, not to mention his safety, depended on accepting and embracing that reality.

Fast forward to Massachusetts, 2013.

Just as Tommy needed his parents to ground him in reality, the children of Massachusetts need the adults in their lives to do the same.

But the Massachusetts Board of Education has done the opposite. It recently established a harmful protocol for Massachusetts’ public schools, under the benign title, “Creating a Safe and Supportive School Environment.” The document offers “guidance” for elementary and secondary schools as they implement new state laws prohibiting gender identity discrimination.

Specifically, schools must remove all “obstacles” which prevent ‘transgender or gender non-conforming students’ from enjoying “equal educational opportunities.” (Massachusetts law defines a ‘transgender’ student as one “whose gender identity or gender expression is different from that traditionally associated with the assigned sex at birth.”)

Much of the outcry centers on three points:

  • Transgender children must be allowed to use restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex, if they so choose.
  • Transgender children may use any name or pronoun, regardless of its biological mismatch (e.g., a boy who identifies as a transgendered girl may insist on being called “she”).
  • Schools must “eliminate” gendered dress codes and classroom management strategies that divide children by gender.

The Board’s policy manufactures ‘solutions’ to an imaginary problem. It cites the “reality” that children with gender identity issues are enrolled in Massachusetts’ schools, but offers no evidence that any of them actually have been excluded from “educational opportunities,” such as chemistry, math, or English classes, because of their gender identity.

But facts don’t matter to the Massachusetts propagandists. Their real goal has little to do with educational access and everything to do with indoctrinating teachers and children in radical gender theory.

The Massachusetts policy systematically foists a perverse orthodoxy on every public school teacher and child. It promotes the core belief—the big lie—that there is no such thing as human nature or natural distinctions of male and female. Instead, the Board of Education embraces the queer gospel that each person is a god unto him or herself, creating a gender identity based on feelings, or one’s “internalized sense” of self, regardless of biology.

“Male and female He created them?”  Not in Massachusetts.

The Board of Education insists that schools proactively “create a culture” that would make gender-nonconforming and transgender kids “feel safe, supported, and fully included.” But the new transgender-safe culture is insidious. It must be created even if the school currently has no transgender or gender-nonconforming children. Why? Liberals presume that unknown numbers of transgender children are suffering alone and in secret, and that they will only ‘come out’ if the coast is clear.

So everyone must play the transgender game. The indoctrination (“education and training”) will be part of every school’s “anti-bullying curriculum, student leadership trainings, and staff professional development.”

Worse, the Massachusetts Board of Education clearly expects all students and teachers to go along with the big lie:

  • Students who object to the intrusion on their privacy (from an opposite sex, ‘transgender’ child in restrooms or changing facilities) will be told, effectively, ‘Too bad. Get over it.’
  • Students who refuse to go along with the fiction and refer to the transgender child by his or her gender “assigned at birth” instead of the preferred pronoun, will subject to “discipline.” Teachers must “model” the required speech and attitude.
  • Schools will train students and teachers in Orwellian doublespeak: gender is “assigned” at birth (as if ‘male’ and ‘female’ were arbitrary classifications, as random as being assigned to the blue team or red team in gym class) and transgender students may elect “gender-confirming surgeries” (as if double mastectomies, genital removal, and other gender-mutilating surgeries ‘confirmed’ anything).
  • Children will bear the new burden of discovering their gender identity, but will be taught that their bodies offer nary a clue. They will be taught that the transgender identity, perceived as young as “age four,” is “innate” and “largely inflexible.” (The Board ignores decades of research to the contrary. Dr. Kenneth Zucker, head of the Gender Identity Service at Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health contends that, “The majority of children followed longitudinally appear to lose the diagnosis of GID [gender identity disorder] [by] late adolescence or young adulthood, and appear to have …a gender identity that matches their natal sex.”)

In Massachusetts, a transgender-supportive culture means that school officials will insist that normal children squelch instinctive reactions that something is wrong when a dress-wearing boy calls himself a girl. Children will be taught that religious truths about sexuality are bigoted relics of a less-enlightened time. They will learn that their bodily reality is nothing more than an arbitrary “assignment” at birth—there is no “human nature,” only personal choices and self-definition along a shifting spectrum of human sexuality. Finally, they will be taught not to judge: Who is to say that one’s chosen gender identity is any less normal, natural, or good than another?

Remember my friend Tommy? He needed the truth. He needed to embrace his bodily reality instead of wishing for something different.

The children of Massachusetts need the same. The ‘Big Lie’ can never substitute for the truth.

 

 

Share

10 Comments

Filed under Children, Family, Kids and Character, Parenting, Policy and Culture, Sexuality

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 23, 2013 · 9:20 pm

Reeva, Oscar and the Feminist Lie

Their relationship was short. And fatal.

Last week the sports world was stunned at the arrest of “the Blade Runner,” South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius, for the murder of his beautiful girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.  Pistorius, whose legs had been amputated below the knee in childhood, gained fame competing in track during the London Olympics against able-bodied athletes.

While the full facts have yet to unfold, this much is certain:  Reeva is dead and Oscar did it. And her death is a tragic lesson in the perils of intimacy too-soon.

Hours before her death, Reeva tweeted coyly, “What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow? #get excited #ValentinesDay.” She expected a sexy sleepover with Oscar, followed by a “day full of love,” not a violent death.

In the wee hours of their Valentine’s morning, Oscar shot Reeva four times. Her skull was fractured and police found a bloody cricket bat at the scene. Although Oscar claims he shot Reeva because he mistook her for a robber, police have charged him with premeditated murder. News reports suggest that Reeva’s friendship with another man might have triggered murderous jealousy in Oscar.

The murder is shocking enough. Reeva was stunningly beautiful and, by all accounts, kind and intelligent. A 30-year old law grad, she gained celebrity as a lingerie model and reality TV contestant. Her life was precious to family and friends.

But the context of the murder is disturbing too. Oscar and Reeva had begun dating in November—three short months before her death. Sparks of intense attraction, fueled by the aura of celebrity, ignited a ‘relationship’ in a flash. They quickly became physically intimate.

Like many, if not most, young women her age, Reeva put herself in a vulnerable situation, willingly: she became sexually intimate with a man she hardly knew.

How, after all, could she really know Oscar’s history, much less his character, in the space of a few months? Sure, she could learn the basics in ten minutes on the Internet. She knew he was a sports hero, a national favorite who gave back to his fans and his country. On Twitter, he encouraged disabled kids and veterans and tweeted inspirational Scripture verses. He professed his faith, saying, “Christ makes all the difference. He aids me in all my struggles…” And, ironically, Oscar declared his solidarity with abused women, retweeting, “Girls and women need to be valued, respected, and feel safe, not only at home but also in public spaces.”

Interesting stuff, perhaps.  But public information is no substitute for the test of time when it comes to understanding another’s character, personality, or morals. With more time, Reeva might have learned what Oscar’s friends already knew: that he had dated numerous women, not necessarily one at a time, and had displayed raging anger and a pattern of domestic violence in other relationships.

But instead Reeva lived by the gospel of female empowerment, standing on a platform of sexual freedom. For sophisticated young feminists, women’s empowerment includes the right to pursue casual sex—the power, as Hanna Rosin wrote in The Atlantic, to enjoy “sexual adventure without commitment.”

Whether it prompts a one-night hook-up or a scorching love affair, the feminist lie that left Reeva so vulnerable is this (in Rosin’s words): ”Women benefit greatly from living in a world where they can have sexual adventure without commitment or all that much shame, and where they can enter into temporary relationships that don’t get in the way of future success.

Feminists perpetuate the myth that casual sexual relationships signify female agency and independence. Ambitious women manage their “sexual careers,” eschewing time-consuming relationships in favor of commitment-less sex and “temporary intimacy” (an oxymoron, surely). Later, when it’s convenient, these women might make room in their lives for a committed, long-lasting relationship, though not necessarily marriage.

Oscar clearly supported the feminist script. His “complex love life” was a revolving door through which women came and went—a succession of ‘empowered’ girlfriends ‘benefitting’ from temporary sexual adventures and truncated relationships.

It’s the great feminist lie. And it makes women more vulnerable than ever.

Sex without commitment hurts women. Worldwide, “intimate partner violence” occurs more often in women who cohabit than among married women. A 2012 Child Trends analysis of relationship violence found that 52% of young adult cohabiting couples experienced some form of relationship violence, ranging from threats or shoves to injury-causing outbursts. And in U.S. high schools and colleges, condom giveaways and Plan B vending machines co-exist with programs, rallies, and bumper stickers decrying “dating abuse.”

Perhaps Reeva didn’t know that sexual activity itself lowers a woman’s instinctive, protective barriers. Oxytocin released during intercourse increases a woman’s trust in and sense of bonding with her partner—good for married couples but risky for women in casual relationships. Reeva wasn’t stupid—she’d been in an abusive relationship before. But she was blinded by her own empowerment, blinded by the false intimacy that sex-too-soon begets.

So Reeva was vulnerable: barely clothed, sexually willing, but locked in the fortress-like estate of a man who kept his character hidden and guns exposed.

I sometimes ask young women whether, after a first date, they would turn over their debit card and pin number to the man and invite him to help himself. They’re appalled. “No way.  I don’t know what he’s going to do.  He might steal all my money or spend it on something stupid.”  I follow up, “Even if you’re very sexually attracted to him? Would you give him the debit card and pin number after three dates?  A month?” Not a one would grant financial access or presume a man trustworthy so quickly.  But young women willingly grant quick access to their bodies, trusting their emotions, safety, and reproductive future to a sexual partner they barely know. Aren’t women’s lives, integrity, and wellbeing worth more than their bank accounts?

Reeva struggled with those very contradictions. According to friends, Reeva was “very passionate” about “women and empowerment” and was set to give a testimony of sorts on Valentine’s Day. She had suffered from a previous sexual relationship gone bad, and blamed that abusive relationship for her “loss of self-worth.” She wanted to encourage students to be empowered, to  “make your voice heard” and to hold onto the truth she belatedly discovered, of her “value in this world.”

It’s a crying shame that Reeva did not get the chance to deliver her message. But it’s even more tragic that she did not see her value apart from the feminist myth of sexual freedom. Perhaps young women will see in her life—and death—the lesson that Reeva herself missed.

 

Share

Leave a Comment

Filed under Lessons Learned, Relationships, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

February 8, 2012 · 11:34 am

Abortion: A Private Matter Between a Woman and Her…Vending Machine?

At Shippensburg University, female students who hook-up for drunken sex on Saturday will find it easy to dispose of just-conceived babies on Monday or Tuesday. A quick trip to the vending machine is all it takes.

Easy. Kind of like buying a bag of Doritos.

Women who wake up in unfamiliar beds or sober up and wonder,  “What were you thinking, girl?” needn’t worry much. Stride across campus, past the dining hall (grab a doughnut for later), and into the University Health Center. Flash a student ID and head to the vending machine in the “self-help” area. There, next to the cough drops and Mucinex, in discreet, feminine packaging, is Plan B One Step. No questions asked. Feed the bills into the slot, grab and go. Empowered with “choices,” these women pop the package blister, swallow the pill, and breathe easy.

Problem solved. Glad that’s over.

Only it’s really not.

Billed as “emergency contraception,” according to the package insert, Plan B inhibits ovulation and thus prevents conception.  But it also alters the lining of the uterus, preventing a newly conceived child from implanting in its mother’s womb.  Without implantation, that tiny human being cannot draw nourishment and will die. (Occasionally, Plan B fails and the pregnancy continues.)

In most cases, however, Plan B ‘succeeds.’

But ‘success’ is not pretty. Our Shippensburg student will have a one-in-three chance of heavy bleeding. And 13% of women who take Plan B One Step end up curled up in bed with nausea, abdominal pain, and fatigue. Worse, nearly one in ten women who use emergency contraception (compared to 2% of pregnancies in the general population) develop severe abdominal pain and require emergency treatment for an ectopic pregnancy.

But no worries, this is a private decision between a woman and her vending machine.

(Maybe the Supreme Court should update that hallowed language about abortion being a private medical decision between a woman and her doctor, eh?)

Back in Shippensburg, it’s been a bad few days for the University’s PR team–one negative link on Drudge would keep anybody hopping—and they’re feeling a bit defensive. “We’re not the first” to make Plan B available on a college campus, they say.

But from a vending machine?

Has our culture so trivialized sex and baby-making that the ‘solution’ to an unintended pregnancy comes out of a vending machine? And the grown-ups in the room don’t even blink?

Shippensburg’s decision seems destined to create a campus norm of casual sex. But in its February 7th statement, the University asserted that it’s “not encouraging anyone to be sexually active. That is a decision each student makes on his or her own.”

But why offer students abortion-inducing drugs, right on campus? (Ironically, the University vending machines don’t carry condoms, the typical must-have accessory for promiscuous sex).

In a phone interview February 7th, Dr. Peter M. Gigliotti, Executive Director for University Communications & Marketing, said the university installed the vending machine “several years” ago after a student survey showed that 85% of students favored on-campus access to emergency contraception. He defended the decision, expressed surprise at the media coverage, and insisted that no one under the age of 17 has access to the vending machine. (By law, Plan B cannot be dispensed to anyone under 17 without a prescription.)

In Shippensburg’s public statement, Dr. Robert Serr, Vice-President for Student Affairs, also downplayed the disclosure and framed the issue as support for reproductive choice: “Reproductive services are a personal decision to be made by every man and woman. As such, the university is providing students with a medication that they can obtain legally elsewhere as part of their ability to make their own choices.”

Put differently, Shippensburg wonders, “What’s the big deal?”

That attitude is precisely the problem.

“Emergency contraception” dispensed from a vending machine is the perfect icon of our culture’s impersonal–and utilitarian–view of sex and reproduction.

The icon’s meaning:

  • Sex is no big deal. It’s entertainment. Condom malfunction? Fix the problem in less time than it takes to rent a Redbox movie.
  • Making—or destroying–a baby is no big deal either. Using ‘emergency contraception’ has the moral significance of taking a cough drop. (One button on the vending machine gets you Plan B, another gets you lemon-flavored cough drops.)
  • Convenience rules. Why bother with nine months of pregnancy—and 21 years of child-rearing–when freedom is just a vending machine away?
  • Like casual sex, abortion (even disguised as “emergency contraception”) turns a union of two into a solo event. No strings. Just another individual experience that requires “appropriate decisions.”
  • Repeat business is a given—the abortion industry depends on it. No one visits a vending machine just once.

To the women of Shippensburg University: wake up! What could be more lonely than heading across a cold Pennsylvania campus “the morning after,” alone, to rendezvous with a vending machine? It’s an automated ‘problem-solver,’ stoically dispensing drugs that not only kill your baby but also numb your heart.  All so you can go back and do it again.

That’s not ‘choice.’ It’s exploitation. And people who really care about you won’t exploit you.

Please, reach out.  Because you deserve better.

 

 

Share

1 Comment

Filed under Abortion, Contraception, Fertility and Infertility, Health, Policy and Culture, Relationships, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 6, 2011 · 4:35 pm

Reaching Teens: The Priest Who Roared

It’s hard to impress a sixteen-year-old boy.

And it’s even harder to impress a sixteen-year-old boy with a Sunday homily.

But on a recent Sunday, a priest at our parish (we’ll call him “Fr. Joe”) did just that.

“Hey, you know that visiting priest, mom?  He was on fire. It was like one of those old fire and brimstone deals. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Neither, apparently, had most of the other teens in the Church.  Or even most of the adults, most likely.

His topic?

Pop culture…and its brazen efforts to normalize sexual perversity. Not an easy topic on which to engage teenagers positively and persuasively.

Teens too easily put on mental headphones and tune out “predictable” grown ups. “Yeah, yeah.  Back in the day…lecture 192.” Besides haven’t adults always complained about rock-n-roll, teen culture, fashions, and the like? It’s just a generational thing.

But when a priest grabs their attention, keeps them listening—and gives them something meaty to take home and chew on–it’s worth noticing what works.

So what went right?

For starters, Fr. Joe got their attention. He didn’t glide gently into his topic. He fairly roared. He spoke passionately, compelling attention by the volume and certitude in his voice. His voice conveyed the unspoken message: ‘Listen up. This is important. The stakes are high: your soul and our culture hang in the balance.’

Father Joe wasn’t angry and out of control.  But he was vehement, concerned, and loud. Troubled about the likely future of our culture, he insisted that his listeners respond, in their own lives, to what he was saying.

Look at it this way:  kids understand passion. Celebrities, teachers, coaches, and websites encourage our teens to discover their passion and pursue it, to find what matters to them, and to be a voice for it. But if a priest or youth leader addresses sexual morality or serious cultural problems with the same bland tone of the weekly “doughnuts-and-coffee-in-the-parish-hall-after-all-Masses” announcement, few teens will listen.

And why should they?  The speaker’s tone of voice implicitly says, “I know you’re not listening but, bear with me, I’m required to say this.”

Hardly a way to inspire teens to risk their popularity, face humiliation, or endure rejection because they stand up for truth.

A priest who roars, on the other hand, gets their attention.  Don’t cringe. I’m not advocating a weekly rant or ear-splitting homilies.  But our teachers, pastors, and ministers need to command attention and one way to do that is to let loose with the change-up pitch.  Be unpredictable. A dropped voice, a whispering tone, or compelling rhetoric does the trick too.

What else worked about Fr. Joe’s homily?

He used specific words, pointed criticisms, and concrete analogies. Gay marriage?  It’s like Grape Nuts: neither grape nor nuts. Gay marriage isn’t “gay”—the homosexual lifestyle teems with unhappiness, depression, disease, and substance abuse. And it isn’t “marriage” either. Marriage has a centuries old meaning that cannot be changed by popular vote—it requires the faithful sexual intimacy of a man and woman, united permanently to parent the children born of their intimacy. Two women and a turkey baster (or two guys and a rented womb) can’t compare.

Dozens of times a day, the culture pulses seductive, destructive messages to our kids—through music, videos, websites, peer conversations, the media and our schools.  (Read Mary Beth Hicks’ excellent new book Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid, and you’ll see the problem.)

Teens need us to respect them enough to provide reasons why certain acts are immoral.  Forget the euphemisms. Give them the words to defend traditional morality and provide the examples that challenge the lies behind accepted cultural ‘wisdom.’ If we want our teens to rebuff the culture’s assault on morality, then we need to tackle the other side’s arguments head on. Where else will our teens hear the truth, if not from their families and the Church?

Kudos to Fr. Joe for tackling tough subjects, with passion, clarity, and certitude.

I hope there’s more where that came from—in your parish and mine–for the sake of all our kids.

© 2011 Mary Rice Hasson

 

Mary Rice Hasson, the mother of seven, is a Visiting Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.

Share

1 Comment

Filed under Catholicism, Children, Faith and Virtue, Family, Parenting, Policy and Culture, Prayer and Spirituality, Sexuality

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

September 5, 2011 · 3:02 pm

The Sad Dance of Chaz Bono

Picture this: a female-to-male transsexual proudly dances with a woman partner in front of millions of TV viewers, competing with straight couples for the applause, approval, and votes of viewers young and old.

The show’s producer lauds the transsexual’s “courage” and “remarkably strong character.”  The transsexual, who declares himself* a “straight man,” and his LBGT supporters launch a media blitz to silence critics of the show, branding them “haters” and “stupid bigots.” Why? Because they won’t support this “positive role model” whose appearance will help “save lives” of vulnerable, transgendered teenagers.

It’s reality.

And it’s airing on the ABC reality show Dancing with the Stars this fall. The show scored big publicity last week when it announced that Chaz Bono, the transgendered offspring of the famous Hollywood duo, Sonny and Cher, would join this season’s TV dance competition. The show also will feature an openly gay contestant, Carson Kressley.

Chaz, who began transitioning from female to male last year, looks male (thanks to hormones), dresses and calls himself male, and has undergone breast removal surgery.  While he would like to add male genitalia, he considers the reconstructive surgery too risky. Besides, he feels like a male already, even without the proper equipment.

What’s he doing on Dancing with the Stars (DWTS), a show which the producer maintains is a “family show?”

Chaz says “America really needs to see this…” because of the “completely inaccurate stereotypes and thoughts that people have” about transgendered folks.

His bottom line? (No pun intended.)

“I want people to know that transgender people are just like everyone else.”

And if parents or families oppose his performance, preferring not to expose their children to the transgendered lifestyle?

They’re “haters.”

Well then, either most parents in America are “haters” or Chaz Bono–and his Hollywood friends–have got it wrong.

America does not “need” to see transsexuals pretending that their sexuality is a normal as the married husband and wife next door.  And they definitely don’t want their children to see it either.

A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that only 20% of American parents believe that it’s appropriate for children younger than 13 to be exposed to dialogue about alternative lifestyles. (Even higher percentages of parents would shield their children from images of alternative lifestyles.) The research found that, among both church-going and non-church-going parents, 32% believe the minimum age for exposure to dialogue about alternative lifestyles is 13-16 and an additional 29% of parents would wait even longer–until at least age 17. Further, 19% of parents believe such content is inappropriate for all ages. [Full disclosure: I coauthored the Pediatrics article with Iowa State University media research expert, Doug Gentile, Ph.D., and others.]

Parents: don’t be intimidated. You are not alone. It’s not “hateful” to affirm traditional male-female sexuality as natural and preferable to homosexuality, bi-sexuality, transsexuality, and the rest of the sexual smorgasbord. And it’s a good–not hateful–instinct to want to protect your child’s innocence.

This stunt—shining the spotlight on Chaz Bono as the first transgendered dance contestant (so we can pretend his new self is “just like everybody else”)–is the latest round in the same old game: Hollywood liberals arrogantly shove sexually dysfunctional people at viewers, insist that the public accept and approve of all “sexual minorities,” and then slap the label “hater” on anyone who objects.

Maybe to Hollywood producers, sexually confused and sexually deviant people really are “just like” the rest of…Hollywood. According to actor Corey Feldman, it’s an open secret that Hollywood’s number one problem is pedophilia. And Hollywood seems fascinated by sexual disorder masquerading as normalcy. Small wonder that DWTS producer finds Chaz Bono’s story “compelling” and “profound.” The LGBT community responded with verbal love strokes, hailing Hollywood’s decision as “a tremendous step forward for the American public to recognize that transgender people are another wonderful part of the fabric of our culture.”

Right.  Only if “culture” means the LGBT culture, with all its “wonderful” features like dungeons and fetish shows (popular exhibits in the “Erotic City” area of the L.A. Pride event. Maybe they’re saving that for next season’s “family show”).

It makes you wonder: do Hollywood types even know any regular parents? Or do they just ignore them?

Yes, transgendered people are equal in dignity to every other person. And Chaz Bono, female, male, or somewhere in the mutilated middle, should be treated with kindness and compassion. But let’s face it—anyone who feels compelled to mutilate his or her sex organs, with chemicals or surgery, because he or she feels like the opposite sex, has got some serious problems.

Chaz Bono’s story is heartbreaking. But heartbreak doesn’t make a role model. Nor does it make transgender-ism a condition to be celebrated.

Dancing with the Stars won’t showcase the backstory behind Chaz Bono because it tells of the misery that results when a child is left to raise herself. And the confusion that results when reality is defined by feelings, unmoored from objective reality, moral truth, or even the truth of one’s own body.

One particularly telling sentence in his memoir suggests the destructive inversion at the roots of Chaz’ tangled history: “As any child of famous parents will tell you, parents come first.” (p. 11).

And so they did for poor Chaz.

Sonny and Cher divorced when Chaz was four. She was a cute little girl named “Chastity” back then. Her nanny, Linda, became the “one person who gave me…warmth, safety, and attention.” (p. 10) As a child, Chastity traveled with Cher, who let her hang out with the show’s drag queens in between and after performances. (Good parenting, eh?)

After the divorce, Sonny began calling Chastity “Fred,” and encouraged her to hang out with him like “father-and-son.” (p. 16). By age 13, Chastity identified as a lesbian. And at fourteen, she was coached by an older lesbian—her mother’s friend–on “how to make love to a woman.” (p. 47). Shaped by instability—temporary homes, disruptive school changes, and her mother’s revolving cast of lovers—Chastity became a dysfunctional adult. She suffered through bad relationships, drug addiction, depression, unemployment, and personal confusion. Therapy from lesbian and transgendered therapists—surprise, surprise–compounded her confusion. Last year she embraced a transgendered identity and became “Chaz.”

So this fall, Chaz will dance his sad dance in celebration of who he has become.

And when the approval, votes, and applause prove to be but a temporary balm on his tortured soul… then what?

For Chaz’ sake, I hope someone in Hollywood introduces him not to the next, ‘best’ surgeon or therapist, but to the only Someone who can offer true healing and peace.

————————

  • Note: I follow the journalistic convention of using the pronoun that corresponds, at each stage, to Chaz Bono’s self-identified gender identity.

© 2011  Mary Rice Hasson

 

Share

3 Comments

Filed under Children, Family, Parenting, Policy and Culture, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 1, 2011 · 8:50 pm

The Facebook Generation: Narcissism, Sexting, and the Decline of Empathy

Two recent stories suggest that a disturbing practice has found acceptance among teens and young adults: broadcasting the sexual misbehavior of their peers, especially girls, on a massive scale within hours. Photos preferred.

Is it just gossip, gone digital? “Mean Girls,” with a sexual twist?

I don’t think so.

Some commentators too easily dump these incidents into the overflowing bucket of cyber-bullying or dismiss them as teen-age drama, writ large. But these episodes deserve a second look.

A few months back, a Washington state eighth-grader named Margarite “sexted” a nude, frontal photo of herself to her new sort-of-boyfriend. Within weeks, their fledgling relationship died.

The photo lived on.

The boy sent it to another girl who captioned the photo, “Ho Alert!” and added instructions: “If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends.” The photo instantly ricocheted, via text, from one social circle to another. Within hours, students from four different schools had ogled the sexter’s naked body and passed the photo on. The eighth grade girl was devastated.

The second situation occurred in the upscale suburbs of New York City. Someone created rankings of 100 allegedly sexually adventurous girls and boys from the surrounding school districts and circulated the lists using Blackberry Messenger.

One teenager (who claims he was not the original creator of the lists) quickly created a Facebook page called the “Westchester SMUT List” (“SMUT” meant “slut,” thinly disguised to evade Facebook restrictions), and posted only the girls’ rankings (including full names and descriptions of sexual activity).

Within hours, thousands of people saw the list. Over 7,000 of them “liked” the Facebook page that trashed the girls’ reputations.  And with one click, each of those viewers magnified the damage, publicizing the page instantly to his or her Facebook friends.

The sexual behavior of the 8th-grader and of the SMUT 100 (to the extent the reports are true) reads like an MTV script. And that’s certainly a huge problem.

But let’s switch focus, for a minute, from the girls to their enthusiastic “audience” of thousands. Their behavior may well reflect the bigger problem.

Consider the smut list. What does it mean when thousands of young people swarm, within hours, to the site of their peers’ humiliation? (Imagine piranhas in a feeding frenzy.)

And what drove seven thousand of them to click the “like” icon on the smut list?

Meanness, maybe. But narcissism is a likely suspect, too.

The Facebook generation shows an overwhelming desire for self-promotion, to weigh in, to be in the know. Want to be important? Dispense scandalous information.

The teens who “liked” the list not only didn’t care that others knew they’d seen the list and passed it on, they wanted others to know that they’d done so. Being among “the first to know” matters too. It’s a sure way to build social capital—be the source that sends others to the newest, most outrageous virtual place.

No shame, no hesitation, no reticence. In their narcissistic stampede towards Facebook fame and “firsts,” thousands trampled on the dignity and reputations of very real people. And they didn’t even care.

Why? Because, in a given moment, narcissism blots out both moral sense (do their consciences even register slander? detraction? cruelty?) and a sense of empathy. (Many ethicists believe that empathy is at the heart of morality.)

An empathic person in this case would grasp the pain, shame, and humiliation experienced by the girls on the list—and would never add to their misery by passing the information on, especially because it might be false. A narcissistic person would seize any opportunity, including the humiliation of others, to vault back into the center of attention.

Narcissism gave a good showing at the Westchester Smut List.

There’s a second factor at work here as well.

In today’s culture, sex is entertainment.  It doesn’t need to be either personal or intimate—a lesson the Facebook generation has learned well.

It’s not surprising, then, that these young people easily accept the idea that women are sexual objects. Depersonalized sex is everywhere, in ads, music videos, TV, movies, teen websites, and, of course, pornography. Immersed in it, they can’t help but be shaped by it as well.

Take, for example, the teens recently interviewed by The New York Times on the topic of sexting. For this sex-saturated generation, sexy photos become a strikingly impersonal part of the mating dance.

One girl puts it this way: “We see virtual images all day long, so if someone sends you a [naked] image, it loses the identity of the person. It’s just a picture.” A teen-age boy in the group added helpfully, “And usually the face is not in it.“

It’s the very definition of depersonalized sex: the most “personal” aspect, a face, is out of sight. But the naked body still titillates and makes the rounds, by cell phone and text.

And even when the photo does include the person’s face—as it did in Margarite’s case—her peers had already lost sight of the real person who would be mortified, shamed, and crushed with regret as they passed her picture along. She was just a body, grabbed, groped, and used as an object for pleasure (or humiliation) in the virtual space. Her reputation became a plaything as well.

Similarly, a teenage girl on a smut list is but a name—no one cares about her.  They care only to know what she’s willing to do with her body–or at least what others say she’s willing to do.

What’s missing is any sense that these girls are persons, not sexual objects. And what’s lost, among other things, is the privacy and space that would allow these adolescents to mature, repent, change course and begin anew. Instead, they’ve been humiliated on a grand scale, and will be haunted by the exposure for years.

On the plus side, at least the girls know they’ve gotten off track and need to change.

But their peers—the thousands steeped in depersonalized sex and searching for the next narcissistic shot at popularity—they have no idea how far off track they are.

And the real question for our culture is, “What are we going to do about that?”

© 2011 Mary Rice Hasson

Share

2 Comments

Filed under Children, Family, Kids and Character, Lessons Learned, Parenting, Policy and Culture, Relationships, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 12, 2011 · 12:48 am

Egg Donors and The Human Cost of IVF

“Melissa” is a college student, blonde, bright, and beautiful. A high achiever with a soft spot for other people’s troubles, she heads back to her Ivy League campus this week. First stop: the financial aid office to sign loan documents to secure this pricey education and coveted degree.

She’s exactly the type of young woman targeted by egg donor agencies, desperate couples, and fertility clinics. They want her eggs. Badly. And they know how to find her.

Using Craigslist.com, flyers posted in coffee shops and fitness centers, and ads in university newspapers, egg “recruiters” find young women to meet the exploding demand for human eggs. Roughly one in seven couples now suffers from infertility. Delayed childbearing and rampant sexually transmitted infections mean that many would-be moms have eggs too old or organs too damaged to support conception. So donor eggs are a hot commodity. (Indeed, many fertility clinics report more success with donor-egg IVF than IVF using a woman’s own eggs.)

The scientific clamor for embryonic stem cell research also drives the demand for more eggs. New York, for example, allows payments for donor eggs intended for stem cell research. Ethicists worry that payments for research-bound eggs may induce women whose eggs won’t pass muster at fertility clinics to donate eggs without fully realizing the risks involved.

Egg donation carries serious risks, no matter whether the eggs end up in a research scientist’s lab or an infertility clinic’s freezer.

Eggsploitation, a powerful, disturbing documentary, tells the heart-wrenching stories of egg donors who suffered devastating consequences, including lost fertility, serious disability, and near death.  This award-winning film sends a critical warning to young women thinking about donating their eggs: Don’t.

The film triggered my own search of infertility-related websites to analyze the messages aimed at prospective donors–young women like Melissa. Rife with competing interests, this results-driven industry offers few protections for the person most vulnerable to exploitation—the young woman who sells her eggs.

“It’s Not About Money. Really.”

The fertility industry targets young women with an altruistic narrative: The “fulfillment from helping an infertile couple achieve the dream of having a baby is priceless.”  Recruiters flatter their donors, telling them they are indispensable (“women [can’t] realize their dreams of having a family…without you, the egg donor”) and validate their worth with an $8,000 check. Others “guilt” women into donating, telling them they represent an infertile couple’s last hope (“Without egg donors like you, couples… struggling to start a family would have little hope”).

Egg donation is portrayed as “one of the most powerful and rewarding decisions a woman can make.”

It’s a convenient myth. Coating the raw financial deal with the emotional gloss of altruism helps both would-be parents and egg donors feel better about the process—and themselves.

Lift the veil of altruism, however, and reality looks very different. If women weren’t paid, very few would donate eggs.  Countries that forbid or limit payment to egg donors can’t find enough donors to meet the demand. Women themselves admit that money matters: less than a third of donors claim their only motive was altruistic (e.g. to give infertile couples a baby). Nearly 60% say money motivated their decision, at least in part (18.8% say money was their only motive). Surely many egg donors are sincere and compassionate, but the industry would shrivel up without cash incentives to keep the pipeline flowing with donor eggs.

 

Exploitation

Paying healthy young women to undergo a medical procedure with significant risks and no personal benefit exploits them—especially when the sums paid are large and the risks poorly studied and ill communicated.  And that’s the case with egg donation.

Donors are typically students, like Melissa, or women with entry-level jobs. Dangle $8000-$10,000, per monthly cycle, in front of a cash-strapped college student or a barista struggling to live in an expensive city and you’ve got donors. It’s an effective incentive. (One agency even promises $50,000 to $100,000 to egg donors who meet stringent, personalized search criteria.) Students discover that they can easily cover tuition of $50,000 by becoming a repeat donor. The unofficial limit is six cycles, but money entices some women to exceed that limit.

The Risks

No one really knows how egg donation affects a young woman’s future health and fertility. Small studies and scattered donor reports suggest links between fertility drugs and cancer, infertility, and other health problems. In the U.S, no one tracks complications or long-term health risks for egg donors. Most egg donors are anonymous (no registry) and receive no follow-up care once the donation cycle ends.

Industry players also routinely minimize the known risks. One of the few studies of past donors found that 20% did not recall being informed of any risks. Although 12.5% of past donors reported experiencing ovarian hyper-stimulation (a serious, potentially fatal, complication), donor agencies and fertility centers downplay the risk as “rare,” or present in “1-2% of patients,” or as a “5% chance in any cycle.” And prospective donors who wonder whether egg donation might affect their future fertility are flatly misled: “Donating eggs will not harm your future fertility.”

The industry has a collective self-interest in not researching the long-term risks of egg donation, lest they scare women from donating just as demand skyrockets.

The Human Cost

The fertility industry exploits women by soft-pedaling the potential risks of egg donation while offering quick payoffs. But more appalling is the silence surrounding the human costs of IVF itself.

Donor agencies and fertility clinics erect deliberate smokescreens, obscuring what egg donors see of the baby-making process. They promote a mental image of the “results,” captured in happy photos of cherubic babies and ecstatic parents.

But this rosy picture of smiling babies and happy endings is one of the cruelest deceptions in egg donor recruitment. Agencies and fertility centers never give prospective donors a realistic picture of the human costs accompanying egg retrieval, fertilization, cultivation, storage, and implantation; at best they describe the processes in euphemisms, downplaying the loss of life.

What’s at stake is not whether the donor’s pain and effort are worth it, given the human cost; the real question is whether egg donors even see the moral implications of the process they set in motion.

Consider:

  • Some of the lives created from donor eggs are deliberately thrown away after fertilization–graded and disposed of as subpar.
  • Implanted safely, an embryo may be “selectively reduced” (aborted) to avoid multiple births;
  • Implanted, an embryo may die in utero (up to 20% of successful clinical pregnancies eventually miscarry);
  • Frozen, extra embryos may languish for years in steel receptacles, labeled by number and expiration date;
  • Frozen, then finally invited to join the family, embryos may perish in the thawing process;
  • Frozen, forgotten, or rejected by the intended recipients, remaining embryos are destroyed;
  • Finally, years later, the resulting children may long desperately but hopelessly to know their biological mom, the egg donor;
  • And, the CDC warns, IVF children are two to four times more likely to suffer birth defects.

At each stage in this ‘manufacturing’ process, the human embryo is no less a person than the egg donor herself. The Church insists that embryos be treated with the same dignity and respect owed to the doctor wielding the pipette, the egg donor herself, or the would-be-mother anxiously hoping the embryo transfer “takes.”

But each stage of the in vitro fertilization process–which claims to give the gift of life–is potentially murderous; each juncture requires decisions likely to end in the deliberate destruction of human embryos, made in God’s image. The egg donor’s “gift” sets in motion a death-dealing process, masquerading as “the gift of life.”

The fertility industry doesn’t want young women like Melissa to see the reality behind the feel-good image. Donors are primed, eager to believe that their eggs likely gave another woman “the happiness of … a baby.”

I have to wonder…would Melissa’s peers donate their eggs so willingly if they realized the cherished baby is but the lone survivor atop a tragic pyramid of dead siblings?

© 2011 Mary Rice Hasson

For more on IVF see this post:  Selfish Parents: Embryos on Ice

7 Comments

Filed under Abortion, Catholicism, Children, Family, Fertility and Infertility, Lessons Learned, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting, Policy and Culture, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 9, 2010 · 4:07 am

Fantasies in Marriage: Spice or Spoiler?

“You’ve got to see these photos of Lori!

Rob sidled over to a group of neighbors at the party, flipping open the pocket album even as he spoke.  Lori, his wife of ten years, trailed behind, smiling gamely. But her eyes looked unsure.

“Great. Let’s see.”

Rob must have captured some interesting shots on their recent dive trip to Bermuda, I thought. Maybe he snapped Lori riding a rickety tourist bike along the beautiful beach. Or got an underwater shot of her swimming near the reefs alongside brilliant, tropical fish.

Curious, I looked at the open pages.

For a moment, I was confused. Who was that? The woman staring back at me from photo after photo, as Rob turned the pages, had smoky eyes, tousled hair, and wore more feathers than clothes.

“Hey, hey, look at that one. She looks great, doesn’t she?”

Lori?

“Yeah, that’s Lori.” He raved.  “Stunning, isn’t she?” By “she,” he meant “glamour shot Lori.” The very real Lori standing next to him, fairly pretty but ignored, drew no compliments–at least not while the illusory, fantasized-about “Lori” was on proud display.

Actually, I thought Rob was stunning. Stunningly insensitive. Demeaning, too.

They divorced eighteen months later. No kids, just scuba gear to divvy up.

I wasn’t surprised, really. But I wondered if they’d gotten some bum advice along the way.

These days, the go-to resources on relationships and marriage sound a common theme: married couples should freely indulge in sexual fantasies about “someone else,” even while making love with their spouse.

Some therapists go further, saying it’s “unhealthy … to not have sexual fantasies.”  These  marriage “experts” argue that mental movies—of an airbrushed, made-over spouse (like Lori), an imagined, seductive stranger, or a memorable past lover–harm no one.  As long as the fantasy stays in the head, why not?

Besides, they say, fantasies spice up a couple’s love life: mental “action” with the fantasy partner stimulates creativity and physical energy with the real person between the sheets. It’s passion refueled by the imagined responses of a wished-for lover.

The problem with this “fantastic” advice is that it’s all wrong.

For starters, passion rekindled by a fantasy lover is passion for a substitute, real or imagined—it’s not passion for the spouse at all. The spouse in bed functions as a placeholder, an understudy to the real drama occurring in the other’s mind.

Sooner or later it becomes obvious.

Have you ever tried to have an important conversation with someone whose mind was elsewhere? It doesn’t work. Most people can tell if the other person’s not really “there.” The conversation is unsatisfying; the lack of engagement insulting.

But if it happens during one of the most naturally intimate moments a couple can share, the damage is sure to be even greater. Fantasizing about a desired lover—and disengaging from the real spouse–has the potential to inflict deep wounds on the spouse who is displaced. Even therapists who encourage fantasizing warn that fantasies should be revealed cautiously, if at all, to a spouse, because the non-fantasizing partner naturally feels offended, hurt, or cheated upon. It’s human nature.

Fantasies hurt more than feelings, however. They destroy love.

And that’s the real flaw in the sexperts’ advice: they worry more about maximizing individual pleasure than expressing mutual love. In their world, sex is merely a physical dance always in search of more imagination, better choreography, or even a new, inspirational partner. The dancer aims to please him or herself—dancing in sync with another is only a means to exquisite personal pleasure.

Love—and lovemaking between spouses—can’t be reduced to a solo performance or expanded to a mental audition, open to all.

Sexual love is an intimate, person-to-person encounter. It has deep meaning precisely because of who the two people are: a married couple who have given themselves to each other, with a promise of exclusive, committed love.

Pretending that a spouse is really someone else is just as contradictory as smuggling a third person in under the covers—even an imaginary person.

And as a practical matter, fantasizing quite literally makes the “unthinkable” thinkable.  The heart and mind are halfway out the door once permission’s granted to mentally pursue someone else.  So it was for Rob and Lori, anyway.

So forget the “experts.”

Put your energy into real love. You just might discover it’s way more satisfying than any fantasy trip ever could be.

 

(c) 2010 Mary Rice Hasson

More of Mary’s columns can be read at Catholic News Agency

Share

2 Comments

Filed under Lessons Learned, Men, Relationships, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 14, 2010 · 5:41 am

The Duke Sex List: What She Didn’t Say “Tells All”

Two studies, of sorts, made headlines last week.

The first, by Australian researchers, says that personal choices, reflected in our priorities and goals, have the greatest impact on our long-term happiness. People who prioritize God, family and altruistic goals (e.g. helping the homeless, being generous, or volunteering) are more likely to find happiness than those who pursue self-centered or material goals. And personal choices that result in healthy living, strong friendships, stable marriages, and the right balance of work and leisure all have a significant effect on long-term happiness.

The second “study” that grabbed the headlines last week was the work of

Karen Owen, a 2010 graduate of Duke University. Karen created a tongue-in-cheek senior “thesis” on “Excelling in the Realm of Horizontal Academics,” a.k.a. random, frequent, mostly-drunken sex. In great detail (and no one disputes the truth of her account), she lists and evaluates her too-many-to-count sexual hookups with 13 “subjects,” mostly members of Duke’s lacrosse and baseball teams, during her four years at Duke.

Karen’s PowerPoint presentation, stuffed with details, images, analogies, and explicit dialogue, was a time-intensive effort. She included descriptions of her partners’ attractiveness, physical “hardware,” and performance (ranked on a ten-point scale—actual scores range from a humiliating “1” to an over-the-top “12”).  Her ratings also factored in athletic skills, creativity, and “entertainment” value, including “dirty talk.” She named names and included photos of each “contestant.” Finished, she emailed it to three lucky friends; it was a guidebook for future fun with these “top dogs”—the guys that “everyone wants to be or be with.”

Karen Owen names names

But one friend forwarded it on to another and, within hours, Karen’s PowerPoint went viral, reaching millions on the Internet.

In a hasty quasi-apology, Karen says she originally created the slides to amuse her friends—not to expose the guys to worldwide public humiliation. She claims that she “would never intentionally hurt the people that are mentioned.”  Still, she backpedals, arguing that it’s really nothing different from the standard frat house practice of ranking coeds on their sex appeal.  The notoriety prompted her to shut down all her social network profiles—the Gen Y method of disappearing—but book deals reportedly are in the offing.

Public reactions to Karen’s “study” have focused mostly on the privacy issue– her publication of explicit details, with names and photos, without the consent of the young men involved.  Several commentators also chastised her for making snide remarks about Asians and Canadians.

But Karen’s promiscuity—the source of her problem–elicits a ho-hum reaction in most quarters. Chalk it up to college-as-usual. (And if the comments ricocheting around the Internet are any indication, her hookups reflect a disturbing college norm for many young women.)

A few writers admit that her drunken bed-hopping is “sad” or “immature,” but the chattering media typically characterize her as sexually self-confident, empowered, and even admirable.  The Duke student newspaper calls her “a funny, actually intelligent lady who likes to show people a good time. And she has nothing to be ashamed about.” And one feminist blogger hailed her as “another reminder that women can be as flip, aggressive, or acquisitive about sex as men can. And there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as all parties are consenting.”

That’s the Cosmo line, after all.  Strip sex of any meaning beyond selfish pleasure—and women are free to be equally as aggressive, detached, and utilitarian as the cads of yesteryear. No wrong, no shame. Be happy, right?

Wrong.

Remember that other study, the Australian one? It tells us, first, that the best way to be happy is to prioritize God, family, and others over our own selfish pursuits. Karen’s tell-all reads like a chronology of self-gratification, on her part as well as her fleeting partners. Any regard for others as persons, not just anatomical parts, is completely missing: 42 PowerPoint slides devoid of compassion, caring, affection, or even basic respect for others.

The Australian study also reminds us that the choices we make about important things–like friendships, a healthy lifestyle, and choosing a marriage partner–directly affect our long-term happiness.

How do Karen’s choices stack up? Again, it’s what she didn’t say that tells the story.

Karen’s tales contain no hint of genuine friendships with any of the guys involved. She duly notes any “enjoyable” conversations, pre- or post-sex. She seems to consider it a success if it’s not “awkward” when she sees the guy later on campus, fully clothed, She derides “clingy” behavior, whether on her part or theirs, and refuses to accept Facebook “friend” requests from the guys who sleep with her.

No, Karen’s sex buddies are not friends. Friends don’t exploit each other for momentary–or even hours of–pleasure. They certainly don’t tell tales, like Karen and the guys themselves did.

On that score, her girlfriends fail the true-friend test as well. One of the girls who received Karen’s PowerPoint pressed “forward,” hoping to raise her own social status, perhaps? And what kind of girlfriends let a friend repeatedly get drunk and leave with any guy—or multiple guys–sporting two legs and an athletic scholarship? Karen betrays no sense of her own dignity and value. It’s not surprising that the others don’t either.

Without friends who really care about her, Karen receives little encouragement to make good choices in terms of her health.  Healthy living doesn’t share space with random, drunken, hook-ups.

What does her thesis tell about her prospects for a stable, enduring marriage? It’s what’s missing that matters.

Her exploits describe a young woman practiced in sexual techniques but utterly clueless about the inevitable emotional connections that sex generates. Karen ridicules the tugs on her own heart that leave her “extremely depressed” after a final hookup with one particular man. She can’t afford to be vulnerable. Caught in the inevitable contradiction of the impersonal hookup, Karen wears the emotional armor of indifference to protect against the natural intimacy of sex.

Her sexual “fun,” disconnected from personal intimacy and commitment, is really a solo ride towards unhappiness.

What’s missing from Karen Owen’s thesis—and her life? Trust. Kindness. Friendship. Self-Giving. Love.

Everything that will make her happy.

Isn’t there anyone who cares enough about Karen Owen to tell her the truth?

© 2010 Mary Rice Hasson

 

Share

5 Comments

Filed under Lessons Learned, Relationships, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 15, 2010 · 11:23 pm

The Abortionist-Mother: Cognitive Dissonance on Abortion

When an abortion provider who is, herself, 18 weeks pregnant, performs an abortion on a patient’s 18-week old child (or fetus), The New York Times calls it “moral complexity.”

I call it cognitive dissonance.

You know, that “uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously…when a person perceives a logical inconsistency in their beliefs, when one idea implies the opposite of another. “

You decide.

From “The New Abortion Providers,” by Emily Bazelon, in the July 18, 2010 New York Times Sunday Magazine:

“Lisa Harris wrote an academic article about performing an 18-week abortion while she was 18 weeks pregnant. Harris described grasping the fetus’s leg with her forceps, feeling a kick in her own uterus and starting to cry. ‘It was an overwhelming feeling — a brutally visceral response — heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics,’ she wrote. ‘It was one of the more raw moments in my life.’”

Two babies the same age.

They might have played together.

But she spared her own and killed the other.

Mother.  Abortionist.

(c) 2010 Mary Rice Hasson

Share

1 Comment

Filed under Abortion, Children, Family, Fertility and Infertility, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting, Sexuality, Women

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,