Damn Good Read.

Shakesville: Breaking the Silence: On Living Pro-Lifers' Choice for Women

I think y'all need to go read that, no matter which side of the choice line you stand on. That's the most insightful essay about choice I have read in a long time, and it's not even about abortion. It's about adoption. It's about things that nobody talks about. Namely, the effect giving a child up has on the mother.

Adoption is painted as this thing that is supposed to be easier than abortion because it is more "right." It's painted as an emotionally weightless act, something that is easy, that doesn't leave marks, that holds no hidden barb or sting. And that simply isn't true.

I've lambasted anti-choicers before because as a whole, they do not care about children once they are born. I am ashamed to say that until I read that brave, anonymous woman's essay, it had never occurred to me that nobody cares about the birth mothers, either, once they've had their baby. It never occurred to me that there would not be a safety net there, ready to help women who have given up their children for adoption.

There are post-abortion counseling services, both pro-choice and pro-life, though the religious certainly has a leg up on the secular. There are support groups for women suffering from post-partum depression. There are infant loss support groups. But who stands for the women who let their children go? As if making the "right" choice and giving birth instead of aborting is enough to make the adoption process painless or without consequence.

It never occurred to me that adoption might be more psychologically damaging, on the whole, than abortion, and that by and large, nobody fucking cares.

I'm not interested in debating this -- if you want to scrap about it or bitch about some damn thing or other, well, I think that Anonymous does a really good job of addressing your concerns, and I ain't in the mood -- so y'all go read instead of arguing, and keep it civil here.

And link this around. This very, very badly needs to be read, by people on both sides. This needs to be understood.