I am pro-abortion, not just pro-choice: 10 reasons why we must support the procedure and the choice

[Rozlee]

79. Excellent post! If the right wing had their way, the Duggars would be all of us.

Especially one of my cousins. I have a cousin whose IQ is slightly below normal. Sixty years ago, she married a brutish man who abused her and sexually abused her daughters, whenever he was around, which was enough times to get her to give birth to 17 children. One of her daughters died at age 27 from ovarian cancer. She had given birth at age 11 to her father's child. Seven of my cousin's children died. She tried to do what the Duggars did with so many kids. She delegated and had the older children watch the younger ones. Once, the kids were throwing the baby to each other while the baby shrieked in delight. After a while, the baby wasn't making any noise. His neck had been broken. Another child drowned while swimming at a creek. Another was hit by a car. Even as we speak, one is dying at this moment from years of alcohol abuse. He's been in a nursing home for years and has days to live. My cousin doesn't know. She's in critical condition in a hospital herself from a stroke she many or many not recover from. If she recovers, it'll be to learn she's lost an 8th child.

Different members of the community and family tried to help my cousin, but at that time, we all had medium to large families as well, although not super-sized ones like hers. Her husband, when he was there, kept everyone away as well. He was a fiend whose passing was actually rejoiced. I feel sad at the life my cousin's led. She was fresh from Mexico and very simple and uneducated and above all, taught to believe that men ruled absolutely over women. The perfect Republican model. The Duggars have funds and can afford their brood. Their assembly line delegation of parenthood that allows Michelle Duggar to gestate in peace is her choice, unlike my cousin, who really had no choice, being trapped in a system of patriarchy that conservatives feel all women should be in. I'm pro-abortion too. Even though after the fact, I wince at the thought of so many of my cousins not having existed after knowing them, the suffering so many of them endured breaks my heart. Was it part of a great cosmic plan to be born, only to have your neck broken when you were less than a year old? To drown in a creek or be hit by a car while still a small child? To die of blood poisoning because your mother was too overwhelmed and exhausted to notice your cut had gotten infected? And on and on. I loved them all, and I'm not heartless enough to say I wish they'd never been born. But, I wish, conversely, their mother had known better.