Puppies! Kittens! Adorable Newborns!

Arg. Every time I think I'm prepared for the backlash, a new angle is discovered. I was fully armored for the "you killed your babies you bitch!" angle, and the "you should have delivered your babies they might have lived" angle (why is it that NO ONE EVER remembers that one twin had died already?), but I was totally unprepared for the "why didn't you have a c-section?" argument (maybe someone can anticipate the next one so I can be ready?).

Sigh.

Here's why I didn't have a c-section, not like anyone will believe me because after all, I killed my babies:

BECAUSE CUTTING OPEN A WOMAN WITH FAILED KIDNEYS AND OUT-OF-CONTROL BLOOD PRESSURE IS REALLY FUCKING STUPID AND SHE MIGHT BLEED TO DEATH AT WORST OR LOSE HER UTERUS AT BEST.

Sigh.

Now, let's change the subject and go spend some time here cooling down, m'kay? Meanwhile I'm going to go lie down. This all has given me another motherfucking migraine.

Comments

[Spacemom]

Dude, go, step away from the computer!
And go twitter! (I'm on that too, what's your username there?)

[Julie]

Gd I hate stupid people. Forget them and go to this site - I like it better than cute overload :)

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

[Aurelia]

dude,

They always come up with new arguments...always have always will. It's the special way they drive us nuts. If I hear one more person tell me that they can "cure" trisomy 18 or treat it, or they've heard of some kid with it who lived to be 40, blah, blah, and that's why I should never have ended my pregnancy, blah blah, I WILL lose my mind.

Sigh, just wait----someday when a real cure for preeclampsia is discovered, and some bozo says, "But see, you could taken that medication!" and then you will have to patiently point out that time machines don't exist and there are no do-overs.

We need to tell our stories for a very important reason, because no one else does. and yes, it is hard as hell. And dickheads attack us, but I try to remember all the women who email me and tell me they admire me for telling. They went through a medical termination too, but are too scared to say it out loud. I feel like we speak for them. To the internet, and to the politicians, and too the public.

So chin up darling. You are not alone.

[girl in greenwood]

Ok, maybe I am biased because I am a nurse and I know people DIE in surgery... but seriously? Do the poo-heads criticizing you for not have a caesarean honestly think that it would have been preferable for you to die in addition to your boys? Would that make it okay for them? It honestly seems like the second-guessers out there believe that the magic of medicine can make everything okay - and I am here to tell you that it CAN'T. Cecily, you obviously already know this, because clearly you wouldn't have CHOSEN to lose one boy, terminate the other, risk your life with preeclampsia, and then have a bonus round of placental abruption in your next pregnancy. It's not like you failed to make the right health care decisions or blithely decided that partial birth abortion would be fun or anything. Medical science CAN'T make everything all better, and c-section does not equal magic wand.

Whew. Hey, maybe I'll get some bonus trolls over at my blog! Share the wealth and all.

[Andrew]

Charlie is a saint for staying with you? I could have sworn it was the other way around.

[Val]

Owww - you will never win on this debate. I'd hate to say, until some people are in the situation that you were in, they would never understand. Not that I would ever want anyone else in your situation.

[Amanda]

I'm sorry for all the ugly, unnecessary comments. But it really us impressive to see how many people stand up for you, thank you, and are inspired by you!! I'm another to add to the list of inspired!

[Kara]

Frequent lurker here, just wanted to add some support. I'm, so sorry you had to go through such hell, and then be judged for it. Seriously, what is wrong with people? You're awesome- god bless your gorgeous family.

[Michele Lane]

"I like your Christ. I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” -Ghandi

I will never understand why someone who "is" a christian.. who's purpose should be striving to BE Christ in a lost world, would consider it OK to act so christless? If they TRUELY knew the heart of MY Jesus..they'd know that condemnation isnt even a TINY bit of who he is.

[Sarah]

I hate the haters. The cute overload site helped quite a lot!
Sarah

[jeanie]

I am intolerant of only one thing - intolerance.

I am so sorry, Cec, that you get such carp thrown at you every single time.

Hugs.

[gillian]

the biggest proof that you made the right decision has beautiful blue eyes and is so freaken cute even as she throws a temper tantrum over chopsticks.

[Mara]

I'm just curious, because you write so strongly on this topic and you didn't try to have children until an earlier age, but did you ever have an abortion before the twins?

[Mara]

that should have said "later" not "earlier"

[Shelley]

"And I think think it is possible to disagree without falling into name calling or worse."

Elena, I totally agree. And I think it would be a shame if we can't discuss the entire issue of abortion without shouting at each other. But in this particular discussion, there's no room for a different "opinion" on whether Cecily did the right thing. Medical facts indicate that she did do the right thing, the ONLY option available to her... anyone who says otherwise is simply incorrect. So in this conversation, Erin wasn't "disagreeing," she was arguing her position based on wrong information, and attaching guilt and moral superiority to it. That makes civil debate impossible.

[elayne]

Elena, a quick question, which maybe you have answered before, but I haven't seen it:
Had Cecily not chosen to have the medical procedure she had, she would have died. Since the decision directly leading to and responsible for her death would have been her own decision and at her own hand (in staying the hands of the physicians who could save her life), she would have been committing suicide.

To the best of my knowledge (though it's been a while since I was a church goer), the Bible does not specifically say anything about either abortion OR suicide, only about "killing" or "murdering" in general. Thus, I can only assume that Cecily was placed in a position - *placed* there by God, one might argue - where she was faced with a decision to take one life (her son's) to save another life (her own), or... take a life (her own) and thereby cause another life (her son's) to be lost.

In one situation she would be committing only ONE major "sin"; by allowing herself AND her son to die, two. Further, by choosing to preserve her own life, one might consider that she was subjecting herself to both pentinence (a lifetime of sorrow and grief for the loss of her son) and penace (bringing another life into the world, and working to make the world a better place for women so that, by having more VOCAL control over our own bodies - that is, we get to SAY what will or will not happen to us or what we will or will not do - we exert more physical control over, and responsibility for, our bodies, thereby reducing the numbers of unwanted pregnancies, and thereby reducing the number of abortions overall.

To sum all this up, I don't think it's so much "shouting down a differing opinion" that you're seeing, as a rejection of faulty logic. You (I assume you're the same Elena from a year or two ago) believe that Cecily should have died rather than "commit the sin" of choosing to terminate. However, the very action that you advocate as the way she could have avoided committing the sin would lead to her (1) still "committing" the same "sin," (2) committing another one by knowingly choose to end her own life by refusing medical care, and (3) refusing to allow the opportunity for her to "be penitent" and "do penance" for her "sins."

(A note in case anyone isn't following it: I am using the language that I have seen used as arguments against Cecily. The first person who tells me, aghast, that I should be horsewhipped for calling Cecily a sinner can go straight to remedial reading school.)

Seems like the Christian thing to do, when faced with a rock/hard place situation, would be to choose the option that commits the least "sins," does the least damage to others ("Do unto others, love thy neighbor as thyself," etc), and offers the most opportunity for repentance and restitution.

THAT is why, IMO, a lot of what you call "differing opinions" are shouted down; because they're just plain nonsensical. Especially when you consider that Cecily didn't *choose* to develop the life-threatening (and fetus-killing?) disease that got her into that situation in the first place; if we want to take a strictly Biblical look at that, that was GOD'S doing. And as you may know, another big Biblical topic is "do not bear false witness against another" - which is to say, don't blame someone for something they weren't responsible for. Blaming Cecily for choosing the least damaging option open to her in a situation that she would never have chosen on her own but, a literal "God controls everyting, there's a master Plan" mind might say, was forced on her by the same God that people want her to obey... it's not just a difference of opinion, it's a complete failure of logic - and that's assuming that I share the presumption of their being a judging God in the first place, so it's not the belief in God I'm saying is illogical. It's the "lose/lose big" thing.

Lisa: "A new word for this type of Christian" -- an atheist acquaintance of mine has two words. Hypocristian, for those who are more on the hypocritical side, and shiite Christians, for those who are devout in their beliefs and practices, but believe that everyone else in the world must ALSO be just as devout.

christina: "Pro Choice and Pro Life" -- Prolifers are pro choice; they believe that women should not make choices that put them into positions where they can become pregnant with an unwanted child. If this means not having sex with the football team after the homecoming game, or never leaving the house lest she be raped, or choosing to be beaten unconscious rather than "submit" to her husband, it's all the same to them.

Prochoicers are pro life; they believe that their OWN life, or the life of a physically mature woman, is a life worth saving also. They believe that the life of a woman who may die of a botch amateur abortion is worth saving. They believe that the life of a teenager with abusive parents, who succumbed to pressure or even force from her boyfriend, is worth saving. They believe that the life of a mother who might go on to have healthy children, or adopt, is worth "saving," in the sense that terminating a fatally flawed pregnancy releases her from a lifetime of caretaking which might prevent her from successfully parenting more children.

Lastly, to anyone who calls themselves a Christian, remains unmoved by the logical disconnect I detailed above, and feels the need to say something to Cecily in response to the decision she made, who believe that it was a "sin," I ask you to consider your own Lord's example. He did not say to the woman taken in adultery, "I can't believe you did that, you slut! Don't you know what God says about promiscuous women? You are filthy and ungodly and you are going to hell for your sins - the only reason they're not stoning you RIGHT NOW is because I'm stopping them, but really I should let them go ahead and kill you now because there is no redemption for you now!"

He said, "Go, and sin no more."

(and a PS to Cecily: Sorry, I wrote a book in your comments.)

[elayne]

Elena, my apologies, I totally lied - that wasn't a "quick question" at ALL. That was like the complete 100% opposite of a "quick question."

I started out with good intentions, but...

[Leta]

1. Another big "thanks" and "you rule"- cute overload is my new favorite site ever. The tiny bunny? Totally melted my cold, stony heart.

2. Anyone who knows the tiniest whit about medicine or human anatomy- I'm talking most people who've taken a CPR class, for example- knows that performing major, open abdominal surgery on anyone with sky-high blood pressure and failing kidneys is a recipe for an even worse disaster. It is an utterly facile and completely ignorant question. You need not justify your medical decisions to anyone, anywhere, ever, but especially to respond to people who are just completely stropping clueless.

3. The reason your story is so important is because it changes people's understanding of this absolutely vitally important topic. Like Heather, up-comment-run. No sensible or compassionate person could possibly judge you, or have the unmitigated temerity to question your doctor's medical advice once they have the whole story and all the pertinent medical facts. So again, THANK YOU, CECILY! We need you and other women like you, and all of us who can call our bodies our own are in your debt.

4. I'm saying a little prayer that your migrane goes away, never to return.

[R]

This is pretty much the definition of taking one for the team. Good gracious. Thank you again, Cecily.

[jennyg]

1. Hugs.

2> In case noone else sent you this yet,

http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22291/43737

[Kathleen]

Cecily, It's up to you, of course, but I hope you will not answer the question about whether or not you had an abortion prior to the boy's deaths. Sharing part of ones life in no way obligates a woman to share their whole life. I do not like the assumption that now we should all be privy to your reproductive history.

In anycase, the next time someone wants to disapprove of you, they should do it right; via disapproving rabbits.

http://birdchick.com/adventures/rabbit/index.html

[Amy in BC]

"CUTE OVERLOAD"?!? Heh, I hope no one takes offense to THAT ;)

[Emily]

Not to mention, why put a woman, ANY WOMAN, through major surgery, which can have ugly complications in the best of times, to deliver one baby that has already died and another that will immediately after birth. Who does that help? What possible justification is there for it?

[Cate]

Did no one else watch ER obsessively back in the day? Or any of the other medical shows? D.I.C., people. When you go eclamptic, you don't clot. When you don't clot, you are likely to die. C-section not a good idea. (I was pregnant with my first when that episode aired, can you tell). And then I was eclamptic. And it wasn't a TV show anymore, it was real.

Cecily, you don't need me to validate you, but don't let the uninformed give you migraines. They don't know, and they are so wedded to their necessary sense of superiority that they can't even empathize or pretend to care.

I don't think prolife should mean "everyone has to die".

[Elena]

"You (I assume you're the same Elena from a year or two ago) "

Actually I'm the same Elena who has been around for a couple years, commenting regularly on a number of posts and pictures, and a facebook friend! Easy mistake...all us pro lifers look alike!! LOL!!