If anyone has any doubts, read this article.
As I write this, I am sitting in my living room. It's a fairly comfortable living room, and my sister left TLC on. The show? 19 Kids and Counting.
The protagonist/antagonist of the article I linked to earlier, by the name of Anne Nicol Gaylor, is an opinionated, cold little woman whose business consists of providing monetary means for young women my age and younger to abort their children. At the very beginning of the article, it mentions that Gaylor will be assisting a mother in providing for her fourteen year old daughter's second-trimester abortion--number 18,986.
From where I'm sitting, I can hear Josie Duggar cooing. She was born very premature. She's on my TV screen--tiny, adorable, with tremendous bright eyes.
Maybe that could have been #18986.
Michelle Duggar is holding baby Josie on screen. The other little Duggars are looking over their baby sister. Little Josie is sleeping--breathing in and out. Now awake--making happy noises at her mummy.
Josie was born at 25 weeks--second trimester. #18986 could have been Josie's age--viable.
According to the article, Gaylor has never had an abortion, but witnessed one when a woman asked for support. She says that it did not change her views.
The kind of abortion is not specified. If it was one like what might have been done to #18986, then Gaylor was unaffected by the syringes, scalpels; the constant mechanical whirring, hard suctioning sounds, smell of bleach and blood mixed. Very likely the woman would have also been in a great deal of pain as the tiny fetal body was either ripped to pieces using calipers and scalpels or burned alive using saline to produce a reddened, burnt corpse that abortionists cavalierly call "candied apples" due to the bright red color of their skin as it peels off.
And that is what Gaylor has funded nineteen thousand times over.
How #18986 died can't be verified for certain. And to many, #18986 is a nameless, faceless victim. He is unknown. He has no father, he has no mother; he is not a person, he is a statistic. Ultimately, he is disposable. He is just another in a long line--before he, #18986, came along, there was #18985, #18984, #18983, #18982, #18981, #18980, #18979, and so on. "One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic." Or, in this case, it probably became a statistic around #1000.
#18986 serves as a kind of Orwellian character in the scheme in which Gaylor acts. He is both a statistic and a fallen threat. Why was he a threat? Well, no one can say. But, certainly, Big Sister has protected the rights of her people. The insidious threat is defeat--a threat that, we are to be assured, was never alive to begin with. And now he's just another number on the page--a depersonalized statistic. #18986.
It's such a simple number. After all, numbers aren't people. Numbers can't take revenge. Numbers are not killed, and their tiny, helpless bodies then disposed of in whatever way their killer sees fit. Ultimately, numbers don't matter. A number is neat, orderly and depersonalized. It's there when you need a statistic, and there is ultimately no repercussion. It's just a number. The number wasn't a person, after all. A number doesn't cry or move or bleed. #18986 did two of those, and never got the chance to do the third.
Rest in peace, Baby Doe.
The kind of abortion is not specified. If it was one like what might have been done to #18986, then Gaylor was unaffected by the syringes, scalpels; the constant mechanical whirring, hard suctioning sounds, smell of bleach and blood mixed. Very likely the woman would have also been in a great deal of pain as the tiny fetal body was either ripped to pieces using calipers and scalpels or burned alive using saline to produce a reddened, burnt corpse that abortionists cavalierly call "candied apples" due to the bright red color of their skin as it peels off.
And that is what Gaylor has funded nineteen thousand times over.
How #18986 died can't be verified for certain. And to many, #18986 is a nameless, faceless victim. He is unknown. He has no father, he has no mother; he is not a person, he is a statistic. Ultimately, he is disposable. He is just another in a long line--before he, #18986, came along, there was #18985, #18984, #18983, #18982, #18981, #18980, #18979, and so on. "One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic." Or, in this case, it probably became a statistic around #1000.
#18986 serves as a kind of Orwellian character in the scheme in which Gaylor acts. He is both a statistic and a fallen threat. Why was he a threat? Well, no one can say. But, certainly, Big Sister has protected the rights of her people. The insidious threat is defeat--a threat that, we are to be assured, was never alive to begin with. And now he's just another number on the page--a depersonalized statistic. #18986.
It's such a simple number. After all, numbers aren't people. Numbers can't take revenge. Numbers are not killed, and their tiny, helpless bodies then disposed of in whatever way their killer sees fit. Ultimately, numbers don't matter. A number is neat, orderly and depersonalized. It's there when you need a statistic, and there is ultimately no repercussion. It's just a number. The number wasn't a person, after all. A number doesn't cry or move or bleed. #18986 did two of those, and never got the chance to do the third.
Rest in peace, Baby Doe.
11 comments:
Powerful. Good piece of writing here, Celestine. I hope everyone who uses the internet somehow comes across this page and takes the time to read it.
Thank you. I appreciate the compliment, though I wish the post itself was a piece of fiction.
I agree with you there :-(
Alisha, unfortunately, no one will find this post, because this blog is "hidden", i.e. can't be found with search engines. I've been thinking that Celestine should have her own public blog (despite the inevitable trolls) so that her posts can be widely read. Perhaps this should be her first post.
Madame Blogmistress,
I think that might be a bad idea.
Just for the record.
I'd do it, but still....
Celestine, I'm going to agree with Madame Blogmistress on this one.
You should do it! And, as she said, this should be your first post!
Oh, well... fine.
As above, it is a very powerful post. I've seen that you have started a new blog - and this one is a great one for post no. 1.
Thanks, TH2. I have made it post #1--though I'm not sure what to make post #3, 4, 5, etc...
wow. that article is sickening. (the one linked to obviously...not your eloquently written response Celestine)
that woman is SUCH a HYPOCRITE. (although, are we shocked and amazed by this?)
i mean...after all, she was allowed to have FOUR (that's DOUBLE the necessary replacement rate of 2.1) children! GASP! How presumptious of her to think the world is interested in four of her children!! AGHGHGH.
I agree entirely, Anonymous. I thought about delving into those "special" little comments of hers, but finally decided that was an entirely different post, seeing as it would spur a long rant about the value of big families (and I'm not objective on that matter at all :-) ).
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