[Continued from "You Call That Advice? (Part 4)."]
From: S M <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Really?
To: John
Date: Monday, April 5, 2010, 2:56 AM
John,
While I’m certainly not happy that you were victimized by the Catholic Church, I don’t think that you were has anything to do with the discussion we’re having. We’re talking about giving advice based not on logic or reason, but on your own assumptions about how the world – and the people within it – works.
Of course one has to have a moral code, however to say, for example, that abortion is never right, doesn’t take into consideration some real, and messed-up, things that happen in the world. As a survivor of sexual abuse I would expect you to have sympathy. What if the abuse you suffered resulted in a pregnancy? Would you want to carry the child of your abuser? Would you want to suffer not only the original violation, but also the violation of an unwanted and forced pregnancy? Isn’t that inability to choose further victimization?
I don’t think age makes someone either irrelevant or wise, I do think one’s way of thinking can do both. Just having a few years behind you does not grant you special status. Whether you would be revered only for your age in other cultures is not relevant, and I find it comical that you bring that up considering you seem to not be able to take into account cultures other than our own privileged American one.
Again, your personality type is not relevant. Neither is your sexual past, nor your age. What is relevant is that you give advice based on all these things without taking into consideration that people are not like you, that your experience of the world is not the only one, and that making sweeping assumptions is not conducive to actually helping people.
Sincerely,
Suzanne White Montiel
_______________
Hey Suzanne:
I am not as naive or as self centered as you take me for. I have worked extensively with groups who work with pregnant women. Let us take for example rape. It is a horrible experience. The presumption is that people want to make the woman clean and whole from the rape so of course she should have an abortion. The reality is that an abortion will not make her unraped. It won’t erase the memory or the experience. The abortion simply victimizes her all over again. She is put into a clinic that is nothing more than a factory. She is forced to get naked with nothing more than a gown and place her feet in stirrups and legs spread wide apart, her uterus is stretched and a cannula with a currette is inserted in her uterus and she has to listen to the scream of the suction machine and the slurping sounds that it makes as it sucks out pieces of baby. All you do is add guilt to her, guilt that lasts for years.
I would counsel women who have been raped to have the baby and give it up for adoption. In this way, she can reclaim ownership of her body and good can come from bad circumstances that happened to her. She can know that there is a loving couple who will love this baby uncondtiionally.
We live in a society that grants women the power of God and the old roman emperor, who held a thumb up or a thumb down for the gladiator to live or to die. If a woman wants an abortion, then it is not a baby. If she wants the baby and a car hits her and she loses the baby, then the person who hit her is charged with vehicular manslaughter. The twelve year old boy who shot his pregnant step mother is being charged witih double murder. This is schizophrenic. It is the woman who decides whether it is a baby or not.
I call them like I see them. A lot of women have thanked me for my advice.
It is certainly your right to disagree with my advice. I disagree with your approach as well. I am much more a hands on kind of clinician than the hands off type of clinician where anything goes. Tradtional marriage counselors have a 75% failure rate. Coaches have a 75% success rate.
Best Wishes
John
_______________
From: S M <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Really?
To: John
Date: Monday, April 5, 2010, 3:55 AM
I will write more later, as it truly makes me weary to have to explain fundamentals such as the fact that you cannot understand what it’s like to be pregnant since it is impossible for you to be so. If someone chooses something of her free will then she is not victimized.
_______________
Hey Suzanne:
I have had 5 kids and two of them daughters. I understand pregnancy better than you think. I also went to nursing school as well.
So often women don’t choose willingly. They are pressured into the abortion decision. This includes so called counseling at the abortion mill.
These women are not given informed consent. They are subjected to a very one sided view.
As I said, I can’t control people’s lives, they are free to choose or reject my advice as they see fit.
Best wishes
John
[Yes, dear god, there is more.]
I swear. True story.