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So, some people might not know this about me (why would they?) but I enjoy reading Dear Abby, like a lot of people, probably, but I really do enjoy hearing advice rendered. I like "Savage Love" a lot more (if you don't know, ask. *wink*), but there was an interesting piece today.

A woman wrote in asking if she was justified in being angry at her cousin. Her situation was that a few years ago, this woman was 8 months pregnant with her baby boy, and her cousin was about to go on a trip. Before she went on her trip, the cousin gave this woman a baby walker, which she was very pleased about.

Three weeks later, her baby was a stillborn, and she had a lot to deal with. When her cousin came back from the trip, she asked for the gift back, because that since the baby was dead she didn't think she "needed it" anymore.

First of all, that's an outrageously insensitive thing to say to a woman who had something like that happen to her, under any circumstances, not to mention she could have at least waited before doing something as petty as to ask for a gift back just because the baby was stillborn.

I mean, come on! I think all of us, pro-life and pro-choice, can unite in saying that this cousin chick is one massive jerk, or just an insensitive moron. Or both.

Or if we can't unite in that, isn't some sympathy warranted in this kind of a situation? If I was the cousin, I might have asked her if keeping the gift for her was something that she wasn't comfortable with, because it would remind her of her baby, in which case I could figure out if she didn't want it. In all reason, the walker was probably the last thing on her mind.

But anyway. Discuss.
Dear Abby, morons, stillborns, and baby walkers.

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That's a pretty horrible thing to do.

I guess what I'd like to ask with this thread is-- has this kind of thing stemmed from the idea that pregnancy isn't something you HAVE to do?

What I mean is, when people have the option to end their pregnancy, based on an idea that a fetus is somehow less before it's born (not my words, mind you), does that negatively effect the respect that's given to pregnant women? Does that allow people to, in their minds, make the death of a child in the womb (or stillborn) somehow less of a tragedy than a whole other person dying?

I guess what I'm getting at is, once you say a fetus isn't a human being, that opens up a whole door for people to disregard the death of a fetus in other situations.

Y'know what I mean?

And I'm not really trying to be confrontational, I just don't want this to be a
thread where everyone agrees with me, and then there's nothing else to say. ;D

Also, pass me a stick. *clunk*

Yeah, that cousin is one big douche.

Actually, McPhee, along those lines, I unfortunately have family members that feel that since a fetus isn't a person to them, a miscarriage is no big deal and women who are upset by them are being stupid and hormonal. Things like this have happened within my family; I'm just sort of used to it.

Some of them have felt this way since before elective abortion was legal, though. I'm willing to say that some people are just plain insensitive and can't think outside of their own vantage points. One of my aunts actually said to a cousin who miscarried, "You're pro-choice, I thought you realized a fetus isn't the same as a baby." That cousin isn't pro-choice anymore.

Considering there was enough public support to make abortion legal in the first place, I think if anything, legalized abortion only helps confirm the idea that a fetus isn't a person. People will believe it with or without legalized abortion, and some people won't realize that it's not a universal feeling that can be applied to everyone.

I'm mixed on my feelings. I know some people who have been convinced a fetus isn't a person based on abortion being legal, and have taken that to situations outside abortion. But I also know people who felt that way before abortion was legal, and again, take it to situations outside abortion.

As long as the government isn't using the logic that a fetus isn't a person to withhold care for pregnant women, as long as insurance companies aren't using that logic to consistently keep prenatal care and surgeries if needed out of their policies, then I'm not too worried, but if they do start doing that based on the non-personhood of a fetus, I'll be worried.

I don't read Dear Abby but I can't that woman could do such a thing! Asking for a gift back because the other woman lost the baby is a horrible and insensitive thing to do.

That poor woman is probably feeling bad enough about her child being stillborn.

If I was that woman, I wouldn't give it back (it's a gift, not something just to borrow so why should she give it back?).

I got a magazine from some people going door to door about grieving over death and one of things in there was about miscarriges and stillborn.

It says that alot of the time, the people might not understand the woman's loss since some people think that since it wasn't born that it doesn't really exist in their eyes and treat it as if she was never pregnant, had or going to have a baby.

From what I understand miscarry are different. A miscarriage happens in the first five months of pregnancy and it happens to one in five pregnancy. Stillborn the baby is born dead.

Eh? I thought the whole point of being pro-CHOICE was to support a woman's choice, not attack her for not aborting....Hmmmm...