freckles_and_doubt | lollipops and candycanes

Heigh, ho. Yet-another-unsuccessful-lectureship-application last week has induced the usual despair and angst, leading to a vale of tears and self-loathing, a retreat into Supernatural and sewing, and really boring blog posts, for which I apologise. In an effort both at distraction and actual interest, have some Monday morning linkery.

Completely incredible Bioshock cosplay, photographed at an aquarium. Now I want to play Bioshock again. Memo to self, make Evil Landlord buy the sequel when it comes out, possibly by repeat application of creme caramel.
We don't often get to hear about this side of the abortion/adoption debate. Reading this is making me slightly ashamed of even thinking casually about adoption as an issue; it's also engendering the usual feminist rage about patriarchal control of female reproduction and the incredible powerlessness of so many women in this situation. Also, now I like Juno a lot less.

In other, less depressing news, Hobbit has a new trick, viz. lurking under the giant leaves of the delicious monster on the edge of the patio, and ambushing your ankles as you walk past. Fortunately he still hasn't got the hang of this strange "skirt" concept, and tends to suddenly veer off and look embarrassed at the last minute instead of actually connecting with my ankles.

Also, halfway through Season 2 of Supernatural, and am I imagining it, or is the writing suddenly on an upswing? I'm a bit over-emotional at the moment anyway, but "Houses of the Holy", "Born Under a Bad Sign", "Roadkill" and "Heart" were a series of gut-punches which did wonderful things with the emotional arc of the season, and also didn't go quite where narrative cliché dictated they should. ("Tall Tales" was also bloody good fun, and the slow-dancing alien made me laugh a great deal). Also, this show works as a Necessary Perspective Vortex: no matter how annoying my life is, at least I don't have to deal with demon possession, a life based on credit card fraud and running from the police, and the ongoing possibility of having to kill someone I love.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Excellent adoption post, but I don't go along with the anti-Juno line. Which I have heard before. It's just a movie. It's not the film's duty to present a balanced and searching look at all possible ramifications of teen pregnancy. It's one story about one girl, and I loved that it *didn't* go down the oh-so-traumatic road. Similarly, this post is one woman's experience; I bet it's a very, very common one, but I don't think *every* birthmother has as lousy a time.

Reading that post, I was really surprised at her experience of other people's responses. As far back as I can remember the main attitude towards giving baby up for adoption that I've encountered has always been "gosh, so hard". Never "monster!" and certainly never an assumption that it's easy. So it's enlightening (and really depressing) to hear that those attitudes do apparently prevail among many people.

scroob

I found the comments even more illuminating, in terms of contextualising her experience as very far from uncommon: post after post after post talking about their experience of non-traumatic abortions and extremely long-term traumatic adoptions. It was more than slightly eye-opening in terms of this enormous silent space in the rhetoric from both sides.

I hadn't thought much about potential birth mother trauma; good for that post in explaining what can (not necessarily will) happen. One thing that appalled me is the extent to which adoption, counselling, etc. services in some parts of the US seem to be dominated by the religions. Toxic.

Well, it depends on the way you look at things. It's such a knee-jerk reaction to just whine about the religious organisations. A simple solution to the "toxicity" you are complaining of would surely be for more non-religious people/organisations to just get off their butts and help.

My personal feeling is that anyone who wants to persuade a woman not to have an abortion should be prepared to walk alongside her every step of the way and provide practical assistance and emotional support to empower her to exercise her alternatives. Respect to all those who do this, whatever their beliefs.

From the descriptions both in that post and in a lot of the comments, the problem seems to be that the "practical assistance and emotional support" don't seem to be there for birth mothers in many cases - too often the focus seems to be on the needs of the child and the adoptive parents, to the almost exclusion of the needs of the birth mother.

I dunno, it's not really a knee-jerk to be deeply and thoughtfully worried about the possibility that the facilities for these kinds of decisions predominately respond to the birth mother's situation through a moral/religious rhetoric which at best diminishes her right to emotional distress, and at worst actively blames her. I'm thinking particularly of the Catholic ones, from anecdotes in the comments.

As you very aptly put it, the "moral/religious rhetoric which at best diminishes her right to emotional distress, and at worst actively blames her" is nothing short of religious abuse. Nothing can justify that.

I wholeheartedly agree. My only eyebrow-raising is at the term "knee-jerk". I'm quite clear that it's disturbing that this woman, who is not religious, felt she was only able to get "support" with a religious agenda attached that she clearly experienced as toxic. If her article is to be believed, this is a typical problem.

I had not thought of that aspect of the debate before. Thanks for the link. It's a side that's never really mentioned, even in the supposedly all-inclusive moral education the kids of today are meant to get...

Yup, because it's inconvenient and messes up the clear-cut "don't abort! give up for adoption!" rhetoric.

I've watched a bunch of friends go through pregnancy, and in retrospect it's extremely bizarre that the hideous hormonal effect of removing a baby isn't considered, quite apart from the emotional one.

That seems to be a recurrent theme these days - "don't let facts stand in the way of a good argument".

From reading the article, it strikes me that the support groups also don't give much (if any!) attention to the hormonal/emotional effects, and seem to treat the birth mothers like baby-making drones. Which is pretty disgusting, really.

lollipops and candycanes

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