What a heartbreaking story and beautifully written article. I hope the man has finally found peace. Watching a loved one go through that ordeal must be soul shattering, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
It actually makes a lot of sense to me that mothers who experience the agony of childbirth want to remember a more sanitized version of it, while men who can never experience it are interested in the brutal reality.
Every successful man with multiple children has put the burden of raising them on other people. ACB's mentor Scalia had 9 kids who he says were raised by his wife 'with very little help from him.' I don't see why it becomes a bad thing because a woman is doing it.
Interestingly, it used to be considered really shameful to have a disabled kid in the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox worlds. Kids would be regularly sent away to residential facilities, even if they didn't need that. Something changed in the 80s and they began starting orthodox schools, camps, and other facilities for those kids, and it doesn't have nearly the stigma it once did. The fundraiser for the Hebrew Academy for Special Children (HASC) is one of the biggest annual fundraising events in the NYC area Orthodox community.
I feel like you're showing your hand by asking if the fundamentalist Christians from Oklahoma are Catholic.
It’s not that a woman is doing it, it’s a woman who also claims to be a staunch catholic who believes the traditional role of mothers is in the home raising her many children and opposes birth control and abortion. A “okay for me, but not for thee” if you will. Not believing in birth control and abortion is an option if you are incredibly wealthy, can can afford to hire staff to care for your large brood and clean your giant home, but that’s not the reality for many women.
This is why it's a good idea to make it clear to medics while of sound mind that you want no life support if you're vegetative. Fuck that. (I mean yeah it's up for debate whether there's any "you" left to suffer, but like... imagine, a part of you that persists, locked away in a corner of your brain, forever. Like locked in syndrome but somehow worse or at least just as bad.) I reiterate, fuck that.
Exactly, and particularly that "of sound mind" bit. My dad had told me once when I was younger that if he was in pain and dying, he wouldn't want to be on life support. But then when he was dying of terminal cancer and in excruciating pain, he broke down and outright refused to be a "Do Not Resuscitate" patient, and there really wasn't anything we could say about it because he was still "coherent" enough to be aware of his situation and surroundings. Thankfully he passed in his sleep and didn't come back from it, but what a horrible thing to have to put your body, mind, and family through.
Yep....seeing the horror of machines keeping you alive, I have advance directives on file. I am NOT dying on machines if I can possibly help it. Awful way to go...
It would be interesting if someone took her up on her offer and dumped their unwanted kid on her. Especially one that's not a dying, brainless lump of meat. From what I can tell her only mothering experience was the brainless zombaby that lived less than two hours. I think caring for an actual child, even a disabled one, and all the ongoing expenses of it would wear her out pretty quickly.
"I'm not judging anyone, except for those awful coward women who delete fetuses that aren't compatible with life! Also women who get pregnant from rape, those whores. Love, a godwarrior Mama Bear!!"
This reminds me of that book by Dalton Trumbo, 'Johnny Got His Gun'. Being trapped inside your PTSD-ridden mind with no ability to communicate. Obviously a very melodramatic rendition of being comatose/in a persistent vegetative state, but terrifying nonetheless.
> "Broken, excruciatingly painful, yet beautifully perfect"
