INFANTICIDE

Infanticide: (or infant homicide) is the killing of a human infant/child.

I’m one of those people that ‘swings’ when it comes to the topic of abortion. 

I can see situations where abortion should be legalised (teenage pregnancy, pregnancy through acts of violence, major health or mental issues), and situations where they should not (career choices, marital status, financial reasons).

You may call me a ‘fence sitter’ if you like; I won’t take offence, for that’s exactly what I am.

However, when it comes to the topic of infanticide, we’re dealing with a completely different kettle of fish.

Our rich, global history is littered with different and contradicting views on infanticide. 

In some cultures, child sacrifice for religious or spiritual reasons was acceptable.  European history shows a period where an unwanted child was simply abandoned, where either nature (animals) or climactic influences (hypothermia), would claim the newborn.

In some societies, the practice of ‘suffocating’ an infant continued until as late as the 20^th century.  Some societies would implement the practice if times were difficult (one less mouth to feed), whilst others deemed the act criminal.

Some cultures even practice infanticide today, particularly if the child is not of the ‘preferred’ sex.

There are even recorded historical observations on Aboriginal life in South Australia and Victoria during the nineteenth century, which reported up to 30% of Aboriginal infants were killed at birth.

In the 21^st century, Australian society, which if you want to bring faith into it, finds its foundations in Christianity, treats the act of infanticide as criminal.  Let me remind you again that infanticide is the killing of a human infant; an infant that has been birthed, and is alive.

Why am I dwelling on such an unusual, if not controversial topic? 

I’m glad you asked.

I read a couple of articles the other day (and also heard it discussed on the radio), that the Journal of Medical Ethics published a paper discussing the arguments for ‘after-birth abortion’.  Dr Alberto Giubilini (a bioethicist from the University of Milan) and Dr Francesca Minerva (Australian philosopher and medical ethicist) wrote:

‘What we call ‘after-birth abortion’ should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is permissible, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.’

But wait; it gets better.

‘If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion, even when the foetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn’.

Basically, whatever your reasons are for wanting to abort a child, they argue that you could abort it pre and post birth, whether it’s healthy or not. Let me make this clear: they’re putting arguments forward suggesting that you can abort in-utero, or after birth. 

The good doctors continue:

‘We do not suggest any threshold, as it depends on the neurological development of newborns… if economic, social or psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the offspring becomes and unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given the chance of not being forced to do something that they cannot afford.’

Are you fucking kidding me?

‘Something that they cannot afford?’

If you cannot afford (and by ‘afford’, I don’t just mean financially) to bring an innocent life (and I reiterate; innocent life) into this world, then for God’s sake check yourselves.  Better protection? Abstinence? Sterilization (tubes tied or vasectomy)?  There are many options out there.

However, I can appreciate that ‘accidents’ do happen.  The best laid plans can be thrown awry with an unexpected pregnancy, and sure; dependent upon your circumstances, abortion is a legitimate option. 

Let’s not forget the adoption option, either.  Although adopting kidlets from third-world countries is a wonderful, kind and generous thing to do, it’s a shame that the Australian adoption standards are so strict that a lot of well deserving couples fail to meet them. 

So, back to abortion.  Sure; there are many reasons we can table for the abortion of an unborn foetus, but not of a newborn.  Not of a healthy, living, breathing infant. 

And when is it too late to abort in infant?  1 day? 1 week? 1 month? 1 year?  If after a few months of having this beautiful new child in your life, you find that you are really struggling financially, do you qualify for an ‘after-birth abortion’?  There’s no threshold, remember.

What if all of your quarterly utility bills come in at once, then your car breaks down, and your hours at work are cut back, does that qualify?

I completely understand an individual’s choice to refuse aborting their baby and carry it to term.  But killing the infant after birth? 

The doctors also say:

‘The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a foetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.’

Really?  I thought their right to life was automatic, and it was our responsibility as adults to protect it?  This is where I disagree with the attitude toward abortion.  Just because a foetus is not in our world where we can see, feel, touch and hold it, doesn’t mean it’s not living.

But clearly, I’m wrong.

In an article published in The Telegraph, they explain that they have chosen to ‘call the practice ‘after birth abortion’ rather than infanticide to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a foetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.’

Really? Let’s cut the spin.  You can dress it up any way you like, but at the end of the day, you’re killing a child.  It’s infant murder.  You cannot possibly spin that into a positive.

In defence of these learned ethicist doctors, they explain that the paper is not an argument in favour of infanticide, but instead considers arguments in favour of families and their circumstances.

Apparently, the paper they wrote has garnered all kinds of threats against their person.  I’m not surprised, really, as the topic is extremely confronting, and I suppose, quite contradictory to our Christian based, western belief system.

However, my question is this: if these ethicists are expressing what people really think, and I’m not saying they are, I would like to know when life became so expendable.

Newborn: an infant (from the latin word infans, meaning ‘unable to speak’ or ‘speechless’) is the very young offspring of a human or other mammal.

I wonder what a newborn, if they were able to speak, would say about this?

Peace out.

FAR TOO INTIMATE...

So, I’ll cut straight to the chase: I had an internal ultrasound today.

Yay for me.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of these, but they’re not totally unpleasant, and I would rather this than a fucken mammogram ANY DAY.

I feel that there are just some things that you shouldn’t have to deal with, and this is one of them.  Sure, I understand that if you want to be thoroughly ‘checked out’ with certain issues, that this is the best way to go.  However, there are just personal boundaries that are crossed that simply make one cringe.

I’m sitting in the waiting room at the medical imaging place, and the only other people in there, are a little fat kid and his father.  The kid’s crying like a bitch; I don’t know what he’s done to himself, but I was thinking it would have had something to do with a lunchbox being stolen…

Anyway, I stuck my head in my book (Ken Follet – The Pillars of the Earth), and braced myself for a wait.  Past experience has taught me to expect such things.

This I find ironic.  You make an appointment, right, and to me, it’s a mutual agreement to meet.  For my part, I will be on time to the appointment, hand over some cash, and for their part, they will had over goods or services to the equivalent value of the aforementioned cash.

Why do doctors and medical services not seem to understand this simple system?  Really?  It’s not that hard.  I’m expected to turn up on time, why the fuck can’t they be ready for me? 

Anyway; forgive me for digressing.

So, my appointment was scheduled for 2.30pm.  Im sitting there reading, trying to ignore the fat kid, the television with some doctor on it banging on about gynaecologists and vaginas (maybe this is why the kid was crying?) and silently praying that I won’t end up with an ultrasound technician (or whatever the fuck they’re called) that’s either male or twelve.

I’m old; everyone younger than me looks fucken twelve.

A voice calling my name cuts through the noise, and I look up to see a rather handsome young man, holding a heap of paperwork, waiting for me.  Smiling.

And he’s fucken twelve.

I slap my book closed, grab my bag and head over toward him, hoping to Christ that he’s just going to take me into the examination room, and not be the one that shoves the ultrasoundy thing up my clacka.

Wrong.

‘Hi, I’m Stephen, and I’m the technician that will be working with you today.’ He smiled, leading me toward my fate.

Working with me?  We’re not making a cake here, champ. Since when did this become a mutually positive thing?  At what stage did we undertake a project together? Wtf?

As I walk through the door to the dimly lit examination room (how romantic), I leave my dignity behind.  I’ll pick that up on the way out. 

Although Stephen was incredibly professional, considerate and discreet, I couldn’t help feel like I’d been violated by a video camera, which was being operated by a fucken twelve year old, who strangely seemed at ease with the whole thing. 

Like… this was not unusual in any way, shape or form for him.  Possibly wasn't, considering the circumstances, but it certainly was for me.

I took false comfort in the fact that he didn’t really need to look at my clacka, which was discreetly covered with a sheet.  Possibly a good thing, because the awesomeness of it would have blown his juvenile little mind.  Professional or not.

So after about half an hour of embarrassing torture, me freaking out that I could see the outline of a baby (don’t get excited; it was just my paranoid imagination) and me trying to turn my big arse over on a bed that’s as wide as a 2x4, young Stephen turns to me. ‘Well, we’re all done Lee.  I’ll leave you to get dressed again, and the specialist will analyse the results, and forward them to your GP.’  He smiled happily, handing me a box of tissues.  Classy.  ‘You enjoy the rest of your day now.’

And he was gone.

I sat up, looked around the silent room, and couldn’t help but feel like a slappa after a night out on the piss with some American frat boys.  I half expected to walk into the hallway and see a group of dumbarse twenty-something’s chanting ‘Take the walk of shame!’ whilst someone snapped a Polaroid of me.

*sigh.

After such intimacy, was it wrong to expect at least a hug?

As I got dressed, picked up my dignity and bolted from the room like Makybe Diva (no dumbarse’s or cameras in sight), and couldn’t help but wonder how I would ‘enjoy the rest of my day’ after that far too intimate experience.

Peace out?

A VOICE SILENCED

In the past I’ve blogged about many varied things, and peppered through some of these blogs, I make mention of MTR.

MTR (Melbourne Talk Radio) was a radio station I listened to on the way to work in the mornings.  It was primarily as the name suggests: a ‘talk’ based station.

I found this station quite by accident, when I was searching for something different than the usual tripe spewed up by Melbourne morning radio.  I got sick of the attention grabbing gimmicks churned out on a daily basis, that were full of sexual innuendo, social dysfunction and egotistical crap.

Basically, I was looking for something a little more ‘intelligent’.

Now, I’m not saying I’m smarter than the average peanut; I’m not.  I was just searching for something that stimulated my mind instead of numbing it, if that makes sense.

So, MTR filled that void for me, albeit for only sixty minutes on the way to work.

I was really sad to learn yesterday that the station had been wound up.  After two years on air, MTR just could not make ends meet.  Advertising was insufficient, their ratings were poor, and Macquarie (the major backer of the station), refused to sink any more money into it.

It is such a shame that this voice had been silenced.  It was a very different radio station to anything else out there.  No music; just talk, and sure; you would be fair thinking ‘how fucken boring’, and let me tell you; I feel ‘old’ knowing that I listen to ‘talk back’, however, it was incredibly entertaining.

I didn’t agree with everything they said, or all of the views they presented, but it got me thinking, and I think at this stage in my life, that’s exactly what I was looking for; something to make me think.

I’m surprised that I’m this sad about the station shutting down, because after all: it’s just a radio station.  However, it was something that formed a part of my small, insignificant little life, and it’s sad to see it go.

*sigh

Thanks for the memories.

Peace out.

WEEK 9 SYL CHALLENGE: GO EASY ON YOURSELF

The Challenge: take time for some self-reflection and see if there is anything in your life where changing your expectations/standards/approach could change your life.  Is there something you can let go of (or approach differently) that does not currently serve you?

Mmmm…. How long have we got?

Hahhahaa… when I read this challenge, I thought ‘this one’s going to be interesting’.

I feel that the way we operate in life, is determined by the influences of others.  These influences create expectations, set standards and control how we approach various situations in life.

Of course, I’m a firm believer that no one makes us do anything.  That’s a cop out, and a cop out we all cling to (this is of course excluding acts of violence and abuse that are inescapable – no one has a choice there).  No, we do things through choice, whether good or bad.  At the end of the day, we are the ones in control of how we behave.

In saying that, I’m not necessarily talking about the way we behave toward other people.  I’m talking about the way we behave toward ourselves.  That’s what I think this challenge is about.

We are our harshest critics, and treat ourselves with such disrespect.  We punish ourselves vehemently, judge ourselves viciously, and often treat our bodies unkindly. 

All through the expectations created, standards set and the unfluence of others.

Would you say, point blank, to someone that they’re fat?  They need to lose a few kilos? Their hair looks terrible today? Their makeup is the wrong shade for their skin? The top their wearing is horrendous? Of course not.  Well… if you know them well enough, possibly, but generally, you’d shut your trap, and get the mental dialogue going.

However, you would be that brutal to yourself.  You would stand in front of the mirror, and pick the shit out of your hair, face, makeup, clothes and figure.  You would run yourself down into the ground, because you’re not meeting the standards and expectations that somewhere along the line, you have set for yourself.

Mmmm… somewhere along the line, I have taught myself that I’m not good enough.

Not good enough.  The most common psychological problem that society has today.  Not being good enough.

Compared to what?

Sure, you could blame the media for torturing us with ads featuring ‘perfect’ women, and telling us to go on this diet, and use that product, and we’ll be better if we wear these clothes and eat at this restaurant, and use this shampoo and wear these shoes.  Anything else is socially unacceptable.

We could blame fashion magazines, fashion designers, models that look like sticks, advertising that labels anyone normal a freak, fashion trends, degeneration of social behaviour, social media, school, work, parents, siblings and just about anyone else you can think of.

However, these are only influences.  Ideas.  Suggestions.  We choose whether to take them on board or not.

A perfect example is my relationship with the gym.

I love going to the gym.  No I don’t; I need to stop kidding myself. I hate it, but I acknowledge that I need to go, because that’s the only continual, structured and supported form of exercise I can get.  I need help, and they are the experts that can provide it.

Now, I’ll digress for just a moment.

I can relate to this challenge in the way that I need to change the way I look at things, and the way I behave.  I have blogged before about changing my behaviour towards Jade; that’s a perfect example of ‘letting go’ for me.  The choice to do this has had a profoundly positive impact on my life.  Yay for me!

However, this has a twofold effect.  You see, I have also watched the way Jade behaves, and I don’t like it.  She’s a teenager, and teenage girls are bitches; I get that.  They are harsh, judgemental, unkind and ungracious, and they don’t care.  Unless of course it’s happening to them; then it’s the end of the fucken world.

Anyway, this is my point: if she is that harsh toward other people, what is she thinking about herself?

I believe that we are all mirrors of each other.  When we look at one another, we see elements and aspects of ourselves.  Next time you look at someone and you immediately judge, ask yourself why? What’s the real reason for judgement?

Jade will start banging on about some girl at school that was ‘like a total bitch today… she said this and she said that…’ and I’m like ‘Stop.  I don’t want to hear this negativity.’  Jade is like ‘you don’t listen to me…’ and of course I feel terrible, because in a way, she’s right. 

However, I explain ‘I don’t want to hear your negativity.  You’re being harsh and unkind, and I’m sure you could have handled the situation differently.  I know you, and your attitude is as bad as this other chicks.  Don’t whinge to me about being treated poorly, when you do exactly the same thing to other people.  Treat others as you would treat yourself.’

Mmmm… Maybe she is?

We all take offence at being treated poorly, which we should.  However, how often are we treating other people, and particularly ourselves, in such a poor manner?

We speak negatively about ourselves, then all of a sudden, we’re thinking negatively about ourselves, then the patterns of disrespect start to flow, and everything goes pear shaped, becomes habitual, and years later we’re sitting there typing a blog, and wondering what the fuck went wrong?

Where did life derail?

Where did I let it derail?

So, I think that learning to go easier on myself, means that I have to try and get myself back on track.

So, when I sit at the gym (the place I lovingly call the torture chamber) and watch the other chicks work out, it’s hard to stay positive.  So, I try and turn it into a ‘self-assessment-of-my-own-behaviour’ session.

I will be flogging myself on some piece of equipment, looking at a young, skinny thing across the way, going hard and doing shit that I can only dream of, and I feel myself getting angry.  Why? She’s done nothing to me?  She’s young, fit and beautiful; what the fuck has she done to me?

Nothing.  She’s just young, fit and beautiful, and I’m not.  What I see in her, is but a reflection of an aspect of myself.  I’m angry at her, because I don’t see myself as young, fit and beautiful anymore.  I’m jealous that I’m not like her anymore. For whatever reasons, I’ve derailed myself, and have become this physical person that I don’t like.  It’s an aspect of myself that I hate.  She’s done nothing to me, and it’s not her fault.  It’s what I’ve done to myself that’s the problem.

Whatever influences have crossed my path in the past, they have lead me to the belief that my present ‘form’, for want of a better word, is not acceptable.  It’s not good enough.

Same applies when I see a large lady working out.  Instead of thinking ‘Jesus love; wtf?  If anyone needs a work out, you fucken do!’  I need to remember that I am exactly where that woman is, and she’s in here for the same reasons I am: to get her shit back on track. 

Instead of being harsh and judgemental, I need to inwardly applaud not only her efforts to force change, but mine too.

Again, with the mirror.  We are all but a reflection of aspects and elements of each other.

There have been many influences on my life in the past, which have helped shape me into the person I am now.  There are influences in my life now, which don’t necessarily impact me in a positive way.  Charlie and Jade are perfect examples of that.

They’re not bad people, please don’t get me wrong.  They are different to me, and their behaviour (like Jade with the nasty girl at school) influences me.

The common thread with the two of them is that they are very harsh and judgemental.  So much so, that I find it quite astonishing at times, and difficult to handle the constant negativity.

Of recent times, we’ve all had blow-ups about that very thing.  I’m on one side of the argument, declaring that they need to stop being so fucken negative all the time, and they’re on the other side asking ‘what’s the fucken problem?’

I can’t really change their behaviour; just the way it affects me. 

I can influence them, and encourage positive change, by helping them think about their behaviour, for sure.  However, do I then run the risk of influencing them into thinking that they’re not good enough?  Or, by the way they are behaving now, are they already there?

It’s a vicious circle, and one I cannot fully control.  Nor do I wish to try to, either.

No, I need to focus on myself, as the full challenge suggests.  Focus on making my own happiness, and learning to let go of other people’s negative influences that have encouraged me to treat myself so disrespectfully.

The challenge also suggests that we come up with our own little mantra that supports us and builds us up.  Mmmm… I AM GOOD ENOUGH sounds good to me.

I AM GOOD ENOUGH.

Peace out.