Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Absolutely sick II

On July 18, The Monk posted this snippet, which included a link to an "as told to" piece in the NY Times Magazine. The subject is Amy Richards, a freelance writer, sometime journalist, and fulltime feminist activist who chose to have two of the three babies she was pregnant with aborted. The Monk was quite tempered in his reaction on this blog because so many other bloggers had filled the web with their rage. See here, here, here and here. Note that all the babies were healthily gestating.

Most of the rage centered around three things Richards said or did: (1) her narcissistic concern that three babies would mean she'd have to move to Staten Island (from Manhattan) and shop at Costco; (2) her conceptualization that she merely wanted to "get rid" of two fetuses; and (3) her willingness to do it all over again.

Today, blogger Tim Worstall (link in title of this post) has Richards' response to an email from a very nonjudgmental correspondent who is a business acquaintance of Worstall.

Give Richards credit for an honest response, but read it in full CAREFULLY. None of the concerns about her narcissism or her willingness to kill additional fetuses is addressed. If anything, she provides more support for her detractors. There are three main points: (1) her fears for HER health if she carried triplets to term (despite no actual confirmed problems in the pregnancy and despite living in NYC -- where there is arguably the best medical-care in the world); (2) her desire to allow HER children access to diverse activities, good lifestyle, etc., and the inability she had to furnish those things for three children all at once, even though she had no qualms about having three children total; (3) thinking that it would be worse for HER son to know he has siblings "out there" than eliminating two of the potential siblings.

No comments: