Breeder and other words we use to hurt our own.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by evolveme

To insist that all of motherhood is necessarily and by virtue a sacred thing, is really only a hair different than the very real and damaging religious dogmatism that insists that women are not worthy unless they achieve motherhood, that this is their function, and that this is the purpose of the union of marriage - a concept which is used to prohibit the LBGTQI community from access to that right.

I'm not sure about insisting- I don't insist that other people agree with me and to me there is a definite difference between faith, belief, dogmatism and the perversion of religious beliefs to control others.

It's part of my own belief system that all life is sacred. I have loved very dearly a few people who had extremely bad - criminally terrible, unfeeling, thoughtless - mothers. But they still gave life - by choice - to people I have loved very much and I do personally consider that a sacred act on their part.

I also think in a few of those cases, abortion or giving the kid up for adoption would have been the better choice. I recently lost somebody I loved very much. Witnessing the pain of his childhood was the best argument I ever encountered for abortion. When parents are incapable of loving their kids, of refraining from abusing them, of abstaining from cruelty toward them, of refraining from drinking or drugging through their pregnancies or parenting, then abortion may well be the kindest thing a person could do for their would-be child. But I still consider the act of bringing a person into this world to be a sacred act and a sacrifice on its own. I don't think it erases terrible behavior.

I know that's part of *my* belief system and I don't have any desire to force that belief onto anybody else. I just hate seeing that belief attacked here as it was earlier when somebody else posted about their own spiritual beliefs about and appreciation for motherhood.

I think it's really easy from the outside to be derisive or dismissive about other people's spiritual or religious beliefs, and I hate to see that happen within this thread or in this community.

Yes, there are dangers when people dogmatize a belief in the sacredness of life or motherhood and then use that to implement laws that oppress.

I think there are also dangers in treating life and motherhood as entirely unsacred things. I think doing so leads to some really horrific ideologies and practices (slavery, the Holocaust, genocide - incidentally all situations in which the forced "breeding" of women has happened).

ps. when I use the word "sacred" it is from a religious/spiritual place. There are other words that an atheist might be more comfortable using. I think there are atheists who very much see the value of life, who can certainly recognize the difference between birth and death, who can see and understand how much is given in the creation of another human being. "Sacred" may be a religious word, but I'm pretty sure there are atheists who value the lives, experiences, sacrifices and hard work involved in carrying and giving birth to a child and/or raising one.