By Connecticut Catholic Corner
Today I read two stories of motherhood. The first story was about a mother
octopus. This mother octopus has stunned
the science world with her dedication to the survival of her unborn babies.
She spends years, attached to the location she
has chosen as the perfect place to lay her eggs. Once the eggs are laid, she waits with them.
Protecting them from predators twenty four hours a day for more than four
years.
Quote: During the brooding period,
the mother octopus seemed to focus exclusively on the welfare of the eggs.
"She was protecting her eggs from
predators, and they are abundant. There are fish and crabs and all sorts of
critters that would love to get in there and eat those eggs. So she was pushing
them away when they approached her," Robison said.
"She was also keeping the eggs free
from sediment and was ventilating them by pushing water across them for oxygen
exchange. She was taking care of them," Robison added.-end quote-
Kutner, who for a year had been using an IUD
to prevent her from having (not conceiving) a child found out she was pregnant. Without batting an eye, she
scheduled her abortion for today.
Saturday at 10 am.
Kutner felt no motherly
instincts at all for the human being in her womb. She felt no sense to protect that life within
her own body. She felt only for
herself. She didn’t want a child so she
would find someone to kill and remove the child from her womb.
Kutner writes: “If I still lived in Texas,
I would still have access to all those same means. So I’d face fewer
impediments to an abortion than most, but that doesn’t mean I’d face zero. I
would still have to have a sonogram, and I would have to hear about the
development of the zygote inside me.
As I waited to speak with a counselor at a
New York Planned Parenthood last weekend, I felt a wave of relief at the
thought of being so far from home. Really, it was relief at the thought of
being trusted to make my own decision, at being able to avoid having a probe
shoved inside me in an effort to make me question, regret or alter that choice.
There are no mandated ultrasounds in New York; no condescending scripts for the
doctors to read; no increasing shortage of clinics because of legal entrapments
that endanger women’s health. I thanked my lucky stars, for maybe the first
time in my life, that I was not in Texas.
Just as I did, a counselor called my name
and asked me to follow her down a hall to a small, carpeted room with a desk
and no windows. On the desk sat a plastic-encased model of a ParaGard IUD, the
little copper “T” with which I had entrusted my reproductive health for exactly
a year. I stared at it while the counselor confirmed that I was, indeed,
pregnant — about five weeks, judging by the start of my last period.
She then presented me with several
options. I told her I wanted to have an abortion. She did not tell me that I
would have to come back for another appointment before the abortion and she did
not try to talk me into another course of action. Instead, she asked when I
could come in for the procedure and put it on the calendar. Then she sent me on
my way.
I wasn’t sure what to feel after I made
the appointment, so I just stood still on the sidewalk for a few minutes and
cried. I cried because I was overwhelmed and confused, although I wasn’t at all
confused about my decision. What I felt most strongly when I left the clinic,
aside from the need to pull it together and go take a nap, were two feelings
that have stuck with me all week. The first was acute anxiety that seven days
was too long to let two incompatible objects (an IUD and a zygote) occupy my
uterus at the same time. The second was complete certainty that I was making
the right decision. I don’t want a child yet, and I’m not at all ready to have
one.
That’s why an abortion is the right choice
for me, and I don’t think much else matters. I keep repeating that and it’s not
because I’m insecure, but rather because I doubt I could be more firmly
convinced. Thankfully, in addition to feeling so strongly about my choice, I
have received all the support I could possibly ask for — from my boyfriend, who
is in complete agreement about my decision, but also from my sister and my
parents, my aunts, uncles, friends, co-workers and even two relative strangers
I met at a picnic on Sunday.”-end quote-
Kutner delights in the
fact that she no longer lives in Texas because she won’t have to “submit
to invasive transvaginal sonograms and patronizing explanations of fetal
development 24 hours before getting an abortion”.
The mother octopus on
the other hand is the exact opposite of Kutner and her ilk.
“This mother octopus
never left the oblong-shaped eggs - which during the brooding period grew from
about the size of a blueberry to the size of a grape - and was never seen
eating anything. The octopus progressively lost weight and its skin became pale
and loose. The researchers monitored the octopus during 18 dives over 53 months
from May 2007 to September 2011.”
I was struck by the sharp contrast between the two mothers. One willing to do anything to protect her offspring, the other willing to pay someone to kill her offspring.
Reading the two stories today literally back to back, my mind was just boggled and incredibly saddened that a woman could be so callous and not for a moment, not one split second think of the child in her womb. She only thought of herself. By contrast the octopus mother never thought of herself, her complete focus was on her offspring and nothing else to the extent of starving herself for years.
Bruce Robison, a deep sea ecologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, said this species exhibits an extremely powerful maternal instinct."It's extraordinary. It's amazing. We're still astonished ourselves by what we saw," Robison said.
From the time Kutner
found out the child was growing in her womb to the scheduled murder of her
child was less than one week. Zero maternal instincts in Kutner.
The mother octopus spent
four and half years starving herself for the well being and protection of her
offspring.
It is now Saturday night…Kutner’s child is dead.
I wonder how she feels now.
I hope for her sake she feels remorse and sorrow for killing her
child. I hope she begs God to forgive her
for the heinous crime she has committed.
May God have mercy on her as Heaven takes in her aborted
child.
In Christ,
Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner
PLEASE read both articles:
