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paolo
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17 Sep 2007, 2:41 am

I am a child of the “culture of life”. I was not wanted, I was experienced as an unwanted accident. And largely treated as such.

The silence in my flat was interrupted yesterday by a phone call of a “friend” who was enthusiastic about the birth of a child (not hers), “Oh life, life what a thing!” she went on saying. When I hear this paeans of life I would like to ask (I don’t do it of course). “All life? Life in the animal husbandry and the slaughterhouses? That is life also.”

I am no vegan, not even an animalist properly, though I like (I might even say love animals, or at least some animal.) But I think that a perspective of life which doesn’t take into account that life may be conflict and predation, but is always something of a wonder to be revered and worthy of respect in the donkey and in the hippo, in the wasp and in the fig tree, is faulty and distorted. The so called "culture of life", producing persecution of women chosing for abortion is fanatism and nothing compassionate or really life loving.
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CanyonWind
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17 Sep 2007, 6:41 pm

I wonder how common life is in the universe. Obviously, there's no data except for that meteorite from mars found in antarctica that I haven't heard about for a long time.

Is it a fluke that only happened here and then covered the planet in an incredible variety of ever changing forms, even in the unlikeliest habitats? It would seem miraculous if it wasn't so familiar.

Or is it maybe some fundamental property in the deeper nature of nature, a tendency for maatter and energy to move in that direction.

I don't know, but I wonder.


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Well thank you buddy for your advice...
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BazzaMcKenzie
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21 Sep 2007, 9:01 am

I sometimes wonder if we are reincarnated, and if we have been here before, if our retrun is random or whether providence or fate guides our retrun. Are we here because we were meant to be or are we an accident of the universe?

I think its a pity that supermarkets sell meat wrapped in plastic, so that we don't have to consider the animal it came from. I hunt and eat meat that I have killed myself. I think I have more respect for animals and life because of it, and it is a reminder to me of my own mortality. All death is certain. What happens after death is uncertain.

I like to think that no life is an accident (whether planned or not) :D



gwenevyn
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21 Sep 2007, 9:27 am

paolo wrote:
The so called "culture of life", producing persecution of women chosing for abortion is fanatism and nothing compassionate or really life loving.


Conversely, I find it baffling when people think that the lives they can see are worth more than the lives they cannot, such as in the case of abortion.


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Postperson
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21 Sep 2007, 7:10 pm

I find the whole thing overrated. Life that is. It's a prison. motherhood blech. self-serving motherhood myths make me want to throw up. most people reproduce out of stupidity, vanity, conformity, or the (often mistaken) belief that children will look after them as they age. and we're supposed to be pleased?



CanyonWind
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23 Sep 2007, 3:17 am

I had kids once.

It was fun.


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They murdered boys in Mississippi. They shot Medgar in the back.
Did you say that wasn't proper? Did you march out on the track?
You were quiet, just like mice. And now you say that we're not nice.
Well thank you buddy for your advice...
-Malvina


paolo
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23 Sep 2007, 4:19 pm

gwenevyn wrote:
I find it baffling when people think that the lives they can see are worth more than the lives they cannot, such as in the case of abortion.

It's not a matter of seeing. An abortion is also a matter of imagining: 20 or 30 years after, you can still ask yourself who would have been that child: a boy, a girl, how would have been your life with her or him? This can burden all your life, the more if you have had no other child. But imagine also a girl 12 or 14 years old who get pregnant in a patriachal traditional family. Her life may be destroyed either way. And a woman who definitely is incapable to be a loving mother. and does not want a child, or has no means to maintain decently the child?. These situations happens all the time, have always happened.

And people who want to condemn women, are often the same people who want war, the death penalty, and the free distribution of weapons, to be bought in any shop.