Beware of the Falsely Sincere

Michele Bachmann's well-played personal disclosure regarding her miscarriage and her faith left me chilled to the bone.  Her sincerity is disarming.  She has become exceptional at modestly telling us what an upstanding, moral individual she is.


I find it appalling that she parades her Christianity about as though without it we are, all the rest of us, dirty.  Her morality tale of her miscarriage and her subsequent commitment to life is bullshit.


Let me share mine:


I was a rebellious teenager in a dysfunctional family.  I acted out sexually into my twenties.  I was irresponsible and careless.  I became pregnant.  Thankfully, our nation's leaders, its courts, were sane and responsible during that time, and abortion had become legal.  I did the right thing.


Hey, Michele, I did the right thing.  I had an abortion.  It was difficult, painful, but to have a child at that time would have been morally wrong.


Later, I had two wonderful children who are now adults.  I am thankful that I was able to wait until I had time to grow up.  I was not forced to pay, and make a child pay, and make my family pay, for my irresponsibility and immaturity.


Had I been forced to bear a child at that time, I would never have had the two wanted wonderful children that I later had.


And Michele, I too had a miscarriage.  It happened between the first and third wanted pregnancies, and it was heartbreaking.  But I was able to love my firstborn and be thankful for her, and I soon had a son that I loved with all my heart.


Unlike you, I had that experience without feeling the need to judge other women and condemn their choices.  That is what makes you a smaller person than me, although you have the wealth, power and persuasiveness to attempt to coerce people to follow your rules in their personal lives.  


And as the anger rises in me for your judgmental insincerity, I first of all want to say that neither your god or mine give you the right to decide what my morality should be.


Secondly, your fight to deny those with less than you financial security, good educations for our children, health care for us and our families, belies your pretense that you give a damn about children, born or "unborn".  Or, perhaps to reframe the thought, you only care about life until birth.


Shame on you.  Keep your pretend morality to yourself.