You’ve probably seen the following meme circulating on social media:
This meme is designed to be evocative. Specifically, it plays into the concept of the sanctity of motherhood that so often oozes into a popular sentimentality about children. In Christian-majority countries, we read and hear the story of the Virgin Mary acquiescing humbly and readily to her pregnancy when the angel of the Lord tells her she is with child, something done to her by the Holy Spirit. “And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her” (Luke 1:38). Mary is often elevated in Christian circles as a role model for women.
Putting aside the question (for now) that asks when life begins, let’s consider this “sad sight” the meme talks about—“women marching for the right to kill their own children.” Abortion aside (for now), there are many examples—both in literature and history—of women having killed their children. I offer the following two:
The novelist Toni Morrison (b. 1931) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1988) for her book, BELOVED. Morrison tells Sethe’s story, a mother who knows firsthand the horrors of slavery, who kills her child rather than seeing her enslaved. Continue reading ““What Could be Sadder?” I’ll tell you…by Esther Nelson”
Feminism and Religion 