Fools, We

I wasn’t going to re-post this for awhile, if ever. And then last night happened.

We’ve got people howling for gun control before they’ve finished collecting the bodies from the square, opposing factions screaming back about ISIS while the conspiracy theorists shuffle along the underbelly of the comment forums, already sniveling about FBI cover-ups, and the mental illness brigade should be out in force soon. Some people see political opportunity as soon as it exposes its rotting underbelly, but goodness knows much of the ranting and raving is genuine. Blind, hopeless desperation scrabbles for a reason why, because it cannot be human nature; cannot look directly at man’s hunger for evil in case we accidentally spot it; cannot wonder if the things we feed the mad dog slavering in the pit of our souls might loose him from his chains. We suckle evil, and wonder why it grows bigger.

I’ve argued with myself about this poem over and over again, wondering when (or even if) I should post it. Not because the things in it aren’t worth saying, but because I don’t intend to set this site up as my soapbox. While my worldview is important to the undergirdings of my themes, character motivations, and world-building, I see myself first and foremost as a secular writer — or rather, a writer who writes secularly. I write to entertain. I don’t want anyone in the entertainment industry to explain their political beliefs to me, let alone try and sway my opinion, and I don’t intend to become the mirror, mirror version in some sort of evil Kirk dimension.

But today I post this anyways, as my one political poem. It’s Law without Gospel, and though I’ve uploaded it as a media file, that’s only to retain the structure for any smartphone users, not because it’s illustrated. I could visualize nothing but a mass of graves, which I couldn’t quite manage to integrate with such a long poem (literally: 12 size font on a 4″ x 21″ Clip Studio canvas). Also, I spent a good chunk of time on the internet hunting down statistics, and if you don’t want to be spoiled about the punchline (such as it is) of the poem, click on the following link before reading the rest of this post.

Fools, We

The breakdown of the numbers is based on a yearly approximation of 1.2 million abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute (whose latest statistics are from 2014, because abortion reporting apparently takes several years to compile), altogether the states reported only 926,200 abortions for that year. If this number is correct and not underreported*, then it actually takes almost eleven and a half minutes to hit the 20 mark. My apologies for the hyperbole.

(https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion)


*Per the Guttmacher Institute website, as of Oct 1, 2017: “For the last four decades, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has partnered with the states to collect aggregate statistics on abortions in the United States. States are not required to submit abortion data to the CDC, but the overwhelming majority do.”

States that opt out: California, Maryland
Reporting from physician to state is voluntary: New Hampshire, New Jersey
Reporting form does not specifically include medication (nonsurgical) abortion: Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, Tennessee

(https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/abortion-reporting-requirements)