When I was in college in America, there was a girl in our daily seminar whom I'll call “Toni.”
She was a petite brunette with a gutsy, exuberant personality that bordered on obnoxious.
But she was so good-natured that everyone liked (or at least tolerated) her anyway.
She was also passionately and fanatically liberal.
Raised by a rabidly feminist single mother, Toni threw herself into battle for the liberal side in every class discussion.
Abortion is obviously the pet cause of every feminist extremist, and Toni’s mother had been no exception.
Except that her mother's abortion history was exceptional, even for the craziest fanatic.
One day in class, we were debating abortion and, as can be expected, the discussion went nuclear. Toni thrashed out all the standard talking points in favor of abortion, including the “right” to abortion for any reason and at any stage of the pregnancy.
Due to Toni’s increasing vehemence, people started quieting out of the debate. While nearly everyone present supported a "right" to abortion, most people also felt that having an abortion for what they considered a weak reason (like gender selection) or past a certain point pushed certain moral boundaries.
I seem to remember Toni up on a chair, shouting, and thrusting her finger at a male classmate who was calmly and somewhat anxiously trying to reason with her, validating her feelings, but just pleading for a fair hearing of the different angles of abortion.
But Toni only grew louder and more forceful about her position.
Finally, Toni shouted something like, “Abortion is a woman’s inalienable right that NO ONE has any right to take away! AND I KNOW ALL ABOUT ABORTION BECAUSE MY MOTHER HAD THIRTY* ABORTIONS AND I TOTALLY DEFEND HER RIGHT TO EACH AND EVERY ONE EVEN THOUGH I—I…”
Then her voice cracked.
The room went silent as everyone just stared at Toni, who crumpled back down onto her chair, trying to hold back the tears that started streaming down her face.
Then she said, “Even though I always wondered why I wasn’t aborted too. When I was five or six, I asked my mom why she didn’t abort me, like she had and continued to do with her other pregnancies. ‘Is it because you knew it was me?’ I asked. But of course she didn’t know it was me. I was just lucky. And I don't know why. It was all so random.”
She looked around helplessly at us. “I’ve always gone through life with this feeling like I just missed the knife. But really, I should have been aborted too. I shouldn’t even be here. But I am. And who knows why?”
She paused, then forced a smile through her pain. “And I always wondered about my siblings and who they would’ve been?”
“It sounds kinda like you have survivor’s guilt,” someone said gently.
“Yeah,” Toni said with a vigorous nod and a rueful laugh as she rubbed off her tears with the back of her hand. “I’ve always had this major survivor’s guilt. How was I the only one to escape the knife? Or whatever it was…”
That same day, two maternalistic girls named Julie and Nancy took Toni under their wing. They didn’t look like the maternal, nurturing type with their jeans and plaid flannel shirts (and Nancy, who always enjoyed a good day at the shooting range), but they both saw that vulnerable little Toni desperately needed some nurturing.
She was a petite brunette with a gutsy, exuberant personality that bordered on obnoxious.
But she was so good-natured that everyone liked (or at least tolerated) her anyway.
She was also passionately and fanatically liberal.
Raised by a rabidly feminist single mother, Toni threw herself into battle for the liberal side in every class discussion.
Abortion is obviously the pet cause of every feminist extremist, and Toni’s mother had been no exception.
Except that her mother's abortion history was exceptional, even for the craziest fanatic.
One day in class, we were debating abortion and, as can be expected, the discussion went nuclear. Toni thrashed out all the standard talking points in favor of abortion, including the “right” to abortion for any reason and at any stage of the pregnancy.
Due to Toni’s increasing vehemence, people started quieting out of the debate. While nearly everyone present supported a "right" to abortion, most people also felt that having an abortion for what they considered a weak reason (like gender selection) or past a certain point pushed certain moral boundaries.
I seem to remember Toni up on a chair, shouting, and thrusting her finger at a male classmate who was calmly and somewhat anxiously trying to reason with her, validating her feelings, but just pleading for a fair hearing of the different angles of abortion.
But Toni only grew louder and more forceful about her position.
Finally, Toni shouted something like, “Abortion is a woman’s inalienable right that NO ONE has any right to take away! AND I KNOW ALL ABOUT ABORTION BECAUSE MY MOTHER HAD THIRTY* ABORTIONS AND I TOTALLY DEFEND HER RIGHT TO EACH AND EVERY ONE EVEN THOUGH I—I…”
Then her voice cracked.
The room went silent as everyone just stared at Toni, who crumpled back down onto her chair, trying to hold back the tears that started streaming down her face.
Then she said, “Even though I always wondered why I wasn’t aborted too. When I was five or six, I asked my mom why she didn’t abort me, like she had and continued to do with her other pregnancies. ‘Is it because you knew it was me?’ I asked. But of course she didn’t know it was me. I was just lucky. And I don't know why. It was all so random.”
She looked around helplessly at us. “I’ve always gone through life with this feeling like I just missed the knife. But really, I should have been aborted too. I shouldn’t even be here. But I am. And who knows why?”
She paused, then forced a smile through her pain. “And I always wondered about my siblings and who they would’ve been?”
“It sounds kinda like you have survivor’s guilt,” someone said gently.
“Yeah,” Toni said with a vigorous nod and a rueful laugh as she rubbed off her tears with the back of her hand. “I’ve always had this major survivor’s guilt. How was I the only one to escape the knife? Or whatever it was…”
That same day, two maternalistic girls named Julie and Nancy took Toni under their wing. They didn’t look like the maternal, nurturing type with their jeans and plaid flannel shirts (and Nancy, who always enjoyed a good day at the shooting range), but they both saw that vulnerable little Toni desperately needed some nurturing.
Women's Liberation as Ego Liberation
Unfortunately, radical feminists usually make terrible mothers.
They’re incredibly self-centered, resentful, and demanding. And what happens is that their children must validate their mother’s every action and view—even if it hurts the child—or lose that mother’s love completely.
This is why you have children of non-nurturing career-obsessed materialistic women who proclaim their undying admiration of their mother and insist they loved how she raised them (though she just shunted them out of her way).
If the children don’t do this, their mother wholly rejects and despises them.
(This is exactly what happened to Rebecca Walker, daughter of feminist icon Alice Walker.)
They’re incredibly self-centered, resentful, and demanding. And what happens is that their children must validate their mother’s every action and view—even if it hurts the child—or lose that mother’s love completely.
This is why you have children of non-nurturing career-obsessed materialistic women who proclaim their undying admiration of their mother and insist they loved how she raised them (though she just shunted them out of her way).
If the children don’t do this, their mother wholly rejects and despises them.
(This is exactly what happened to Rebecca Walker, daughter of feminist icon Alice Walker.)
In Toni’s case, Toni even needed to defend the killing of her unborn siblings and the theoretical annihilation of her own existence in utero in order to keep her mother’s love.
Especially with no father around, young Toni would have subconsciously realized as a child that she was wholly dependent on this heartless woman for her bare existence.
And that’s pretty terrifying.
Baruch Hashem, the survival-driven façade of defending her mother’s “right” to commit heart-breaking depravity simply crumbled.
That day, Julie and Nancy headed over to Toni’s apartment to spend the night there, making sure Toni was okay.
The rest of the year, they made a cute trio, with Julie and Nancy affectionately calling Toni “Li’l Ton-Ton” and stuff like that.
They weren’t overbearing; they were gentle, supportive, and honest and just what Toni needed.
And while Toni kept her outgoing, high-spirited nature, she lost the blaring coarse behavior she used to sometimes engage in.
Especially with no father around, young Toni would have subconsciously realized as a child that she was wholly dependent on this heartless woman for her bare existence.
And that’s pretty terrifying.
Baruch Hashem, the survival-driven façade of defending her mother’s “right” to commit heart-breaking depravity simply crumbled.
That day, Julie and Nancy headed over to Toni’s apartment to spend the night there, making sure Toni was okay.
The rest of the year, they made a cute trio, with Julie and Nancy affectionately calling Toni “Li’l Ton-Ton” and stuff like that.
They weren’t overbearing; they were gentle, supportive, and honest and just what Toni needed.
And while Toni kept her outgoing, high-spirited nature, she lost the blaring coarse behavior she used to sometimes engage in.
The Freedom to be a Slave - How Liberating!
But it was true that in the encroaching Leftist environment of the Nineties, Toni wasn’t allowed to have her say until it just came gushing out by mistake.
You really weren’t allowed to have normal feelings or even basic morality. (Sort of like the Nazi era or the Communist era.) A lot of people, especially girls, were in a lot of pain, but they weren't allowed to acknowledge the real reason why because that would've demanded healthy accountability from the adults of either gender.
Despite all the liberal propaganda, you weren't really allowed a choice and there was no real freedom.
You were just a slave to the agenda of the most degenerate, selfish people who were running things, whether it was government, social programs, schools, the media, and all the regular people influenced by them.
And that’s why I left it all behind.
You really weren’t allowed to have normal feelings or even basic morality. (Sort of like the Nazi era or the Communist era.) A lot of people, especially girls, were in a lot of pain, but they weren't allowed to acknowledge the real reason why because that would've demanded healthy accountability from the adults of either gender.
Despite all the liberal propaganda, you weren't really allowed a choice and there was no real freedom.
You were just a slave to the agenda of the most degenerate, selfish people who were running things, whether it was government, social programs, schools, the media, and all the regular people influenced by them.
And that’s why I left it all behind.
*While I’m writing this to the best of my memory, it still happened over 20 years ago, so maybe some details are off. Even if Toni's mother didn’t have 30 abortions, it was still some shockingly high number that left even the most committed Leftist wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
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