Children’s book: Young boy’s aborted sister is a “happy ghost”
The story follows 3-year-old Lee as he and his father discuss his unnamed older sister, whom Lee sees as a ghost sitting by his side as dad and mom read stories to him. The young boy believes his sister is a ghost because “she lived before me, but Mama couldn’t keep her. Mama says she is a ghost.”…
Before the story wraps up with a family craft session to make a superhero costume for Lee, the boy’s uncle joins the conversation about his ghost sister.
When the uncle asks, “Why is your sister a ghost, Lee?”
The boy responds, “Mama had an abortion before she had me,” then reassures his uncle by saying, “Sister is a happy ghost!”
~ Mike Opelka, reporting on Mary Walling Blackburn’s children’s e-book Sister Apple, Sister Pig, The Blaze, March 24
Note: The book’s introductory page reads: “To Little Friends, earthly and unwordly. Masochists, look elsewhere; between these pages you will not find the ‘luxury of grief,’ culpability’s sharp sting or salty guilt.”
[HT: Carole; image from e-flux.com via The Blaze]
This is just plain old sick and disturbing.
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“Speaking about the book, Blackburn described it as “‘Playing chicken’ with the anti-choice people.”
What a cynical heart she must have.
We can be pretty certain that no children will ever see this book. It will be like Obvious Child, quickly forgotten.
Why do they have to pretend like abortion isn’t tragic?
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“Mama might not have enough time to read with me, to paint with me, to play with me, to talk with me…”
How very narcissistic this character is. Me me me.
I was the youngest of five children, and my mother found time for all of us.
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Eww.
“How very narcissistic this character is. Me me me.” Not only that, it reinforces narcissism in children who read the book. Feeling like your parents do not give you enough attention and unhappy with the demands of your brother or sister, turn him or her into a ghost.
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To me, instead of this story being an unapologetic portrayal of abortion, I find myself feeling sad for this boy, who is trying to cope with this information.
The little boy’s character is constantly looking for his missing sister everywhere he goes, and she is his “pretend friend” or his “happy ghost” who is with him “when he needs her.”
Clearly, he feels a loss. And the more he spouts the pseudo-spiritual things his parents have told him, the more you see that he is trying to comprehend that loss.
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And I just noticed something else that deviates from typical pro-abort rhetoric. Lee says “She LIVED before me, but Mama couldn’t keep her.”
She LIVED, Lee? Lived where?
I thought the preborn, according to the pro-abortion side, aren’t truly living or “alive.”
I guess little Lee knows better. You can’t make a ghost out of something that was never alive, now can you?
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This story runs off of all the rails.
It does not fit the pro-life paradigm.
It does not fit the pro-choice paradigm.
It does not fit the child-development paradigm.
It does not fit the usual program for helping a child deal with grief and loss.
It just sort of sticks a finger into everybody’s eye.
As I remarked above, this tale reflects the cynicism of the author. There’s not much else to it.
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A “happy ghost” ? When your mother has you killed…
what’s to be “happy” about ?
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The author’s footnote concerning the author’s remark about “the luxury of grief”:
1 Within Man at Play (1923) Karl Groos allocates one section to a cursory investigation of “the luxury of grief” within European contexts. Groos describes a bourgeois individual who draws upon distress as a form of play, aiming for a certain “mental suffering, a feeling of suspension between pain and pleasure.” Lee, Sister Apple, Sister Pig’s protagonist, allays the possibility of repressed psychic distress by the active formation of an ally born of that anxiety and Lee does this without lingering in the interstitial space between pleasure and pain. Is there a political stratagem here…when sorrow and fear become light and active?
This book was never intended for children. This is Mary Walling Blackburn’s effort to convert psycho-babble into a “political stratagem.”
No one will notice or care, except us pro-lifers. Blackburn says so herself — she’s “playing chicken” with her intended audience.
I’m sorry that I wasted so much time on this today.
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The introductory page addresses “masochist” with not one but three, count them, references to the pain of post-abortive parents.
My take-always:
1: masochists: if you regret your abortion, it must be your own fault or problem, thus the author belittles and dismisses you.
2: Peter denied Christ three times before sunrise. Does the dead child ask, “mommy, do you love me?
3: my older sibling played with me, and was the one who ran to get help when I got injured.
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What the…?
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Why do they have to pretend like abortion isn’t tragic? – they don’t.
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“She lived before me, but Mama couldn’t keep her.”
She lived before me, but Mama killed her. FTFY
I also note that Lee isn’t offering his own life so that his future brothers and sisters will have their mother’s undivided attention. It’s all fun and games until you’re the one being dismembered.
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I found this under another post, but it could be applied to this article:
It denies us something we need and long for, while at the same time tells us that we don’t need what we naturally crave. That we will be okay. But we’re not. We’re hurting….
It’s not just me. There are so many of us. Many of us are too scared to speak up and tell you about our hurt and pain, because for whatever reason it feels like you’re not listening. That you don’t want to hear. If we say we are hurting … we are either ignored or labeled a hater.”
This is the sort of thing that those living in a world where natural law does not apply are giving in to a selfish, utopian idea; the sort of thing that Hitler and Agenda21, and ISIS proclaim, a heaven on earth, that is only possible if we “solve” the “problem” of undesirables, such as… well, in this case, the problem is an unwanted pregnancy, a pre-born baby, that is set up for “final solution” only replace “solution” with murder, and you’ve got the ideal. Nice, though, calling pacifists masocists, I wonder who is behind that one(A. the devil). Who else uses the words “women’s healthcare” to mean feticide, but the angel of light. V.R.S. N.S.M.V. N.D.S.M.D. C.S.S.M.L. “What you offer me is evil, you drink the poison yourself!” Vive HolyLove.Org
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Could his now deceased sister have been a victim of gendercide? I find it curious that we don’t see Leah discussing her dead sister, or Lee discussing his dead brother. Was Lee considered more desirable and more worth the work involved in childrearing because he’s male?
“Sister is a happy ghost”. Well I guess if you’ve been knocked off you have few other options than to make the best of it.
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