By Dave Andrusko
My wife and I listen to an uncommon amount of radio. Our two favorite programs are “The Moth” and “This American Life.”
“The Moth” describes itself as presenting stories told live and without notes, adding “Moth shows are renowned for the great range of human experience they showcase.” (I agree.)
On its webpage, “This American Life” struggles to summarize what they do each week. Roughly speaking, they develop a “theme” and then run stories that (usually very loosely) can be described as subscribing to the theme. The writing is sharp, the stories nothing short of engrossing, often riveting.
Why do I mention this? Because the “the Oral Fixation storytelling series” out of Dallas, Texas, says it was inspired by these two stalwarts. The “theme” of its September 21 program (which will feature “a cross section of seven Dallasites”) is “Out From Under The Rug: True Life Tales Of Abortion.”
Since the program is next week, I can only judge by what some of the participants said about the program to Hannah Wise of the Dallas Morning News.
For starters we learn that the show’s producer, Nicole Stewart, had addressed her own abortion “at previous Oral Fixation events and said she was surprised by how many people responded by sharing their own stories with her.”
So now she’s assembled, Wise tells us, “a lineup of storytellers that she hopes will surprise audiences. It includes four women who have had abortions, a Unitarian Minister, a doctor and a gay man.” (Stewart says, “We are not going to change the laws until we change the idea that abortion is a women’s issue.”)
And there you are.
Stewart aborted her baby in 2013 “after a 20-week sonogram showed her baby boy had life-threatening brain abnormalities.” The idea for “True Tales” show came to her when she was pregnant with her now-nine-month-old daughter.
“The idea literally woke me up out of sleep,” Stewart, 37, told Wise.
The story of another participant who wanted “to help move forward the conversation about abortion “ wasn’t the kind that automatically tilts the direction of the discussion.
Britt Payne,38, had her abortion in 2009. Her pregnancy was in the context of involvement “in an on-again off-again, long-distance relationship.” Let’s read what she told Wise and then offer a brief thought or two:
“It was something at that point that I had really hoped for — I wanted it,” she said. “I thought that a baby was maybe going to fill a void and make me whole in a way.”
She said her boyfriend became irate when he learned she was pregnant and ended their relationship.
With the support of her friends and family, Payne, who said she felt lost and broken, had an abortion. But, she said, she cherishes the “little spirit” that was with her.
“That was that spirit’s purpose — to help me and set me on a path of building the life that I want, as a woman and as a person, to help me know my worth and my value,” she said.
Payne is now married and she and her husband hope to have children.
Without the support of the “irate” boyfriend to have the baby, a broken and lost Payne went to her family who presumably either encouraged and/or supported her decision to end the baby’s life.
No doubt next week a sympathetic audience will nod its collective head in agreement.
But for the rest of us–under the guise of “sweeping out the shame”– to hear that the “purpose” of the dead baby’s “spirit” was “to help me know my worth and my value,” is to remind us of the power (and the tragedy) of self-centeredness aided by self-delusion.
Editor’s note. If you want to peruse stories all day long, go directly to nationalrighttolifenews.org and/or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/daveha