Let Them Live

My reaction to the backhanded way the Women's Clinic is being treated in Mississippi. I would never choose to have a child of mine aborted, but I will not force my choice on another person.

Let them live

That is the mantra

Let them live

That is the cry

Let them live

All life is sacred

Let them live

They would choose not to die!

Let them live

For they might be doctors

Let them live

So they can cure cancers

Let them live

For they might be thinkers

Let them live

To reveal all life’s answers

Let them live

They are our future

Let them live

Without them we’re lost

Let them live

Nothing else matters

Let them live

No matter the cost…

And let them live

Unwanted, unloved

And let them live

Abused or worse

And let them live

For nothing else matters

And let them live

Though their life is a curse

And let them live

To be battered and broken

And let them live

To get hooked on drugs

And let them live

To learn all life’s hardships

And let them live

To turn out as thugs

And let them live

In fragmented families

And let them live

Not knowing their dad

And let them live

It’s what they would want, right?

And let them live

Then tell them, “It’s not so bad.”

And make them live

But know what you’re asking

And make them live

It’ll be on your head

And make them live

But you'll share the blame

And make them live

When they wish they were dead.

Author's Note

I know this poem will make some people uncomfortable, and I am sorry for that. But, as a child, I often wished I had never been born. Any child of mine will be loved with all my heart, mind and soul.

Can those who wish to force people to have unwanted children promise the same kind of love to those children?

If you like this poem please consider checking it out on Tallenge and voting for it!
http://www.tallenge.com/vote/vote.aspx?vid=178e7ddc-e4b3-4fa3-872c-f819354b8d71

Reviews

[Margo Seuss]

I love this. It has beautiful flow. Life is precious and every life should be treated as such. You addressed two humungo issues here and did so poetically to boot! I don't like that society tells us to 'keep our beliefs and opinions to ourselves.' What we beleive about the meaning of life and our morals are important!! More so than all the other crap society replaces them with. What humanity needs to do is learn to accept the fact that not everyone thinks the same! We can't all like butter on our toast! Thanks for sharing! :)

[LJW]

Gutsy.
Totally two thumbs up.

[Cory Barrett]

Fantastic write. Thoughtful, well penned, and bracing. A topic many people shy away form, and understandably so. The idea of choosing death over life goes against all things our brain are wired for. Choice is the most volatile action humans have.

[DaughterNature]

This is good, I definitely agree with the sentiment -- especially how sometimes women who seek abortions could have much worse lives or even go through pain or death themselves if they gave birth to the child! This is a good structure, and I like the rhyme scheme, but I think you could change the format (if you wanted) so it was more list-like and call it a litany poem (see my "Ginger is the Root"). I also feel like, after a lot of your refrains ("Let them live") there should probably be a colon, a dash, or at least a comma -- plus, there are only 4 end punctuation pieces in the whole poem, so it could probably use some more. However, like I said, I like the lilting rhythm and the rhyme scheme: they give a playful or sarcastic feel to the poem.

[Rick r]

I think you were correct about the poem making some uncomfortable. I started reading with the feeling that this was an anti-abortion piece, but finished with the intended message. Well writ.
r

[♔ CrownedDevil &#..]

Such a very powerful write, nicely penned.

Kaze~

[jjwilbourne]

This was really interesting.
I enjoyed the slow transformation from seemingly hopeful to tragic. I also loved the change to "make them live"

[VALORMORE DE PLUME]

I tire of political stances from people who have no true compassion, or common sense. It would be more humane to sterilize everyone before they are able to have children. Parenting appears to be a lost art in the modern world. In order to have the sterilization reversed those wanting children should demonstrate the ability to provide a stable, nurturing, responsible, home environment. After that is accomplished there would need to be an education about all the relevant issues a parent will face in their life as a result of having children. At that point, if they choose to procreate, there should be more education on how to raise a child and preparing the child for life in today's world. This should be the most important part of every scholastic curriculum. The three r's (reading,writing,and arithmetic) are useless to an unwanted child. If anyone makes a stand about the right to life, I agree. However life requires more than a survival of the fittest, hands off, no morals, no guidance, no sustainable future, approach to parenting. We are raising a generation of me-first-and-only me-types, instead of raising the people who will change the world for the better. No one needs to be killed without a chance. Everyone deserves to be raised in a loving, respectful, responsible, informed, manner. It is too bad when people care more about what their neighbors have, than how they raise their children. This is not rocket science. It is fundamentally preparing for the future we want and deserve. CAN I GET A WITNESS?

[LawrenceRaybon]

I agree. As I look around, especially in my neighborhood, it's children raising children. People with their malt liquor and two hundred dollar shades while their kids don't have clean clothes that fit to wear to school. Parenting should be taught in school and every child has the right to the kind of childhood you describe! I have often joked with my wife about the sterilization thing, but I don't see how it would ever work, it would be too burdensome on the poor, minorities and underprivileged people (though I would argue not having a lot of children would go a long way towards helping with the poor part).

One thing, I couldn't really tell what your opinion of the poem was from you comment, anything I can do to make it better?

[VALORMORE DE PLUME]

I read your profile. You want constructive feedback, with positive guidance. Therefore, I might suggest that repeating the same phrase throughout the piece, is like using a hammer to fix a finger that got slammed in a door. I too have used repetitive verse. Although it is my least favorite attempt to make a point. Presenting a hot topic should gain enough attention on its own. You did not tell the reader how you FEEL nor make a point. More like you are stating a dilemma with no dogma. But then one might say," My karma was eaten by my dogma." or "My dogma is driving my karma." At any rate I will need to read more of your work before forming an opinion about your style.

[LawrenceRaybon]

I felt like the last two stanzas made my point. They make the point that if you are pro-life you are responsible for the well being of every child you 'save'. As you said every child deserves to be raised in a loving, respectful, responsible, informed, manner. If the child later wishes they were dead because they didn't receive that life, then the ones forcing that unsatisfactory life on the child are partially to blame for that child's misery. After all the child didn't ask to be born.

I did not do a hardcore pro-choice piece because I think cheap and easy abortions would be even worse than banning abortions all together. If anything I am a proponent of personal responsibility. Everyone involved in bringing a child into the world is responsible for that child; mother, father, and if pro-life protesters force the mother to keep the baby then they have taken personal responsibility for that child as well.

I believe that abortions should be allowed, but counseling before and after should be mandatory. That way the mother (and father if present) know what they are getting into physically and emotionally and have a chance to change their mind before they go through the process and then afterwards the counseling could be targeted at preventing future unwanted pregnancies. I also think birth control should be widely available (since the sterilization thing probably wouldn't be feasible) to try to curb the conception rate. Ideally there would be a lot more abstinence being practiced, but ideally we would have world peace and no hunger in the world as well...

As for the repetition I recently passed a protest and they were shouting 'Let them live' over and over, and this poem started forming. It was meant to provoke a strong reaction so that the poem and the message might stick in the mind. After reading this poem, every time the reader hears or says 'Let them live' hopefully they will think of what this poem says and the personal responsibility that comes with the phrase, that's my reasoning anyway.

Thank you for your comments! I knew not everyone would like/agree with this poem but I am gratified that you are willing to discuss. Often with polarizing issues like this reasonable discussion is impossible. Thanks again!

[von Froszt]

A very interesting poem which really hits home. It starts out optimistic then takes a turn to describing the darker sides of life. I have a motto that what a woman wants to do with her body is her business, but recently I was discussing the issue with a friend and she said, well, no, it's not a woman's body, it's her baby's body that is being destroyed. I had never considered that point and this made it really hard for me to be able to take a stance on the issue one way or another. My views have changed a few times on this issue. Growing up Catholic, I grew up pro-life also. As I drifted away from the church and more toward science and then eastern spirituality and now a combination of the two, I understand that life is life no matter what labels we put on it. Death is a part of life, an inevitable part, the only true guarantee we get out of it. Death is seen as being terrible, negative, but without death, new life couldn't thrive. I really enjoyed your use of the form to describe something that inevitably polarizes any group of people in an objective way. The opinion you state is clear, but I like the way you take a roundabout way of getting to it, arguing the other side first.

[LawrenceRaybon]

Thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked it!

My wife and her parents are very Catholic and extremely pro-life. One day my wife and I sat down and talked about why I wasn't as strongly pro-life. As I mentioned above there were times when I was young that I wished I hadn't been born, and she knows about my childhood and understood. Of course I'm happy I'm alive now so I can be with her, I replied to her obvious question. But I also realize there are children out there who have it much worse than I did, who have almost no hope of achieving the kind of peace and happiness I have, and it's out of respect and pity for their plight that I can't say abortion is always wrong. I believe its my experience of a good life coupled with memories of my painful childhood that allow me to straddle the fence on the issue and see both sides with a fairly level head.

In the end I'm more worried about the quality of life the child can expect than I am about the sanctity of life in and of itself. Which is worse: never being given a chance to live or living through the torture of knowing you are resented, unwanted, unloved (and that's not to mention abuse, drug addiction passed from mother to child, etc)?

That's just my two cents.

Again, thanks for the review and conversation!

[Aethereal]

I understand your point-of-view, and it opens a can of worms. We need sensible population control until we're able to colonize our solar system, but for many ethical people it would be inhumane to ignore the unborn as collateral damage to this goal. The resources of the Earth are limited, and so our Earth ( our natural life support system) dies as we grow in size. Once the eco-system of the Earth is dead, then we all die together unless we can expand into outer space. Ethical people should be willing to adopt and care for unwanted children to back up their ethical stand. Ethical people should put up or shut up. There are well over a million unwanted handicapped children in the United States that these Ethical people should adopt tomorrow at their own expense if they really do care about them as they say they do. Please ethical people, get to it; get to it now! Don’t just speak up for the unborn, bleed your entire bank account and all of your time caring for them!

[LawrenceRaybon]

Thanks for the review!

[Aethereal]

You're welcome! I'm surprised that you dare to set foot into social quagmires such as this. Should we have capital punishment? Should we euthanize the terminally ill? After our robots gain consciousness, should we continue to enslave them? And so forth.

[LawrenceRaybon]

I feel that if no one is willing to think and talk and write about these topics then there is no hope of ever coming to a just and satisfactory consensus. I tackled this one first because I knew it would be especially hard, but if I could at least get my wife to see my point of view then I would know I succeeded in some small way.

[Aethereal]

After millions died of starvation in Mainland China, the Chinese limited how many children a family may have and applied forced abortion to the others, mostly girls. Unfortunately, sometimes cruel necessity is the nasty mother-of-invention. The United States hasn’t been driven to that brink yet, and I hope that it never happens, but the pressure is on since the resources of the Earth are limited. Unless we can jump off the planet we’re ultimately doomed.