Overheard

An Abortion Gang member describes how her co-worker (who has had two abortions) is received when she uses dehumanizing terms to describe her own unborn child:

She’s had some interesting experiences so far, aside from the normal morning sickness and food aversions. Everyone that she’s told (at work, when you’re puking, you sort of have to share that kind of information) has had a slightly different reaction. Most women hug her, or shriek excitedly. Most men have no idea what to do, and simply smile and say congratulations. Everything seems to go well until she calls it “her little sea-monkey.” No one, except for her and me, seems to think that this nickname is cute. We both have, I guess, a sick sense of humor, or so we are learning.

She calls it a sea-monkey because it had a tail (from week 5-week 9). It also doesn’t look much different from the embryo of any other animal (chicken, fish, dog, human), and we’ve referred to it by many names… “little lizard,” “baby grape” (referring to it’s size), and a few others. We kept those other names mostly private, especially since she got such a terrible reaction to her “sea-monkey” nickname. At the very least, most people look disgusted or confused when she calls it a sea-monkey. One person ever went so far as to yell at her, telling her that it’s a human and she should be treating it that way.....

I think, since my work-wife (as we lovingly refer to each other) and I are pretty liberal, that we are not bothered by the fact that this little fetus (as it is now, in week 10) was an undifferentiated ball of cells not long ago. Neither of us refers to it as a “baby” yet. We probably won’t until she’s into her second trimester, at the earliest.