In a post called What do you do about bumperstickers?, a blogger expresses her frustration at being confronted in traffic with this sticker:
I do feel for her predicament but not in the way she argues her point:
initially i just felt my heart racing and i got so angry, the adrenline rushing to my brain and images flashing of punching the driver while yelling at him about his ignorance and sense of entitlement…
i certainly don’t regret abortion, i am thankful i was able to make that choice. i am sick of being told i should be ashamed of it, or regret it, or how to feel about it by people in the street with grotesque pictures of aborted fetuses, media pundits and now even disembodied messages in traffic.
I feel for her situation in that she has been reminded of something that she would prefer not to be. And, she was caught off guard. That would make me uncomfortable. But she was not accosted by a gruesome image, a judgment of her by others, but rather the judgment of others upon themselves. Perhaps the owner of the car regretted her own abortion or the abortion of his girlfriend. And, if the person has regretted the abortion he or she participated in, isn’t there a moral duty to warn others?
However, our blogger’s claim that she has nothing to regret, is what I find regrettable. If there is nothing to regret about abortion, then she nor anyone should have any qualms about being reminded of it. If I dont regret having eaten a chocolate sundae, then being reminded of it should be either pleasant or neutral. Only if I regret having eaten the whole thing would a bumper sticker associating the sundae with my spare tire cause me any uneasiness.
If there is nothing regrettable about abortion, one should have no problems being reminded of it. However, if reminders of it cause anger, arouse violent thoughts, etc. then perhaps this is the first sign of the regret one is working so hard to deny. That regret is the first step toward healing, which I wish for our dear blogger. Keep her in your prayers.
The Black Cordelias 
Hail Mary, full of grace…
I had the same thought reading through the internal dialog of the angry blogger. Anger is a sign of attachment. That is why hatred is not the opposite of love, it is love expressed very poorly. Rather, indifference is the opposite of love.
If she does not regret the decision, why does the bumper sticker bother her? So she is either in the 7% or the bumper sticker is just wrong… Shouldn’t make her heart race… She should go along with her day, unbothered, and certainly (one would think) not inspired to blog about how it makes her blood boil.
I have a friend like this – two abortions later (from ten years ago) she insists she is really happy she made that choice… while she lives alone in an apartment dreaming of grad school, and decrying the selfishness of Americans who have more than one (two at the most) children who are “only contributing to over-population and poverty”… (She never explains how the O’Shuagnessy family having 6 kids makes Ugandans starve… so it goes!)
The older she gets and the more she meets children who are the age her own children would have been, well, I suspect one of two things will happen – she will come to admit regret, or become more recalcitrant and militant yet.
I am hoping for the first.
I have a friend who had 2 abortions, she says “that’s when evil Molly* took over.”
It’s really sad, I don’t think she has a “real job” yet, she’s a 36 yo life guard in a small town.
*Name changed to protect her identity.
“Renee” (not her real name either) has spent years waiting tables (with a college degree, though this long-suffering part time waiter isn’t knocking that – the money can be good) but has spent the last several years dating losers who were “good in bed” or “fun” (which is to say one was old enough to be her grandpa but had money – he sold coke)… Now she dotes on two poodles like kids (one has allergies so bad she needed to by silk sheets so the dog could sleep in bed) and has dreams of a masters degree where she can claw her way up to a pittance more than what she makes now. But education equals fullfillment.
The other night on the phone I let it slip that I think all of my married friends who have opted to have NO children demonstrate a certain selfishness. As strong as her opinions are about everyone, she went balistic on me for “judging” and praised them for not “adding carbon footprints”…