the meaning of life is a choice

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Internet is attempting to determine what the facts are in a given situation. For example, this morning I saw an interesting Drudge link:

Blogger's First Person Abortion Posting Draws Fire...

The above is a true statement, no question about it. Beyond that, who knows? There is a writer who goes by the names “Mikki Kendall,” “Michelle Kendall,” and “Karnythia” aka “The Angry Black Woman.” As to who she is and whether that is in fact her name(s), who knows? How would I know? There are plenty of pseudonymous bloggers out there who say all kinds of things, and we are free to believe them or not. But verification of any factual assertions they might make is next to impossible. This drives me nuts on a regular basis.

Now, if a blogger is only stating an opinion, analysis is easy, because an opinion stands or falls on its own merit, and agreeing or disagreeing doesn’t depend on who the person is.

What’s interesting about this one is that “she” (and that’s assuming she is a woman who is the person who says she wrote what she ostensibly wrote) has leveled an indictment against a hospital and against doctors, and seemingly against an insensitive medical community said to be so steeped in right to life dogma that they refused to perform an abortion that would have saved the writer’s life.

Is that what happened? How the hell would I know? I don’t even know whether this is a real person. All I know is that the writer calling herself “Mikki Kendall” wrote a Salon piece titled, “Abortion saved my lifeI almost died in an emergency room because the doctor on call refused to perform a necessary procedure.”

So this person whose identity has not been verified (and who has no Wiki page) has claimed she needed an abortion but unnamed doctors working in an unnamed hospital in an unnamed city refused to perform it. Finally (at least, so “Mikki Kendall” says) another unnamed doctor (described as “from the Reproductive Health Clinic” but “who was not on call” was asked “to come in to save my life.” And did so despite the total lack of cooperation by the other doctors.  There is glowing praise for the doctor who saved her life and this indictment of those who refused:

My two kids at home almost lost their mother because someone decided that my life was worth less than that of a fetus that was going to die anyway.

Right to Life activists are doubting the veracity of the story (who could blame them?) and some of them are reading in their own version of what must have happened.

The writer has responded by proclaiming that “My life is not your life” and while that is certainly true, how can we be sure that “her” life is even her life? How can we know whether she was ever pregnant, ever had a placental abruption, or ever went to any hospital? There is a huge back and forth over whether anyone has any right to “judge” this woman, and while I have serious doubts about what the facts are, I will say that it is a bit disingenuous to put stuff online for the world to see and then object that people are butting into your life when they comment upon it. Have I judged her? Have I butted into her life? How the hell can I? I don’t even know who she is, what happened, or where. In terms of getting basic facts, the whole thing is a never-never land.

Interestingly, in the “My life is not your life” post, the writer (who describes herself as a “dainty little sociopath”) says she doesn’t care whether people believe her or not.

Some say I should name and shame the doctor that refused to do the procedure. If I knew why he refused I might have done just that, but since I know that there are many possible reasons that he did not do it? I’ve left him to deal with the internal procedures in place. Same thing with the hospital where this happened. I could name it (funnily enough many people have correctly guessed and more than a few remember me naming it when it happened), but I didn’t write this post to shame the hospital any more than I wrote it to shame the doctor. Hard concept to grasp for some, but this post wasn’t about revenge or money. It was about me coming to terms with what happened and about my disdain for a particular pro-life argument. Believe it, don’t believe it. That’s up to you. My life will go on either way.

BTW, the “dainty little sociopath” is being defended quite vehemently by Amanda Marcotte — which hurts my feelings because Marcotte once called me a sociopath. (Does that indicate a double standard for sociopaths?)

I realize that there is always a temptation to have favorite version of what did nor did not happen to this alleged woman and why, but I haven’t the faintest idea of what may or may not have happened, and no way to evaluate it.  Obviously, if events went down exactly as she said they did, the allegations are serious and the hospital would be liable. But what hospital? Where? What abortion?

What life?

That’s life on the Internet.


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One response to “the meaning of life is a choice”

  1. Mark Alger Avatar

    In my not-so-very-humble opinion, and based entirely on your telling of it, it’s a load of B.S. If she’s not willing to identify herself (if, indeed, she even IS a woman) and the hospital, I must assume she operates ab initio in bad faith. Her intent is to poison the dialogue on the matter, her story a tissue of lying agitprop, and she deserves the back of society’s hand for the attempt.

    I am (to quote the Hildabeast) SICK and TIRED of these mendacious leftists and their — yes — sociopathic ways. They no longer are due the benefit of the doubt. Sixty-four million times bitten, now not at all shy about it.

    M