"Soulmate", my eye... (Boyfriend calls girlfriend a "child murderer" for past use of right to choose)

This letter appeared in the advice (agony aunt) column "Dear Abby" in numerous newspapers on 18 August 2015. I'm shocked by what he said. Why is she still with this chump?

Reproduced under fair use for discussion.

Dear Abby: Two years ago, I met a gentleman, and he eventually decided we were “soul mates.” I agreed. I confided that I’d had an abortion at the age of 18, which has haunted me all my adult life. Recently he was reciting a chronology of my life. When he got to the abortion, he said, “And then you became a child murderer.” His comment stunned me. He finds nothing wrong with it. Was this total disrespect, or am I overreacting?

Stunned in Pennsylvania

Dear Stunned: That “gentleman’s” remark was not only disrespectful, but also incredibly insensitive and wrong. It is not against the law to terminate a pregnancy in this country. It is a right that many women — and men — fought hard to achieve. This deeply personal decision is made for a variety of reasons. Like yourself, women experience a range of emotions afterward — including feelings of sadness and anger, but also relief. Because of stigma that, not surprisingly, can cause feelings of shame, many women choose to remain silent about their decision to have an abortion. A resource that could be helpful to them — and to you — is Exhale (www.exhaleprovoice.org), a nonpolitical, nonjudgmental support organization for women who have had an abortion. Please check it out.

Mostly solid advice from Abby, but she should have added a paragraph, "Dump the judgmental prick. To equate you with the likes of Susan Smith or Diane Downs is beyond. You deserve better."

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"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan

One thing that pisses me off about pro-lifers is their use -- intentional or otherwise -- of an appeal to emotion, which is a logical fallacy, to sway ignorant sheeple who do not understand how logic and science work.

I've tried countless times to explain to them the difference between a baby/child and a fetus but they just don't get it -- or refuse to do so.

I've also tried to explain to pro-lifers and religious nuts what logical fallacies are and how they just committed one but their minds go blank. These people often lack critical thinking skills.

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videogamesforeverkidsnever
I've tried countless times to explain to them the difference between a baby/child and a fetus but they just don't get it -- or refuse to do so.

I've also tried to explain to pro-lifers and religious nuts what logical fallacies are and how they just committed one but their minds go blank. These people often lack critical thinking skills.

There was a really amazing hypothetical that would do the job of explaining the difference between a brat and a zygote.

A person is standing on the Golden Gate Bridge with a 1 year old in one hand and a Petri dish containing a zygote in the other. The idiot arguing against abortion has a choice - to stop the person from dropping the 1 year old into the water or to stop the person from dropping the Petri dish into the water. Someone who really believes abortion is murder will not be able to answer, or will find both options equally immoral. Someone that chooses to sacrifice the zygote to stop the 1 y.o from plummeting into the water, then, must admit that terminating a pregnancy is not murder.

Disclaimer: this genius hypothetical is not my own invention, I read it online someplace but I can't recall where. I changed the scenario a bit (the original one was just dropping it on the floor, but I decided to alter the scenario to really highlight the 'murder' aspect.)

After two years he evenually decided they were soulmates?

Need I say more?

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"There's always a Plan B."
Amanda Rosewater, Defiance

I suspect this "gentleman" is less judgmental, and more of a manipulative sociopath who is testing the waters: He wants to see if his "soulmate" feels guilt over her abortion, so he can use it against her for the duration of the relationship, whenever he wants to coerce her into something she finds objectionable. He is hoping she feels broken and worthless, so she'll tolerate disrespect from him because 'no one else would have her'. I doubt he is prolife at all; it's just the most convenient emotional bludgeon he's found to use against her.

She needs to dump him NOW, before her abortion becomes his go-to excuse for physical abuse in addition to mental/emotional. And why the LW felt a need to talk to Dear Abby at all, when she should have dumped him on the spot , is beyond me...Unless (God help her), she's living with him and has become (or thinks she's become) dependent on his income, or their shared incomes.

She should ask him if he really feels this way, why oh why would he be in a relationship or feel he is soulmate with a baby killer.

Exactly on point in every way, ex-lurker.

A resource available to her is dropkick the judgmental prick to the curb. Then get help for your own head if an abortion at 18 still haunts your entire adult life.

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From a bottle cap message on a Magic Hat #9 beer: Condoms Prevent Minivans
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I want to pick up a bus full of unruly kids and feed them gummi bears and crack, then turn them loose in Hobby Lobby to ransack the place. They will all be wearing T shirts that say "You Could Have Prevented This."

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ex lurker

And why the LW felt a need to talk to Dear Abby at all, when she should have dumped him on the spot , is beyond me...Unless (God help her), she's living with him and has become (or thinks she's become) dependent on his income, or their shared incomes.

Is it just me, or do some women seem to do this an awful lot? That is, I'm often mind boggled how some only know a guy for a couple days or a month, and already she's moving in with him. I'm wondering if it's the 'I neeed a may'un' syndrome at play here.

I have never had a man feel the need to recite a chronology of my life. He is a controlling and abusive basard saving up everything he disapproves of to be used after marriage and especially after he is banging away at a few local whores after he is wed and bred to the current victim.

What a creep! Why is she still with this man? And why is he with her, if he thinks she's a baybee killer?

Agony aunt should have told her to GTFO because this guy is an abuser. Nobody who loves anybody would ever make a statement like that, especially to their face.

Leave the abusive fuckwad and find someone who will love you for YOU, and not dwell on some past thing that doesn't even matter anymore.

This whole "Recently he was reciting a chronology of my life." comes across as very Christian. Christians believe that when die, you are judged by God, who reviews your entire life in front of you, and passes judgement on your sins. I feel like the boyfriend creep was emulating this, like a crazy-Christian-abusive-scumbag power trip.

After finding out a fundamental incompatiblity life pro-life vs. pro-choice, a decent human being will decide whether to break up with that person, or to review his/her opinions and values in light of the new information (in this case, the gf's abortion history).

This guy went a different route: he filed away that information. And I'm willing to be he'll use that "child murderer" line whenever he needs a handy stick to beat her with.

Run for the hills.

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nightfire

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ex lurker

And why the LW felt a need to talk to Dear Abby at all, when she should have dumped him on the spot , is beyond me...Unless (God help her), she's living with him and has become (or thinks she's become) dependent on his income, or their shared incomes.

Is it just me, or do some women seem to do this an awful lot? That is, I'm often mind boggled how some only know a guy for a couple days or a month, and already she's moving in with him. I'm wondering if it's the 'I neeed a may'un' syndrome at play here.

And then have a kid by the guy.

The DWIL Nation board is chock-a-block full of stories from women who feel forced to put up with the most brazenly abusive crap from men. 99% of the time the bints list, as part of their background, "I'm a SAHM." :smn

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Dorisan

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nightfire

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ex lurker

And why the LW felt a need to talk to Dear Abby at all, when she should have dumped him on the spot , is beyond me...Unless (God help her), she's living with him and has become (or thinks she's become) dependent on his income, or their shared incomes.

Is it just me, or do some women seem to do this an awful lot? That is, I'm often mind boggled how some only know a guy for a couple days or a month, and already she's moving in with him. I'm wondering if it's the 'I neeed a may'un' syndrome at play here.

And then have a kid by the guy.

The DWIL Nation board is chock-a-block full of stories from women who feel forced to put up with the most brazenly abusive crap from men. 99% of the time the bints list, as part of their background, "I'm a SAHM." :smn

Reddit's red pill board...Oh, dear God, the horrific stories the men thumbed hairless male bipeds there share,proudly detailing the emotional abuse they inflict on their spouses! The red pillers think their wives' willingness to tolerate the constant disrespect and emotional abuse shows they understand "deep bio truths" about women and relationships.What they do reveal is that in countries with little or no social safety net, women will be forced to cling to even monsters just to survive -and it's even worse if they breed with the monster.

A stopped clock is right twice a day : The loathsome Roosh "Legalize rape on private property" Return of Kings cretin mentioned online that he had no success "banging" women in Denmark , because that country's social safety net created a situation in which women didn't have to defer to men, a situation which he contrasted with women in eastern Europe and less developed Asian countries.


Imagine marrying a man, having a kid or two with him;maybe the marriage isn't perfect ,but it's reasonably healthy and satisfying. Then he discovers a board in which total strangers tell him that the only way a marriage can be happy is if the husband and wife have a Captain/first mate relationship, and the way to get that is to emotionally abuse the wife. If she fights back, it's"hamstering" (ie she really enjoys the abuse but doesn't want to admit it,and the DH should treat her resistance as a "shit test" and redouble the abuse). If she gives in and tolerates it (because she loves the man she married, or because she's economically trapped or thinks she has nowhere to go or any way to survive on her own ) , that "proves" the red pill is true. A nightmare....And something like that is exactly what the LW is going to be trapped in,if she doesn't wise up and kick her abuser to the curb before it's too late,and she's pregnant by him.