To Have Never Been Born

 

We now live in a world where time and money (both inextricably related) are at a premium.

 Oftentimes, those whom we have now learned to classify as "The Working Poor" work 80+ hours a week to just simply survive.

Unfortunately, responsible parenting  requires a certain level of each; time and money, in order to be able to raise responsible, well adjusted and successful children.

It's a simple fact.

To force the poor into needing to irresponsibly become parents is cruel and senseless and entirely unreasonable.

To force the poor into needing to irresponsibly become parents is to doom entire neighborhoods into blight, crime and violence.

To force the poor into needing to irresponsibly become parents is to guarantee our countries standing as having the largest rate of incarceration on the globe be maintained.

It's almost like some WANT to have a class of poor and incarcerated people to hate. And these are the same people that will deride the poor and simply declare that they should just stop having kids. Of course, a couple working four jobs in order to simply keep a roof over their heads should be more than happy to embrace celibacy as well.

A study through Stanford Law school in 2020 determined the following:

"We estimate that overall crime fell 17.5% from 1998 to 2014 due to legalized abortion— a decline of 1% per year. From 1991 to 2014, the violent and property crime rates each fell by 50%. Legalized abortion is estimated to have reduced violent crime by 47% and property crime by 33% over this period, and thus can explain most of the observed crime decline."

Many other studies point to childhood neglect as a MAJOR contributor to criminal behavior (i.e.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662280/).

I've never considered myself to have a poetic bone in my body, but to adequately convey my feelings, I'd found it necessary to write the following (not really sure poetry is what it is)...

To Have Never Been Born

How many unwanted children will sit in their prison cells, as adults...

Wishing they'd never been born.

How many of their victims too... Will live in sorrow and loss. Towards that person, the cause of their grief, will likewise...

Wish they had never been born.

How many parents, knowing they are unable to adequately carry the burden they will be forced to bear, face heartbreak unspeakable for the realities they endure to helplessly watch.

Life is precious indeed... Until it's marred by neglect, and need, and the lack of resource that, from the very beginning was impossible to meet.

And then, after grief upon grief, year after year, an old aged child, sits on death row, a life not supposedly so precious after all, while finally awaiting that abortion. In shame and in fear and with nothing but regret.

To wish to have never been born from the start.