I Think Better When I’m Angry.

And I haven’t been angry for a few weeks.

Rather than anger, I’ve been so taken with planning and progressing, and just thinking happy thoughts,…that the Discovery Channel gunman slipped right past me.

I’m awake now.

He ‘d been sniped before I’d even realized he was a serious threat.  Yet now, although his life has ended, I find that the threat is still quite real.

If you haven’t read the manifesto of James Lee, the environmental enthusiast who held three hostages at gun and explosive-point this past week in the Discovery Communications building, you should seriously go and take a look.  In the rather winded document found on his website, Lee goes into detail about his disgust for Discovery(TLC)’s airing of shows such as Jon and Kate, 19(or however many) kids and Counting, and other birth or infertility shows.  “The Planet doesn’t need humans”, he states.  He sternly chastises the network and their viewers for ignoring the over-population of the planet by what he calls “filthy”, “parasitic” humans.   The fact that his reality show pitch was denied while the network renewed the contracts of the Duggars, was apparently the straw that broke his back.   One of the statements that caused me to gasp, was this one:

All programs on Discovery Health‐TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human

infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs’ places, programs encouraging

human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro‐birth programs must now push in the

direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.

Wow.  Seriously dude?  This is what you spent your day thinking up?  Yikes…

First, you’re an idiot and a coward.  I say this because instead of the courage(and thought) it would have taken you to come up with some actual solutions to changing and bettering the world THROUGH humans, since we are obviously nowhere near extinction, you chose the way of cutting the tail off the snake.  It would have just grown back, idiot.  Evolution is natural progression.

Secondly, although I have my feelings about this dude, and find that most other people do believe he was bit “off”, I have had to also realize that even some of  those who disagree with Lee’s tactics, are finding his actual theories valid.  There are quiet murmurings of “well, he did have a point”, that cannot be ignored.  This is the harmful reality of which I am very frightened of and one that I feel the infertility community must address immediately.

While there is a large amount of press and attention given to those who have used reproductive technology irresponsibly, (see: Nadya Suleman ), these are not the people whom I have encountered while learning about infertility.  The real people who I come in contact with every day are actually quite concerned about the possibility of being faced with extreme cases of multiples.  These families are seeking a child to love and nurture into a great human being for the world’s benefit, not trying to tear it down.  There is a very real fear and anxiety about having to use selective reduction, the risks that these pregnancies can place on a pregnant mother, and the thought that goes into family planning as a whole.

Basically, what I mean by all this is that the majority of us do not go down this road frivolously.

For Lee to relate Disvocery’s  family-building programming with the human frivolity that cases such as Octomom’s allude to, is dangerous when we begin thinking of the many other people who will  take that  alignment as fact.  Many of us who have encountered our own fertility issues were uncomfortable with Octomom.  Many of us who are family-building advocates are uncomfortable with the strain and negligence that having a college football team of kids can become for Michelle Duggar’s body and health.  We are not the same.  It is a horrifying assumption that we are all unconcerned and selfish.

I was incensed, and prepared to devote my entire rant to the situation with Lee, and was perusing the web for research when I came across this fool here:

In case you haven’t heard of Ms. Sword, she is a 36 year old Michigan native who, when she didn’t receive her annual update from his parents, tracked down the son she’d placed into an adoptive home at infancy.  After locating the then 14 year old boy through Facebook, she proceeded to engage in a SEXUAL relationship with him.

YES. You read that correctly.
Apparently, when Ms. Sword met up with her biological son, who is now 16 , the feelings that arose in her were not maternal at all, but sexual.  The unsuspecting adoptive parents had agreed to let their son spend more time with Sword and her family, believing it was a good and right thing to do.  The sexual relationship continued until the young man revealed the details of his “special relationship with his mother”,  to a counselor.  Sword has since plead guilty and faces anywhere from 9 to 30 years in prison.  Oh, and did I mention at the time of this incident, she was married and had five other children of her own?

Let’s all sigh together…

Reading this story, it is amazing to me how many commentators were prepared to blame the adoptive parents. How could they have seen something like this coming!?  But again, I’ve come to realize that when  dealing with the court of public opininon,  facts are less important than perceptions.  This case has now unfortunately brought a rather dim hue to the cases for open adoption. Which is mind-boggling to me.  This was an isolated incident, yet it provides people with the ammunition to attack an entire system that has worked for so many?

One thing became startlingly clear as I read about James and Aimee:

Infertility and open adoption advocates/patients must speak up.

We cannot be so hush-hush that the ridiculous incidents and examples are being given more light and attention.  If the entire world has but these awful depictions to hold as an idea of what our lives truly look like, then the prejudices and disparities will not only continue but increase.  There are some who look at these issues and think, “Well, that was just a small thing, it has nothing to do with the other hundreds of great success stories”.   I say to those people, I wish I could share your optimism.  In fact, our world thrives off of negatives.  These small peas under the mattress quickly become boulders in the hands of those who would rather not find anything positive or valuable to think or say about infertility and adoption.  I admit that sharing is hard, and that knowing even how to share is even harder, but I promise you, the sooner we begin unleashing the truth, the sooner we can begin to mend some of the unnecessary pain caused by ignorance.