"Our Two Lives Include a Third?" (NY Times Journalist's Accidental Pregnancy)

New York Times ^ | July 15, 2007 | RONDA KAYSEN

[Mrs. Don-o]

TWO weeks after my husband and I quit our jobs, gave up our Brooklyn apartment and moved to Mexico to travel and work as freelance reporters, I discovered I was pregnant. Among the subjects I hoped to write about in Mexico was its restrictive abortion laws. Now I was contemplating an abortion myself. Even though my period was 10 days late, it hadn’t occurred to me that I could be pregnant....

[raybbr]

I dunno, CITIZENSHIP?

Read my other posts on this thread. They link to articles she has written about mexico. One would think, according to her, mexico would be preferred over the U.S.

[LibFreeOrDie]

More about Ronda:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/21/MN163392.DTL

(2001) Across the street from the National Archives, Ronda Kaysen, 23, a 1999 graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz, held a blue and white banner reading “Keep Abortion Legal.” Kaysen, now a writer in New York City, had boarded a bus chartered by the National Organization for Women at 3:45 yesterday morning for the inaugural.

“I felt I had to make my voice heard,” she said, describing Bush as an appointed president. “This is the most upset I’ve ever been. I’ve lost sleep over this.”

Kaysen also complained that the demonstrations seemed poorly organized and unfocused.

http://www.breakupnews.com/photo.asp?blog_id=60

(7/2004)

Ronda Kaysen, 27, would like to reiterate that she and Daryl Rosado, 42, remain broken up. The couple first broke up on Valentine’s Day 2002, after Mr. Rosado cancelled the evening’s activities. The two had been dating for six weeks. “He was a total loser,” said Kaysen of her former flame. “He flaked on me like three times in a month.” Rosado was Kaysen’s first relationship after her tumultuous break up with Martin Brower, a design student at Pratt University, eight months earlier. Why anyone would date a male design student remains unclear.
Rosado marked the beginning of a string of short-lived affairs for Kaysen. “It was all about the sex, anyway,” said Kaysen, a Brooklyn-based writer. “And if he wasn’t going to put out, what was the point?”

http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/letters/2005/06/23/rude_comments/index.html?pn=2

(2005) Lynn Harris must have been that fly buzzing around my kitchen this weekend when my mother came to visit. “You should have a baby soon. Women are so unlucky, nature isn’t kind. Look what happened to your sister — she had to have a cesarean!” I guess that’s what happens to women who have babies over 30 — they get cut open. Funny thing is, I’m not even married! And I’m only 27. Ms. Harris is right; the inappropriate, invasive questions are outrageous. If people would spend more time worrying about their own lives and less time worrying about mine, we’d all be a little better off.

— Ronda Kaysen

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So Ronda, “If people would spend more time worrying about their own lives and less time worrying about mine, we’d all be a little better off.”, why did you write the NYT article???

[CHEE]

The next day, morning sickness overtook me with a vengeance, and my giddy idealism of the previous day evaporated. David was right: We couldn’t have this baby.

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The key word at this point is the use of the word “BABY”. How can anyone in their right mind want to kill a “BABY’?

[SuziQ]

Sure am glad they got over their “me-ism” enough to allow their baby to live! Amazing how short sighted some people can be. They think a baby means they can NEVER ever do what they want to do again.

[Gene Eric]

>> insulting weasels

Understatement.

>> “We don’t have to keep it,” I told David.
>>
>> “We’re keeping it.”

Are they sure now? What is “it”? Could “it” be a baby?

Unfortunately, liberalism regenerates itself, so there’s no point in considering a trade of people like these for illegal immigrants.

[NittanyLion]

Two observations. First, the husband is a self-absorbed a******. If I was his father in law after reading this I'd be ready to administer a beating.

Second, regarding her quote, "No, no, no,” I said. “This isn’t good. We can’t have this baby.”...doesn't she mean "we can't have this inanimate mass of tissue"?

[Hoodat]

After all, I had managed to get pregnant while using a contraceptive sponge.

How naive. She actually thought that a contraceptive sponge would prevent pregnancy? Looks like she learned about contraception from watching Seinfeld.

[Hoodat]

"While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"

You nailed it!

[Hoodat]

Why Americans aren't heading south to give birth is beyond me. It seems like a much better choice.

Ah, so she is a proponent of outsourcing. How nice.

[SuziQ]

Same here, Clara Lou. Our youngest will be 18 in Feb. We've had the pleasure of having him back home from 'school' during this last year, homeschooling him through the last two years of high school. He's been an 'only child' this year because our daughter went off to college last Fall, and his two older brothers are grown and on their own. It's been fun, and he's such a pleasure to know.

We'll miss him when he goes off to school, but we've never been overly sentimental about our kids going out on their own. We're happy that we've prepared them to face the world on their own, but they always know we're here when they need us. And I plan, when we finally get settled down South, to build a house that will accomodate them all, and their families, when they come to visit!

[Mrs. Don-o]

You (and Amy Welborn) are correct about the lack of anything that sounds like moral reflection in this article. She's not asking "Is this right?" but rather "Does this feel right, meaning what I really want right now?"

However. Allow me to make a confession.

Over the last 3 nights I've been having a most ego-deflating experience: namely, before bed, I've been reading my diary from 1971, when I was 19 years old.

Man, you talk about humiliating. I am appalled at what can only inaccurately be called my "thought" processes. The truth is, I was like a tiny boat drifting from impulse to impulse, occasional sped along or swirled about by some big gust of emotion. And appalling self-centered, oblivious to other people's point of view (especially my parents') and convinced I was the smartest (and most moral!) creature God ever made.

The only reason why I didn't have an abortion (or two) back then is that I was apparently subfertile somehow, and never got pregnant.

I had no damn excuse, either, because I can from excellent Catholic schooling where we were taught all the good stuff about virtues, the Sacraments, the Saints, the pure Love of God and Neighbor for Christ's sake.

But my brain was a seive. I had that impossible combination, moral retardation plus impenetrable self-righteousness.

Anyhow my point is this. God has mercy, and people who are well below par morally eventually get some sense: by hard knocks, by good counsel. by the Holy Spirit acknowledged or unacknowledged.

Pray for this gal and her jerkimer husband. They did the right thing. God is leading them to the Light.

[ridesthemiles]

It is NOT “an accidental pregnancy”.
They willingly participated in intercourse, which led to the pregnancy.

One would think with the education to be a “journalist” one would understand what intercourse can lead to. I knew that at age 11 on the farm.

[madprof98]

You have a good point here, and I wasn't criticizing you--only pointing out that I was not exactly uplifted by reading the "reflections" (for want of a better word) of this spoiled brat. I will pray for her--and even more for her baby.

You comment on how your own moral compass was disoriented when you were in late adolescence. It's a good point. The NyTimes journalists and others in the cultural elite, like so many of the BabyBoomers who spawned them, seem to be caught in an adolescence which will not end until the Lord calls them home. It's beyond sad. Really, it's evil.

[GraceCoolidge]

Thank you for an excellent post. You’ve given me something to think about.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"I happen to be agnostic when it comes to divine influence....What's much more important to me is living a moral and ethical life and espousing positive life-affirming values. That I try to do."- Bernard Marx

I enjoyed your comments (See mine at #51.)

It just so happens that the Old Testament reading at Mass today had this:

Deuteronomy 30:11-14
“For this commandment which I command you today
is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off.
It is not in heaven, that you should say,
‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us,
that we may hear it and do it?’
Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say,
‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us,
that we may hear it and do it?’
But the word is very near you,
in your mouth
and in your heart,
that you may do it.

[gotribe]

We couldn’t have this baby. We were in no way prepared to do this now, or here.

This is the comment I find amusing. If they only understood what parents know - having a child is a life-altering experience, no matter when it happens. They can buy the house, furnish it, nail down the career, save the money, dot all the i's and cross all the t's, and all of that becomes part of a previous life when they have a baby.

[SuziQ]

I hear you, girl. Thank God I never was much for keeping diaries; I’m sure I’d embarrass myself greatly, looking back from 35 years on. Most young people from 18-25 think they’re 10’ tall and bulletproof. It’s amazing that so many of them survive to adulthood!

[montag813]

The father is a self-centered jerk.

And if his vision of his "career" doesn't go as he fantasized, he will blame the child, and make the child suffer because of it.

[guinnessman]

As the father of three adopted children, I can only thank God that their birth mothers thought of their babies instead of only themselves.

[montag813]

There they are in Mexico, surrounded by people with children, little babies everywhere. They might never have thot of keeping that child were they in NYC still.

Yep. If she was instead surrounded by fellow liberals, sterile strollers on hot city streets, Bergdorf and Blahnik, and most importantly--abortionists on every corner--she would have killed this baby.