Compassion revisited...

com·pas·sion (noun)
sympathy for the suffering of others, often including a desire to help

I am continually astounded, shocked and saddened by the world that is the blogosphere.

Not the entire blogospere - there are many, many wonderful writers out there in Blogland - writers that I adore, who are wonderful and kind and loving and compassionate. Writers who take my breath away and whose blogs I look forward to visiting each and every day.

But there are so many others in Blogland so full of hate and vitriol...especially in the world of adoption, loss and infertility.

There are blogs I visit in an effort to continue educating myself about the issues in the adoption community...but sometimes this is so very hard...

A First Mother blogger recently referred to prospective adoptive mothers as "evil barren slobbering leeches."

A Prospective Adoptive Mother blogger referred to First Mothers in any number of posts as "breeders." (She indicated in a later post that she was surprised that there were readers who took offense as she was just being "funny.")

Horrifying. Insensitive. Cruel.

On both counts.

An Australian columnist railing against the use of ART (assisted reproductive technologies) wrote the following about couples utilizing IVF (invitro fertilzation) to try to get pregnant:

For these women, being unable to reproduce or carry a fertilized egg to full term must be heartbreaking. I have great sympathy for them.

But in a way, there seems to be an attitude that because science can provide it, we somehow deserve it and that the right to bear children is inalienable, absolute. And that if we can't, it's not only grossly unfair but outside of the natural order of things.

The fact is, life is full of things we want but can't have.

Harsh though it may seem, perhaps the truth is that if you can't do it the old fashioned way or at the very least with a well armed turkey baster then maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all.

I'm trying to find the compassion this woman writer says she has for those who are struggling with infertility, but am not finding it at all. Are you?

It is simply mind boggling to me the many ways that we can be so cruel towards one another. The ways that we seem to have such total disregard for others' feelings and life experiences.

Who am I to judge the experience of a woman who felt forced to give up her child for adoption and is devastated about it years later? Or for the adopted person who feels anguish and/or rage at the thought that he/she was given away as a baby? Or for the woman that has been trying for years to conceive a child without success?

Who are any of us to judge?

I'll ask again what I asked in my original Compassion post: Why is it that we can't simply recognize that we ALL [First Mothers, Adopted Persons, & Adoptive Parents] come to adoption from a place of deep hurt and pain?

Why is it that we cannot seem to step beyond our own experiences in an effort to see the reality, validity and pain of another's experience? To acknowledge and recognize our pain and suffering? To allow for our pain and suffering?

To be gentle with each other?

To be kind?

To be compassionate?