United Nations

Even in my little corner of the blogosphere, there seems to be a lot of intolerance and downright cruelty lately. Not to me, although I have had a few trolls in my time. I don’t think I’m big enough to warrant the kind of feedback and offline posting that some of the Cool Kids do, but no doubt there are those who have formed an opinion of me based solely on what they’ve read here. As I read other’s struggles, whether that be with infertility, other family issues, illness, financial or otherwise, I am thankful that there are those of us willing to put our lives out there and welcome the world to read about our angst and our joys. I’m not saying that every comment has to consist of “I couldn’t agree more” or “Good luck!” with a big sparkly dose of baby-dust on the side, I just believe we all need to think a little more before we hit that Post a Comment button sometimes.

It’s very easy to judge others, we do so every day. We base our opinions on our own experiences and belief systems, but we have no right to do this. Let me throw out some questions for you.

Would you:

** terminate a pregnancy?
** agree to selective reduction?
** use donor egg or sperm?
** use a surrogate?

Or, let’s broaden the discussion – would you:

** take a loved one off of life support?
** kill someone in self-defense?
** stay with your spouse after an affair?
** be able to cut off a limb in order to free yourself?
** consume victims of a plane crash in order to survive?
** harbor a fugitive?

There are a million more questions like this. All heart-breaking, life-changing, personal decisions. We all think we know what we would do in certain situations, we’ve formed opinions and even plans for events that may happen. In reality, until you are there, you can’t know what you will do or what you are even capable of. So, the answer to all of the above and every question like it is: I DON’T KNOW. Even if you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, you still don’t have the right to judge them because they made a different decision than you did.

This post isn’t in response to anything in particular, just a feeling that I’ve been having lately. I’ve heard of several bloggers closing down or password protecting their sites, or closing off comments because they can’t bear to be hurt by the words of strangers any more. Sharing our personal stories is what this is all about. Disagreements in a healthy and civilized discussion forum are as helpful as positive feedback, but there is no excuse for hate-speak.