I must begin by saying that I do appreciate your very real concern for my well-being.  You clearly (for the most part—there are an unavoidable number of power-hungry maniacs and money-hungry charlatans in every group, but we’ll just ignore those for the time being) deeply care about my existence.  Me, personally, though you don’t actually know me personally, nor do you know any of the billions of others that you care about in the same passionate manner.  Truly, I am really touched by this.  Thank you from the depths of my heart and mind and I’m sure I speak for us all.

However.  You and I do have very fundamental differences in the, shall we say, times of my well-being and my existence that are of primary importance.  Again, please don’t think that I don’t acknowledge that you do care—I know you do.  But…and I feel like an ungrateful pig by suggesting this, but…do you think you could possibly rearrange your priorities to care a little more about the part of my existence that I spend fully aware, conscious and actually, physically in existence..?

I’m not sure what state you think I am in prior to my conception, but you appear to be positive that at least some idea of me must exist, as you are sure that God has a plan for me.  You press very hard to ensure that any chance I might have of coming into being at all is preserved by your relentless insistence on removing as much contraceptive information and tools from every human being alive, no doubt reasoning that by doing so you are raising my chances to the absolute maximum for getting conceived.  You do your best to make sure that no teenager would prevent me from coming into existence by lying about birth control, encouraging that it be priced out of reach for as many potential mothers as possible, and trying to make “Plan B” as hard to obtain as you can for everyone.  And once I have been conceived, what little restraint you showed before is completely cast to the winds.  You don’t care if my mother was raped, or has health problems, or is alone in the world—you’re right there doing your best to make sure that she doesn’t, that if humanly possible she can’t, terminate my forming self.  You have even been known to with your own two hands end the lives of those known to wield the scalpels and vacuum instruments that could possibly cause my end before I am born. You don’t even care if I have as little as a two percent chance of surviving my own birth—you are there to make sure I get that two percent chance, by God. 

And then, after I am dead, your love for me, your concern and compassion for me, knows no bounds.  You know for a fact that if I allow a man to touch my naked body before I marry him, I am doomed to eternal hellfire.  If I allow a woman to touch it at any time ever, it is the same.  You know that if I take the name of the Lord my God in vain…if I don’t faithfully worship our God every day or even every hour…if I don’t follow all his rules as laid out in His holy Book…if I don’t submit to my parents, my husband and my Church, that I will suffer for all eternity.  And you can’t bear that.  You will do whatever it takes, pass as many laws as you can, exert as much social and emotional and if you can figure out a way to do it that won’t prematurely end your own freedom to minister to others, physical pressure on me as you can to save me from that fate.  For your loving kindness and concern for my life after death is boundless.

Again…I am ashamed in the face of so much relentless devotion to make even this tiny amount of constructive criticism…please forgive me!  Jesus was very forgiving, remember—could we, you and I, possibly care just a little bit more about the portion of my life that I actually remember..?  The one I’m living now…?

Because as soon as I am born you no longer care what happens to me.  You don’t care if I ever see a doctor or a dentist, even if I die or am permanently maimed by injury or disease.  You hate me if I do see one and my parents can’t afford to pay for it—that one cent of your personal tax dollar that went to my care fills you with disgust.  You are enraged if my parents don’t care for me properly—not on my behalf, but on your own, to see a few more cents of your tax dollars go to schools to educate me in the areas that my parents cannot or will not, feed me what my parents cannot or will not.  If other children hurt me, you are furious when the legal authorities intervene; you think they have no right, and if I can’t defend myself, then I don’t deserve to be defended by anyone else.  You are contemptuous of me, working pitiful jobs that I can’t support myself or my family with the wages from when I’m grown, but you hate even more seeing me gain additional education with an additional penny or three from one of your tax dollars.  The only choice you offer me at all willingly for my education and advancement is death; if I agree to spend years of my young life overseas protecting your military-industrial interests, if I come back alive and sufficiently sewn back together to function at all, you will finally allow that I am worthy to attend school beyond the twelfth grade.  Once I am back, your greatest hope is to never see or hear from me again; if I cross your line of vision once more from age or disability, your hatred returns, tenfold because now I am too old to serve as cannon fodder and too tired to care for the carrot of education.  I must die before you can bring yourself to care for me once more.

Please, consider, just this once, pouring all that passion and compassion and love and energy into me between the ages of birth and death.  You might be surprised at how much more rewarding the gratitude of a living conscious and aware human being is to one who is pre-born or dead.

Sincerely,

Me