Judit Gellérd 

A Satire on the Theme of Freedom

            The Republican majority in the US House of Representatives has just voted a new bill which makes any “offense” against--any harm to--the fetus a federal crime.  The “fetus” actually means anything from a zygote on, as the House established the beginning of the fetus’s entitlement to human rights from the moment of conception.  There are endless implications of this move if it becomes a law.  But I wish to reflect on one aspect of it: that the fetus will now be protected against his or her own mother.  If American society has not cultivated alienation against itself, and between races, generations, within the family, this will be a new opportunity to sink even deeper. 

            All empires practice the time-honored tactics of Divide and impera, with considerable political gains.  If the arsenal of instigation--racism, sexism, religious fanaticism, economical polarization, etc. in order to divert the nation’s attention from the real burning issues of our future--has proven insufficient, now time has come to turn the unborn against their own mothers.  Militant unborn fetuses on the US federal flag carried by the Christian right--in the name of Christ.  I can see a fetus sitting in a Petri dish in the courtroom as prosecution.  The defendant is a mother of five, with an unemployed and violent husband.   She has been a pretty good mother, considering their extreme poverty and two epileptic children.   But theirs is still a coherent family, she thinks.  But now who will take care of her children while she spends her life meaninglessly in prison--for, reluctantly, opting for abortion at age 45?  Even the ancient curse is ironic now: “I shouldn’t have ever brought you to the light of the world.”  She didn’t.  Now she is a criminal.

            The aborted fetuses will form a strong alliance against the mothers--all presumed guilty until proven innocent--of the United States.  The zygotes will clone themselves into a specialized army of a new secret police, the NAAM--National Alliance Against Mothers.  They will organize a nationwide campaign with a new brainwashing technique offered to children who have mothers.  They will raise their awareness of the inherent danger of such state.  Training camps will be open to teach self protection especially against the suspicious and harmful effect of motherly love.  It is an ancient curse of humanity, and modern society should be embarrassed of remnants of such primitive emotional bondage.  Evolution is too slow to get rid of mothers, and their insidious, ubiquitous presence is opiate for the masses--for the innocent children.  Mothers’ hideously selfish instinct tries to smother their youngsters, control their raw impulses and limit their absolute freedom.  In the glorious American democracy which had successfully managed to cast off finally the embarrassing attachments of the bourgeoisie to being “cultured,” thus liberating future generations from houses of terror and brainwashing--schools, that is--now we must annihilate the last vestige of education which is still, although underground, going on in people’s homes. 

            Mothers just cannot behave; they are hopeless parasites of society.   They still think that just because they are women, they have the ridiculous rights of “choice.”  CHOICE!  They affectionately call it “reproductive rights.”  It seems like a bad joke.  First, what use the society has of women other than reproduction?  Second, this “rights” language in women’s mouths is outrageous.  Yes, I know, there was a short period in our history when society, as if in an altered state of consciousness, fought for women’s rights--in general.   For a fleeting century, this ideology blurred our vision.  But fortunately we awakened just in time before the grand coup d’état.  Wasn’t enough to having been forced to tolerate the tyranny of the mothers while growing up--their hideous birthing, pretended suffering as an emotional blackmail to their children, then the disgusting breast-feeding, all the hugs and kisses, the off-pitch lullabies, pretended affection--and being bathed naked and sexually harassed!   And the food, pfuj!  We were victims of their kitchens, of their homemade junk, while being prevented from feeding on American Hamburgers and Coke.  How much sacrifice it took to be prevented from the true happiness of life.  But probably the worst of all was their moralizing sermons.  Be good, love mummy, be kind to papa, study hard, be polite, be honest--shit!  I just felt like taking my gun and blowing their dirty mouth.   But I was a coward, so I just yelled at her: Shut up, you bitch!  And then came those artificial tears--the suffering mother syndrome!  The worst nightmare. 

            Oh, how I envied those orphans in Romania!  They lived in communes from their birth, free from the disgusting aspects of being somebody’s “precious child.”  My Romanian comrades did not belong to any particular person.  Their lives were colorful--different nurses, in three shifts, wearing mini skirts and telling juicy jokes.  They did not harass the orphans by feeding them all the time.  They had a much more practical solution: blood transfusion.  Invigorating, sexy.  Of course, Romania was poor and these pretty nurses could not afford the luxury of disposable needles, so it took longer time to wait for the only needle to go through the whole commune.   Those little devils were crying in unison--a funny contemporary “concert” or rather discert.   I especially was impressed with and, frankly, envious, of their bright futures.  While we in America had been often sentenced to attend Harvard, these lucky fellows were the future secret police army of the world’s greatest dictator--Ceausescu.  His dream was truly worthy of a superior leader.  He designed a great nation, greater than China, greater than the Soviet Union.  And how genius his method was of forcing women to give birth to a minimum of four children, before age 45.   Granted, he had a vision of how to take revenge and humiliate mothers.  And he had the political power to carry it out.  Secret police officers were stationed in each clinic of gynecology and obstetrics.  Doctors were prevented from conspiring with their patients.  If a woman was suspicious of having induced abortion, the apparatus struck down on her.  She could not escape the trap.  Haha!  The police force was instructed to prevent the doctor’s from heroically intervening.  Did she bleed to death?  Fine.  What a spectacle for bored policemen.  Her two or three surviving children were luckily liberated and taken to the protective care of an orphanage.          

            The efficacy of this method was unprecedented.  The number of orphans grew exponentially--the elite Communist army of the future!  Society without mothers! 

            Now the end of the story is somewhat annoying, for the army of liberated souls acquired AIDS, and some just starved to death--what a waste!  But production was fortunately abundant, and, in fact, the remaining children were of truly good quality: they did not learn much of speaking, and they don’t have those sticky emotions--mothers’ infectious disease.  They are the ideal new type of human being--ruthless, unscrupulous, ready to kill of the mothers of their suffering fellows to make the earth a little better place.  Or, at least to be a model for the US, which will now be able to avoid the pitfalls without much further human experiments.  The pit without fall, a world without mothers--what is a worthier goal for the future of humankind?