We’re already at part 2! Of course, there’s eight parts total, so we’re not very far along.
Storked
And we’re going to find out about that!
“You can’t change laws without first changing human nature.”
— NURSE GRETA
“You can’t change human nature without first changing the law.”
—NURSE YVONNE
Since the last quote was found in the story itself, I guess two nurses are going to argue? I don’t really care because both of those lines are bullshit.
Anyway, let’s dig in because this has gotten exceptionally terrible.
Like the cop chapter, this one is labeled simply “Mother”. It’s your warning that this chapter will have roughly the same nuance.
The mother is nineteen, but she doesn’t feel that old. She feels no wiser, no more capable of dealing with this situation, than a little girl. When, she wonders, did she stop being a child? The law says it was when she turned eighteen, but the law doesn’t know her.
So let’s be clear: the point of this chapter is that stupid bitches are lazy and shirk responsibility. That’s why it’s making a point that she’s nineteen. Make her sixteen, and people might feel sympathy. Make her fourteen, and they might start getting outright uncomfortable.
She’s Still aching from the trauma of delivery so I guess in this world they just toss you out of the hospital when they’re done. I mean, it could be the author understanding that giving birth will leave you a mess for a while, but it’s making a point that her baby’s a newborn, so… (It should also be pointed out that just because she’s currently ambulatory doesn’t mean she’s actually survived childbirth. A good chunk of the deaths come afterward from complications.)
This she knows is the perfect time of day to do this. There’s less of a chance that coyotes and other scavengers would be out. She couldn’t bear the thought of the baby suffering needlessly.
This might be meant in the same tone as when the cop thought about how moral he was. It just seems horribly depressing that she’s in this situation. Also, I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to hate her for leaving her baby where there’s even a chance of coyotes, but the idea of coyotes eating your baby is ridiculous. Animals tend to be really hesitant about eating anything they don’t recognize, so coyotes next to the dead baby pit are definitely something to watch out for, but the average one is going to keep going to dig through garbage or eat a cat. The area would have to be packed with half-tame scavengers for this to be a concern.
If you want scary wild animals that do not know fear, you need to set it in Australia. Dingos will eat the shit out of your unattended babies.
(Also, either she or the author is a moron. Early morning is when these animals are more active! It’s the middle of the day when they’re hiding.)
She walks around the dumpster and explains that she’s definitely not leaving the kid there.
There was a time, shortly after the Bill of Life was passed, that Dumpsters such as that would be tempting to girls like her. Desperate girls who would leave unwanted newborns in the trash.
Because apparently that didn’t happen before. I mean, I can see a massive upswing, sure, but this is being talked about like there’s a straight connection.
Funny, but the Bill of Life was supposed to protect the sanctity of life. Instead it just made life cheap.
I think that was more because of the thing where you kill people for parts.
Anyway, to fix that they passed the law about storking.
that wonderful law that allows girls like her a far better alternative.
The smug just rolls off the page. I hate the author so much. The best bit is that it’s “girls”, it’s that nice little patronizing touch.
She heads off into a nice neighborhood.
The homes are large and inviting. This is the right neighborhood for storking.
I think the idea is that she’s deluding herself because she’s not responsible, but she really seems to have thought this out. These are good homes where the baby will probably have a better life than she will. And she picks a middle sized house for it, presumably because she wants it to have a nice house but worries the biggest house might already have babies.
This is also why the idea of a law about abandoning babies would never develop. No one wants whores dropping off their “ethnic” crack babies where real people can see them! And on the flip side, this would mean gay single wiccans could end up with a baby. I think a lot of the prolifers in that army would agree the little dears are better dead than gay-heathen-agenda’d.
Finally, I feel like pointing out that women have always been entirely capable of dropping the baby off at someone’s house instead of a dumpster. There are reasons why women put babies in dumpsters. Many of them have given birth in secret and are trying to get rid of it before anyone finds out. Some actually think the kid is dead – most women are not particularly rational after giving birth and terrified teenagers are not somehow the exception. (And some of them do it to hide the body after the baby’s been killed, but it should be pointed out most infanticide involves a baby the mother was trying to take care of and snapped as opposed to a calm decision.)
Now, you can definitely improve things by making sure people know about stuff like hospitals being willing to take the kid without any questions asked, but that largely works because of the promise of anonymity. If you’re so desperate to get rid of the kid the dumpster seems a great option, I find it hard to believe you’d be willing to carry it around a neighborhood.
Anyway, her other criteria for a house is that it’s easy to get away without being seen.
No lights are on in the home yet, that’s good. There’s a car in the driveway— hopefully that means they’re home.
So throughout this chapter, we see her balancing two impulses. She doesn’t want the baby herself, but she does want to do what she can for it here. The safest place to abandon the baby would be a place where no one’s home, because they couldn’t possibly catch her, but she wants her baby found as soon as possible so it’s not left alone.
If they catch her, she’s obliged to keep the baby—that’s part of the Storking Initiative too—but if they open the door and find nothing but the child, it’s “finder’s keepers” in the eyes of the law. Whether they want it or not, the baby is legally theirs.
How does this work with the idea of state homes for unwanted babies? That’s right, it doesn’t. At all.
How does this stop women from abandoning babies in dumpsters to avoid anyone finding out? That’s right, it doesn’t. At all.
Honestly, the only way this makes any sense is if it’s some sort of kludged together mess to handle the baby boom, where only the original mother can give the baby to the state and otherwise you have to keep it, and that would explain why people would be trying this, it ensures they’ll be in a well-off family. This presumably also means that they no longer care about child abuse of any kind, but as I’ve been saying, that fits with the rest of this pretty well. So if you give the baby to the government, it’s going in a shitty state home, but here, you can force someone well-off to take your kid. (Which would quickly lead to a lot of angry rich people with twenty babies, so I assume there’d be some special side law where you can still put it in a state home for a fee.)
Even still, it doesn’t address fact people would just play baby hot potato. If you find one on your doorstep, go drop it on someone else’s. In fact, it’s even easier, because if someone sees the actual mother running off, they can tell her to take it back, but if you’re the one the mother gave it to, how can someone prove you’re the one that left it? You can say they’re just trying to get rid of the baby by blaming the first person to walk by.
And how is she forced to keep the baby if one person sees her? Do they call the police and register the baby to her? That seems like a lot of trouble to go through, and also, she’s not really obligated if she can just abandon it to the state. Unless failing to stork successfully also means the government won’t take it, but if the government is willing to force the birthmother to keep it, they could have avoided this whole runaround by just saying you can’t abandon your baby, done.
Anyway, the chapter goes on to say that she always knew she’d be abandoning it. Nothing about how she didn’t want to go through the pregnancy, which for many people is an ordeal. Nothing about how horrible childbirth likely was – and there’s a pretty good chance she had a c-section because hospitals love doing those to hurry you out the door. Just that she didn’t want the result.
She had hoped that when she finally saw it, looking up at her so helplessly, she might change her mind—but who was she kidding? With neither the skill nor the desire to be a mother at this point in her life, storking had always been her best option.
The book is really hammering in that she just doesn’t want it. It’s not that she doesn’t have the resources for the baby, it’s that she doesn’t want to bother and the effort of learning to take care of it would be work. Look at that “at this point in her life” – it’s not that she actually can’t, she just doesn’t want to commit because she hates responsibility and wants to act like a child. This is what prolife people hear when prochoice people talk: they both understand people may not want to take care of a baby, but one side thinks you should have to do it anyway.
Again, the author made a point of having her be nineteen and explicitly saying she’s legally an adult in case we didn’t get it. He erased any mention of the pregnancy itself, because the act of bearing a child isn’t anything that matters and has nothing to do with why prochoice people believe choice is important. The most the child has inconvenienced her is that she “aches” from giving birth to it, because the author has some vague idea childbirth itself is a bit uncomfortable, but it doesn’t prevent her from trotting around finding the right house to dump the kid at. She certainly isn’t dealing with the post-pregnancy hormonal rush designed to get you to bond with the baby, the one that regularly makes women who lose their babies suicidal. And, of course, there’s no explanation for how she got pregnant. Her actual reasons might suggest that it isn’t fair to punish her for that. No, she was just irresponsible. Chose to be irresponsible, and yet doesn’t want to deal with the results. Change “stork” to “abort” and this could be a leaflet getting distributed by prolifers.
Fair and balanced!
With the burden now lifted from her, she has sudden strength. She now has a second chance in life, and this time she’ll be smarter—she’s sure of it. As she hurries down the street, she thinks how wonderful it is that she can get a second chance. How wonderful it is that she can dismiss her responsibility so easily.
I hope the author is devoured by vultures.
Well, that was the least subtle thing I’ve ever read.
Wasn’t it?
Maybe it’s just me, but the narrative style is really bugging me! It’s this weird combo of 3rd person that seems to slip into 2nd person at times. The entire thing sounds so…uncomfortable and stilted.
I think part of it is also the present tense that seems to be all the rage in YA these days.
Yeah, I mean, regardless of what your thoughts are on the pro-life/pro-choice aspect, the book is a technical disaster. The writing, plotting, characterization… they’re all horrible. The grammar is abysmal.
I don’t care what the author’s tract it, it’s still a book, and it’s a bad one.
Oh, I love me a grammar nazi. <3
I was somewhat willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt here up until the “How wonderful it is that she can dismiss her responsibility so easily” part. Ew.
That’s why these are worth really tearing into. There’s a great deal of things where most of the language sounds innocent. For example, around here, “It’s important for immigrants to learn English if they want to live in America.” is at once a true statement and also something to punch someone in the face over, because people who say that actually mean “If you don’t speak English, I think you should be punished for that.” and usually “I also hate many people who do speak English, but I have to pretend my hatred is unrelated to skin color and language is a good cover.”
It also means, If you want to live here, you have to talk like me/think like me, and if you please, look and act like me, too, because anything else makes me nervous, thanks.
Good thing I’ve already read this book. Next chapter is seriously fucked up if I remember correctly. I really liked it when I read it the first couple of times, but I won’t deny it’s messed up now that I’ve got some more perspective. /shrug
I agree. I liked it when I first read it, but now that I see what this book’s doing wrong, I’m not sure I like it so much anymore.
I do know the last sentence in this chapter always rubbed me the wrong way, however. Fuck you, book, indeed.
Also, I’m not sure if you would appreciate this comparison, Farla, but you remind me a bit of what Nostalgia Critic would be like if he did bad fiction instead of bad movies.
That’s what makes books so insidious, they are, by nature, presenting a certain view of reality. If you haven’t already been exposed to a lot of stuff contradicting this, it’s easy to just take this as true.
Changing the law may not change human nature, but it certainly seems to have completely destroyed human morality. Is there anyone in this book who actually puts value on human life? Besides their own, I mean?
I’d say that to propose the law in the first place, they’d already have to have lost all moral sense.
Honestly, even that sounds like a Republican talking point. Change the law to allow gay marriage and not only will everyone immediately start gay marrying, but then what’s stopping us from marrying horses? Because apparently all that stops the average person from fucking an animal is that you’re not allowed to marry it.
Only if you’re a slippery slope proponent. And my comment was made In Context of this book; I can’t imagine applying it in a reality scenario.
This chapter has literally nothing to do with unwinding. Why is it here. And where is the father in all this?? It takes two to tango
Actually it has a lot to do with unwinding in that outlawing abortion (and apparently a lot of contraception as well) WOULD have unintended consequences, so any story where that’s the premise really should show those as well. This author just has a really weird idea of what those consequences would actually be, and where the blame for them lies.
And sadly, not weird in the sense of unusual.
It is pretty consistent, though. If teens just never had sex in the first place, there’d be no need to debate about contraceptives and abortions and adoptions. Or for all those social programs for poor kids.
I’m pretty sure speculation on unenforcable baby hot potato laws is weird in all possible senses of the word.
It only really has to do with the shoehorned abortion stuff beforehand – the unwinding would have been just fine without that.
Unfortunately a lot of the world regards the blame as solely the mother’s. It’s not like the father couldn’t have offered to raise it on his own, oh no, it’s only the mother that thinks “How wonderful it is that she can dismiss her responsibility so easily.”, even though guys have it even easier.
You’re so right. It would have been so different if it had been a couple in this chapter, or — GASP! — the father.
He doesn’t have a vagina to lose the hymen of. Therefore blameless.
Speaking of apparently a lot of contraception, why hasn’t the author addressed that? It seems so effing OBVIOUS.
It’s obviously banned on moral grounds. Remember, this is a compromise that contains absolutely nothing the prochoice side wants, so it just goes without saying.
If it existed, believe me, he’d be attacking her for being too stupid to use birth control. The abortion hating subgroup who do allow for contraceptives never fail to bring it up when explaining how much women deserve an unwanted pregnancy if they didn’t use it.
But don’t you know? She should have just kept her legs closed if she didn’t want babies!
*gag*
I think this has been the worst chapter so far. Connor chapters and the cop one were just inept, this reads like a toxic antichoice pamphlet. Throw in Jesus and this could be distributed at the protests outside Planned Parenthoods.
If this were a common custom and there was little retaliation because no one really wanted the babies anyway, I could see coyotes eating babies. After all, the ones near me are already willing to kill dogs while their humans are walking them and the like, so I imagine they’d learn pretty quickly that unattended crying baby on doorstep was a potential meal. Urban coyotes are still pretty rare in the ground scheme of things, though, and I admit it’s very rare for them to attack even human children in the real world.
Hm, that’s a good point. Assuming things remain on the current trajectory of less hunting and more environmental regulation, the coyotes should be getting more common and if not them, there’s smaller animals like foxes and raccoons that could still kill a baby easily if they were familiar enough with them.
But if they were obviously killing the babies I think people would get creeped out and intervene. Just snagging and running off with one is okay because people could ignore it easily, but leaving a bloody empty blanket and stuff would probably get people to start trying to wipe them out again.
But I’m also tempted to say there would be a lot of “Oh, the baby must have been left right after we went to work and it was already dead when we got home, officer. Guess we aren’t stuck raising it after all.”
I think the kids would still be ending up in dumpsters (or maybe smothered on the porch) for that reason, but I can’t picture people actually being okay with a kid getting ripped apart on their doorstep. Even if you’re callous, that should get you on a visceral level. While if the coyote gets a dumpster baby, well, you never saw it happen.
Remember that this is a society where people apparently are OK with murdering their own children because they’re annoying. I mean, it’s probably psychologically harder to actually go and tell people in charge of unwinding that yep, you totally want your kid gone, preferably before vacation, then sign necessary papers and THEN live with the kid for a few months awaiting his death and pretending everything is alright.
And yet people apparently do it all the time.
Compared to that ignoring some weird sounds on your doorstep is not that hard.
Also, how many people come back from vacations to find dead babies on their doorsteps? How many kids are abandoned on the steps of homes that have just been foreclosed and thus are not in visible decay?
If the mother is actually concerned about her child’s welfare, why would she “stork” it instead of putting it up for adoption? Hell, if adoption still exists, why is storking even a thing?
Let’s consider implications. Storking requires you to know nothing about the prospective parents other than what you can see from outside the house – if you know the family socially, they’ll know that you had a baby (and apparently the law requires them to give it back if they know who the mother is). There’s serious potential for kids being thrust into families who cannot afford to support them or are otherwise unprepared for children (such as a pair of newlyweds that are being responsible by not having kids until they’re financially stable after finishing college). These kids are prime candidates for Unwinding because they weren’t wanted in the first place.
What kind of sick fuck even comes up with this shit?
I dunno, you figure most babies are getting abandoned in populated neighborhoods, so the neighbors could just call in that there’s a baby there.
I think there’s effectively no adoption because the state homes are overwhelmed, so they just end up in Risa’s hellish position of great piano lessons and a 5% risk of death, and the storking is designed to distribute more of the kids around existing families. More evidence this is a conservative world, since the sane governmental response is just to raise taxes on everyone until you have enough money to care for the kids/pay for people to take them.
And the fact the families don’t want them doesn’t matter, since this is already a world that’s more concerned for the fetus than the resulting child. As long as the baby dies after it’s born, it counts as a win. ABORTION IS MURDER!
Well, at least this explains why you’d have motion lights on your house. To keep away the baby-bringers!
Putting aside all the unrealistic-ness of this, storking would have some interesting economic implications. Houses would all have camera systems so you could catch the mother in it. Alternatively, if those didn’t count, you would want to make your house look as run-down as possible. It’s a race to the bottom. The rich would keep barking dogs circling the property and have fences a mile high, thus forcing more babies to be distributed among the middle class.
Can you imagine a world where conspicuous wealth ceases to exist in the middle class because you’re afraid your neighbors might dump babies on you? Interesting stuff.
“Which would quickly lead to a lot of angry rich people with twenty babies”
And also shows why this would never happen.
“Funny, but the Bill of Life was supposed to protect the sanctity of life. Instead it just made life cheap.”
Thanks, author! I wasn’t real sure of your message before, but now I think I understand. Could you bludgeon me over the head a little more, just to be sure?