Dead stream, live stream II

I wrote in an earlier post of my feeling that society was increasingly bifurcating into a nihilistic modernist stream and a still living traditionalist one.

Today The Thinking Housewife has a short post up about a pro-abortion campaign in the US. This campaign is based on the idea that abortion should be regarded as "a normal and necessary part of women's reproductive lives". The campaigners hope that by encouraging women to share their abortion stories that some of the stigma surrounding abortion will be removed.

So I went and read the stories. And some of them clearly fit into the dead stream category. There are people in our society who are now thinking along these lines:

“I got knocked up over spring break— as a 32-year old married graduate student. Having children was never something that my husband and I considered to be an option. The decision to terminate the pregnancy was easy...Every day since then, I am grateful that my birth control slip-up did not determine the path of my career or my life. No regrets.” -- Jess

She's 32 and married but is so determined to remain childless that she made the "easy" decision to have an abortion. She did not want a child to "determine the path of my career or my life" (she wanted to remain a self-determining individual).

It seems to be a common theme:

"I was married, but my husband and I were not eager to have children. At this point, we had been married for 16 years and our lives felt complete and were enjoyable just as they were. Neither of us had ever really entertained thoughts of children."

Heather is in the same boat:

"Never wanted children, but had healthy, heterosexual relationships...abortion was an easy decision for me -- I knew I didn't want children...I had been raised to believe that women are smart, moral creatures who have both the capacity and the responsibility to make such decisions...my second unplanned pregnancy at 38. Still clear that I didn't want to have a child and having made sure my (monogamous) partner understood that before we ever began sexual relations, I had my second abortion...It is unthinkable to me that millions of women are not able, or soon will be unable, to control their own lives, are not considered intelligent enough or moral enough to be entrusted with the work that is our birthright"

I'm not sure what Heather believes is the work that is her birthright (having casual unprotected sex with boyfriends?) but it doesn't appear to be motherhood.

These stories did not make me think that abortion is a normal and necessary part of women's reproductive lives. They made me think that some Western women have turned in a nihilistic or hedonistic way against the idea of having children. They are dead streamers.