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Sunday, April 29, 2012

A Story to Help People Understand


The following is a story that DC person Barry Stevens tells in the documentary Anonymous Father’s Day. It is actually one of his DC sibling’s stories but his name was not mentioned so I cannot credit him with it. Why am I relaying it here (in my very badly worded style, from memory)? Because I have seen more people respond to this analogy more than any other, such that they say “I think I understand your position a little better now.”

A couple are expecting their first baby, the woman is heavily pregnant, but because she has some time to go before the baby is due they have taken an overseas holiday. While they are overseas the baby decides it is going to arrive early so the couple head off to the hospital. It is a modern hospital with a good reputation. The baby is delivered successfully without problems, and the couple are naturally very happy. To give them a moment to recover, the nurse takes the baby away to the nursery.
After a while the couple ask the nurse “Can we have our baby now please?”
The nurse replies “OK I’ll bring ‘A’ baby now for you.”
Startled the couple say “Excuse us, we would like OUR baby.”
To which the nurse replies “That is not how we do it here. We just bring any baby from the nursery. But don’t worry all the babies here are extremely healthy, all from good backgrounds, they will love you and you will it, everything will be fine.”

But of course it isn’t fine. There is something very wrong with that. So if it is possible to see how there could be a problem with that, then why is it so hard to see that there is something wrong with denying us the same thing.

And that is knowledge of our genetic parents and heritage. The perspective is just reversed (from that of the child rather than from that of a parent).
I am sure I haven’t told it as well as Barry did but hopefully you get the point. Or perhaps you might like to watch Anonymous Father’s Day and hear it properly.