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One Could Comment on the Flurry to Overreact, But I Won’t

Lauren

Community Mourns Chicken

A community mourning the death of a mystery “baby” was told: “Stop grieving, it’s only a chicken.”

A makeshift shrine of flowers and cards sprang up after a member of the public discovered the remains of a foetus in a back alley in Anfield, Liverpool.

Merseyside Police cordoned off the scene to investigate, but tests soon revealed that it was only a chicken foetus.

Incidentally, the alley was behind a KFC.

20 thoughts on One Could Comment on the Flurry to Overreact, But I Won’t

  5. dude Robert you’re a glob of cells too and I would be sad if they found you disposed of in an alleyway.

    (I would _not_ be all that sad if they found a body-dependant glob of cells, like an appendix or an early fetus, in an alleyway, but I would be quite concerned about improper medical practices.)

  6. I’m trying to think of a way to make a joke about PETA taking over the mourning, but I can’t do it in a way that doesn’t sound mean-spiritedly anti-animal-rights.

  7. I know a few women who have had abortions and I don’t think any of them haven’t been at least a little sad/morose about it. What could have been…

    I know the theory is that it is just a glob of cells but most women know that it means a bit more than that even if they still choose to have an abortion.

  10. (I would _not_ be all that sad if they found a body-dependant glob of cells, like an appendix or an early fetus, in an alleyway, but I would be quite concerned about improper medical practices.)

    As a woman who is hoping beyond hope to be pregnant right now (will know in just a couple days!) I would be quite upset and distraught over the loss of an early fetus and I certainly wouldn’t term it as nothing more than a body-dependent glob of cells. To say so trivializes the grief of the thousands of women who miscarry every year. Sorry to preach, but after an early miscarriage and the loss of my son at 27 weeks gestation (he lived for ten minutes after birth before passing away due to a rae but fatal birth defect), this is a subject I feel very strongly about… I even have a pregnancy and infant loss awareness ribbon on my car. I’ll get off my soapbox now though 🙂 I promise I wasn’t trying to be rude, just wanted to give you something to think about.
    I do think it’s pretty funny that people were so quick to mourn a chicken fetus… especially behind KFC! The irony cannot possibly escape you. Maybe I just don’t know that much about fetal development, but I would think unless we were talking really, really early on, you could tell the two apart? I know that by ten weeks, a human fetus bares a resembelance to a baby (hands, feet, etc) But I’m not sure of before that… could you really mistake a chicken fetus for a human one??

  14. Julie, I share with you the pain of infertility and failed pregnancies. It’s not easy to get born. I agree that any abortion (spontaneous, therapeutic or elective) is a sad occasion — a sign that something has gone terribly wrong (medically, personally or socially).

    Please note that a ten-week fetus has not been an embryo for a long time. A human embryo looks much like any other vertebrate embryo when it’s as small as what’s inside a chicken egg.

    And a chicken embryo ten weeks along is almost ready for frying.

  15. Mister Nice Guy, do you think two weeks is a long time?

    And that’s only if you’re counting ten weeks from fertilisation. A ten week embryo from the last menstruation date is indeed an embryo. An embryo on the verge of becoming a fetus, but still an embryo.

  17. An excuse for lavish mourning is always seized upon in Liverpool; it’s traditionally been one of the joys of life in a working-class, mainly Catholic community.

    I speak as someone who lived for three years in Liverpool and came to regard most of the inhabitants with amused affection. And I was only robbed once (twice if you cost my exorbitant tuition)!

  18. Oh, I have no love of PETA, either, but I tend to lay off them cause they get a ot of really ignorant anti-veg criticism. I prefer to just kinda roll my eyes and have done with it.

    Julie: Good luck. My mom had two miscarriages before I was born, so keep at it. And I think (hope) that most pro-choice people won’t deny that having an abortion, nevermind having a miscarriage, is a major emotional event. There seems to be a lot of criticism of the pro-choice movement for not recognizing that (not from you, just generally), but I’m not convinced it’s fair.

  19. Oh Lauren, I hope you don’t think I am upset with this post! I am sorry if it came across that way. I thought it was pretty funny actually. And I certainly don’t think pro-choice people trivialize miscarriage (I’m actually somewhat pro-choice myself… I don’t think it should be illegal, anyway, so I while I consider myself more pro-life than pro-choice, I think that technically makes me pro-choice) Some of the most helpful people when we found out were going to lose Kyle were the pro-choice people I met on some of the blogs. I just wanted to point out that when people say things like “I wouldn’t be all that upset over a body-dependent glob of cells” that there are thousands of us every year who are devestated over the loss of that very thing. That’s all… not even that upset about it, I just have a hard time seeing stuff like that and not pointing it out!
    Thank you Mister nice guy for the biology lesson… I had no idea, so it’s helpful to know! And thank you to all for the well wishes. I hate trying to conceive, it sucks! And puts me a little bit on edge!

  20. >>I certainly don’t think pro-choice people trivialize miscarriage>>

    No, you certainly don’t, but I used the excuse to bring up the many that do. It’s one of the great straw men in the abortion (non-)debate.

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