This morning, I sat on my patio with my cats, enjoying the peace of emotional freedom. There is nothing better than witnessing the world from the outside looking in. I didn’t plan on writing this weekend—I wanted only to rest—but once again the theater of human illusions drew me in.
Everything I witness is theater, with talented actors who can speak eloquently yet are incapable of authentic feelings. Charlie Kirk, who lived here in Scottsdale, was one of those actors. Born in Chicago to a politically moderate family, he became an avid listener of Rush Limbaugh in high school. Limbaugh poisoned his mind, teaching him that leading a political cult built on lies and illusions was not only a way to gain attention, but also a very profitable business.
The irony is that Kirk’s assassin, Tyler Robinson, was himself part of another political cult—the Groyper movement, led by Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. For Robinson, Kirk wasn’t conservative enough. Chickens coming home to roost.
Trump and his allies immediately blamed the left. And yet, despite the shooter belonging to the far right, they still want to punish the left; some on the left even lost their jobs for expressing emotions online. Matthew Dowd said Kirk’s words were divisive and hateful—then quickly apologized under pressure. The left apologizes and punishes their own when they make mistakes. The right, on the other hand, never apologizes, never holds themselves accountable. They keep pushing their damaging rhetoric without pause.
One example: when Kirk was asked how he would respond if his own 10-year-old daughter were raped and became pregnant, his answer revealed the darkness he embodied:
“That’s awfully graphic,” Kirk said. “But the answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.”
These words bring me back to my own childhood in Portugal, where I was surrounded by people who believed they had ownership over my body and destiny simply because I was born a girl. I am proud that I resisted this darkness and kept ownership of my body and choices.
When people debate abortion, I feel their hands all over me. I feel violated. Abortion is not up for debate—it is a woman’s right. Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will is a thousand times worse than rape. I am the captain of my body.
Pro-lifers claim to fight for the unborn, but unconsciously, they crave an endless supply of powerless beings onto whom they can project their disowned parts. Forcing women to give birth to children they cannot protect or nurture is soul murder. Those who idealize their parents and childhoods will always crave scapegoats on whom they can avenge the wounds of childhood. Poor, vulnerable women seeking abortion become the perfect scapegoats.
Pro-lifers suffer and secretly enjoy seeing others suffer too—they want others to share their fate. As Alice Miller warned:
“Do they not know that no less than one hundred percent of all seriously abused children are unwanted? Do they not know what that can lead to? … To force the role of a mother on a woman who does not wish to be a mother is an offense not just against her, but against the whole human community, because the child she brings into the world is likely to take criminal revenge for its birth, as do the many (mis)leaders threatening our lives. All wars we ever had were the deeds of once unwanted, heinously mistreated children. It is the right to lived life that we must protect wherever and whenever it is threatened. And it should never be sacrificed to an abstract idea.”
(Alice Miller, “Protecting Life After Birth”)
It is the children already born who have a right to life. Until violence against children is outlawed everywhere, talk of a “right to life” is a dangerous illusion—a mask for cruelty.
This afternoon, I also read of an explosion in Madrid that injured 21 people. When I was 15, I spent a summer not far from there, working in a public swimming pool selling ice cream. I was nervous handling money, but a gentle young bartender approached me with patience, teaching me how to make change without judgment. His kindness has stayed with me all these years.
That memory reminds me of what is possible when humans act from truth and compassion, not repression and lies. Violence destroys; kindness endures.
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