Poemranker [Replying] Mon May 20 02:47:41 PDT 2024

Replying to a comment on:

In another age, I would have married young, To a pre-selected man from my village, had too many children, broken my back with my hands, died early, rested beneath the second of three crosses behind his house, while our hated king lived on a far away hill. I would have believed in servitude and done what the priest said, until my husband came home drunk, layed me and fell asleep. Then I would have hung a red lantern for seafare to Paris.

Dovina

16-Oct-06/6:27 PM

Does knowledge beget responsibility? That, I believe, is the question. Does the knowledge of how to cure smallpox, for example, beget responsibility to do all in our power to spread the vaccine throughout the world until the disease is eradicated? Few people asked, in those days, whether it was one personâs right to incur smallpox if that person wanted it. I do not say that birth control should be forced on all people for the good of future generations, but it should be recommended, encouraged, funded, and rewarded in more ways than insightful people are now doing. The suffering and death resulting from not using that knowledge promises to be greater than the suffering we would have seen if we had not used our knowledge about smallpox.

Oh, by the way, typos = theirselves, echelonsof. :)

Track and Plan your submissions ; Read some Comics ; Get Paid for your Poetry

An internet tradition since June 9, 2001