Plagiarism

When confronted by me on facebook over her plagiarism of my letters, Hannah Rose Allen wrote this.

"Carla, I am truly sorry. I ask you to please pray about this. Can you please forgive me? I did not maliciously try to take your letter. I can change the letter and take out anything similar to yours or take the letter down completely. Nobody will take me seriously and my story will lose credibility and the pro-life movement will be hurt. Can't we as sisters in the Lord work this out between us?"

I wrote about this experience that happened to me last Saturday.  It has not been an easy week but since writing has always been cathartic for me I expressed my thoughts and feelings here and my dear friend Jill Stanek posted it.

 I continue to tell my story.  I continue to reach out to post abortive women or those in the valley of decision.  I continue to moderate Jill's blog. I continue to chase my four children like a lunatic and find joy in the journey.  I will go where the Lord calls me to go and I will never stop telling others that abortion hurts women.

And just so you know how very serious plagiarism is I give you this.

According to the Modern Language Association plagiarism "is the act of using another person's ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source...In short, to plagiarize is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have in fact borrowed from someone else."

Every year for my high school students they have to read the rules and consequences about plagiarism.  They have to sign and so do I.  They understand that if they copy something and give the impression that they wrote it they risk failing that class!

I am sure my little old nothing blog was easy enough to lift some lines from.  I mean nobody would know right? It's just a love letter tucked away in the interwebs.  Well this mother knew.  This mother knew the words of love she penned to her own daughter.  Replacing my Aubrey's name with her son's name was blatant.  And hurtful.  And I don't believe that Hannah Rose Allen even knows or understands that.