un-welcomed praise from friend

It's a backhanded compliment for sure. Be the bigger person as it is obvious you already are. Just go on about your amazing little one and let it be. People wont willingly step down from those types of platforms and pushing them off usually doesn't do much good. Let it roll off your shoulders because people like her are a dime a dozen. You're not.

I agree. My fiance's mom likes to send me petitions to stop abortion yada yada yada and I find it much easier to ignore them including her comments that come along with them. you aren't going to change someones mind or make them get down from their soap box. Just keep doing what your doing and don't let her get to you.

Hmm. Obvs I disagree with her whole perspective. But I think there's more to it than that. She knows you and how you feel about this and has sent this BS anyways. I think that's really disrespectful on a friend to friend level, ya know? Totally aside from the whole issue of abortion altogether.

I would probably respond back with something sarcastic, but that's just how I am. Well, unless it's family or someone else that would make it awkward - then I suck and don't say anything, even when I should.
"Gee thanks, I was thinking we needed more volunteers at the abortion clinic and I'm no good at recruiting so I thought I'd just make one myself." Or something like that. Hah.

If it were me, I wouldn't let it go. She obviously meant it as a dig towards you, knowing how publicly pro-choice you are. I would also have no intentions of engaging her in an argument. I'd simply reply back something along the lines of, "What makes you think that it would be appropriate to say something like that to me?"

i agree that its not ok for her to say something. i wouldnt let it go either. i would probably ask what she thought she was going to get out of that. why she would think it was ok.

What does "not letting it go" accomplish?

Clearly is she knew who she was sending the email to she had some idea of the insulting undertones but she didn't care. Therefore she isn't really the "reasonable" type so be up for an intellectual discussion about it. All it will end in is heated emails that get no one any where but get the writers frustrated at having to "deal with these kind of people".

Honestly, someone tell me what could be accomplished by giving into what this person, on some level, wants.

Well, I would say if you say nothing, she either thinks it's OK to talk to people like that, or she knows it's not OK and thinks she can get away with it.
If you call her on it, she knows you're not going to accept it.

I think personally if I just ignored it and tried to let it go I would be really uncomfortable with her and with the situation, whereas if I said what I was thinking I would feel like I knew where I stood.

If someone said something like that to me, I wouldn't want to engage her in an argument, but I wouldn't just let it go. I would probably say something like canadianmama said. If you ignore it, I think it's telling her that it's okay to say something like that to me, and it's not.

I wouldn't reply with a question, as per CM's suggestion, as that would likely get her back up. Instead, maybe just briefly state how you feel about her email and note that you can see through it.

cardhousewife said: "What does "not letting it go" accomplish?"

I would rather say something and hope that she at least takes away the message that it's not appropriate to say shit like that. I would be worried that if I said nothing, she would continue to think that it is her place to comment on the choices that other women make with their bodies.

Maybe if she thinks about it, she'll refrain from saying something similar (or worse) to someone who may be in a position to be deeply hurt by it.

Thanks so much for all the replies and support. It seems I end up in these situations too much since I used to be really involved in churchy groups up until only a couple years ago.

Well, I did decide to send her an email in reply. What she's sent to me has gotten to me. If it happened to any of my other friends, I would stand up for them or encourage them to stand up for themselves. After what some of you said about her thinking it was ok to talk like that to other women I felt I had to say something. It seems at times I can be an advocate for everyone but myself.

I told her I thought it was a backhanded compliment, that such a compliment wouldn't achieve anything, that every women deserves support no matter what choice was right for her, and told her not to compliment other women in such a fashion again.

I don't see her around much anymore, so I'm not too worried about confrontations. I guess it's something I felt I had to do.

I'm glad the situation is resolved, and that you were able to speak your mind about it.