Liberation, Enslavement And Abortion
February 21, 2007
Shrinkwrapped has penned another absolute keeper on abortion.
In Abortion And Vicissitudes, Part II, (see part one here), Shrinkwrapped delicately defines what is all too often for may, an ethereal (and impersonal) concept- the beginning of life:
For a couple who desire a child, life begins before conception. A couple trying to become pregnant find that each month, if the woman has her menses, there is a small feeling of loss; the hoped for and already loved child has not appeared. When, finally, the woman determines she is pregnant, often responding to barely conscious and unconscious bodily signals that herald the changes taking place within, the child begins to take on a reality, a life of its own.
…Contrast this with an unwanted pregnancy. The language and the psychological processes couldn’t be more different. The future abortion is dehumanized from the start. It is a clump of cells or a fetus. It is the repository of all that is rejected and ambivalent in the parents…
SW’s post is an eye opener not so much for new ideas or thoughts, but rather for something far more important. Once and for all, we are offered a crisp and clear definitions, clarification and clear insight into the social, communal and personal impact of abortion.
Yesterday, I recounted my own personal (and unresolved) experience with abortion.
Personally, abortion makes me uncomfortable- actually, it makes me very uncomfortable and angry. I can’t debate the science of conception and I don’t have to. Ask any infertile couple trying to have a child and they will tell you a fetus is not ’tissue.’ That is enough for me.
By the same token, I do believe an individual has a right to choose what is right for them. It may not be what I agree with and I may find immoral, even. But until I’m in that person’s shoes, what right do I have to tell someone what is moral for them? Should not morality come from within and not be imposed? There are people out there that want to do just that- impose a set of values on us that we disagree with. That imposition of morality goes against everything we believe in.
That is not a baseless argument. There are people out there with terminal diseases or in dire need of organs. Despite the desperate situations and the pain and suffering some have to endure, we do not force anyone to donate their bone marrow or organs, even in the event of death (i.e., after death-SC&A). In not doing so, we condemn those people are ill, to death. These individuals are innocent and defenseless. We do not mandate that like it or not, everyone must donate what may be lifesaving to another. Is that moral? I don’t know.
Why is the life of a fetus more important that the life of a kid who needs a new liver?
After my ex had the abortion, for a few years I would consciously drive by the ‘clinic’ on the anniversary of his death (the choice of words is deliberate- I cannot say ‘killing’), as if I were visiting the cemetery. I would drive around the block, over and over and have a conversation with my son. I would tell him how well things were going or how tough they were. I would tell him he was missed and thought of every day (In some small measure, I know exactly how Robert Avrech and his wife feel) and how really, I know he would not want me to feel the burden of pain every day, but I couldn’t forget, even for a day, no matter how hard I tried. I told him about the day his sister was born- and I told him how sorry I was that he never had a real birthday. I tell him I know he would have been a good brother and I tell him his sister would adore him.
I named my son David.
Shrinkwrapped wrote,
…the disavowed infant lives on in the unconscious. When explored, they often become aware of their repressed feelings of loss and sadness. There is often significant guilt involved in such choices…
Abortion doesn’t always liberate.
February 21, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Why is the life of an unborn child more important than the life of a child who needs a new liver?
One might as well ask why do the police concern themselves more with a potential murder victim, than they do with a hospital patient.
The question is not which child is “more important” (what a question! It has no more actual legitimacy than a selfish and insecure child’s demand to know which of its siblings a mother loves most) but which child is in most peril.
A child in a hospital demands all sorts of public, glamorous and photogenically politically correct compassion…. a child in the womb, with people actively lobbying to kill it, generates little more than a populist yawn and shrug.
February 22, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I followed you here from the Anchoress, and appreciate the deepness of your feeling. This post in particular was very moving, and I hope that you are able to find healing.
Lest others come along and find it convincing, I want to address the idea of the compulsory organ donor vs. the theoretical woman-without-choice who must give birth to her baby, even if she does not raise the child herself. The difference, of course, is the nature of what is being removed. The liver can not survive on its own; given sufficient time, the child could. As only one part of a viable life system, the loss of an organ–one of the two kidneys, for example, might be able to be compensated for by the other parts of the system. Not so with a heart, obviously. The difficulty in forming a counter-analogy proceeds from the fact that you use–knowingly, perhaps?–a false analogy. After all, the would-be donor is not directly responsible for the fact of the child’s life (the one with liver failure), and hence, responsible for the fact of his death, having brought him to life. SO much for the person being saved, and the donor’s responsibility. As for the donor’s own body, and rights to that body, it would not be merely a physical (or material, or even psychological) inconvenience to be deprived of one’s liver so that someone else might live, as is the case with continuing a pregnancy rather than terminating one. It would mean the termination of the donor’s life (physical, not just social) in order to sustain the recipient. Not so, of course, with a kidney, since there are two, but there are many organs to choose from in this analogy.
On the Catholic Exchange Rock Solid Podcast by Mark Shea of blogging fame, the entry for 2/19 is called “A Modest Proposal,” and treats the differences between our reactions to uses of various types of human tissue. Basically, if the destruction of viable living tissue in one circumstance for a greater good is justifiable, than what about other instances? It throws into sharp relief how treating “tissue” as objectively the same is flawed reasoning, at best. A liver (or even a heart or brain or uterine lining, if you will) and a fetus are not equal, and can never be made equal. Rather, if we treat a viable fetus as the “tissue” that composes another viable living being, we are approaching a better–and more disturbing–analogy, as Shea points out.
February 22, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Does a person have the right to disfigure or inflict wounds on their own body?
Why do we mandate seatbelt or helmet use laws?
If life begins at conception, do we ban morning after pills? Why?
There are no short answers.
February 22, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Can you clarify your above comment? I’m not sure I follow your string of questions.
February 22, 2007 at 1:42 pm
As for morning after pills, they’re probably non-effective in most cases anyway, since the average woman has no clear idea of when she’s fertile or not, creating a paranoia that drug manufacturers use to their own purposes.
February 23, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Thanks for both of these posts.