This little essay was composed before the wonderful news
from Roman Catholic Ireland: a thunderous yes to legitimizing abortion. Now if
only other Catholic countries would share the pluck of the Irish.
Because if only the alt right were against abortion, as well
as only the NRA were against gun control, such a piece as follows were not
needed. But unfortunately abortion is opposed even by less extremist persons,
so here goes. Because only a woman’s body, a woman’s safety, is involved in
abortion, it is she and not a man who should have the last word about it. But
when is something actually so merely because ideally it would be?
It seems to me that when a woman wants an abortion it is
because she sees herself unable or unwilling to cope with parenting. Surely a
lot of persons make for bad parents, often because they themselves have had bad
ones, or simply because of the difficulty of the task.. It is just barely
possible that a would-have-been aborter falls in love with her baby, but that
would seem to be too good to count on. How good a driver would a person
suffering from carsickness make? How good a couturier would a nudist make? Many
people think that where there is already a heartbeat, it is too late in the
game for abortion. Maybe so, but it is hard to determine what is absolute life
or absolute death. What about a corpse still growing hair and fingernails? Does
that make it alive? Even leaving a an unwanted newborn on the doorstep of a
hospital or police station is poor guarantee for its prospects.
Assuming that an unwilling mother is pregnant in a country
where abortion is illegal, what else can the woman do? If she has enough money,
she can travel to another country where abortion is legal. If not, all sorts of
horrors await. There is abortion by some quack or other, which can have serious
consequences, or, worse yet, there is the notorious attempt by a woman at
self-administered abortion, most often with knitting needles, from which no
good can come.
Suppose, however, that an illegitimate birth succeeds, and
the infant grows up into manhood or womanhood, is there not often enough
whispered hostility in many a community against so-called bastards? This also
because of the problems in an unenlightened society of fighting off the onus of
being different in any way. There the effort can cause much misery for the
guiltless bastard. Granted the existence of the popular euphemism “love child,”
and some people’s belief that such children grow up more passionate, there is
the opposite belief that they will remain forever outsiders. Famously, Edmund,
the villain in “King Lear,” invokes the gods to stand up for bastards, but, at
least as far as that great play goes, they don’t.
Te most obvious example of the argument against illegitimate
motherhood is in the child murders in Klinger’s and Goethe’s dramas, even if
the deed is viewed with deep compassion. It is always the story of an innocent
maiden being beguiled by a ruthless male, and then being severely punished for
something she cannot help. But for such infanticide to be taken as a serious
consequence of illegitimacy by the broad audience is like hoping that, because
bees sting, we should give up on apiculpture altogether and miss out on honey.
It is interesting to note the comment of the famous lawyer,
Florynce Kennedy that “if men would get pregnant, abortion would be a
sacrament.” Well, abortion will never be a sacrament, but neither should it be
a crime. It is, rather like euthanasia, also considered criminal by many, even
if in the case of intense, incurable suffering it is rather a blessing. And
what about a teenager becoming pregnant? From such a one successful parenting
is, I repeat , unlikely, and could have been avoided with a little bit of
prophylaxis. How much space in your wallet or pocket does a condom require?
Yet from people not capable of such minimal precaution, how
can we expect the intelligence required for making good parents--not the
easiest thing in the world.
Let
us consider for a moment how in Roman times the equivalent of abortion was
handled. If a newborn proved defective in any way, the baby was allegedly tossed
off Mount Taigetus for riddance. This may be merely a legend, but it sounds
disquietingly convincing enough.
As for my opinion on the matter, as this blog entry I hope
makes clear, I am very much in favor of abortion. And I can name quite a few
people whom the world would be a better off without, had they been
aborted--starting with persons very high up. In such cases, one yearns for
more, much more abortion. It is conceivable, however, that even with only as
much abortion as there is, things are at least that much better than would have
been the case without it.
