It’s possible to be pro-life and pro-choice. I am, but it’s based on a personal dilemma that nearly cos the life of my now wonderful 35 year old daughter . But not terminating the pregnancy was my choice. It turned out to be the right choice.
That said, life is precious, late term abortion is hideous, but denying the right to privacy and reproductive autonomy with extreme restrictions is overreaching and in humane.We’re not a theocracy but we’re well on our way to godlessness.
Cultural backwaters like Sarah Jewett's Maine, Flannery O'Connor's Georgia, Eudora Welty's Mississippi... Laura Wilder's forest-to-plains ecocline? They'll have to shut down the internet now, as we all expect they'll try... they can't starve us out, and we've already stockpiled ammo + skills... just in case there's a miracle cure for Sniffy Joe and that whole crack thing, and the entire N. Taleb theory.... not sue at this point if he want's to pitch his fate with ex-Judenrat Esperantist Hungarian illegal immigrant Georgie.
That's not a winner for most of us. Maybe for sad fool Blake School preppie tit-grabber, useless comic Al Franken.
This is the best essay I've yet read on the abortion dilemma, and beautifully articulates what I have long intuitively felt about it. We need more people to acknowledge these truths, that abortion is, as you put it, a necessary evil...not a glorious expression of feminist freedom and a victory over the patriarchy. And though I've always considered myself as pro-choice, I'm deeply offended with the cavalier way in which some people dismiss and dishonor the personhood of unwanted fetuses, and the way their bodies are bought and sold for scientific research.
But I love the idea of, as some of the Eastern cultures do, honoring the souls of those unborn children who were waylaid on their journey into life.
The woke world has taken any discussion of basic religious values out of the public square , is to the traditional family in many ways such as viewing stay at home moms and "Mommytrack positions" as inferior and in ignoring the medical evidence that is depicted on a sonogram at the early stage of pregnancy. To paraphrase Peggy Noonan, a society that has no respect for life at its beginning will have contempt at best for life during life and at the end of life as well.
Glad to see the discussion: the worst thing for human community is the cultural and then political silencing of robust conversation, and the fear of that robust-ness. I am a pro-life feminist (of a kind), and so I feel deeply for women throughout history who have had no voice, no real agency, etc.; however, I find it diabolical (warped division) that those who claim to be pro-woman are also pro-abortion. I understand the logic, but it is not sound. To be integrated, we have to live in reality; thinking you are choosing the good for yourself or for women in general by killing another person is not reality.
What turned me off to the "pro-life", anti-abortion movement was the extremism that is rife with their "good family people": Characters like Rev. Gary Hartsock of East Lyndon, Vermont. He made his wife bear baby after baby like a brood animal without regard to what she wanted. Even when she had a dead fetus in her womb he insisted it not be aborted. His theology was crazy and full of overactive demonologies. Even skiing in his mind was of Satan. His kids were trained in the use of 9mm pistols for what he said were for an inevitable government raid. He drove a car with a Bible verse instead of a license plate. Members of his "church" engaged in various government actions, refusing to pay local property taxes, engaging in protest; people like Michael Janes fought the government on the "right to drive" issue with "kingdom of heaven" license plates, etc.. He was put in solitary confinement for a month. The 1999 Vermont "civil unions" bill antagonized many of these people. Having babies without limit seems to be an unarguable mandate with these people.
Thank you. It is refreshing to see this perspective. When we put things into neat little black and white categories, we ignore the fact that the world is made up of many shades of gray. I am pro-choice in that I believe everyone has a right to make medical decisions for themselves and have autonomy over their own bodies. I am pro-life in that I believe life is a precious and sacred gift from the Creator and our lives are to be cherished and used to help make the world a better place. People should take 100% responsibility over themselves and their choices, including getting an abortion. A life was ended, and that is a tragedy and should be mourned as such, no matter the reasoning behind the choice. We do have a huge problem now with dehumanization and the devaluing of nature and all things organic and natural. Here is the definition of nature: "the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations." AS OPPOSED TO HUMANS. Yet, I am intensely aware that I am very much a part of nature and this planet. This dichotomy is the source of much of our current distress and disease. We must repair our relationship to nature and life before we can ever begin to do any healing on a personal and collective level.
As I read this essay, I couldn't help but think of my own journey on this subject. I won't bore you with the background, however I have come to be able to label myself as a "pro-life realist", a term I coined to provide myself with needed reconciliation. I do believe that life begins at conception. I also realize that even if there was a law tomorrow outlawing all abortions, this in itself doesn't end abortion. When I volunteered at pregnancy centers, my approach was so different than others. Earlier in my life, I chose to have an abortion, I always wondered, "If I knew all the information I knew now, would I still make the same decision?" So my mission was to arm these women with as much information as possible, i.e.fetal development, education about the procedure, available resources if carried to term, and possible side effects from having an abortion -physically, mentally, spiritually. This is what I still believe is what truly empowers all of us - information.
Dr. Wolf, I much appreciate your clarity on the tyranny which is intent on robbing all of us of our God given rights. However, you are not exempt from being held to the most basic laws of logic, reason, ethics, science and philosophy. I was a pro-choice young man who had always held an expectation that any gal who I inadvertently impregnated would "take care of it" and have an abortion. I then married a wonderful woman and when she was pregnant with our first child we excitingly went to the OBGYN for the 8 week ultrasound. After 10 anxious minutes of the doctor poking around with the ultrasound, he confirmed the baby was full grown (for an 8 week old) but that the heart had stopped beating. My wife and I were absolutely crushed. At this moment of deep pain I realized the most profound, yet basic truth; this child cannot be a baby when I want it to be, yet also be a disposable clump of cells when I do not want a baby. After two painful years of reflecting on this obvious truth which I had been oblivious to due to my my upbringing and the culture I was raised in, I humbled myself in pain knowing I had been ignorantly a willing murder for my entire life. I repented and eventually joined the most consistent voice for the dignity of life; the Catholic Church. Here is a brief clip from Saint Mother Teresa speaking truth a the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994. Her wisdom came not from any fancy university, nor silver spooned mentors. Her wisdom came from true Catholic Charity (love) https://www.facebook.com/SusanBAnthonyList/videos/fight-abortion-by-adoption-mother-teresabill-hillary-clinton-were-sitting-just-f/10153628079646370/
Very, very good Naomi. I read through the comments, it is impressive how you continue the conversation without shutting any thought or idea down. Thank you for this, Tim
I agree with you. I have my moral beliefs and convictions and am extremely unlikely to be swayed. But, I do respect looking through the lens of another's perspective without casting judgment. That is my intention. Sometimes it's tough.
It is difficult. I have convictions now that I didn't have when I was young, so then, I did things that were irresponsible and did lead to an abortion. It is something that I regret, of course the abortion, but also my actions prior to.
Oh, friend, there's not one of us who can't sit back and say “what on earth was I thinking?” “Why would I have done such a stupid, dangerous, selfish, inconsiderate--- add an adjective that satisfies the question.” We have all been there. Thank God we are still here to help guide the next generation if we can get them back.
Both of the polar, strident positions on abortion are indefensible.
How can a pro-choice person make a decision to end a life based on some arbitrary timeframe relating to that life’s growth? I am sure they wouldn’t see it as an arbitrary decision but how can you make a legal, unemotional decision to end a life at any point? Or to put it another way, to make a decision on when a baby can be aborted and think that it is moral, right and reasonable to do so, without looking at every pregnancy on its own merits.
On the other hand to be fully anti abortionist one must deny that there are times when it must be better to undergo an abortion rather than the alternative.
It is not beneficial to look at things only from a pro-life or pro-choice position only. There are many positions and factors on the abortion issue, pro-choicer's have a large range of positions as to when they think a baby can be aborted, from the morning after pill to the baby being at full term. Pro-lifer's almost always have one position but that position may crack a little if their 16 year-old daughter is pregnant from a large, violent, biker dude rapist. Then there are the third group of people who do not support abortion for all but know that there are multiple problems with never allowing abortions. They are aware of the nuances and difficulties of having one opinion on abortion. It would benefit mankind if more of us could move into the third category. It is the category of life as it is, of some things happening which we have no control over, and a reverence for life in all its complexities.
The pro-lifers can only move to the left in their position if they change at all. Pro-choicer's can move in both right and left directions but overall they have always moved further to the left and allow increases in the time frame of when an abortion can happen. This is one of the main troubling points in the actions and position of pro-choicer's. They make provisions in their moral code without seeing the damage done in the larger picture. This happens in many areas in our society and has increased in intensity in the past couple of years. I point at Black Lives Matter, censorship, rule of law, the covid dilemma, and people thinking men can be women and women can be men, to name a few.
These things came to mind after reading Dr. Naomi Wolf’s deep and wonderful essay “Our Bodies, Our Souls; Rethinking Pro-Choice Rhetoric.” It had me thinking of my own life and the role abortion played in it as well as many issues that go along with the abortion issue. https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/our-bodies-our-souls/comments
Violence and death is one such issue. We have rule of law that punishes theft, violent offenders and those who kill. This has increasingly been eroded and politicized in the last two years. During the ‘mostly peaceful’ demonstrations in the US after George Floyd’s death there was millions of dollars of property damage, violent protests and death. Very few of those offenders have been prosecuted. The past two years have seen an increase in violence in the west, and a greater percentage of blacks have been killed in comparison to years prior to 2020.
How does that relate to abortion? If we are not always conscience of violence and death in our way of life then life becomes less meaningful. If we don’t see how our own actions are contributing to this violence then we are only furthering the loss of life spirit that is all of us. Life becomes something that has lessor value than it may have had in the past. This is the way of the left. Most liberals had no direct contact with property destruction, violence or death during the 2020 summer riots but so many of them supported what was happening with the Black Lives Matter protests. Liberals may not be killing others but there are so many of them as voters and in powerful positions that they can direct policy and action and allow death to occur. And the left are the main supporters of abortion.
Another grave problem has been amplified with the political pandemic of covid. There has been two years of our children joining us in the ‘vector of disease’ dystopia. They have been pawns in the meandering of politicians and health experts. They have been in school, out of school, masked, and vaccinated. They have been told they cannot touch another human being; they have been kept away from their family and friends. This has caused short and long term health problems, mental health issues, and suicide. If we can do this to our children we may think little of aborting the unborn.
The pro-life people would like all babies to be born without looking at the manner in which the pregnancy happened and as how the child will be raised. In an ideal world the parents of the baby would have a lot of support from family and community. They would have a way to support the baby that didn’t harm their spirit. As we know, this ideal is not with us. Babies are born into abusive families. They are born into destitution and hunger. We are doing a poor job of raising the children we have, by sending them to a school system teaching such harmful rhetoric with critical race theory, incorrect media/government science about the ubiquitous climate reaction and covid, and at how biology is thrown out the window in regards to this societies gender chaos. With the left in the ranks of almost all teachers, administrations and current North American politicians, children are being indoctrinated into a worldview that is damaging them. They learn what they are taught and what they see people doing. Many parents go along with this façade as we have seen with the covid fiasco, so a child has a small chance of coming out of the family or education system with a strong individual personage intact.
Dr. Wolf wrote a nuanced and detailed exploration of a better way to approach the abortion issue. She wrote,
“I am still pro-choice, with trepidation, limits and reservations. But it’s time to face the fact that heartless and devaluing wholesale treatment of human life, both at the start and at the end of life, echo and reinforce one another; and put us in great moral danger of abandoning our responsibilities to protect human life, human potential and human consent, altogether.”
“But we are also in danger of losing something more important than votes: we stand in jeopardy of losing what can only be called our souls. Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self- delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish, and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life.”
“War is legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Letting the dying die in peace is often legal and sometimes even necessary. Abortion should be legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die. But it is never right or necessary to minimize the value of the lives involved or the sacrifice incurred in letting them go. Only if we uphold abortion rights within a matrix of individual conscience, atonement and responsibility can we both correct the logical and ethical absurdity in our position—and consolidate the support of the center.”
When I was 19 my 16 year-old girlfriend had an abortion. She had been using the pill to regulate her period, the doctor said, but she stopped taking the pill for a few days because I was to go away to work. I didn’t leave when expected and that was long enough for her to become pregnant.
If my girlfriend had the baby she would have had no support from her family. They and her doctor recommended an abortion, she was a user of alcohol and drugs so there may have been good medical reasons for her not to have a baby. She also had mental health issues that came to light after this time; some of these mental issues may have been caused by the abortion experience. These mental health issues have continued throughout her life.
If I had become a father at that time I also would have had little support from my family. I saw no support from my family when I did have children six years later. I had matured enough then to be a good father, but my wife and I were on our own at that time, with only a tiny amount of support from anyone. When my sons were 4 and 6 I become a single father for a number of years. I learned how to care and love children through that experience. The time with my sons when I was single was one of the best times of my life. These are skills I developed which I didn’t have when I was 19.
I do wonder what would have happened if that aborted baby had been born. I do not think my girlfriend and I could have lived together. I am sure she would have had to give up the baby at some point. I can’t imagine I would have been able to raise the child on my own in any way that would have been beneficial to it.
I am not discounting an adoption option, if available and done in a loving and humane way. Adoption has its own difficulties; a major one is a mother having to give up her child.
All these things need to be considered in a respectful, searching way. It is so important to see clearly what is happening, recognize the difficulties and consider the sacrifices we may have to make and then move forward in the best way possible. We can’t dehumanize the fetus. We must see it as a soulful manifestation of our own humanity. With abortion we must feel the grief and the pain and the loss so we don’t lose some of our own humanity. We must give the baby or the aborted fetus the respect and love they need for all of us to have a full human existence. Society would benefit by not allowing issues such as abortion to be divided into opposing factions.
At our home we have an ark with a few hundred pairs of animals that our grandchildren play with. A four-year old grandson was playing with them and he asked, “Why is there two of each animal?” Why indeed I thought. That is the one question above all other human questions.
Thank you for your comments. You and Naomi has got me thinking about a number of things that I am starting to write about. I will post it here (if I get something readable) so you can see it.
I shared it with the late fervent "pro life" advocate Rev. John Rankin of the "Theological education institute" and he disagreed with out providing specific arguments.
I know typically blue collar home schooling families who seemed all about their clans and expanding their gene pool; As many babies as could be procreated.....They were paranoid about family planning, sex education or birth control in any form.
The home schooling often left the kids being dolts, lacking in career skills, some with no GEDs, against government help until that was their only option.
As a Harvard educated friend said to me "abortion is a hideous procedure", though he was a dedicate liberal, mainly due to personal experiences. He once got a girl pregnant and his friends in AA made sure that she got an abortion as he did not have an income to support more than himself, or at least doubted it. Strange how life provides for extra mouths to feed.....
It is wrong to shame people as many churches do with those who have abortions for the deterrent effects. What I find particularly questionable would be for the parents of very well off kids to coerce their daughter into an abortion for "career" reasons, that not going that route would kill her career.
Of course men have no reproductive rights as a left of center friend likes to repeat a lot.
""Of course it's a baby," I snapped. And went rashly on: "And if I found myself in circumstances in which I had to make the terrible decision to end this life, then that would be between myself and God.""
Would that equation be the same if, instead of it being your four-month-along fetus it had become your four-month old toddler?
If not...why not?
And therein lies the eternal disconnect for honest pro-choicers, one that can never be explained away.
I don't know that I would write this essay the same way today. I would move heaven and earth to give women other options than abortion and think this issue is even more serious than I did at 33; though ultimately I do believe that in the first trimester it has to be that woman's choice.
What is the provenance of "a morality beyond just our bodies and ourselves."
It’s possible to be pro-life and pro-choice. I am, but it’s based on a personal dilemma that nearly cos the life of my now wonderful 35 year old daughter . But not terminating the pregnancy was my choice. It turned out to be the right choice.
That said, life is precious, late term abortion is hideous, but denying the right to privacy and reproductive autonomy with extreme restrictions is overreaching and in humane.We’re not a theocracy but we’re well on our way to godlessness.
Well done. It is a struggle. For an easy test is worth little.
I am no longer pro-choice. Complete Spiritual Awakening.
Cultural backwaters like Sarah Jewett's Maine, Flannery O'Connor's Georgia, Eudora Welty's Mississippi... Laura Wilder's forest-to-plains ecocline? They'll have to shut down the internet now, as we all expect they'll try... they can't starve us out, and we've already stockpiled ammo + skills... just in case there's a miracle cure for Sniffy Joe and that whole crack thing, and the entire N. Taleb theory.... not sue at this point if he want's to pitch his fate with ex-Judenrat Esperantist Hungarian illegal immigrant Georgie.
That's not a winner for most of us. Maybe for sad fool Blake School preppie tit-grabber, useless comic Al Franken.
This is the best essay I've yet read on the abortion dilemma, and beautifully articulates what I have long intuitively felt about it. We need more people to acknowledge these truths, that abortion is, as you put it, a necessary evil...not a glorious expression of feminist freedom and a victory over the patriarchy. And though I've always considered myself as pro-choice, I'm deeply offended with the cavalier way in which some people dismiss and dishonor the personhood of unwanted fetuses, and the way their bodies are bought and sold for scientific research.
But I love the idea of, as some of the Eastern cultures do, honoring the souls of those unborn children who were waylaid on their journey into life.
The woke world has taken any discussion of basic religious values out of the public square , is to the traditional family in many ways such as viewing stay at home moms and "Mommytrack positions" as inferior and in ignoring the medical evidence that is depicted on a sonogram at the early stage of pregnancy. To paraphrase Peggy Noonan, a society that has no respect for life at its beginning will have contempt at best for life during life and at the end of life as well.
Glad to see the discussion: the worst thing for human community is the cultural and then political silencing of robust conversation, and the fear of that robust-ness. I am a pro-life feminist (of a kind), and so I feel deeply for women throughout history who have had no voice, no real agency, etc.; however, I find it diabolical (warped division) that those who claim to be pro-woman are also pro-abortion. I understand the logic, but it is not sound. To be integrated, we have to live in reality; thinking you are choosing the good for yourself or for women in general by killing another person is not reality.
What turned me off to the "pro-life", anti-abortion movement was the extremism that is rife with their "good family people": Characters like Rev. Gary Hartsock of East Lyndon, Vermont. He made his wife bear baby after baby like a brood animal without regard to what she wanted. Even when she had a dead fetus in her womb he insisted it not be aborted. His theology was crazy and full of overactive demonologies. Even skiing in his mind was of Satan. His kids were trained in the use of 9mm pistols for what he said were for an inevitable government raid. He drove a car with a Bible verse instead of a license plate. Members of his "church" engaged in various government actions, refusing to pay local property taxes, engaging in protest; people like Michael Janes fought the government on the "right to drive" issue with "kingdom of heaven" license plates, etc.. He was put in solitary confinement for a month. The 1999 Vermont "civil unions" bill antagonized many of these people. Having babies without limit seems to be an unarguable mandate with these people.
Thank you. It is refreshing to see this perspective. When we put things into neat little black and white categories, we ignore the fact that the world is made up of many shades of gray. I am pro-choice in that I believe everyone has a right to make medical decisions for themselves and have autonomy over their own bodies. I am pro-life in that I believe life is a precious and sacred gift from the Creator and our lives are to be cherished and used to help make the world a better place. People should take 100% responsibility over themselves and their choices, including getting an abortion. A life was ended, and that is a tragedy and should be mourned as such, no matter the reasoning behind the choice. We do have a huge problem now with dehumanization and the devaluing of nature and all things organic and natural. Here is the definition of nature: "the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations." AS OPPOSED TO HUMANS. Yet, I am intensely aware that I am very much a part of nature and this planet. This dichotomy is the source of much of our current distress and disease. We must repair our relationship to nature and life before we can ever begin to do any healing on a personal and collective level.
As I read this essay, I couldn't help but think of my own journey on this subject. I won't bore you with the background, however I have come to be able to label myself as a "pro-life realist", a term I coined to provide myself with needed reconciliation. I do believe that life begins at conception. I also realize that even if there was a law tomorrow outlawing all abortions, this in itself doesn't end abortion. When I volunteered at pregnancy centers, my approach was so different than others. Earlier in my life, I chose to have an abortion, I always wondered, "If I knew all the information I knew now, would I still make the same decision?" So my mission was to arm these women with as much information as possible, i.e.fetal development, education about the procedure, available resources if carried to term, and possible side effects from having an abortion -physically, mentally, spiritually. This is what I still believe is what truly empowers all of us - information.
Interesting read, thanks!
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/
Dr. Wolf, I much appreciate your clarity on the tyranny which is intent on robbing all of us of our God given rights. However, you are not exempt from being held to the most basic laws of logic, reason, ethics, science and philosophy. I was a pro-choice young man who had always held an expectation that any gal who I inadvertently impregnated would "take care of it" and have an abortion. I then married a wonderful woman and when she was pregnant with our first child we excitingly went to the OBGYN for the 8 week ultrasound. After 10 anxious minutes of the doctor poking around with the ultrasound, he confirmed the baby was full grown (for an 8 week old) but that the heart had stopped beating. My wife and I were absolutely crushed. At this moment of deep pain I realized the most profound, yet basic truth; this child cannot be a baby when I want it to be, yet also be a disposable clump of cells when I do not want a baby. After two painful years of reflecting on this obvious truth which I had been oblivious to due to my my upbringing and the culture I was raised in, I humbled myself in pain knowing I had been ignorantly a willing murder for my entire life. I repented and eventually joined the most consistent voice for the dignity of life; the Catholic Church. Here is a brief clip from Saint Mother Teresa speaking truth a the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994. Her wisdom came not from any fancy university, nor silver spooned mentors. Her wisdom came from true Catholic Charity (love) https://www.facebook.com/SusanBAnthonyList/videos/fight-abortion-by-adoption-mother-teresabill-hillary-clinton-were-sitting-just-f/10153628079646370/
Beautiful testimony. May God have mercy on all of us.
Very, very good Naomi. I read through the comments, it is impressive how you continue the conversation without shutting any thought or idea down. Thank you for this, Tim
I agree with you. I have my moral beliefs and convictions and am extremely unlikely to be swayed. But, I do respect looking through the lens of another's perspective without casting judgment. That is my intention. Sometimes it's tough.
It is difficult. I have convictions now that I didn't have when I was young, so then, I did things that were irresponsible and did lead to an abortion. It is something that I regret, of course the abortion, but also my actions prior to.
Oh, friend, there's not one of us who can't sit back and say “what on earth was I thinking?” “Why would I have done such a stupid, dangerous, selfish, inconsiderate--- add an adjective that satisfies the question.” We have all been there. Thank God we are still here to help guide the next generation if we can get them back.
Both of the polar, strident positions on abortion are indefensible.
How can a pro-choice person make a decision to end a life based on some arbitrary timeframe relating to that life’s growth? I am sure they wouldn’t see it as an arbitrary decision but how can you make a legal, unemotional decision to end a life at any point? Or to put it another way, to make a decision on when a baby can be aborted and think that it is moral, right and reasonable to do so, without looking at every pregnancy on its own merits.
On the other hand to be fully anti abortionist one must deny that there are times when it must be better to undergo an abortion rather than the alternative.
It is not beneficial to look at things only from a pro-life or pro-choice position only. There are many positions and factors on the abortion issue, pro-choicer's have a large range of positions as to when they think a baby can be aborted, from the morning after pill to the baby being at full term. Pro-lifer's almost always have one position but that position may crack a little if their 16 year-old daughter is pregnant from a large, violent, biker dude rapist. Then there are the third group of people who do not support abortion for all but know that there are multiple problems with never allowing abortions. They are aware of the nuances and difficulties of having one opinion on abortion. It would benefit mankind if more of us could move into the third category. It is the category of life as it is, of some things happening which we have no control over, and a reverence for life in all its complexities.
The pro-lifers can only move to the left in their position if they change at all. Pro-choicer's can move in both right and left directions but overall they have always moved further to the left and allow increases in the time frame of when an abortion can happen. This is one of the main troubling points in the actions and position of pro-choicer's. They make provisions in their moral code without seeing the damage done in the larger picture. This happens in many areas in our society and has increased in intensity in the past couple of years. I point at Black Lives Matter, censorship, rule of law, the covid dilemma, and people thinking men can be women and women can be men, to name a few.
These things came to mind after reading Dr. Naomi Wolf’s deep and wonderful essay “Our Bodies, Our Souls; Rethinking Pro-Choice Rhetoric.” It had me thinking of my own life and the role abortion played in it as well as many issues that go along with the abortion issue. https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/our-bodies-our-souls/comments
Violence and death is one such issue. We have rule of law that punishes theft, violent offenders and those who kill. This has increasingly been eroded and politicized in the last two years. During the ‘mostly peaceful’ demonstrations in the US after George Floyd’s death there was millions of dollars of property damage, violent protests and death. Very few of those offenders have been prosecuted. The past two years have seen an increase in violence in the west, and a greater percentage of blacks have been killed in comparison to years prior to 2020.
How does that relate to abortion? If we are not always conscience of violence and death in our way of life then life becomes less meaningful. If we don’t see how our own actions are contributing to this violence then we are only furthering the loss of life spirit that is all of us. Life becomes something that has lessor value than it may have had in the past. This is the way of the left. Most liberals had no direct contact with property destruction, violence or death during the 2020 summer riots but so many of them supported what was happening with the Black Lives Matter protests. Liberals may not be killing others but there are so many of them as voters and in powerful positions that they can direct policy and action and allow death to occur. And the left are the main supporters of abortion.
Another grave problem has been amplified with the political pandemic of covid. There has been two years of our children joining us in the ‘vector of disease’ dystopia. They have been pawns in the meandering of politicians and health experts. They have been in school, out of school, masked, and vaccinated. They have been told they cannot touch another human being; they have been kept away from their family and friends. This has caused short and long term health problems, mental health issues, and suicide. If we can do this to our children we may think little of aborting the unborn.
The pro-life people would like all babies to be born without looking at the manner in which the pregnancy happened and as how the child will be raised. In an ideal world the parents of the baby would have a lot of support from family and community. They would have a way to support the baby that didn’t harm their spirit. As we know, this ideal is not with us. Babies are born into abusive families. They are born into destitution and hunger. We are doing a poor job of raising the children we have, by sending them to a school system teaching such harmful rhetoric with critical race theory, incorrect media/government science about the ubiquitous climate reaction and covid, and at how biology is thrown out the window in regards to this societies gender chaos. With the left in the ranks of almost all teachers, administrations and current North American politicians, children are being indoctrinated into a worldview that is damaging them. They learn what they are taught and what they see people doing. Many parents go along with this façade as we have seen with the covid fiasco, so a child has a small chance of coming out of the family or education system with a strong individual personage intact.
Essay continued next reply...
Essay continued...
Dr. Wolf wrote a nuanced and detailed exploration of a better way to approach the abortion issue. She wrote,
“I am still pro-choice, with trepidation, limits and reservations. But it’s time to face the fact that heartless and devaluing wholesale treatment of human life, both at the start and at the end of life, echo and reinforce one another; and put us in great moral danger of abandoning our responsibilities to protect human life, human potential and human consent, altogether.”
“But we are also in danger of losing something more important than votes: we stand in jeopardy of losing what can only be called our souls. Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self- delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish, and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life.”
“War is legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Letting the dying die in peace is often legal and sometimes even necessary. Abortion should be legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die. But it is never right or necessary to minimize the value of the lives involved or the sacrifice incurred in letting them go. Only if we uphold abortion rights within a matrix of individual conscience, atonement and responsibility can we both correct the logical and ethical absurdity in our position—and consolidate the support of the center.”
When I was 19 my 16 year-old girlfriend had an abortion. She had been using the pill to regulate her period, the doctor said, but she stopped taking the pill for a few days because I was to go away to work. I didn’t leave when expected and that was long enough for her to become pregnant.
If my girlfriend had the baby she would have had no support from her family. They and her doctor recommended an abortion, she was a user of alcohol and drugs so there may have been good medical reasons for her not to have a baby. She also had mental health issues that came to light after this time; some of these mental issues may have been caused by the abortion experience. These mental health issues have continued throughout her life.
If I had become a father at that time I also would have had little support from my family. I saw no support from my family when I did have children six years later. I had matured enough then to be a good father, but my wife and I were on our own at that time, with only a tiny amount of support from anyone. When my sons were 4 and 6 I become a single father for a number of years. I learned how to care and love children through that experience. The time with my sons when I was single was one of the best times of my life. These are skills I developed which I didn’t have when I was 19.
I do wonder what would have happened if that aborted baby had been born. I do not think my girlfriend and I could have lived together. I am sure she would have had to give up the baby at some point. I can’t imagine I would have been able to raise the child on my own in any way that would have been beneficial to it.
I am not discounting an adoption option, if available and done in a loving and humane way. Adoption has its own difficulties; a major one is a mother having to give up her child.
All these things need to be considered in a respectful, searching way. It is so important to see clearly what is happening, recognize the difficulties and consider the sacrifices we may have to make and then move forward in the best way possible. We can’t dehumanize the fetus. We must see it as a soulful manifestation of our own humanity. With abortion we must feel the grief and the pain and the loss so we don’t lose some of our own humanity. We must give the baby or the aborted fetus the respect and love they need for all of us to have a full human existence. Society would benefit by not allowing issues such as abortion to be divided into opposing factions.
At our home we have an ark with a few hundred pairs of animals that our grandchildren play with. A four-year old grandson was playing with them and he asked, “Why is there two of each animal?” Why indeed I thought. That is the one question above all other human questions.
Thank you for your comments. You and Naomi has got me thinking about a number of things that I am starting to write about. I will post it here (if I get something readable) so you can see it.
This is an impressive bomb like flurry of thoughts that are hard to process with the current divisions in our political discourse.
I found John Irving's piece in the NYT illuminating: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/opinion/anti-abortion-history.html
I shared it with the late fervent "pro life" advocate Rev. John Rankin of the "Theological education institute" and he disagreed with out providing specific arguments.
I know typically blue collar home schooling families who seemed all about their clans and expanding their gene pool; As many babies as could be procreated.....They were paranoid about family planning, sex education or birth control in any form.
The home schooling often left the kids being dolts, lacking in career skills, some with no GEDs, against government help until that was their only option.
As a Harvard educated friend said to me "abortion is a hideous procedure", though he was a dedicate liberal, mainly due to personal experiences. He once got a girl pregnant and his friends in AA made sure that she got an abortion as he did not have an income to support more than himself, or at least doubted it. Strange how life provides for extra mouths to feed.....
It is wrong to shame people as many churches do with those who have abortions for the deterrent effects. What I find particularly questionable would be for the parents of very well off kids to coerce their daughter into an abortion for "career" reasons, that not going that route would kill her career.
Of course men have no reproductive rights as a left of center friend likes to repeat a lot.
""Of course it's a baby," I snapped. And went rashly on: "And if I found myself in circumstances in which I had to make the terrible decision to end this life, then that would be between myself and God.""
Would that equation be the same if, instead of it being your four-month-along fetus it had become your four-month old toddler?
If not...why not?
And therein lies the eternal disconnect for honest pro-choicers, one that can never be explained away.
I don't know that I would write this essay the same way today. I would move heaven and earth to give women other options than abortion and think this issue is even more serious than I did at 33; though ultimately I do believe that in the first trimester it has to be that woman's choice.