From 2009. Even more pertinent today. Copithorne in the comments.
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Lacy Dodd has a thoughtful article over at First Things about Notre Dame's intention to bestow an honorary degree on President Obama. Ms. Dodd has some right to be heard. She was unmarried and got pregnant while a senior at Notre Dame ten years ago. She gave birth to and kept the child. There were disappointments:
My boyfriend was a different story. He was also a Notre Dame senior. When I told him that he was to be a father, he tried to pressure me into having an abortion. Like so many women in similar circumstances, I found out the kind of man the father of my child was at precisely the moment I needed him most. “All that talk about abortion is just dining-room talk,” he said. “When it’s really you in the situation, it’s different. I will drive you to Chicago and pay for a good doctor.”That accusation is a bit broad, of course. There are prochoice people who rejoice in a woman's decision to carry to term. Yet where I work, I am struck by the number of women who shake their heads disapprovingly at decisions to carry to term if there is any reason not to. If your boyfriend isn't going to be supportive, if you have a crummy job, if you have a really good job, if you are less than 20, if you are over 40, if you aren't in perfect health - any one of these is considered not only a sufficient, but a necessary reason to abort. There are often narrowed eyes and real spite if there is any indication that some religious person "got to them," and "guilted them into going through with it." This absent any evidence that the religious person in question did so - it is assumed.
I tried telling him this was not an option. He said he was pro-choice. I responded by informing him that my choice was life. And I learned, as so many pregnant women have before and since, that life is the one choice that pro-choicers won’t support.
Ms. Dodd concludes:
I’d like to ask this of Fr. John Jenkins, the Notre Dame president: Who draws support from your decision to honor President Obama—the young, pregnant Notre Dame woman sitting in that graduating class who wants desperately to keep her baby, or the Notre Dame man who believes that the Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is just dining-room talk?
It’s a lovely story. Courageous woman, strong faith. But I don’t get the last paragraph. What does Barack Obama have to do with her decision?
ReplyDeleteIf abortion was illegal, would her Notre Dame boyfriend have been a better father? Would she have been a better mother?
She had her child in 1999. Does she think her choice to have her child was more difficult because Bill Clinton was president? Isn’t it more likely that that wasn’t a factor? Abortion rates went down sharply during Clinton’s presidency after all.
I guess you and the author may be saying that people who choose to have a child can feel judged by people who identify as pro-choice. Such judgment would certainly be wrong and immature. But I’ve never seen that kind of judgment myself in my own experience.
A doctor in my rich suburb told me that one third of the girls in our good high school have an abortion before they graduate. I hope and pray that his stats are wrong. One third. That is truly appalling. First that they were having sex that young (I didn't, my kids don't, so I am not being a hypocrite) and second that they were so stupid they didn't use birth control, and third that so many would abort rather than carry to term and either give up the baby for adoption or raise it. .
ReplyDeleteI understand the arguments for giving abortions to pregnant high school girls: "Don't ruin their life, don't prevent them going to college, don't condemn that girl from the projects to the same lousy life of unwed motherhood as her mom." But the fact is one third of the girls murdered a baby. Next time you look at fresh smiling faces on high school graduation day, consider that.
I have taught my daughters (who knows if they will follow my advice) that they shouldn't have sex with someone unless they are deeply in love with them, committed to them, hopefully wanting to be married to them, in a mutual relationship, and if they would be prepared to welcome and love any baby conceived as a result of their activities. To raise it alone if the guy vamoosed at the news. Perhaps this has scared them chaste for a bit!
Where I live, you are thought to be a stupid fundamentalist, not someone who cares about your daughter's future if you admit to being pro-life.
I used to work for a Catholic agency in youth, with pregnant teens, teen moms, and group home kids. We taught them that they should raise children in a marriage, but housed, fed, educated and helped the unmarried teen moms to finish school, get jobs, and lead more settled and self-sufficient personal lives. A lot of them ended up working and getting married. The key thing was for them not to get pregnant again right away, to wait until they were in a more stable relationship with a man with a job, and married.
I find it's hard enough raising kids married. Why anyone would want to as a single person is beyond me. But when "accidents" happen (and they are rarely accidents, and it is rarely the result of rape or incest, no matter how much the PR says that it is) I think the kids would rather be raised by a frazzled single mom than to have been aborted.
I had trouble believing that anybody could so stupidly misunderstand the point of the concluding paragraph. I had thought it unlikely that I could make the point any clearer than the author had, but I thought perhaps I could try.
ReplyDeleteThen I noticed the name of the uncomprehending commentor. No sense wasting any more of my time on the subject.
Have a nice weekend, everybody.
Why does everyone assume that one must be religious to be "pro-life"?
ReplyDeleteAt my most religious, I'm an agnostic. But life is precious whether there's a God or not!
I cried last week because a poor, deluded bird built a nest under the hood of my car. Granted, my husband and I should have kept the pine straw blown off, but I'd just had surgery and hadn't driven the car in several weeks.
We seriously discussed leaving my car sitting until the babies flew the nest. We have more than one vehicle.
My husband asked me if I'd be willing or even able to drive the old "farm truck" to my father's bedside should he choose to have surgery to treat his lung cancer, or if some other emergency arose.
My car is the most reliable, best equipped for long trips, the most versatile vehicle we have.
We decided to try to move the nest and hoped momma would find it. She didn't. We basically aborted 5 baby birds.
It's not like there's a shortage of birds or nests in our yard. We have 15 mature trees, 8 pine, 7 oak in our yard. Our backyard borders wilderness. Wildlife is abundant.
Yet, I mourn the life in those five eggs every time I get in my car.
Donna B, one doesn't have to be religious to be pro-life, but there is an enormous overlap. I think that most people's pro-life stance does come from a visceral apprehension of the reality of life rather than being convinced by the philosophical argument of when life begins. If the abdomen were transparent, late-term abortion would be rare, even among those who believed it should be legal as a matter of public policy. Forced to deal with the reality, people would react strongly against that death.
ReplyDeleteCopithorne, abortions started to decline slightly in 1990, and this continued under Clinton, suggesting that some cultural or demographic feature was at work and whether the president is pro-life or pro-choice has little effect at this point. However, they increased sharply after legalization in 1973, evidence that government permission is an important factor. Thus, those who support government permission can be seen as contributing to the number of abortions.
Further, mere advocacy, even without practical effect can be regarded as a disqualifier. A person who advocated the destruction of the developmentally disabled, even if this resulted in no known added deaths, might well be shunned by those who felt this to be an immoral stance. Even if they thought he was an inspiring fellow who could talk to the lads about overcoming some medical condition and becoming a professional baseball player, parents might well refuse to have him speak at the Little League banquet.
BTW, Copithorne, abortion rates did not go down "sharply" under Clinton. Believing that they did will color your understanding of the discussion, perhaps irreparably.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI guess you and the author may be saying that people who choose to have a child can feel judged by people who identify as pro-choice. Such judgment would certainly be wrong and immature. But I’ve never seen that kind of judgment myself in my own experience.You've seen it recently and publicly, assuming you followed last fall's presidential campaign closely. Or did you not see the harsh judgements against Sarah Palin for failing to abort her youngest child when she realized he was disabled? The still harsher things said about Bristol Palin for not "responsibly" aborting her child, as well as about her parents?
ReplyDeleteA lot of this is tribal, of course. A "responsible" upper-middle-class teen who becomes pregnant aborts, with as little fuss as possible, and picks herself up and moves on, and that perception - that respectable people abort in these circumstances, and that not doing so is low-class - is why otherwise decent people can react with spite to such a decision.
But I'm having a very hard time believing you've never encountered the attitude, copithorne. If you want to see it in full, ugly spate, try being the mother of a child known before birth to be disabled.
jaed
ReplyDeleteBasically, then, the élites use doublethink as to the humanity of the disabled.