“Since You Asked” --
Part Two of Two
This may still be going on and I just don’t see it as
often, but back in the 70s and 80s pro-abortionists eagerly offered the
most incredibly convoluted, what-did-you-just-say? rationales for taking
the lives of innocent unborn children. Bizarre analogies were the
leading culprits, and there were times (on those occasions when I could
follow what they were saying) that I wondered if they could possibly
mean what they had just written.
When you read this kind of correspondence to which Tennis
is responding, you have to wonder if anyone can possibly be this
shallow.
In this instance, a married couple has planned for
kids…some day. In fact that’s perhaps the prime reason the writer tells
Tennis she married this guy—“I had a kind of overwhelming feeling
that I wanted to have babies with this man, a feeling I'd never had
before.”
She tells Tennis that she’s pregnant unintentionally,
although she took
“Plan
B, or the morning-after pill.” What’s really interesting is
her next sentence:
“This is also difficult because for a while I've felt
something strange -- that my body really longed to be pregnant even
though mentally, emotionally, financially I knew that I wanted more
time.”
After more excuse-mongering, she concludes with,
“Aborting
seems difficult and sad, but also right on one level.” Pardon? “[W]e
don’t feel ready. We do want more time.” Oh.
[Naturally
since the guy’s name is Tennis, I will find it impossible not to use
tennis lingo. Forgive me, but I actually think it helps.]
There are no smashing forehands down the line which
provide a clear answer. Tennis largely plays serve and volley, patiently
examining some of the assumptions that seem to undergird the woman’s
correspondence. Some of his attempted returns miss the ball all together
while others are hit so badly the ball flies into the grandstand.
For example, he describes this as an issue about timing
and uses two analogies to illustrate his point. His first analogy has to
do with the lottery and it’s so painfully lame I’ll just skip it.
(Except to say that Tennis seems to understand that children can be the
ultimate jackpot.)
Analogy two asks whether after having initially chosen
not to run for political office, she should switch course when a seat
opens up and supporters encourage her to run. “Do
you wait until you yourself are completely ready? Or do you take the
opportunity that has been handed to you and make the best of it.”
Tennis concedes the analogies are imperfect (no kidding),
but does remind her that these analogies help us understand that there
are “costs” to postponement. For example, there is a baby already
there (“a bird in hand, so to speak”).
Moreover, “in deciding to take actions to avert that
future, you must consider the effect that reversing the pregnancy will
have on you and your husband.” (That’s a new one on me: “reversing the
pregnancy.”)
Tennis then refers his correspondent to a “question posed
in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
entry on philosopher Derek Parfit's
‘Repugnant Conclusion.’” (No,
I never heard of this either.)
Suffice it to say that Tennis gets tangled up in an aside
about the truism that any time a woman “postpones” her pregnancy, the
child she would have had at point “A” is a different child than the baby
she will have is she gets pregnant at point “B.”
The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
entry has nothing to do with abortion, as Tennis concedes in the next
paragraph.
So why bring it up? Oh, well. Tennis then meanders
through another aside before coming back to a really interesting idea.
“So it seems to
be a matter of degree: your concerns weighed against the gravity of the
procedure and your chances of conceiving again at the time you wish to
conceive.” Tennis writes. “In considering the matter of degree of
severity, let us ask why this option of abortion even exists. Does it
exist mainly for the purpose you are considering -- to time the
pregnancy?” Indeed, Tennis asks, if that were the main purpose, “would
abortion even be legal?”
“Is it not legal
because it provides much more fundamental freedoms” than “cur[ing] the
inconvenient timing of certain pregnancies?” (As we know, abortion is
legal for even the most trivial of reasons, but let’s not get off course
on that.)
Tennis seems to
suggest that the present case does not meet the threshold of “gravity
and urgency.” (The woman herself conceded, “This feels like the biggest
decision of our life together and we both feel strongly pulled in both
directions.”)
But since he has
said from the first paragraph on that it’s her decision, Tennis gives
her an out: “Or you may consider this use of abortion akin to the
off-label use of a drug -- not the one for which it is generally
prescribed, but one for which it will be effective and for which, in
your case, its use is just.”
“Off-label use”?
Just when you’re
ready to blow the guy off, Tennis writes, “Consider this also: How would
you feel if abortion were not an option at all? Would you still feel
great distress at this news?” Very insightful.
He then draws in
some other oldie but baddie justifications for abortion before
concluding, “It is your decision. I don't envy you the choice.”
Three quick
concluding points. First, Tennis understands that “reversing the
pregnancy” does carry potential costs. While he says nothing about the
loss to the child—of his or her life--Tennis does recognize that the
30-year-old woman may not “conceive[] again at the time you wish to
conceive” (or at all?) and that an abortion could alter the marital
relationship.
Second, the
entire calculus is changed by the fact that abortion is legal. Law
teaches, as we often say about Roe v. Wade, and one of the
“lessons” many draw is that even the most minor “reason” for abortion is
“reason enough” to take a child’s life.
Third, between
the lines, it seems clear that Tennis understands that there is a
seriousness to abortion that requires a correspondingly grave “need” to
warrant. That is hardly a pro-life position, but it is also a long way
from blithefully okaying abortion for any reason or no reason at all.
I would very much
encourage you to read the piece. Again, it’s found at
www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2007/03/14/abortion/index.html?source=sphere.
Part One
