Two Friends Debate Abortion

Pat,

We are fundamentally at odds over the thought of labeling some human beings as not being "meaningful".  Abortion currently claims 90% of children with Downs Syndrome.  That is not fair or just, to steal their lives just because they will never be "normal".  That's my position.   

I am not worried for the children who have died, but for the roughening of the attitudes of those who choose their own lives over their children's.  You are a very generous person.  You have given yourself undaunted through the years, and I admire you greatly.  That admiration is not lost because you were saying some less honorable reasons for your abortions.   

I am very sad that you felt the need to stop your babies from experiencing this world. But I think I understand you better, and the pressures you have experienced and overcome in your life. And I am more proud than ever to consider myself your friend.   

Sue,

HMM.  “Less Honorable Reasons.”  Did you assume my decision to abort was only based on money?  Would that have been more "honorable" than realistically admitting my own limitations--exhaustion and pure inability to take on 20 more years of life, work, and committment? If money concerns are more acceptable, I will admit that lack of adequate money was a secondary consideration--tho far from primary. 

Just curious...what reason for having an abortion would be "honorable?" 

Question: If we fertile women should have all the children god sends us to not contradict his will, then shouldn't non-fertile women accept their god-given infertility? Shouldn’t they realize that they were not meant to mother?  Wouldn’t that make more sense than violating god's will and demanding that us fertile women provide them with children? 

Dear Pat,

 I'm sorry I didn't express myself well enough. Of course exhaustion is the most reasonable reason for choosing to end a pregnancy. And of course lack of money is a secondary reason.  It's the way that you said (on the phone) that you didn't want to be a breeding machine that struck me as a less than a sympathetic reason.

 And no, of course infertile women who have the love and energy to care for children would not be 'accepting God's Will' by choosing not to adopt those children whose mothers are too exhausted to make a 20 year commitment.

 You are so giving, and understanding of the problems of others. I do not understand...and this is my admission of my own deep inadequacy...why you have not seen the unborn human being as worthy of your fierce mother tiger's protection.  You are my image of a mother warrior, and I do look up to you.  Please believe that.  And please believe that I am trying to choose my words carefully, but it is still very hard for me to express my exact meaning!

Sue,

Why don’t I fight like a mother tiger for the fetuses of the world? I could explain that I try not to base my life on the “could of, should of, would of” theories of hindsight. (That egg could of-should of-would of been a human.) But I will take your question  more seriously since you pose it in all seriousness.

As a fertile woman I faced pregnancy every 16-18 months while practicing rhythm (absolutely no sex between the 9th and 21st days of my cycle, no matter how hard on my relationship with my husband). That left me with 4 pregnancies and 4 deliveries in 5 years 1965 –1970. It left me divorced, exhausted, worried, and too overwhelmed to properly care for the actual humans in my care.  I knew I had to begin to place the existing children and myself first. No unborn humans could continue to take precedence.

So I started religiously using birth control—withdrawal, IUD, rubbers, and diaphram/jell.  I had come to realize that no god could be so cruel or hateful to fertile womankind and children (and our partners) to enforce yearly pregnancies and birth on us—to protect fetuses. During this period (1972-1987) I became pregnant every 30 months. This was DESPITE always using  birth control and DESPITE having less sex with men after becoming  bi-sexual.

This period of fertility battle resulted in three abortions, two morning after pill probable abortions, and no doubt some fertilized eggs (zygotes) denied access to my uterus by the IUD.

So why don’t I value the fetuses more than the rest of us? (Because that is what you propose.) Why don’t I fight for them like I do for the living humans? The simplest explanation is that we women have the responsibility to give and deny life.

For millenium women have had to wage a war of self-defense against our own capacity to bear life, our own little unborn humans. Yes it is a war-- despite the tiny little millions of sperms and eggs and zygotes and fetuses that overrun us…and appear to be so helpless. You support Bush with his many wars of aggression that are murdering and terrifying millions of living humans. Yet you fail to see the necessity of women waging wars of responsible self-defense against the potential humans that would wreak havoc on our children, families, communities and the Earth. That is a just war, not a war for greed.

Why not keep getting pregnant yearly while married and give the babies to baby-hungry infertile women?  Why not keep getting pregnant every 2 years while unmarried and gift my babies after birth? This suggestion is beyond inhuman, beyond cruel. It is beyond my ability to comprehend this cruelty in a woman of your compassion. Am I misunderstanding you?

You never experienced the many months of misery during pregnancy that interfere with the ability to provide quality care to little ones already here.  Perhaps you forget the many hours, even days of agony to give birth. And can you forget the surge of milk and hormones before and after birth? I know you do remember the intense love for the new life when that child is a wanted child, so you might imagine the pain, the horror of separation even with an unwanted child.

Could I or would I put myself and my children through this nightmare five to eight times to protect “unborn humans”?  Could I put those fetuses ahead of my children? My body? My mind? My heart?  My soul? NO. I could never be that cruel or that crazy.

Really Sue, experience is the only teacher. Even you would not have agreed to raise or give  away a dozen children. But you never had to make that decision, so you can never know.

P.S. I did try to get my tubes tied to avoid conceiving, but the only doc I trusted informed me that her Catholic-controlled hospital would not allow it. After analyzing the pros and cons of continued relationships with men as a bi-sexual, including the knowledge that I would have to have more abortions, I decided to become a lesbian.  That put a final stop to my fertility war of responsible and honorable self-defense.