I read Michael Coren every Sunday, usually as an exercise to see just how high my blood pressure can go before I explode. About four times a year I find myself agreeing with what he's writing and invariably at those times I'll think 'even a stopped clock is right twice a day'.
You see, Mr. Coren is a devout Catholic, with all that entails. He rails against the secularization of society in some form every week, usually finding a way to work gay marriage into the mix. While I certainly don't believe our society is healthy, I just as certainly feel his prescription is worse than the disease it purports to cure.
Imagine my shock, therefore, to read his column this past Sunday...on the hot-button topic of abortion, no less!...and come away from it with my mind reeling, thinking you know, he's actually got a pretty good point there.
Now, I've always maintained that, as a man, I have no right to an opinion on this issue--which should tell you in a nutshell what my opinion is. If pressed, I'd say I'm pro-choice, with some reservations. I don't think abortion is a legitimate contraceptive device, for instance, nor do I believe third-trimester terminations are acceptable (save in cases where the mother's life is threatened), on the grounds that the child would probably survive outside the womb and therefore ought to be given the chance. But other than that, I'm pretty much pro-choice. I've always felt Spider Robinson had it right when he said "I routinely ignore...any Pro-Life advocate who has not adopted and raised at least one unwanted child, to adulthood, and through college. No excuses for economic hardship: no excuses, period. Put up or shut up."
Your ardent pro-lifer will say that I'm basically pro-infanticide, which I've always thought was patently ridiculous. I don't believe life begins at conception, not any life worth living, at any rate. Whenever I'm confronted with someone who does believe this, I ask them if they'd like to go back and live in their mother's womb for awhile. After the obligatory Hollywood Squares answer of "heck yeah, who wouldn't", I've yet to get a positive answer out of anyone.
So here's Michael Coren along to demolish my construct. His argument, summarized, is that some people--normally pro-choice--have got their knickers atwist because of the cultural practice of aborting unwanted female fetuses. Oh ho, says Coren, abortion's all fine and dandy until sexism enters into it. Then all of a sudden it's not a fetus in there, or excess tissue, or what have you, it's a little girl being killed.
Now as I'm reading this, I'm frantically adding "abortion as gender selection" to my little list of unacceptabilities. Having added this thought and patted it into place, I figure I'm done, I've patched up that little hole in my mental dyke.
It started leaking immediately. It was the image of that little girl that did it. Because no matter what your reason for having an abortion (and you may feel you have a very good one), that little girl's still in there. You may not be killing her off because you don't want a girl...but you're still killing her off.
The only remaining defense I have for abortion is overpopulation and its attendant poverty. I still think it's a handy one to keep around--especially since it's something most North Americans, with their precipitously declining birth rates, rarely think about or consider a problem. I still don't think it at all humane for a child to be born into extreme poverty...but then again, as I'm always saying in my law and order posts, poverty never made anyone a criminal. Many people have risen out of the depths of poverty, single parenthood, or any other argument I can make for the sanity of abortion to make vast contributions to their world.
In short, much as I hate to admit it, Michael Coren's right and I've been wrong.
Don't worry, folks, I'm not on my way to murder an abortionist. I haven't crossed over to the dark side...I'm not ready to prosecute any woman who dares to have a miscarriage. In fact, this whole idea of being pro-life is rather new on me and my brain is still trying to formulate defenses for old prejudices. That none of them have held under scrutiny doesn't mean one or more of them won't.
But in the meantime I really must give Mr. Coren some credit. He's not just made me think, but made me think hard thoughts and come to surprising (to me, at least) conclusions.
7 comments:
I hear what you are saying. For me it comes down to viability. Until that fetus is viable outside of the womb, it is not a human being. So regardless of the reason to abort, before viablity, it's the womens choice and I have no issue with it. Should it be used for contraception, of course not but people do a lot of things that they shouldn't.
I love that saying of any pro-lifer who has not adopted a child shoul shut the F up.
It's frustrating to listen to men discuss the abortion issue theoretically--as if you guys should even consider your opinions important in its regard. Frankly, unless a man has a vested interest in whether or not a specific pregnancy continues, men should just shut the fuck up and let the women come to their own conclusions and decisions.
As an explanation of my moral compass, I would like to state I do not, in general, agree with the practise of abortion. I think if you are willing to engage in behaviour that could result in a pregnancy, you should also be prepared to deal with the consequences. Having said that, there are circumstances where an abortion should be considered a viable option, such as rape and endangerment of the mother.
So, I guess you could try and call me Pro-Life, but I would NEVER, EVER pass judgement on another woman for having an abortion. Every circumstance is different, every situation has different variables, and every woman is a completely different human being.
jeopardygirl:
Touchy, are we?
Well, so am I. Now.
Excuse me? I should "shut the fuck up"? Wow.
Now why was that again? Because I spewed hatred towards some individual or group? Because I said something demonstrably insane?
No...it's because I have a penis. Nice.
If living in Canada wasn't enough to allow Mr. Coren or myself an opinion (and it bloody well is--take note: we have this thing here called 'freedom of speech'), then I claim the right to an opinion on abortion by virtue of being a man. That's right, a man. Not only is my gender absolutely *required* to produce offspring, I myself was *born* of a mother. As were all men. If my mother had chosen an abortion, I would not have been born. You better believe that gives me the right to an opinion on the matter.
Have I had an abortion? Of course not. There's lots of things I haven't done and many more I can't ever do and I've got an opinion on every last fucking one of them.
My *wife* has had seven miscarriages, one of them past the first trimester--which necessitated a D and C. Would she have aborted voluntarily? Not on your life, or more to the point, our child's life. Did she consult me on the matter? You bet.
So while I haven't actually *had* an abortion, I've seen the effects of one right up close. We have friends and family who've had abortions, some for good reasons and some for bad reasons, as far as I'm concerned. I'm entitled to that opinion, and you're entitled to disagree with me. What you are most emphatically *not* entitled to do is tell me to shut the fuck up.
The irony is, my opinion is pretty much identical to yours. Am I still, then, to be silenced? Must be a pretty lonely life you lead, alienating people that way.
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rocketstar--
see, you didn't tell me to shut the fuck up. You probably wouldn't tell Coren to either, even though knowing what I know of you and what I know of him you two would get along like oil and water.
So....
I guess the counterargument to the viability issue you raised (and I agree with you: a human isn't a human comma being until it's out here) is: does a human comma *becoming* count for anything?
Still not entirely sure how I feel about that.
Bravo sweetheart.
Hey Ken,
This is a tough one. My stance has always been that if you don't want one, don't have one. Making abortions legal, like drugs, will never work. So why bother? Abortion statistics show that they are decreasing. Just give people all the sexual education that they can fit into their heads and make all contraceptives legal. That should solve the problem, no?
What I hate about the issue is how it so dominates our political landscape and so inflames people's emotions. Too many people, especially in the U.S., use a politicians stance on abortion as the only issue they consider when casting a vote. Ridiculous.
If you object to abortion for any reason, then you are admitting that the growth in the womb is more than an inconvenient appendage. Once you realize that this growing thing has value in one context, then you have to define why the exact same thing doesn't have value in another context.
If abortion for sex selection or birth control is wrong, then apparently whatever is being aborted is being violated and thus has some sort of rights.
And if it has these rights, when did they begin? Concepion? One week? One month? At conception every necessary to be what it will be is there, nothing is added after except volume.
The more I consider the issue, the closer abortion comes to a black and white issue; either all the time with no exceptions or none of the time.
Most exceptions result from a need for emotional comfort rather than logical compulsion.
Ken, I appreciate your honesty and thoughtfulness.
Funn you mention that he mentions gay marriage in almost all things...he does that on CFRB as well...they could be talking about whether Aliens exist and somehow he brings it back to gay marriage. I believe the man is a bigot and hides behind his religion...well freedom of speech and I would defend with my life his right to say what he wants.
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