[The use of “pro-choice” in the title is borrowing, purely for rhetorical effect, the pro-lifers’ definition of “favouring mandatory, recreational abortion”. This is in no way an endorsement by me of this clearly nonsensical definition.]
I learned an interesting piece of my family history while I was in hospital: in 1949, my grandmother was given the opportunity to have an abortion. (In fact, since abortion would remain illegal in the UK for nearly two more decades, she was probably offered an “emergency D&C”, but the intention was to terminate the pregnancy.) With three small children, one of whom was seriously ill, she had every reason to feel unable to go through another pregnancy, but she decided she was up to the task.
If she’d chosen differently, I wouldn’t be writing this now, because the baby she gave birth to grew up to become my father.
When I heard this, I thought about the question pro-lifers frequently pose: “What if your mother was pro-choice?” What if your mother (or in this case, grandmother) had chosen to end a pregnancy and, as a result, you didn’t exist? Knowing that the possibility was discussed brings me as close as I think I’ll ever be to answering the question, and my answer is a great big “So what?”
Yes, if my grandmother had ended that pregnancy, I wouldn’t be here. But I wouldn’t be able to resent my non-existence, and the rest of the world wouldn’t be aware of what it was missing; it’s hard to say that anyone would have been worse off. In any case, I clearly am here, so speculating about what if I wasn’t is a purely philosophical matter with no practical bearing.
What’s more, there are any number of choices that had to be made the way they were in order for me to exist. If either of my parents had chosen a different university, they would never have met and I could never have been conceived, but university choices aren’t subject to the same debate that abortion is. That doesn’t prove, in itself, that the debate isn’t justified, but it does go some way towards demonstrating that “What if your mother was pro-choice?” is a red herring as far as the debate is concerned.
Another favourite way for pro-lifers to express the sentiment is the bumper sticker that says “Your mother was pro-life”. But I’ve got no evidence to say anything of the sort about my grandmother. Yes, it’s possible that she chose to continue the pregnancy because she considered that the emergency D&C would be murder. It’s also possible that she enjoyed being pregnant and wanted, in spite of all the difficulties, to bring this new life into the world. (If that’s the case, it’s an attitude I inherited from her.) I don’t know, and part of being pro-choice is that I don’t feel I have the right to second-guess her.
She had access to abortion and she chose to give birth. I don’t know what pressures were on her to choose one way or the other, but from what I know of her and the way I heard the story, I’d guess she weighed up all the factors and made the decision she thought was the right one. And since I’ve seen no evidence that she wants to put pressure on any other woman to decide any given way, who knows? Maybe she is pro-choice.
Yes, you do, but in the medical literature, not the popular literature. Studies on adoption show that, basically, adoption leaves the relinquishing mother with lifelong depression and regret.
First link
Second link
Third link
Essentially, giving a baby up for adoption is highly likely to send the relinquishing mother into a lifelong hell of regret and grief. Grief from abortion, by contrast, is less frequent and resolves much more quickly. If a woman who is pregnant understands the risks she is taking by chosing to have the child and give it up for adoption because she hopes to give some other woman or couple joy, great, wonderful for her. But telling a woman that adoption is a safe or easy alternative is criminal. It is neither.
I knew a girl when I was in high school that got pregnant, and her very conservative, very religious parents forced her to give up the child. (Basically, they told her to put the baby up or raise it alone as a 15 yo without any support from the family).
She was an honor student, and within months of the very secret birth and adoption her grades dropped, and she began to engage in some very risky behavior. I believe, the last I heard, she was married with a few children, but she still suffers from depression from the forced adoption.
Adoption can be a viable alternative to abortion, just as abortion is a viable alternative to giving birth. Those choices should ALWAYS be the woman’s and no one else’s.
I had two abortions in the 1980s. Three, if you count the fact that they botched the first one, so it had to be done again. Even so, I didn’t experience any major emotional fallout from it.
Later on, I had two children. I’m a horribly doting mother, and despite strong evidence that every mother also thinks this way, feel that there couldn’t possibly be any more intelligent, beautiful and witty creatures than my own offspring. (Unusual, eh?)
So, I’m not actually HAPPY about having had two abortions, but in a sort of way, I am. I woudn’t want two children other than the two I have.
What if teen mom choose to abstain from intercourse?
I spent a few weeks as an intern in my state Senator’s office, and you would not believe the anti-abortion mail he got. (Okay, maybe you would.) The one that sticks in my mind was the writer who pointed out that a famous singer/actress had been born to a 14-year-old rape victim, and if that girl had had an abortion, thousands of people would not have had the joy of that singer/actress’s talent.
Uh…
Q: What if your mother had been pro-choice?
A: I’d have been killed in a state of total innocence, and I’d be in heaven with God and the angels right now.
Richard writes:
Mary, who was apparently a devout Jew would have been familiar with various places in the Torah that this person or that disagreed with G-d and wasn’t zapped or turned into a pillar of salt. In the case of John the Baptist’s father, the worst thing that happened to him was he couldn’t talk until John was born. That he argued with G-d (and lost, I might add) is recorded.
I, being a devout Jew as well, don’t believe in any of that stuff, but I’ll point out that we don’t know from the story if there had been 1 or 100 previous “candidates”, all of whom were visited by angels, and all of whom said “no”. History books tend to leave out uninteresting history. Like, we know who shot Lincoln, but we haven’t a clue who shoed the horse that Dr. Mudd rode the week before (assuming he road a horse the week before …). Lincoln, Booth and Mudd are all interesting figures. Likewise, Mary is an interesting figure in that particular aspect of Christian theology. Any women before her who might have said “No” wouldn’t have been as interesting.
Assuming Mary would have disagreed and that disagreement wouldn’ t have been recorded runs counter to countless other instances where someone disagreed with G-d and wasn’t killed or whatever. Even in instances where G-d has decided to kill some large group of people, people have argued with G-d and G-d has done otherwise.
(Urph. I forgot the last paragraph because I clicked the wrong button!)
As others have pointed out, many things come together to make “me” or “you” be who we are. Even if my mother hadn’t had an abortion — or hadn’t miscarried or died — would I still be “me” if she’d not become ill the year after my kid brother was born? Or if she’d died from that illness? I’d obviously be in this body, but would my personality — which I think is more “me” than my skin and bones — be the same? How much has growing up knowing the health problems she had (I remember when she was bedridden for over a year — it greatly affected me) made me “me”? How much might my growing up knowing I was an unwanted child she was forced to have affect “me” if that had been the case instead? And that, I think, is a fair question to ask abortion opponents.
Robert writes: “However, which interpretation is the one that gives the most credit to the woman? Which one casts her as the dutiful drudge, versus the one that believes she joyously accepted the choice being offered?”
Let’s try to keep in mind the important question in these discussions: was the woman coerced or not? Trying to manipulate our own language to cast women’s societal status in the most favorable light isn’t too useful.
Of course, this particular discussion has gone off into a theological debate, but still, since it is in a thread about abortion, you’ll excuse my bringing it back to practical matters… :-)
I find this discussion about Mary’s consent puzzling, because an omniscient God wouldn’t have asked her if her answer would have been No. And I seem to remember that Moses and Lot argued with God and even won their points sometimes. And Sarah laughed and got away with it.
I was discussing this post with my mother this past weekend, and discovered to my surprise that she is far more pro-choice than I am. She did say, though, that she wished it were feasible for sex ed instructors to tell kids that sex is more than just something fun two or more people can do together, because she feels that sex should be special and reserved for committed relationships, but apparently that’s too “value-oriented” for their school district.
Well, if you don’t believe in yahewe as god, then the myth is nothing but a rape parable. Especially in light of the hard work done in the Old Testament to kill off all the matriarchal or female based religions (Ba’al and the golden calf come to mind). Robert has to presuppose a patriarchal religion/belief system in order for this rape to be consensual.
Ba’al was matriarchial? I always thought that religion was patriarchal because of the (female) temple prostitutes and the sacrifice of the first-born children into the fire. Or am I confusing religions here? It’s been 20 years since my comparative religion class.
The Canaanites, Phoenicians, et al, were patriarchal societies. There were feminine elements/deities to the Mediterranean and Sumerian paganisms (Isis/Ishtar) but matriarchy, if it had ever existed (opinions vary), was extirpated long before Abraham came onto the scene.
It seems to me that the disparity in power between God and Mary (even if it is just Gabriel speaking) is at least as great as that between the average high school student and her male teacher. I’m willing to accept that Mary’s fate didn’t involve “actual” rape, but it sure as heck doesn’t constitute unqualified, knowing and informed consent, so I’m going with statutory rape. And I don’t even know Mary’s age at the time but I’m guessing it’s below our own current age of consent. Before we get too wrapped up in how anachronistic it is to apply our own standards, in Mary’s time and place, please remember that according to the laws of the time this action almost certainly would have been considered fornication for which Mary could have been stoned to death were it not for God’s second angel to Joseph. Also, Mary couldn’t consent to any man for anything for any reason. That was her father’s prerogative, and then her husband’s. Ab initio, Mary’s consent could not have been legally valid.
As for Nick’s post, as many have already said, we are all the product of fateful events and chance encounters, it’s silly to pretend that adding or deleting the right to abortion achieves some sort of primacy over all the other events of chance that gave us our existence.
Some kids (mine) wouldn’t be here if their mothers had not had abortions.
And I always thought the answer to the “what if . . .” question was Bach, not Beethoven or Mozart (definitely not Mozart). But whether it’s Bach or Hitler or Stalin who would not have been born, there’s no reason to believe that unrestrained procreation is necessary for genius, goodness, or evil, and there’s no reason to believe the opposite. Some things just aren’t related, and if they are, my guess is that the loved child, whether wanted or not, is less likely to be evil and more likely to do good. Bach was great because he was born into an uber-musical family and had talent that someone nurtured (his brother). (Apparently, in the state where the Bach family was centered, “Bach” became slang for musician.)
Or am I confusing religions here?
No, you’re not. The goal of much of the written Hebrew tradition was to forbid the worship of other gods, not merely goddesses. Ishtar/Astarte/Anat were not part of a matriarchal pantheon, much less matriarchal societies.
The idea of Bull El or Ba’al or being ‘matriarchal’—uh, why do you think these god were represented by male cattle?
Well, the male cattle aspect was part of the reason why I thought worship of Ba’aa was patriarchal. I was responding to QGrrrl’s assertion that it was matriarchal, ’cause I’m always willing to learn new stuff, if true.
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“speculating about what if I wasn’t is a purely philosophical matter with no practical bearing.”
By your reasoning murderers shouldn’t be prosecuted if there isn’t any chance of a repeat offense. After all, the murder victim is dead and no legal action will bring them back.
Q: what if your mother was pro-choice?
the right answer is, of course:
A: My mother is pro-choice…
I agree with Curiousgyrl. A woman can be pro-choice but not want to end her child’s life. Wording is key.
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Just because someone is pro choice doesnt mean they are going to have a abortion. My parents are pro choice as am i. More than likely pro choice would be exercised in a situation where necessary by most people although yes there are people that abuse it as there are people that abuse everything. You say if she had have made the choice to have a abortion you would not be there, well if she had have been hit by a car or something you may not be there either.
I’ll tell you what happened if my mother had not had her abortion…
I wouldn’t be here, if my mother didn’t abort another baby. Neither would my sister. It works both ways, people often forget.
Why? Because a girl with a baby is usually considered largely unmarriageable, especially in the ’70s when my mother was 14 and made the choice to have sex. She got pregnant; if she kept her baby, she may not have finished high school, or gone on to college. Her quality of life would have been drastically decreased by either of those things. Her friends and family would have shamed her; wasn’t it only 30 years ago that they didn’t allow visibly pregnant woman to teach in schools? Imagine what they would have done with pregnant students. Being a single parent is hard and not something I would wish on anyone who has other options. I don’t know if her boyfriend (if he was a boyfriend, or maybe just a random guy) was supportive of her at all; perhaps he didn’t even know about the pregnancy. It’s not his business to, either. But all I know is, she was able to have an abortion and she spared herself a world of suffering, and my unborn half-brother some too.
She later met my father. They knew and loved each other for six years, and both are college-educated, and were able to support a family of four. The chances of her finding time to even meet my father while caring for a child were very, very slim. So that is why I am definitely pro-choice, and if I turned my back on that I feel I would largely be turning my back on my own existence. Something I have always very firmly believed in is that children should be born into as stable an environment as possible. This is probably why I have decided that kids, adopted or not, will have to come for me after 30, when I’ll hopefully be well-settled in life.
So the question really is; what if my mother had been ‘pro-life’? Should she do something stupid like having a baby when she’s not emotionally, monetarily, or even physically prepared, because it’s the ‘right thing to do’? Right now I’m watching my sister suffer the effects of having had a child with the wrong man, an abusive alchohlic. As much as I love my niece, I know that another child could have been born to another man, and that that child would have a much easier time at life. It’s not fair, but it is definitely true.
As long as people keep their laws off my body and my way of life, I’m perfectly happy. It’s your choice and you can choose to have a baby or you can choose not to. I will always pick what I think is smartest in any situation, and feel secure in the fact that no one can make those choices for me except, well, me. (:
Of course you don’t mind if your mother was pro-choice you are the one who lived.
What if the father wants the child, where is his choice ? What would the baby’s choice be, life or death ? I don’t know how you can get around the fact that abortion is murder, life begins at conception and God infuses the soul.
You keep using that word, ‘fact’.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
—Myca
Also fact:
Santa Claus knows when you are sleeping and knows when you’re awake.
Swine before pearls.
The earth is flat.
Zeus is the greatest of gods.
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
Maggots spontaneously generate from rotting meat.
Of course you don’t mind if your mother was pro-choice you are the one who lived.
And if you hadn’t been the one who lived, then you would mind?
What button do I push to imply that I’m pointing and laughing?
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