On Abortion

When women, who have had consensual sex, state that they have no guilt about having had an abortion or refer to women’s right to choose as if such an intimate event was a political statement, it is hard to believe them.

Their response is an admission that she and the partners in creation didn’t believe in the future, their ability to have and raise the child, didn’t believe in each other.

How many women would have gone through with an abortion if the man had said “I will work night and day to support you and the baby. We will make it.”

Or the woman said to herself “I will have this child. No matter what.”

One reads “la-dee-dah” statements from women who have had abortions excusing themselves by claiming that they had no savings, the time wasn’t right, they had a cat.

The fact that they would talk and write about their abortion decades later shows that they are conflicted by their decision and are seeking ratification and approval, which they cannot find except from other women and men who also believe that an abortion is just a procedure and not a termination of a potential life.

Modern technology allows us to see developing fetuses in utero with great clarity. They move, smile, grimace, yawn. They are no longer an unknown blob of cells. Twenty-three week old fetuses can be delivered and saved.

Perhaps as a result, the number of abortions in America have declined by 19% from 2011 through 2017.

It is difficult to talk about abortion.

One never knows if a friend or relative had an abortion or a boyfriend or husband supported one.

Sometimes one meets someone whose behavior is inexplicable, abusive, self-destructive, inhumane, who have a sharpness, a defensiveness, an inability to share in others’ joy.

After other variables are excluded, one can often be left wondering if they had or participated in an abortion and if so, whether it wasn’t only the fetus that was aborted, but their own divine spirit.