Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Pro-Life, But Not Proud of It
I’m 100 percent pro-life: No exceptions for rape or incest, and opposed to all the research and fertility treatments that involve creating zygotes to be left in freezers or destroyed for testing. But I have to admit, I am ashamed to call myself pro-life.
Part of that shame stems from why I am pro-life. I grew up in a family that was both pro-life and adamantly devoted to the bourgeoise American Dream. Children were a gift from God, to be sure, but they were also a gift that should only be accepted when the circumstances were right; i.e., after one had a college degree, a remunerative career, and was married to productive man after buying a nice house in the suburbs. Having children before that point was to throw away one’s life, and a woman staying at home to raise children was a waste of her education. The night we announced our engagement, I overheard my mother flatly say, “Maybe after she pops out a couple kids she’ll realize college is more important.” Having unplanned children was, I understood, a mark of failure to control passions and failure to control fertility.
Moreover, I grew up on a hobby farm. We may not have raised animals for meat, but we lost enough of them that I understood why euthanasia is considered humane: better a quick death by injection than for a cat to suffer through internal bleeding from a car collision, or see the ducks and chickens attacked by coyotes, or a thirty-year-old horse die of dehydration because she couldn’t get up on her arthitic legs. I learned the hard way that sometimes the kindest thing one can do is to let death come quickly and cleanly, as Mother Nature doesn’t let animals die peacefully in their sleep.
With these kind of premises, the pro-life stance I grew up with seemed unfair. If children really did forestall any further education or career potential, maybe it was better to abort a child now so as to build a better life for future children. And maybe it was better to let a fetus die cleanly than to be trapped for nine months with the kind of terrible, thoughtless woman who managed to get unwantedly pregnant in the first place. An abortion was a horrible thing, to be sure, but maybe it was the least bad option.
Things changed. First, my bourgeoise expectations crumbled around me. My husband lost his job as a computer programmer and couldn’t find better paying work than washing dishes. I graduated from law school into a major restructuring of the legal industry and ended up selling shoes to try to make ends meet. Unfortunately, the ends didn’t meet in the middle, and we lost our house in foreclosure. By our tenth anniversary, everything I thought my adult life would be was gone
I began looking enviously at the Facebook pages of high school friends. They’d married their high school sweethearts and stayed in our small town, but they’d had children. For years, I had privately looked down my nose at them, imagining the upper-middle-class life I’d soon have that they’d envy; less than a decade later, I was envious of their children and their husbands who made enough for them to stay home in their modest houses. Children had gone from a curse on the imprudent to a luxury beyond on our means to afford.
My husband and I started working toward being able to afford children, and life improved enough that we felt ready to start trying. So we tried, and tried, and tried. After two years of trying every friendly tip — yes, I even tried dramatically giving up to get pregnant ironically — we brought in the doctors. The verdict was we’d never have children naturally due to a birth defect.
The second change was that, as I was going through this, I changed denominations into a sect of Christianity that takes the pro-life message seriously and became aquainted with pro-lifers who took their call to defend the unborn more seriously than what I’d been used to. Through their influence, I began to learn what abortion really entailed. Far from the clean, humane, and sanitary process I had imagined, I learned how the fetus is ripped apart limb from limb or mashed to a pulp by a vacuum. This wasn’t a humane death: This was a gruesome, torturous execution. If someone killed a puppy in this way, the howls of the internet mob would never stop. Surely, a human fetus deserves at least as much concern.
The third fact came when I decided to look into adoption. I’d had second-hand experiences that didn’t give me good feelings about the system. An aunt and uncle were (and are) foster parents, and it took three years of legal wrangling to finalize my cousin’s adoption because the case worker would rather have seen an unwanted black child with her drug-addicted single mother than with married white social workers. Additionally, a couple we know had been fostering two girls for a year and lost them when the “father” gave one girl a well-earned spanking. It appeared that whatever money one saved by trying to adopt through the public system would be spent either on legal bills to keep a child one had come to think of as one’s own, or would be paid in heartbreak, as a foster parent is less a parent than a landlord for very picky tenants who can move out at a moment’s notice.
If anything, the private systems were more depressing. Domestic adoption fees range from $12,000 to $22,000, plus the ability to pay for any of the mother’s remaining medical bills. International adoption is expensive enough to constitute a status symbol. (Seriously, how many children would there be if every parent had to pay $40,000 to bring them home from the hospital?) For comparison, the average abortion costs $400.
I thought about how my child-free life had not brought me the material success and contentment it was supposed to bring. I thought about how unlikely it would ever be that I could afford to adopt. I thought about how adoption was so expensive, in part, because there were so many parents who wanted to adopt and so few children who were both unwanted and survived to term. I thought about how those children who could have been mine were brutally killed because other women — women lucky enough to conceive — decided they couldn’t be bothered. I envied them, and I hated them.
In the end, I’m ashamed that what convinced me to become adamantly pro-life was not a new-found respect for the worth of all life, or a utilitarian analysis that the potential for each person to help make the world a better place outweighed the significant inconvenience to parents, or even a humble submission to the teachings of the church I joined. No, what finally pushed me over the edge into a 100 percent, no-exceptions, pro-life stance was the deep visceral hatred I felt for the women who’d been given what I so deeply craved who would rather destroy that gift — kill that child — rather than be inconvenienced long enough to regift it to me and my sisters in barrenhood whose arms ache for a child.
Published in Culture
A vasectomy removes the feeder belt between the ammunition supply and the gun barrel, as it were. It’s now possible to give the bullets a lift to the target, which is relatively inexpensive. (Side irritation — if the Catholic Church wanted to reduce the number of couples resorting to IVF, she could start by making an adoption from her agencies not cost as much as two rounds of IVF.)
Mr. Amy has no biological siblings. He has a couple of cousins I’ve never met though we’ve been married 13.5 years. Were we to solicit a sperm donor (which I really don’t want to do) I’d prefer to go with one of several friends who have proven fertility.
Human yearning vs acceptance is the hardest struggle of all.
Whether you adopt or have children on your own it’s still a crap shoot with no guarantees. When my wife became pregnant with our youngest she was 40. Every doctor in the OB/GYN practice made a run at her about the need to perform amniocentesis. Everyone of them was mystified by her refusal. They couldn’t understand her acceptance of the risk. No matter what, that was our child and was not disposable.
Have you looked into The Dave Thomas Foundation? The Wendy’s founder was an adopted son himself and set up a foundation to help facilitate the adoption process.
Dear Amy,
What a wonderful, useful* post. You’re a miracle.
*my husband informs me that “useful” is my highest praise.
Thank you for sharing. I have no discomfort with my pro-life position, but two things about the organized pro-life movement have bugged me:
The data show that adopted kids, while faring worse than kids on average, do better than their biological siblings raised by their biological parents. It’s not the adoption that causes issues. You have to go into adoption knowing that you are planning to make one child’s life better than it otherwise would have been, not necessarily expecting the life you would have had if you had been able to have bio kids.
It sounds scary and crazy and horrible up front, but once you bring the child home, for most people that feeling fades and is replaced by a fierce, loyal, and protective love. Where that doesn’t happen it is often because people have not come to terms with the risks up front. Generations ago, no one even tried to educate parents about the risks, and I wonder if issues weren’t therefore more common.
Thanks, Amy, for a fuller picture.
Conservatives especially are tempted to assume greater control over their own lives than they actually possess. Life is more responding than planning (free will nonetheless).
I have never met new parents who felt “ready” for their child. Parenthood is overwhelming, incalculable both in struggle and in satisfaction. It is the nature of parental love (good people, true love) to always want more for one’s children. Good parents demand more of themselves than their children demand. Many paupers’ children have been happy.
Now that unwed motherhood has become more accepted it’s perhaps not surprising that adopted children these days feel extra-abandoned.
Being myself one of those people brought up to firmly believe that
and that children very much need both parents, it never occurred to me to look upon putting a child conceived out of wedlock up for adoption as anything other than a noble (but also necessary) sacrifice, so that a mother’s determination to keep the child when marrying the father is unworkable is still difficult for me to interpret as something other than a kind of selfishness.
But as long as unwed mothers can hold their babies hostage by threatening to abort them, it becomes very difficult to stress the ills of keeping the baby rather than giving it up for adoption. And when being an unwed mother seems like the relatively saintly option simply because it avoids abortion, it’s hardly a surprise that children given up for adoption appreciate the wisdom of their birth mothers’ relinquishment less, and instead resent their birth moms for “abandoning” them.
I have to say, abortion is the great evil of our time. The fact that we have been shown just the magnitude of horror it involves, and in response said, “We want more of this!” speaks ill of our culture. If the Lord is just, we will have a heavy price to pay. I can understand your anger.
Save some hatred for the peddlers of abortion, who do their best to convince others this is the only way. Who claim the mantle of choice but then demonstrate they want no choice at all.
I hope things improve for you. Doesn’t seem right at all.
Amy, my heart aches for you. Whatever the outcome, I’m praying for strength for both you and your husband.
I don’t think there is any excuse for abortions except in rare cases. My last pregnancy was in 1963, which was ectopic, and I was put on birth control. The pill and condoms are so available there just any any excuse for an unwanted pregnancy.
Amy,
I look forward to meeting you at the meetup, face to face, as the woman who made such a heart filled post, and the man she shares her life with.
Thank you for this post.
I feel it is important to not only believe the right things, but to do so for the right reasons.
Sorry for the awful pain behind this post.
But–being pro-life mainly because you’re mad that some other woman doesn’t give up 9 months of her life, and go thru the trauma of parting with her newborn, so some stranger can adopt? Have to agree with you–that’s nothing to be proud of.
It makes more sense than the other reasons, especially the religious one. The Bible doesn’t prohibit abortion. And the puppy analogy? Very true, AFTER a certain developmental milestone is passed. Not so true if you take the simple step of peeing on a strip of paper the day you miss your period, and immediately have the egg-sac removed.
You don’t look very old. I hope for the best for you! About the post from the lady whose mom’s “miracle baby” never quite met the expectations raised by her birth–I think that mom woulda felt that way even if she had conceived a month after marriage. Conception is always risky. Nature weeds out many, many zygotes. And many conceptions are of a chromosome combination which dictates that their life expectancy is no more than 8-10 weeks.
i do appreciate hearing an anti-abortion argument that isn’t religion-based, however. I’d like to know if any other readers have non-religious reasons for opposing the practice.
As a case worker in Los Angles County 1966, I had a case file of 120 unmarried minor mothers from ages 12 to 16. Most gave their babies up for adoption. I have held more than one sobbing, heartbroken child who wanted to keep her baby but family attitudes and pressures prevented it. And of course, she would have been convinced her child would be better cared for. You are not going to find very many of these women who will come forward today and tell you how wonder they were for giving up their children instead of aborting them. Is it “selfish” for a girl or woman to want to keep her child? How about all you parents out there? Could you just hand over your child at birth to someone else so you wouldn’t keep them out of selfishness?
Then you and I (and many others) have a different understanding of the phrase “Thou Shall Not Kill.”
E.j. Hill:
yes, exactly, that’s my point. That commandment means not to kill another human being. (Except in war, or for transgressing the law) But it doesn’t say anything about when being a human person begins. No one knows, cuz we don’t remember, whether a fetus has attributes of personhood. That is a matter of religious doctrine.
I’m interested in knowing whether anyone opposes very early pregnancy termination on grounds other that religion.
EJ, you are mistaken. The Bible does not, repeat, does not say “Thou Shall Not Kill,” it says, “Thou Shall Not Murder.” There is a difference. There is tremendous discourse in Rabbinical sources about this subject. Quoting a verse out of context doesn’t do it.
It’s dehumanizing. Look at the major societal changes that have been forwarded by the progressive left since the end of WWII:
Abortion, no-fault divorce, assisted suicide, end-of-life counseling, euthanasia… All of it predicated on the disposability of another’s existence in your life. Even the move towards nursing homes is part of it.
This baby is going to change my life: kill it.
My spouse is not fulfilling my dreams: dispose of him/her.
My elderly parent is becoming a burden: warehouse and then kill.
The baby boomers and subsequent generations all sit around and whine, “What about meeeeeee?!? Don’t I deserve happiness?!?”
Short answer, “No.”
None of us “deserve” anything. Stuff happens. Control what you can and deal with those things you cannot.
In this case it is a negligible difference as the Biblical exclusions for killing another human being hardly apply. And it’s still “kill” in the King James Version.
And since it’s a commandment, a list of 10 laws handed down from God to the Hebrews I’m not sure how much “context” is missing. It’s short, simple and direct. Did that commandment come with an asterisk? Is there a codicil or a rider that I left out?
Rabbinical discourse? That’s man making an interpretation and/or looking for loopholes? My church is full of that, too.
Being acutely aware of (at least some of) my own limitations, yes, I believe it would be cruel of me to force a child to rely on me as his sole parent. Now, perhaps I believe this to be so because I have had limitations that other women of childbearing age typically don’t have. On the other hand, had I become pregnant out of wedlock, I also would have had advantages that many unwed mothers don’t have, so it’s hard to say.
But then, it’s quite possible that, had I done something to become an unwed mother in my youth, my reaction to unwed pregnancy at the time would have been suicide – murder-suicide for the pro-life. I still have, though most modern Americans apparently don’t, that atavistic savage streak that considers murder-suicide marginally more honorable than mere murder, since at least it shows willingness to “pay” for the life you’ve taken with your own.
At any rate, I’m profoundly grateful to have had my first child in wedlock, and I’m hoping my husband, who’s a wonderful man, lives a good, long life, because, while the mother may be the more necessary parent by sheer biology, I believe my husband is the better parent of the two of us – and that the kind of parent I’d be without him would be much poorer than the kind of parent I can be with him.
A pertinent biblical analogue for abortion would be the sacrifice of children to Molech, also forbidden by Law and denounced by prophets.
My reasons are not religion based. I was standing at a National military cemetery in Vicksburg MS, both Union and Confederate. Looking across thousands upon thousands of grave markers and for some reason I started to cry. My little 6 year old grandson asked me why. I told him those markers represented books and poetry not written, music not composed, great potential for our country just slaughtered. Same for abortions, 60,000,000 writers, musicians, statesmen, etc. not born with less reasons than the slaughter of the Civil War participants.
Kay of MT:
To your first comment:yes, and Exodus 21:22-23 indicates in fact that killing fetus is NOt regarded as “killing” in the sense of murder.
to your second comment: I get that– but what if Hitler and Stalin had been aborted? The great evil-doers among us were once zygotes too.
E.J. Hill:
so I think you’re saying it cheapens human life, whether you’re religious or not. I have heard that.
(But, couldn’t you also argue that it puts a premium on the QUALITY of human life? if, as I’ve read, women do it for economic reasons, aren’t they ensuring that a child won’t be born into deprivation and penury? And in the case of birth defects, into a short life of pain and/or dependency?)
Andthen, what is the argument for putting the life of the fetus (or zygote or egg-sac) above that of mom, a fully developed human being? And why is it ok in cases of rape or incest, if all you care about is “life”?
The tone of your response still suggests to me that a lot of the anti-abortion rhetoric is just punitive toward the mom-(-kinda ironic since none of these people seem to feel mom should actually be prosecuted if abortion is criminalized. ) You mention divorce– so you’re saying: everyone should bear the consequences of his/her own bad decisions! For the rest of his/her life!
OK, but: we don’t. By that reasoning wouldn’t we deny treatment to people with tobacco induced lung cancer, alcohol induced cirrhosis?
When life begins is debatable. There is certainly an argument for it beginning at conception, but I tend to take a more “medical” view on it: If we determine death occurs when the heart stops, why would we not determine that life begins when the heart starts, which is at 6 weeks?
For all the modern talk of “love has no color”, it’s often difficult for adopted kids who are of a different race than their parents. The mirror doesn’t lie, and it’s a reminder everyday that they’re not the ones that birthed you. The parents don’t care… they just want a child to love… but the rest of the world isn’t so embracing. It’s especially hard for black kids adopted by white parents. They get tons of crap from other black kids and pressure about “not acting white”.
In the time of Rashi, or Salomon ben Isaac 1040 – 1105 C.E., of Troyes France, there were many learned Jews who could read, write, and speak Latin. There were also many learned scholars of the Church who could read, write and speak Hebrew. By about 1090 the Church was fully aware they had made errors in translating the Torah into Latin and refused to correct those errors. They liked their own version better. In addition 17th century English has changed.
Vicryl contessa:
yes, I could accept 6 weeks, cuz now it’s so cheap and easy for anyone to find out she’s pregnant on the day she misses her period.
Truer words never appeared on Ricochet.
I’ve been on the side of unfulfilled desire for children due to multiple miscarriages, and I’ve been on the side of unfulfilled desire due to the serious medical challenges suffered by one of the daughters I was eventually able to bring to term through medical intervention. I’ve concluded, with or without kids, God wants us brokenhearted.
What we have to struggle with is, “why?” The only answer I’ve come up with is, He wants whatever leads us deeper into love (h/t Bishop Robert Barron; love being “willing the good of the other, as other” — that is, not the fulfillment of my own desires, but sacrifice for the good of others).
It’s a terrible challenge, not capable of being met except by the grace of God. And it hurts like hell.
Sorry for your suffering, Amy.
I disagree they are anything close to being the similar. Research the practice of human sacrifices of the pagan religions especially about the time the Ten were given to the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai about 1500 B.C.E.
The story of the “Binding of Isaac” long before giving the Ten, was to forbid human sacrifice.
To take into account the “quality” of life is assign classes of humanity. “Untermenschen,” or subhuman classification is the hallmarks of the eugenics movement.