To live, it seems, is to devour the young.
Saturn devours his son in this painting by Francisco Goya. It depicts the Greek myth of the god, who, fearing that his children would supplant him, ate each one upon their birth.
Although a liberal, I for one do believe that abortion is, as a friend of mine recently put it, “baby murdering,” or to be more precise, the killing of a potential human life. Nevertheless, I support the legality of abortion in the belief that from death comes life.
As it happens, it would seem both the pro- and anti-abortion camps seem to agree with this principle of “from death comes life.” Where they disagree is on the question of who is dying, who is living, and in what ways.
Conservatives say that society exists for its children, and that a woman should be willing to expend her career and even her life if necessary. After all, this is what we are called to do as biological beings and children of God.
Liberals, however, point out that a society which exists only to breed is not much of a society at all. There are issues of aspirations and happiness for adults in general and women in particular that have been overlooked for far too long in history. After all, a civilization in which half the species is consigned to the bedchamber is losing out on half its potential to produce the artists and intellectuals who raise the human being above the animal.
So you can see why the two camps are at loggerheads — conservatives focus on the future, liberals on the present; conservatives focus on the general species, liberals on the individual creature; conservatives call for self-sacrifice, liberals call for self-fulfillment.
Until these two poles can be reconciled, or transcended, it’s an unwinnable debate. The most fanatical of the both camps realize this, hence the bombings of abortion clinics and the resort to the judicial system as a backdoor method of legislating. They believe that violence and cunning may prevail where reason has failed.
With regards to the hypocrisies of both camps, well, that’s a whole other fun subject. Liberals loathe war, but how many governments have been overthrown so they can enjoy their soy lattes? Conservatives love war, but how many of the little darlings they demand our women to breed will die–and have already died–by the sword?
Murder seems inescapable. To make another comparison, we have slowly ground to death millions of Chinese children just for the clothes we wear on our backs, but make no mistake, the situation would be no different if it was our children who were in the sweat shops and their adults in the department stores. And we need not look to human civilization to see that in nature all animals, be they philosophers or brutes, consume the children of other species, and frequently their own. To live, it seems, is to devour the young.
26 August, 2008 at 22:40
I believe that if you are going to believe in abortion as the termination of a potential life, isn’t an egg left unfertilized also a potential life?
During my Catholic upbringing when my monthly visitor started, I used to cry hysterically because I thought that I was wasting half babies, and that’s why everyone blamed Eve. Illogical? Maybe, was I young and crazy? Definitely!
I think that the matter depends on how every woman feels about the situation. Although I do lament the fact that men do not have a say in the matter, they should at least be able to extract the fertilized egg and give it to a surrogate if the woman doesn’t want the child.
Personally, if I was in a good financial position I would have it, but, if I was poor I would abort only because I don’t want to bring a child into a life of poverty knowing that it’s chances of success are lessened. I think that in the age of our civilization, there should be more careful thought about bringing children into this world as opposed to the biological imperative to breed and then deal with the consequences later.
Which brings me to another question that perplexes me:
I run into poor single mothers all the time that have 1, 2, sometimes even 3 children by my age (25). Counting out those who are divorced, and only considering those who just had several careless pregnancies in a row, what do you think is their motivator for having all of those children?
I’ve often wondered what their logic was in having so many children knowing that they would be unsupported (and/or the responsibility of the tax payers). Is it lack of education, lack of birth control, aren’t condoms cheaper than children?