Someday You Will Be Loved
Thursday was the 36th Annual March for Life in Washington DC. Something like 200,000 people came, gathered from every corner of our nation, drawn year after year to the juncture where activist judges met the lies of the pro-choice leading to the legal murder of an estimated 50 million children.
Last year I was there. I couldn’t go this year, but I did go to a rally in Lansing, MI. Somehow this was different than I had expected it to be. A few things hit me.
At one point the director of a local crisis pregnancy center read out the years since the Roe decision, listing the number of abortions for each year. In 1985, the year I was born, about 1,588,600 children were aborted. Today nearly 1 in every 4 pregnancies in the US is ended by abortion. It’s an impossible exercise — mental, economic, or otherwise — to imagine how different the landscape could be sans Roe. Usually when I think about this, I jump immediately to national implications, and then after about 30 seconds of trying to balance the myriad factors in my head and how they would all play against each other, I give up.
But this time I wondered how many of those kids I would have known personally. If I would have studied Shakespeare with her, or sat across from him at Espresso. If I could have called her in the middle of the night, cause she would have been like a sister to me. If I would have fallen in love with him and never fallen out. It’s pointless to wonder. Potential is a funny thing — unquantifiable, unpredictable.
While the crisis pregnancy center director was speaking, and actually during the entire rally, there was another woman going through the crowd, continually introducing herself to the various elected officials, clergymen, and other people of note. She had some leaflets and, from what I could gather, was trying to gather support or recognition for some sort of coalition for mentally disabled people. One look at this woman and it was evident that this was also her personal fight, not just her public activism. And she was gutsy, and persistent. I admired her.
About 90% of mothers choose abortion when fetal tests point to Down syndrome. I wondered if this woman knew that. If she doesn’t know it, I wonder if she feels it when people look at her. I wonder if she feels the weight of society’s collective spite and annoyance toward her. I wonder what it feels like to know that the society in which you live mostly thinks your life should have been taken away before you drew your first breath.
And it made me so sad to think that she is living in a world in which you have to defend yourself for having a Down syndrome child. Part of her pitch was a quote from Sarah Palin about Trig, whom they knew had Down syndrome while Sarah was pregnant. I didn’t get much of it, but I remember the words “beautiful” and “perfect” and I could hear her underlying message — Trig isn’t less because he was born different. And neither am I.
I tried to imagine going through life always feeling like you had to prove you were worth it too, that you deserve to be here and to be respected and cared for — to be loved. The closest analogy I could come up with is if I were somehow dropped into the Davos Forum — everything would be going a bit too fast for me, and the other attendees would look at me askance, or ignore me entirely, and the entire time I would awkwardly smile, wondering why is everything so hard, and why do I keep having to convince everyone that what I know or who I am is enough to justify my presence.
But that’s not the same, and I know it. And I hope that last paragraph doesn’t sound like I’m making fun of her, or mentally disabled people, because that’s the last thing I want to do.
There is a deeper philosophy to those who fight against legalized abortion. Being pro-life isn’t just about saving babies or helping women not make an irrevocable decision they will almost certainly regret. It’s certainly not about men trying to control women, or some sort of religious anti-sex agenda. This is about how we view each other. This is about how we view life, life in each person, life as it is and as it should be lived. This is about making a conscious effort to see every single person as valuable, as having something to teach you, as a person worthy of love.
The prevalence of abortion in our society is merely one symptom of our failure to recognize and treat each other as such. I don’t know if I’m effectively drawing all these strands together, but the dissonance between how people treat a pregnancy when it is wanted and when it is not would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. A choice, not a child? Not a life? This is a farce, a fable that people buy into because it’s easier, because they can. We mistreat each other out of hubris and laziness, we look down on others, we objectify them, we selfishly guard our wants. We convince ourselves that we’re just a little bit better, a little bit more deserving. Did you ever wonder how someone could kill a man with his bare hands, or rape a girl as she screamed for mercy? Or how a man could sell his neighbor into slavery, or walk past another bleeding on the side of the road? It starts with a quiet voice inside that says, “I matter more.” Where does it end?
. . . 50 million . . .
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 25 January 2009 at 5:35 pm:
Thank you for writing this, Brenda.
I am reminded that Trig is probably going to be two standard deviations below average intelligence–the exact distance that a person with an IQ of 142 is above. If the masses are not worthy of death in the mind of someone that smart (although those unrestricted by traditional moral codes often are), then it is equally wrong for the average to condemn those below them, also.
It looks like they’re already sorting embryos to eliminate the breast cancer gene, as I expected when I wrote my pieces on biotech a year and a half ago. Diabetes and homosexuality are right around the corner….
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 25 January 2009 at 5:37 pm:
The parenthesis above should read…
(although those idealistic intellectuals unrestricted by traditional moral codes often act as if that is the case)
Comment by Segen on 25 January 2009 at 6:04 pm:
do you think a reason so many parents abort their down syndrome babies is because there is not much social support for these parents to raise children who have disabilities? it seems like caring for these children is viewed as a “your problem”, not “our problem”. i recently read an article (cannot remember where) where a mother cared for her autistic son her whole life and now that she is too old and frail, she can no longer care for him. she put up ads in the the newspaper asking for other families to take on a 40+ year old to care for. i hope a family takes him in…because i don’t think there are many group homes with sufficient funding left to care for this man for the rest of his life…but i am honestly not so sure i know any families that would be willing to be primary care givers to adults with mental disabilities.
maybe abortion is a subset of the american culture of “individualism”…which lacks good, structured support.
Comment by Segen on 25 January 2009 at 6:11 pm:
random questions/thoughts that come to mind:
what are your thoughts on birth control?
what would you recommend for population control (like in china, where overpopulation was/is a real issue for society)?
i also think abortion is not just about a baby not being “loved”. perhaps the parents face major struggles and would be unable to care for the child in any capacity. is it the more loving thing to do to end suffering before it begins?
do you think controlling the population of other species (like deer) is also wrong?
Comment by Brandon on 25 January 2009 at 6:21 pm:
This is a rather interesting pro-life argument Brenda. Thank you for the contribution. Ok, the picture was jarring, but it was meant to be. Abortion is a highly complicated, convoluted, and multi-faceted issue that we tend to not really discuss honestly, but rather with absolutist platitudes. This goes for both sides.
Out of curiosity, what is your source for the 1 in 4 number? A quick calculation from the first source I found online shows 1 in 5, but it really doesn’t matter. The abortion rate and society’s general distaste for the actual fact of abortion (not whether it should be legal or not) seems to indicate a bigger problem than abortion. Loss of family supportive structures? The increased “investment” that children represent as we move toward an increasingly information-oriented economy? Selfish egotism on the part of those who don’t want the trouble or find the timing off? Lack of sufficient support for and access to contraceptives?
I don’t really know. Maybe someone else does. Nonetheless, interesting perspective.
Comment by Segen on 25 January 2009 at 7:17 pm:
obama to end the “politicization” of abortion: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17898.html
Comment by Joshua on 25 January 2009 at 7:24 pm:
I’m in Washington, though I didn’t attend the rally. I also found something jarring. I saw a bunch of young children walk by my office holding signs protesting abortion. And by young I mean, 5-8 years old. Kids that age shouldn’t have to hear about abortion, they shouldn’t have to know what it is. They should be playing with toys, playing in the park, or building snow men, and learning how to read Dr. Seuss. I was disgusted that their parents used them as political props and dragged them out all day in the cold to protest something they don’t understand, or at a minimum, something they shouldn’t have to understand for several more years.
I wonder how many of those protesting support their tax dollars going to help poor families provide health care for their children as good as their own health care? Brenda, I wonder if you do. Are you personally doing anything to help poor children survive when the get here? Spend any time at a food bank? Just wondering.
Do you advocate family planning? How about taxpayer funded birth control for families who cant afford it? What do you propose we do to help?
And Brenda, what do you think the criminal penalty should be for a young woman who terminates her pregnancy?
To briefly quote the talking points, I want abortion to be safe, legal and rare. Education, greater access to birth control, funding mechanisms to support those who want to keep their child but cant afford to, health care for young children, etc. I also want to support them when they get here. Health care should be a birthright in America.
Comment by Segen on 25 January 2009 at 7:35 pm:
is that photo a photo of an abortion or a c-section? i’ve never heard of an abortion where the mother is cut as depicted in the photo. interesting though.
Comment by Joshua on 25 January 2009 at 7:39 pm:
Brenda, I think your post essentially argues that abortion is bad, and that it is morally wrong, and that we’re losing tremendous human potential. I think people of goodwill, pro-life/ and pro-choice alike can agree on those concepts.
There is a pretty big distinction between arguing essentially “abortion is bad” and “reverse roe” (or “the government should be able to proscribe criminal penalties to women who have abortions or doctors who perform abortions.”) Republicans won elections by making it about the first, while the real, tangible, functional legal issue is the second. While you effectively argue what I consider a pretty obvious point, that abortion is almost always morally wrong, I don’t think you really touched the legal, functional question. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on whether or not from a policy perspective, you think the government should have the power to criminally punish people for having a first or second trimester abortion.
Comment by Joshua on 25 January 2009 at 7:40 pm:
Or is the picture a legit picture or just scare propaganda.
Comment by Joshua on 25 January 2009 at 7:46 pm:
By the way, it should be pointed out that Brenda has engaged in constructive efforts beyond protest. She did help head a very constructive effort on campus to make pregnant women more aware of resources through the university to help them if they make the decision to keep their child.
They held a conference of some sort and accumulated information. I encouraged Brenda to create an enduring source of information on campus, like a website “so you’re pregnant at Illinois, what resources are here for you?” Brenda said the people taking over the org planned to do that, but I’m not sure if it ever happened.
Comment by Brenda Kay on 25 January 2009 at 10:24 pm:
Brandon,
I got my figure from the Second Look Project [http://secondlookproject.org/tslp_stats.html], but if you want to go to the source, they cite the Gutmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s Research Arm and one of the few organizations gathering official information on abortion. The Gutmacher Institute is considered, if anything, skewed to the pro-choice side, but most people on both sides accept its figures.
Segen,
I think people are scared of having children with Down syndrome. It’s a daunting prospect. Part of it is the lack of social support and services for handicapped people in our country [I think Katie talked about that once on this blog]. Part of it is fear of the unknown — now that so many of these children are aborted, the ones who are left are pushed even further out of mainstream society.
I don’t deny that some parents might feel the task of parenting a child with Down syndrome, or any child, might be too much, and they feel like they cannot take it on. Adoption lists in the US are years long, and that includes babies with disabilities and any ethnicity you can name. The more loving thing to do is give your child a chance and place him or her up for adoption.
And no, my pro-life arguments are not applicable to deer or other species.
Segen and Joshua,
I am absolutely in favor of cheap or even free access to birth control, tax-payer provided. “Family Planning” is an ambiguous term which often includes abortion, so no, I am not a proponent of that.
The photo is neither propaganda nor an abortion nor a c-section. I hyper-linked the picture but you can also go to http://michaelclancy.com/ to check it out. It’s a photo taken of a 21-week old baby in the womb, having corrective surgery. While the doctor was performing the surgery, he reached out and grabbed the doctor’s finger. Amazing.
Joshua,
I’ve heard your argument about children before, and I think it’s pretty weak. Abortion is an awful reality, but kids know that sometimes people hurt each other, they know that there are wrongs in the world. I’m guessing these kids don’t know, for example, the gruesome detail of partial-birth abortion, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with telling a 5-year old kid that, “Today we’re going to march in a big group to tell the president we think every baby deserves a chance to be born.” Would you have a problem with bringing kids along to a protest against war? Against free trade? What about an Obama rally? Are you upset about the subject matter or the fact that you think parents shouldn’t be bringing their kids to things political at all?
“I wonder how many of those protesting support their tax dollars going to help poor families provide health care for their children as good as their own health care?” Do you expect me to have numbers for this? I’m not sure what you’re looking for, clearly the best I can offer is anecdotal evidence.
Look up Catholic Charities in America and see how much they do. More than pretty much anyone, is the answer. Catholics are overwhelmingly pro-life. While you’re at it, google Project Gabriel, Project Rachel. Pick a random church website and check out what sort of community mission work they do, who they support, which programs they run. Do a bit of research on crisis pregnancy centers, which are completely run by people who are pro-life. There are hundreds of them across the country, amazing grassroots efforts helping with everything from pre-natal care to free diapers to daycare to students loans. I would guess at least 99% of my home church members would call themselves pro-life, and my church gives to various community organizations that help feed the poor, take care of women facing crisis pregnancies, and rehabilitate prisoners.
As for me, you already mentioned some of what I did while at school. In Vienna I volunteered at Lebenszentrum Wien [http://www.hli.at/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/]. In Michigan I’m beginning to volunteer at the local crisis pregnancy center here — I started orientation last week. As for food banking credentials — no, not since high school, although in the spring of 2007 I was a member of the Student Outreach Team for the United Nations World Food Programme. I also support several worthy causes directly with my checkbook. I do — tentatively — support universal health-care, although I don’t agree with you that doing so is a necessary component of being pro-life.
Abortion is NOT rare, Joshua. It makes a lovely talking point but it gets a bit tired after I’ve just told you that 50 million have happened in the past 36 years, and since my original post this afternoon, hundreds more have died. The figure for every day is somewhere in between 3 and 4 thousand.
” . . . what I consider a pretty obvious point, that abortion is almost always morally wrong . . . ”
I have never denied that abortion is a very difficult policy question. But that’s not where the place to begin. You should start with the fact that it’s wrong, and go from there. Difficulty in legislating an issue does not recuse the wrong done therein. With what little knowledge I have of the criminal justice system and the way abortion penalties worked before Roe, I would advocate jail time for both mother and doctor, with the added provision that the doctor lose his license. Beyond that, it’s difficult for me to speculate. I don’t support the death penalty in any case, so you needn’t bother bringing that up. I wouldn’t know where to begin in terms of how long the sentence would be. I believe up til Roe the jail times for the mothers were quite short — consistently less than a year — and longer for the doctors.
You acquiesce that abortion is wrong but then assume most people would agree with you — no, actually, many pro-choice people would not agree with you — not publicly, anyway. The legal issue is primary, you argue, but I would argue that the first order of business is to change the way abortion is perceived in our culture. I posted that picture to show how absurd it is when people say it’s just a fetus, just a blob, not a baby — of course that’s a baby, of course that’s a person, of course he is every bit deserving of life as you or I. Admitting that abortion is wrong and then saying you have to keep it legal because it’s too hard to decide what to do with those who break the law just looks like laziness or cowardice from over here.
Comment by Brenda Kay on 25 January 2009 at 11:05 pm:
I already regret the last sentence of that post. Forgive me, it was too harsh. Still, I think a workable policy solution could be found if people were willing to search for it.
Comment by chrism on 25 January 2009 at 11:36 pm:
We’ll never agree on abortion, but can we at least agree that bringing freaking 5 year olds fresh out of pre-school to anti- or pro-abortion rallies is just a ridiculously selfish and stupid idea? This is akin to those idiot anti-Bush protesters that used to hang out at First and Green back in the day, who brought their small children with them in sub-freezing temperatures to hold signs all day. Complete idiocy. Children need to be children (but that’s a post for another day).
Also, I really think these statistics and pictures included for “shock value” don’t work at all when directed at an audience, such as the one on this blog, that I’d say is composed of very intelligent people. This piece seems to fit better in a local newspaper of some kind.
Comment by chrism on 25 January 2009 at 11:37 pm:
Make that Neil & Green, and I believe they were up on Prospect near I-74 as well.
Comment by the magic bullet on 26 January 2009 at 12:03 am:
maybe abortion is a subset of the american culture of “individualism”
Very compelling comment. Selfish individualism is often decried by the very same that would support ‘choice’ but you are right, it is a symptom of a me-first culture.
And by young I mean, 5-8 years old. Kids that age shouldn’t have to hear about abortion, they shouldn’t have to know what it is. They should be playing with toys, playing in the park, or building snow men, and learning how to read Dr. Seuss. I was disgusted that their parents used them as political props and dragged them out all day in the cold to protest something they don’t understand, or at a minimum, something they shouldn’t have to understand for several more years.
Replace ‘abortion’ with homosexual relationships and you’ll sound like a Rick Warren congregant.
We’ll never agree on abortion, but can we at least agree that bringing freaking 5 year olds fresh out of pre-school to anti- or pro-abortion rallies is just a ridiculously selfish and stupid idea? This is akin to those idiot anti-Bush protesters that used to hang out at First and Green back in the day, who brought their small children with them in sub-freezing temperatures to hold signs all day. Complete idiocy. Children need to be children (but that’s a post for another day).
Chrism – bringing the sanity to the equation!
Comment by the magic bullet on 26 January 2009 at 12:12 am:
As for the picture, I’m on Brenda Kay’s side philosophically but the source of the picture is Samuel Armas. What one thinks is happening in that photograph will depend on what on believes.
The post and the responses were interesting, but I would like to thank Brenda Kay for introducing me to Bernard Nathanson. I was not familiar with his story, but I find it simultaneously heartwarming, intriguing, and frightening. Frightening because I imagine the technological advance that will be to the masses what ultrasound was to Nathanson. Oh how the world will weep.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 26 January 2009 at 5:31 am:
A few thoughts:
On the bringing children to protests question, I’m of the view that that’s a totally healthy thing to do, to the point that I’d recommend it and plan on getting my kids active in those sorts of things. At the same time, I think it’s important (and I think everybody would agree) to raise your kids to have an open mind and not just automatically adopt the opinions of their parents, but I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. I plan on bringing my kids to political rallies, protests, etc., but when they’re young I doubt I will explain much about the substance of what’s going on – just the experience of being politically active is a valuable one, and young kids obviously aren’t capable of understanding complex policy questions anyway. When they get older they can choose on their own what causes they get involved in. And I don’t see why that general approach should differ whether it’s an abortion rally or a war rally or whatever.
I’m a little taken aback by Josh saying “what I consider a pretty obvious point, that abortion is almost always morally wrong” and that “people of goodwill” can all agree that “abortion is morally wrong.” The position that abortion is morally wrong is a defensible one, but it’s far from obvious and certainly not everybody of goodwill agrees. People of goodwill can, I think, respect that pro-life people have very deeply held beliefs on the subject and that those beliefs ought to be taken seriously. But to me it is obvious that there’s no broad consensus on the morality of abortion – that’s why it’s such a tricky issue! Speaking for myself, and I know other “people of goodwill” who feel the same way, I don’t have any moral qualms about abortion, certainly not the vast majority that are conducted fairly early in the pregnancy. Certainly it’s not a pleasant procedure to go through physically, and probably in most cases entails some psychological and emotional and social struggle as well, so it’s definitely worth avoiding, but I would NOT call it immoral at all. I respect those who feel otherwise and understand where they’re coming from, but it’s just not the case that there is this broad consensus that Josh seems to think there is.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 26 January 2009 at 7:05 am:
Just to clarify, I’m not saying it’s not a good idea for pro-life people and liberals to work together on areas of agreement like child care and contraception and comprehensive sex education. I just find it irritating that a lot of Democrats have adopted these new talking points that suggest that everybody agrees that abortion is an awful thing and should never be done. It’s just not the case that everybody agrees to that, and if I were a woman who had gotten an abortion and I kept hearing Democrats trip over themselves to emphasize how “people of good will” all understand how horrible and wrong abortion is, I’d be a little pissed off about it.
Comment by John Bambenek on 26 January 2009 at 8:29 am:
Can someone explain to me why teaching children about abortion is bad in one breath, but teaching kids comprehensice promiscuity education starting from K is ok?
Just saying.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 26 January 2009 at 8:39 am:
I missed where anybody recommended “comprehensive promiscuity education starting from K.”
Comment by Brandon on 26 January 2009 at 11:48 am:
“Can someone explain to me why teaching children about abortion is bad in one breath, but teaching kids comprehensice promiscuity education starting from K is ok?”
When was the last time you went into a classroom Bamby? They teach kindergardeners to not get into cars with strangers offering candy and to tell the teacher if someone touches them in a naughty spot. That’s about it until they’re teenagers or middle school.
Comment by Todd on 28 January 2009 at 4:21 am:
After seeing the 92% statistic (Down syndrome abortion rate) and reading the Bernard Nathanson story linked to by “the magic bullet,” it occurred to me that perhaps people’s views on abortion are not as strong as they appear to be or as strong as they think they are.
I assume that far fewer than 92% are pro-choice and that one’s opinion on abortion does not impact one’s probability of conceiving a child with Down syndrome. I understand that some people are really “pro-life as long as it’s a normal child conceived under normal circumstances,” but 92%? That suggests to me that some “pro-life” people are aborting their children.
And Bernard, on the other end of the spectrum, helped found NARAL and claimed to be responsible for more than 75,000 abortions, and all it took for him to change his mind was ultrasound. That was particularly startling to me, because I’m not easily moved by images. My reaction to the picture in the original post was “Whoa, that’s pretty cool! What is it?”
Comment by Todd on 28 January 2009 at 4:48 am:
Tom,
I think that if someone was going to make a utilitarian argument for aborting all Downs babies, it wouldn’t be about the intelligence itself but rather a consequence of it. As a group, those with 100 IQ make a valuable contribution to humanity, whereas I’d be very surprised to learn that the Downs group isn’t a resource drain.
Since I feel like someone might ask, I also think most people who would make such an argument would not support the execution of known adult leeches. Though that would more directly and efficiently solve the leeching problem, it would have numerous nasty consequences. The death of an adult usually affects many others, whereas the death of a fetus usually has limited impact outside of the mother. An unpleasant culture would also be created, where people would worry for their lives, worry government officials will change the rules governing who lives and who dies, and feel more disposable.
My own opinion? I’m kind of happy the Downs abortion rate is so high, but I would not want the mandatory abortion we’ve been talking about.