****************OFF TOPIC (ABORTION)*********************
Michelle, I have to confess that I have always ducked the abortion issue. I don't really have a firm position on it. I have never contemplated abortion for myself, but I am reluctant to say that no one else should ever do so. I can see some merit in arguments on both sides, although where partial birth abortions are concerned, I have to say that the very idea makes me gag...
As for the specific example you cite, I am not sure the issue would be quite as clear cut as you make it. For example, I have read that many young girls, especially from broken and/or dysfunctional families, actually want to have -- and keep -- a baby, which apparently they visualize as some sort of warm puppy that they can love & play with. That may not be true -- remember, I have been distant from this issue. But if it is, it seems to me she might be expected to prefer giving the puppy up for adoption (however attached she may be to it), than killing it in a dog-in-the-mangerish fashion (if I can't have it, nobody can).
I have a couple of women friends who are as staunchly pro-choice as you are, yet when they were in a "situation" themselves years ago, they chose to have their "out of wedlock" babies, and give them up for adoption. In both cases, their children, already grown, sought them out, and now they have established warm relationships with them. (The adoptive parents do not mind.)
Now, of course, they do not regret their decision to carry to term. As for my female acquaintances who HAVE had abortions, they all stress how traumatic an experience it is. Is having a baby, and giving it up for adoption, any more traumatic? At least you are giving life, rather than taking it, and someone else, at least, can take some joy in the life you have produced...
ON THE OTHER HAND....There are circumstances when abortion may be the better choice, as when the pregnancy is less far advanced, and when it is clear that the child-mother is simply too immature, and in circumstances too difficult, to endure the stress of pregnancy...
And so forth, and so on. Hate to be a proponent of "situational ethics," but on this issue, this is probably what I should call myself.
jbe |
