:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 ::

This is the last item in the a series of correspondence between myself and the individual over at Ambivablog as she chose not to respond.

AmbivaBlogger's comments in bold:

"What I mean by enslavement is the law saying if you get pregnant -- under any circumstances -- you MUST bear that child."

"you MUST bear that child" is just a byproduct of "you may not kill that child." "Your reproductive capacity is more important than you are, than any other aspect of your life is." [enslavement]* would be "you must conceive that child." different than: "you must not kill that child." in this case a child's life is more important than an individual's right to live as she wishes.

"Your womb is society's property."

not at all. i can do whatever i want with my womb. and these days, due to legalized abortion, i can do whatever i want with the child in it. again, if it takes a villiage to raise a child, it takes one to kill her. by illegalizing abortion the womb would not become society's property, but the safety of the child in it would become society's responsibility.

"If you are a young teen-ager who's raped by your mother's boyfriend; if you are a single mother with four or five or more children who doesn't know how she can financially support or care for another, you must bear that child."

rape... there will probably never be any anti-abortion law that doesn't maintain exclusions for rape and incest. unfortunately. i say "unfortunately", because i know a guy whose bmom was raped. she had him and made an adoption plan for him. he is now a happy guy with a family of his own. he is also a police officer and contributes to our world in a positive way. he didn't deserve to die for the crimes of his bdad.

no one is saying that his mother wasn't in an awful position. no one is saying that [a victimized woman] deserves to suffer or that she must carry a "rapist's" baby. [the latter would be a byproduct of "no one may kill an innocent child."]

there's a natural rub there, because either way, abortion or no abortion, she will suffer. and in the only study ever done on the subject [discussed in this book], she will probably suffer more if she aborts. but that's neither here nor there. abortion does not equate non-suffering. not for the child, not for the mother.

abortion does not make rape a victimless crime. abortion will not make the rape not have happened. it still will have happened. the woman will simply add to her own victimization the victimization of another person who is, like she was, powerless to stop it.

in our country at least, we simply don't execute a child for her father's crime. it's an issue of ethics. [you can't] extend this scenario outside of the womb; [it only works ethically if you] do not truly believe the gestating child is really a child, [and that would be] a flawed belief that science has long-disproved. in the case of the multi-child [mother]... again, it is not a demand for her to have the child, it is a demand for her not to kill the child. obviously that involves having the child.

a woman with gangrene in her leg must have her leg amputated. no one is saying "you must lose your leg." the idea is "you must save your life." that it involves losing the leg, though a negative experience, is not the point. the life-preserving physician is not an evil leg-stealer, but a life-saver.

"I'm talking about suffering."

women who are pregnant and don't want their child will suffer regardless. if they abort they will suffer (if the heart is functioning). if they adopt the baby out they will suffer (if the heart is functioning). if they have the baby and raise the baby at the cost of dreams that they do not feel were worth exchanging for a child's life [they will suffer] (if the heart isn't functioning).

"you wouldn't want a woman like that for a mother."

no one can choose their mother. my bmom is major, damaged goods. MAJOR.

"Yet you couldn't count on her giving you up for adoption. She'd bear you sullenly and then take it out on you. Children are at their mothers' mercy in so many ways."

that's the cruel nature of it, yes. but a child has the option of surviving... unless mother kills her. As you say, women have always aborted and always will.

"Abolishing it is a goal to strive for, like abolishing war."

i wouldn't necessarily agree that war and child killing are on the same level, but this is only because i think, at the crux of it, the so-called "necessity" of abortion is a lie.

"We need to become a better species, but how can we prevent abortion before we become a better species (and just in case we don't)?"

we don't wait. we simply issue a law, like all other laws, that says, "whether you want to be a good person or not, whether child-killing is ok with your or not, we are not going to allow it."

right now as i type, someone's new husband is entering her six-year-old's bedroom at night and raping him/her. our anti-child molestation laws have not stopped that and will not stop that. but we as a nation do not simply hang our heads and sigh that until we can change the rapist's attitude, we simply can not make his penis our property, dictating what he can and can not do with it.

"You say you would not have had your abortion if it had been illegal. Well, I would have had mine if it had been illegal."

and while our opinions are interesting, they have no bearing on ethics. [extend the logic outside the womb. imagine a mother infuriated by her 2-year-old:

mother A: "if it were legal, i'm so mad... that i would shoot her."
mother B: "it's illegal but i'm so mad... that i'm going to shoot her anyway."]

despite personal parental reasoning and logic, the only thing that matters is the [safety of the] child. in our society, child welfare is not ultimately left up to the parent... except for in that special case of abortion where a parent can legally kill her child.

"There's a good chance I would not have had it if the culture had told me the truth."

the culture that allows abortion is not a culture of life or a culture of truth. the culture that says it's ok to kill a child, is the culture we inherited in the 70's, and i can personally tell you what that breeds. there were, by far, fewer abortions when abortion was illegal. there is nothing that your solution nor my solution will do to stop abortion just as there is nothing anyone's solution will do to stop other types of murder or rape or spouse abuse or any other human crime. this doesn't mean we simply keep these things legal. what "cultural" benefit would society enjoy were rape NOT illegal?

"I'm thinking, restrict legal abortion to the first trimester unless the mother's life is in real danger."

but this defies your logic. what about the woman with 4 kids who simply doesn't know she is pregnant until the baby starts to move. according to the abortion-supporting alan guttmacher (sp) institute, there are plenty of those mothers out there. why all of a sudden can society "own a woman's womb" after 12 weeks? the ["rational"] answer is that it would just be "wrong" to kill a child after a certain number of weeks. so then we're practicing discrimination, because we are saying that a child has to possess certain ability [or appearance] or she is not worth protecting.

"Within those limits, let the woman be in charge of her own womb, but teach her what a sacred and terrifying responsibility that is."

we can't promote [the idea] that abortion is an horrific abuse of civil rights while at the same time keeping it legal. it would make us barbarians: "killing a child is a bad, bad thing... but we allow it."

ash

*For blog reader benefit I wanted to clarify a little of what I was trying to say in my email to Ambivablogger. Therefore, [] denotes comments added today.

:: ashli 1:38 AM # ::
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