I know the stories
I read the papers
I see the anger
I feel it too
But, when I see the wonder
In the smiles of my children
It reminds me of dreams
Worth comin' true
-Kris Kristofferson
I took a class at Boston University years ago taught by Dr. Robert Dallek, a historian of the American presidency. He's published books on Johnson and Kennedy, and appears regularly on cable "news" shows. So, for whatever it's worth, this guy understands some things about America.
The one statement he made in the rather anodyne course he taught that has stuck with me is what he said about abortion. He told us that he thought America would have a pseudo-civil war in the next 20 years, and that the casus belli would be the issue of abortion.
Granted, this statement was made in an America closer to David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh and Ken Starr than Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, and Pervez Musharraf. Still, his words retain their weight, if not their immediacy.
I can't off the top of my head, or even from the middle of it, name a single issue that is more morally and legally intractable than abortion. Is it premeditated murder, or is it no different than cutting one's toenails? As with everything in life, the truth lies in the chasm in between.
I can not think of another instance in which I have ceded any of the weight of my words to the altar of identity politics. For example, I have no time for folks who imply that the weight of one's opinion on the war is in any way swayed by whether or not he or she has served in the military.
Abortion is unique in this sense, as in so many others; I openly cede a portion of my credibility or authority on this subject on account of the fact that I have a Y chromosome. That being said, let us delve.
First, for the pro-life perspective. It is vital to all pro-choice folks to acknowledge the legitimacy of this position. The pro-life position holds that life begins at the moment of conception.
From a certain point of view, this is absurd, since a newly-fertilized egg has no consciousness, no breath, no will to live, no fear of death, no heartbeat, and no brain stem, nor any of the other things that we think of as human, except for potential, which we ignore at our collective risk.
From another point of view, however, the newly-fertilized egg is on a pre-ordained, a biologically ordained, perhaps a God-ordained course towards its actualization as a living, breathing, loving, bleeding human being, and any action knowingly taken to sabotage or terminate this course is an act of pre-meditated murder.
I say to the pro-choice folks: Empathize! Imagine if you truly, madly, deeply believed that a newly-fertilized egg was a life. It is by no means an untenable position. Now imagine that you live in a country where the termination of tens of millions of these "lives" was protected and sometimes funded by the government. Now imagine yourself not being up in arms about this holocaust.
The pro-choice position, in my mind, carries more weight. First, we must account for the handicap I cede due to my Y chromosome. Then, we must address the issue through the prism of the only viable and theoretically perpetual political system, which is libertarianism.
The question for the libertarian reads as follows: Should the government have a right to dictate who is born or is not born? The answer for the libertarian reads as follows: No. On what logic could the government assume this right?
The only grounds would be based fully and wholly upon the premise that a newly-fertilized egg is the moral and legal and constitutional equivalent of a living American adult. That is a leap of faith and science that is not merited by research or jurisprudence or regular prudence.
The aspect of abortion that rankles most consciences, including my own, is that it is perceived as a casual procedure. I sincerely doubt that many woman who have aborted their children would describe their decision, or their resultant emotional burden, as "casual".
One of the few good things that came out of 1968 was the birth of my sister Julia. Jules told me tonight of a friend of hers who was pregnant with twins. Both babies died in the womb, and my sister's friend was left with choices that ranged from impossible to devastating.
Would she abort her dead fetuses? Or, would she wait until her body decided to expel the dead fetuses, and take her chances? If she were a Catholic, perhaps she would have chosen the latter, which would have been well within her prerogative. But my sister's friend chose to have an "abortion".
This woman carried her two dead children inside of her, and the "pro-life" position would have it that she had no right to save her own life by having them extracted from her womb.
Responsible citizens do well to avoid justifying certain "rights" by defending their most extreme iterations. Some folks of the ACLU vein purport to defend freedom of speech by defending child pornography, for example. This is the lobotomy of logic, and it must be rejected as such, but abortion is an issue in which the most extreme is often the most mundane.
Abortion is an impossible issue to cage or qualify, and when we are confronted with such a situation, we do best to defer to those most intimately impacted. In the case of abortion, the government has no role. It's about the women. And, if we don't trust the women, why bother having babies at all?
I read the papers
I see the anger
I feel it too
But, when I see the wonder
In the smiles of my children
It reminds me of dreams
Worth comin' true
-Kris Kristofferson
I took a class at Boston University years ago taught by Dr. Robert Dallek, a historian of the American presidency. He's published books on Johnson and Kennedy, and appears regularly on cable "news" shows. So, for whatever it's worth, this guy understands some things about America.
The one statement he made in the rather anodyne course he taught that has stuck with me is what he said about abortion. He told us that he thought America would have a pseudo-civil war in the next 20 years, and that the casus belli would be the issue of abortion.
Granted, this statement was made in an America closer to David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh and Ken Starr than Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, and Pervez Musharraf. Still, his words retain their weight, if not their immediacy.
I can't off the top of my head, or even from the middle of it, name a single issue that is more morally and legally intractable than abortion. Is it premeditated murder, or is it no different than cutting one's toenails? As with everything in life, the truth lies in the chasm in between.
I can not think of another instance in which I have ceded any of the weight of my words to the altar of identity politics. For example, I have no time for folks who imply that the weight of one's opinion on the war is in any way swayed by whether or not he or she has served in the military.
Abortion is unique in this sense, as in so many others; I openly cede a portion of my credibility or authority on this subject on account of the fact that I have a Y chromosome. That being said, let us delve.
First, for the pro-life perspective. It is vital to all pro-choice folks to acknowledge the legitimacy of this position. The pro-life position holds that life begins at the moment of conception.
From a certain point of view, this is absurd, since a newly-fertilized egg has no consciousness, no breath, no will to live, no fear of death, no heartbeat, and no brain stem, nor any of the other things that we think of as human, except for potential, which we ignore at our collective risk.
From another point of view, however, the newly-fertilized egg is on a pre-ordained, a biologically ordained, perhaps a God-ordained course towards its actualization as a living, breathing, loving, bleeding human being, and any action knowingly taken to sabotage or terminate this course is an act of pre-meditated murder.
I say to the pro-choice folks: Empathize! Imagine if you truly, madly, deeply believed that a newly-fertilized egg was a life. It is by no means an untenable position. Now imagine that you live in a country where the termination of tens of millions of these "lives" was protected and sometimes funded by the government. Now imagine yourself not being up in arms about this holocaust.
The pro-choice position, in my mind, carries more weight. First, we must account for the handicap I cede due to my Y chromosome. Then, we must address the issue through the prism of the only viable and theoretically perpetual political system, which is libertarianism.
The question for the libertarian reads as follows: Should the government have a right to dictate who is born or is not born? The answer for the libertarian reads as follows: No. On what logic could the government assume this right?
The only grounds would be based fully and wholly upon the premise that a newly-fertilized egg is the moral and legal and constitutional equivalent of a living American adult. That is a leap of faith and science that is not merited by research or jurisprudence or regular prudence.
The aspect of abortion that rankles most consciences, including my own, is that it is perceived as a casual procedure. I sincerely doubt that many woman who have aborted their children would describe their decision, or their resultant emotional burden, as "casual".
One of the few good things that came out of 1968 was the birth of my sister Julia. Jules told me tonight of a friend of hers who was pregnant with twins. Both babies died in the womb, and my sister's friend was left with choices that ranged from impossible to devastating.
Would she abort her dead fetuses? Or, would she wait until her body decided to expel the dead fetuses, and take her chances? If she were a Catholic, perhaps she would have chosen the latter, which would have been well within her prerogative. But my sister's friend chose to have an "abortion".
This woman carried her two dead children inside of her, and the "pro-life" position would have it that she had no right to save her own life by having them extracted from her womb.
Responsible citizens do well to avoid justifying certain "rights" by defending their most extreme iterations. Some folks of the ACLU vein purport to defend freedom of speech by defending child pornography, for example. This is the lobotomy of logic, and it must be rejected as such, but abortion is an issue in which the most extreme is often the most mundane.
Abortion is an impossible issue to cage or qualify, and when we are confronted with such a situation, we do best to defer to those most intimately impacted. In the case of abortion, the government has no role. It's about the women. And, if we don't trust the women, why bother having babies at all?
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