ABORTION DECISON BACKGROUND

At one time in my life, a friend invited me to lunch with a young couple. The casual conversation somehow turned to women’s rights. This is a no brainer; almost everyone one in the modern world supports women’s rights. In the past, it was not always so. I remember my mother saying she liked the idea that someone would open doors for her. I also remember my father advising me to stand if women needed a seat on public transportation. That was then and this is now. “Things” have dramatically changed; however, the dividing line is not as clear as it might be; that was the case at our lunch table.

I support a women’s right to choose. Somehow, I had it fixed in my mind that all women would support their own right to choose. This particular young woman was quick to point out that she did not feel that she had that right—under any circumstance. I was shocked by the idea that an individual would voluntarily give up their right “to be an individual”. As a liberal, I see this as being at the heart of a fundamental conflict between political philosophies. The conservative’s individualism verses a liberal’s altruism; what is good for me verses what is good for us.

I remember a poignant situation that arose in an anthropology study of nomad tribes in Africa. Scientists do these studies on the most primitive tribes, in part with the hope that it will reveal what out distant ancestors might have behaved; thus provide the basis for our modern beliefs and behavior—which was precisely the subject at our lunch table. Among all the other hardships for both sexes was the added burden of mother hood. The male would hunt animals for food but both the females and male would forge for roots and plants to eat. As mentioned, they are nomads meaning they pack up and move with some degree of regularity. Obviously, the amount of “household goods” is minimal. It also means that what they do carry is vital for life. The most important aspect of the story in this context is that the woman carries the household goods on her back and the child, if any, on her hip. A child nurses a baby for two to four years. During lactation, ovulation is low. Apparently the anthropologist involved, encountered a situation where such a women was no longer nursing but was pregnant with twins. As was the custom, she went into the bush to give birth. When she returned, she had only one baby. She gave birth and then decided which of the two babies was healthiest, which she carried to the encampment.

This is infanticide but it is also quality of life in the raw. She made a choice because she had too; it would be impossible to carry two babies and be a nomad. She had no religious beliefs to follow nor was she a liberal or a conservative; she only had her innate biologically driven instincts to lead her. The first instinct is self-preservation (conservative). The second is group or species survival (altruistic). Within that framework, a woman in modern society should have the prerogative of deciding her quality of life as modified by our humanization: abortion is a modification of infanticide. Learned religious morality should play no part in her decision, which mean that a women is the only one who should make that decision—no matter how difficult it is; not the father, a priest or minister, a group of gossipy old ladies in the neighborhood or anyone else but the person who has to carry that baby on her hip until adulthood.

The lunch ended badly; her Priest told her abortion would be wrong under any circumstances and she believes him.   

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