I approach this problem with some temerity. It is not an easy subject and I really wish that it had not become so black and white. Both the pro life and the pro choice groups have now become desperately alienated from each other by rhetoric and for me to wade into the interland between them is something I've been putting off.
My situation has always been that I could never do it..could never kill a baby growing inside me. This was tested when in my 40's the doctor told me I was pregnant and that having looked at my medical history his recommendation was termination. I refused the appointment in hospital and went home to think. If I was to go on with it the chances were that I would spend the next months in hospital as I had done with my other babies and apart from the risk to my health the chances were that I would be unable to care for a child as well as I would like to. The doctor's decision was right and yet I could not do it..For me it would have been an outright sin to put myself , my husband and my children before the rights of the child inside me.
I made up my mind, no matter what I had to go through with it.
Alas the decision was taken away from me and the baby miscarried. We cried, we mourned what was only a small collection of cells.
Nature did on that occasion know best.
Now I see the two groups biting lumps out of each other and well meaning people trying to legislate for every possible eventuality But for me its still not clear cut.
If there is a prenatal defect, if the woman has ben raped, if the mother is a teenage girl unable to care for her baby then there is a case to be made..and ultimately that choice is the womans to make even though it might well be hard on the man involved.
I would never condone the taking of life carelessly or with no counselling, but I deeply regret the anger between both sides of the argument. What happens in America with pro lifers intercepting girls on their way to the clinic is deeply disturbing. No one has the right to induce these women into feeling guilt. It may be well hidden but its there already believe me.
This for me is rooted in my belief in the goodness of God. But we are born with free will. And we can make mistakes...its part of the human condition. And I also believe with my whole heart that God loves us what ever we do. So surely we must try to see both sides of the argument and have the same tenderness and love for each other that He has for us.
3 comments:
I post this anonymously because of who I am, but as a teenage boy, my girlfriend and I discovered that she was pregnant. It was a condom split, but nonetheless effective.
We were terrified; we were young. We opted, after considerable heartache and thought, to terminate. We made that decision for the best of reasons and motivations and I have no regret about it; neither does she.
As a priest, I encounter people who are faced with this dilemma. I love life, love the seeds of life and seek wherever possible to protect it but neither am I am black&white activist along the SPUC lines. I am very much an 'every case on its merits' person because there are times when I believe termination is the best of an array of choiceless choices which in any direction would be bad.
Thanks for grasping this subject Jean.
I too applaud your courage in airing this subject, and because I was made to feel shame and guilt when I had an abortion and still, while totally certain it was right for me at that time, must stay anonymous.
There are as many exceptions to a moral judgement as there are arguments for it and those with a conscience will suffer anyway.
Even now, 40 years after the event I can talk to nobody about it and can only say in my own defence, if i need to defend myuself, that I
would have made a different choice had it been
2010.
I really enjoyed reading the posts on your blog. I would like to invite you to come on over to my blog and check it out. God bless, Lloyd
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