I have a date in my life which seems to be a temporal nexus.
August 15th.
It is the day my wife and I got married in 1981, the day my mom died in 2004 and the day my dad died in 2012.
Oddly, I just ran across something I wrote on the day my dad died in 2012 - before I got the news.
We were living in Scotland where I ran across an article that was titled “I wish my mother had aborted me”.
That post from August 15, 2012 follows:
No, not me…but this is the actual title of an article in today’s UK Guardian.
An abortion would have absolutely been better for my mother. An abortion would have made it more likely that she would finish high school and get a college education. At college in the late 1960s, it seems likely she would have found feminism or psychology or something that would have helped her overcome her childhood trauma and pick better partners. She would have been better prepared when she had children. If nothing else, getting an abortion would have saved her from plunging into poverty. She likely would have stayed in the same socioeconomic strata as her parents and grandparents who were professors. I wish she had aborted me because I love her and want what is best for her.
Abortion would have been a better option for me. If you believe what reproductive scientists tell us, that I was nothing more than a conglomeration of cells, then there was nothing lost. I could have experienced no consciousness or pain. But even if you discount science and believe I had consciousness and could experience pain at six gestational weeks, I would chose the brief pain or fear of an abortion over the decades of suffering I endured.
I suppose we are expected to see Lynn Beisner as heroic for wishing her mother a better life – but I just find it sad and tragic. What a weak and pitiful person she must be to say this of herself:
The world would not be a darker or poorer place without me. Actually, in terms of contributions to the world, I am a net loss. Everything that I have done – including parenting, teaching, researching, and being a loving partner – could have been done as well, if not better by other people. Any positive contributions that I have made are completely offset by what it has cost society to help me overcome the disadvantages and injuries of my childhood to become a functional and contributing member of society.
This is the very kind of fatalistic thinking that I find so disgusting of the pro-abortion crowd, the view that every human is just the sum of their constituent chemicals, “nothing more than a conglomeration of cells”. Ms. Beisner’s paean to her own worthlessness is pretty hard to read. I almost wanted to ask why she just didn’t run away – or even kill herself – but then I figured it out – she actually does love life – she wants to live – but can’t reconcile her desire to survive with her belief that her life is worthless. By her own admission, it is likely that her mother was not headed down a normal path even if she hadn’t been born, but seems to be a convenient excuse fro her own failures as much as it is a celebration of the life she has built.
When I look at the obstacles that others have overcome, especially our wounded warriors, I find that this woman is a detestable, narcissistic, selfish and cynical person with a desire to be seen as a victim. I think about people like Aimee Mullins:
I wonder what Aimee would have to say about the incessant whining of a human who has all her physical capabilities yet sees defeat everywhere.
This isn’t an column about abortion, it is a disgusting attempt to garner your sympathy and pity.
I just read a piece about NASA announcing it had confirmed its five thousandth exoplanet. One of those quoted in the article claimed that finding life on other worlds was inevitable, even if it was simple, microbial, 'primitive', life.
That's juxtaposed with so many on this world that cannot define life, or when it begins, including the new SCOTUS nominee. Those using the clump of cells argument will be the first to celebrate a fossilized protozoa off earth and they'll never see the irony.
Everything in the universe balances out. Simply because you do not recall your life before being born does not mean you didn't have one. Time is a puzzle. Life seems endless sometimes and sometimes it seems like a troubled dream. Look forward to what comes next and don't have any regrets.