An Uncommon Argument Against Abortion

Think Tank #97

Unsure of what to write about this morning, I stumbled upon this post from

Von

:

A Great Gulf

It is a thought-provoking piece analyzing different arguments for and against abortion.

Like many morally-charged issues, this one struck a nerve, and I immediately thought about a past experience. I commented with this story:

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When I was twenty years old, a good friend of mine got pregnant. She wasn’t ready for a child; becoming a mother would have torn her life apart.

We were young, and had been taught all our lives that abortion was okay in situations like this. It wasn’t even a question. She needed an abortion. I went with her to the doctor.

I don’t think the gravity of what had happened struck either of us right away. Our friendship was never quite the same; my friend, already suffering from depression and fractured identity, only got worse.

Years later, I heard her question her choice. “I had to do it, right?”

I think about it a lot, and wonder whether having that baby, while the most difficult thing she’d ever done, would’ve changed her life for the better.

It’s a difficult situation. I’m hesitant to call for bans for everyone. But at the very least, the mainstream liberal narrative that dismisses it as a simple ‘do-over,’ a minor thing that means nothing—this needs to change.

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It got me thinking about the one thing that all sides of the abortion debate seem to ignore: its impact on the mother.

The whole argument ignores the fact that mother and child are inextricably linked. When a mother sees her child in pain, she feels that pain, too. In the case of the ‘bad’ mother that treats her children horribly—well, she may not understand the pain she are inflicting upon herself, but it manifests as a general spiritual ache that she cannot place.

Imagine what it must do to a mother’s spirit to have ended the life of her child before it even began.

I’m not writing this to say that the child isn’t important—the child is so, so important. That is precisely why a child’s death is so damaging to a mother.

However, even the argument that unborn children should be ‘protected’ against their murderous parents is a one-sided perversion of the real truth, which is that the very idea that abortion could be a casual option is evidence of a sick society of people who have been divorced from their true nature.

So many people—‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ alike, are oblivious to what we really are: connected. To harm one another is to harm oneself, and this is especially so in regards to the link between mother and child.

How many innocent lives would have been spared if the mother felt a connection to her child? We are supposed to feel that connection; being numb to it is a learned distortion.

What if mothers considering abortion were aware of the gravity of their actions? If all the movies and TV shows and sex ed classes they’d been exposed to told them that they would be morally culpable for their choice, instead of being ‘sold’ abortion as a way out of a tough situation that could be done simply for the sake of convenience?

I suspect the discussion would look a lot different. Maybe then the argument wouldn’t be whether or not abortion should be legal, but whether it could even be considered an option.

Life is strange, and it is scary. Life-changing things happen when you least expect them, and often times, we resist them with every ounce of our being when they first appear. Plus, our culture has gotten so used to ‘comfort’ and ‘safety’ and the idea of planning out every turn that our life takes, we don’t take kindly to unexpected twists of fate.

No one wants a child when they aren’t ready. If they view abortion as an ‘easy fix,’ a lot of people will choose this option. If they view it as a spiritual death—well, maybe they’ll think twice.

I like to sit the fence on this issue of abortion’s legality, largely because it is a delicate and deeply personal issue, and I don’t like telling people what to do.

However, what absolutely needs to change is how we talk about it. No one should ever be in a situation where they walk into an abortion clinic viewing what they are destroying as ‘a lump of cells’ instead of a child.

This should be an informed choice, and unfortunately, for so many people, it isn’t. It wasn’t for my friend and I, who had grown up fully entrenched in the ‘pro-choice’ narrative with no real conception of what we were about to do.

The way the argument is presented is so polarizing, anyway. Imagine you are a woman whose life has been turned upside down by an unplanned pregnancy. Chances are, the thought of abortion pops into your mind. Now, imagine you look into it, and one ‘side’ of the debate talks about you as if you are a monster, while the other shows you empathy. Whose argument are you going to listen to?

Edit (5/9/24): I regret including this line about pro-life advocates viewing women as ‘monsters.’ A few people in the comments have called me out on this, and for good reason. The overwhelming majority of pro-life advocates are good people who do what they do because they care deeply about women, not because they want to shame or harm them.

When I wrote this line, I was referencing the conception I had in my head of ‘pro-lifers’ as a liberal young woman in New York City. For a long time, I truly believed that the people who argued against abortion were judgey ‘religious nuts’ who wanted to take away womens’ freedoms. I no longer believe this. My intent in writing this statement was to illustrate how the pro-life argument often looks from an outside perpsective—a point I admittedly articulated very poorly.

I am leaving the statement as is because I think it illustrates an important point about how unconscious biases can creep their way into a discussion, and how often, when dealing with polarizing issues like this, instead of having honest discussions, we end up attacking false misconceptions and stereotypes.

There are good people on both sides of this and virtually every argument, and the only way to see eye to eye is through honest, good-faith discussion. Thank you to everyone in the comments who highlighted this.

Holding fast to extreme beliefs is all well and good when arguing about politics. In real life, things are messier, and it is real human beings—parents and unborn children alike—who pay the price of ignorance.

Thank you for reading. I’m aware that this is a delicate issue and I probably missed some stuff. Feel free to duke it out in the comments. 

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