Justin Trudeau, Evolved Human, Take One

Why do you need a reason to have an abortion?

Let me explain.  That is not a naive or cruel question.  It is an invitation to accept the fact that even if there was not one person who identified as pro-life we would write articles to explain and defend what happens in the clinic.  We are wired to defend ourselves to the empty air about everything else, yes?   Anything we do that is not as beautiful as that coral-colored dahlia is something we are going to be ambivalent about.  I carried outside a stink bug that had been making gentle noises for days in my bedroom and let it unceremoniously out onto the snow.  It seemed surprised, and for a second I wondered if the cold would be the end of it.  So, certainly, the potential for a human biological relationship to be abrasively ended is a radiologically hot spot in our consciousness.

Many things that other people do frighten us because they reveal something about ourselves.  Some of these things which we consider outlandish or irresponsible, we try to regulate.  If the pro-lifer seems less than human, well, ’tis human.  This does not answer the hard questions about whose pain we are to absorb, a woman of child-bearing years, or that of the somatic eternity.  If money were no issue, and shame were no issue, and human kindness were unstinted, would there be abortions?  How many?  Abortion is a resignation to the stinginess, the otherness, and the unkindness of our past, present, and future.  If a few fundamentalists worry over it, well let them.  Maybe we can find a better, less-patriarchal solution for women as humankind evolves.

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