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Commentary - Feb 21, 2007 - Printable Version
- Putting a Face on the Unborn Child: A Liberal Speaks out Against Abortion
by Mark Faulk
Abortion: it’s an issue that has divided America for decades. As a radical teenager, manymanymany years ago, I was a strong pro-choice supporter, seeing the issue as purely a political one – a woman’s body is her own, and the government has no right to dictate what she does with her own body. Honestly, while I knew it was a tough personal choice, I saw it as just that – a personal choice. Maybe someone just isn’t ready to tackle parenthood, or maybe they’re in tough financial straits. Maybe they, like I felt at the time, didn’t believe that the world was a good place to be in. Shouldn’t they have the right to decide when…and if…they want to give birth to a child? And besides, banning legal abortion would just spawn a whole new subculture of seedy back=alley clinics where the mother’s life would be endangered while the “unwanted fetus is being removed.” It was a viewpoint that I carried around for years, although I became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea as time went by, and pretty much began to avoid the topic altogether whenever possible. Then, something happened, something…how should I put this?…lifechanging. Her name was Rachel, and she was my firstborn daughter. I’m going to make a confession here. My wife and I, while we were already committed to each other and “loosely engaged” at the time, were NOT married when Rachel was conceived. And we were anything but ready to raise a child together…I had no job, no college degree, and really, no prospects whatsoever. I was more than irresponsible at the time, I in many ways couldn’t even take care of myself. In other words, we were the exact type of couple who were a prime candidate for abortion.
Quick and easy…a simple process and enjoy our lives for as long as we wanted, unburdened by the pressures of parenthood. But the truth is, we didn’t even consider it a viable option, because it wasn’t that we didn’t want children…it’s just that the timing was wrong. But we could have. Instead, we did “the right thing” – we got married, and six and a half months after our wedding date, a miracle happened. My daughter was born, and I held her in my arms, and she stared long and hard at me, and I back at her (I actually have a picture of us moments after her birth…staring intently into each other’s eyes), That moment changed my life forever, that fetus, that “choice”…was my daughter.
There was only one right choice in that situation.
And I went on to have two more children, Justin and Kelsey, and each is as unique and special as the Rachel is, and I can’t imagine my life without them. Rachel is now 26, and has spent the past few years teaching elementary schoolchildren in a major city…in the lowest income school in an inner city district where she is by far in the racial minority. She is, as are all of my children, perfect in my eyes, just as she was from the moment of conception.
And yet, years later, when I started this website, I wrote this in an article called The Radical Middle, explaining how my views had changed with time, and age, and what bits of wisdom I had managed to grasp during my life: “While I still believe that women should have the right to choose, somewhere along the way, I personally became morally opposed to abortion (I think it was when I had kids of my own, and finally put a face on the unborn child).”
But how can that be? This past week, my youngest daughter became very ill, and although it was brief and she is doing better (as of today), the thought that I might lose her crossed my mind…and the possibility alone nearly killed me. Life is all-important, and that Truth is never more apparent than when your own loved ones are at risk.
So again…how can that be? How can I weep for the children who die of neglect and starvation, and preventable diseases, and support abortion? How can I speak out against the killing of innocent people in wars when I say nothing about people who want to make a “choice” as to whether to keep…or kill…their own little Rachel? When a woman and a man conceive a child…the choice has been made.
A dear (and persuasive) friend made the point that while we herald tiny bits of evidence of the possibility of life on Mars, we try to deny the lifeblood coursing through the veins of a developing child, a child who differs in both genetic makeup and often even blood type from their mother. And it’s true that someone can be charged with the murder of two people when the mother is pregnant. So how can we have it both ways?
The answer is simple: we can’t. We can’t fight for life and fight for the freedom to take it away.
I’m still sorting this moral mess out in my head, and I still think that there are cases where abortion should be an option, but those instances should be narrowly defined, such as cases involving rape, incest, or where the mother’s life is in danger. I think I’m okay with the morning after pill…maybe because it’s something that might or might not involve pregnancy, and because it’s SO close to the moment of conception that there is no fetus, but beyond that…I can’t lie to myself any longer. I’m not sure we can do it overnight, but we have to move in the direction of protecting the rights of the unborn child.
Maybe we do what the Democrats (and a lot of Republicans as well) want to do in the war in Iraq…gradually pull out of the situation, wean ourselves off of abortion on demand, while we take real and decisive steps to reduce the demand for abortion. Fix our screwed up adoption system…fix our even more screwed up support system for mothers and their children…start openly teaching sex education AND abstinence…but provide easily accessible birth control instead of relying on teenagers to “just say no”…educate, educate, educate. Hell, maybe then we wouldn't have to worry about whether abortion is legal or not.
And with eyes finally wide open, that’s the Faulking Truth.
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