In my upcoming novel, Just to Starboard of Epcot, two employees of a conservative media studio discuss the abortion issue on the day Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Leith says “When I think about the abortion issue, it seems to me that somebody should be an advocate for the embryo, or the fetus. It can’t speak for itself, so there should be someone who can speak for it.”
Nicole says “Yes. I do acknowledge that point. It’s why it’s such a complex issue. The fetus had no say in its conception, so shouldn’t it have a say in its termination? But shrewd old guys at the state level shouldn’t be the advocates who speak for the fetus. They don’t know enough. They know how to get reelected and how to block bills they don’t like. But what do state legislators know about biology, theology, philosophy, psychology? What qualifies them to make it illegal to perform or to seek an abortion in their state?”
Leith nods as he thinks. “If I’d known you were this passionate about it, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“It just frustrates me. I knew what the Supreme Court’s decision was going to be, but having it confirmed by the breaking-news text on my watch bothered me. More than I thought it would.”
“…But, you must’ve considered at some point that the life of the fetus is an actual human life, and terminating that life qualifies as homicide. There’s some debate about whether life begins at conception or at some later point, like when a heartbeat is detected. But still it’s a life, a person, whether or not there’s a heartbeat or brain activity. It still has to be viewed as murder.”
“You understand justifiable homicide.”
“Yeah but—”
“That line of reasoning would say that justifiable homicide is still murder. Any termination of a human life is homicide, no exceptions. So when a soldier kills an enemy soldier who is trying to kill him, he’s still guilty of murder.”
“But those are situations where the person killed represented a serious threat. Probably most terminated pregnancies don’t represent a threat to the mother or the fetus. Those abortions have to be viewed as for-convenience.”
Nicole considers this and shakes her head a little. “I don’t think convenience is the right word. …If you could find a large sampling of women opting for an abortion who haven’t experienced any harassment from pro-lifers, when you interviewed them you would probably find that almost all of them still find making the decision and going through the procedure very stressful. Even without the harassment, it’s still a difficult experience for most women. Too difficult to be just a convenience.”
“Difficult because they know it’s homicide. And they know that the birth represents no danger to them and would otherwise produce a healthy infant.”
Nicole nods. “Yeah, a complex issue, isn’t it? But that line of reasoning assumes that most abortions for convenience are elected by wanton women who don’t want to face the consequences of their lifestyle. Think about it. If you could read the minds of most pro-life protestors, you’d probably find that that was their primary motivation. ‘These wanton women must be stopped from killing so many fetuses! They’re serial killers!’”
Leith pictures this. “Okay. Probably.”
“But if you studied the actual data, I know you’d find that most women who have an abortion”—scratching the air—“for convenience don’t fit that description at all. Generally, most wanton women know how to avoid pregnancies. And it’s misguided and cruel to accuse a typical woman agonizing over the decision, of being wanton. It’s misguided, but it’s what motivates most protests and harassment.”
Leith nods. “Yeah, probably. But aside from the protestors, the woman agonizes over the decision because she knows it’s homicide. If it weren’t, the decision would be like deciding to have her gallbladder removed.”
Nicole naeads a moment. “A woman doesn’t develop maternal feelings for her gallbladder. When a woman finds out she’s pregnant, it’s instinctive for her to begin feeling maternal toward what’s in her womb, even if it’s still just at the embryo stage and isn’t much more than a blob of cells. A maternal attachment naturally begins with the new life that’s been placed in the woman’s care. That’s the reason for her agonizing over the decision. Except in cases of rape, where the woman wants to get the ugly thing out of her body because she loathes the rapist who put it there, except in those cases, a woman will notice her maternal instincts emerging, to some degree, even if she wasn’t expecting to. It’s the emotional attachment and the feeling of responsibility for the new life in her care that she agonizes over.”
Leith nods, digesting this. “Okay. …But it still fits the definition of homicide. Even if a person loves the person he kills, it’s still homicide if it isn’t in self-defense.”
Nicole nods while she thinks. “You remember Terry Schiavo.”
He scans his memory. “Yeah. The woman in a vegetative state. A lot of legal hoopla over removing her feeding tube. That was a sad story. The parents never giving up hope that she would regain consciousness.”
“Mm-hm. So, whoever it was who finally removed her feeding tube, killed her. She was murdered. Even though seven years of legal battles ended up with the court deciding that her husband had the legal right to say that he knew she wouldn’t want to be kept alive artificially like that, and the legal right to decide to terminate the life-support. She was comatose for fifteen years, eight years before the legal battles started. She represented no threat to anyone. So the termination of the life-support was for convenience, in your line of reasoning.”
He thinks Why do I get myself into these discussions? “Well there’s nothing that says the judge made the right decision, he just had the legal authority to make that decision.”
“Since it was for convenience, the nurse or technician who removed the tube, as well as the husband, should’ve been tried for first-degree murder. The jury might’ve acquitted them, but that would just make them accessories to murder.”
Leith chuckles. “You are persuasive. I think the difference here is that Terry had been an adult before she became comatose and probably discussed the topic with her husband. It could’ve come up just in casual conversation, but it would still be a valid indication of her thoughts. A fetus doesn’t have that option, to express what it would prefer.”
“Oh you think a fetus would always choose to be born, if given the choice? Born into whatever circumstances it would find?” She chuckles. “The last time I checked, we still believe in Heaven. Don’t we? A fetus given a choice between immediately going to live with God and living in his glory, or being born here on Earth in its fallen state, the fetus would always insist on being born?”
Leith smiles. “Yeah, there is that.”
“But, seriously… In your line of reasoning, even with knowing Terry’s thinking on life-support, you would say that removing the feeding tube still has to be defined as homicide.”
Leith shrugs. “Her parents were evidently willing to continue the life-support indefinitely, until she died naturally. Although she might’ve outlived them, and then the question would come up again. But there wasn’t a compelling need to terminate life-support at that point.”
“Yeah, that was a difficult one. It could’ve gone either way. And actually it would’ve been a right decision either way.”
“You’re saying that? So you’re admitting the possibility that the other decision would’ve been right?”
She looks at him a moment as if she’s wondering if he’s paying attention. “I’m admitting the possibility that the other decision was also right. You could call it superposed states, until they’re collapsed into one or the other. With a fetus… the wrong decision is for the mother to be forced to give birth to a child she doesn’t want, or that she doesn’t want only because she’s at the wrong stage in her life. The child is not going to have a very happy life not being wanted right from the start.”
Why do her arguments have to sound so logical? “That’s something to consider, yeah. But we can’t know the future. We can’t terminate a life for a tenuous reason like it may be an unhappy life. Any life has the possibility to turn out happy.”
“Where’d you learn that? Deepak Chopra?” Leith chuckles. “I actually agree. But the decision to terminate or not has to be the mother’s own decision. It can’t be left up to legislators or rabid activists. What do they know about the mother’s life? And she can’t be labeled wanton if she makes the decision to terminate her pregnancy. How do they know she’s wanton? If terminating a pregnancy is murder, then so is removing life-support from a dying patient, which occurs much more frequently than abortions occur.”
