whose right to choose?

[fpb]

Comments

[elskuligr]

"a large share of abortions are "chosen" not by the mother but by her family, or even by her employers, as a matter of convenience"

I'd be curious to know more about that. What are your sources? According to your sources, is that a phenomenon observed specifically in the USA, or perhaps in Italy or western Europe at large? what is the geographical area concerned by those studies?

[fpb]

I do not speak of "studies". You really are too keen on these things. Look around. How many women who have abortions have them because they do not want children? I have only ever met two who said that - and they never got pregnant in the first place. Every single case of abortion I ever met was caused by fear of losing one's job, one's partner, one's career, or by pressure from one's family. One case I knew saw a sixteen-year-old girl thrown out of the family home by her own father for refusing to abort her child. One medical student got pregnant and was horrified that it would interrupt her course (and that her family would regret the money they had cost). One woman had one to please her husband; as it happens, ten years later her marriage fell apart. These are all things I saw myself, not things I read in a paper. But if you want papers, I can find you dozens.

The sixteen-year-old girl

[fpb]

Oh, and when I say thrown out, I mean permanently. It was not a matter of hot words in a row: it was "Well, since you insist, you can bloody well deal with the bastard yourself". The girl left school, had to get a job in a factory, and did not see her father or family again for almost ten years.

[elskuligr]

sorry for having misinterpreted "studied" in your initial post. I thought it meant you had researched the topic in a more systematic manner

[fpb]

"Not feeling ready?" That is one of the biggest pieces of self-deception ever invented. Have you ever met anyone who was "ready" for any responsibility whatsoever? Only self-deluded people imagine they are. Nobody is ever "ready" for anything. And that being the case, one has to wonder who taught them this nonsense about being "ready" for a child, and what are the unspoken reasons that cause them to hide behind that piece of nonsense.

[elskuligr]

I strongly disagree with that view. Being ready or not is not a mere delusion. However, we might disagree merely superficially because we do not have the same definition of what readiness entails, so I'll try to be clearer and give some examples

[fpb]

IN a word, no. And if I had a list of all the situations I have been thrown in with no idea of what I was being asked for and no option except to sink or swim, it would go from here to Edinburgh. That is just not my experience of life. And that includes love. (There is a reason why all the women I ever fell in love with have ended up hating me.)

[haikujaguar]

I'm afraid some situations in your life you're never ready for. You are never mature enough to handle them... you have to go through them in order to develop that maturity.

You just have to go into the breach, trusting the situation to teach you and being willing to accept that teaching.

We can't always grow up when we decide we're ready. That's a great luxury. :)

[lyssiae]

I like the way you worded this. Thank you.

Reading the original article made me wonder whether mum felt ready to become a grandmother.

[elskuligr]

well, yeah it is a luxury, definitely

[haikujaguar]

Well, I applaud that you want to be careful about your choices, that's certainly a good thing. :) My only suggestion for you to ponder is: what if there's no way to prepare for something except by doing it? Then how can you ever really know?

For me, the ultimate maturity in life is just that: most of life you can't know, can't prepare for, can never be ready for. And you have to be okay with not having to plan for any of it, or prepare. That's the ultimate-scary. And the ultimate acceptance.

[elskuligr]

well, I do not believe in God, but I find great wisdom in that prayer:

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."

It says it all really, sometimes you just have to accept you don't always get the choice and sometimes you've got to try and make courageous decisions.
And, well, because courage does not come naturally to me, I've got to work on it: that's one way of trying to prepare for life.

[fpb]

Unfortunately, that prayer is not one of the classic and authorized Christian prayers at all, and it embodies an attitude I disagree with. It was actually invented by an American theologian in the last century, and it is typical of the twentieth century in imagining that the greatast act of righteousness is to change things around us, that change is - at least when willed by someone - always a good thing, that leaving things alone is the same as leaving evil alone. I find all these notions - they do not have the dignity of doctrines or ideas - foolish and mistaken, and they lead to the terrible condition of modern politics, when politicians feel that their existence is not justified unless they continuously produce new initiatives, ideas and laws, whether needed or not. As Tacitus said, where the State is corrupt, laws are abundant. In France, the champions of Change are now aching to reduce or dismantle the social state that has served France and other European countries well for a century or more, merely because it is out of

[elskuligr]

yeah, I know it was written by this Reinhold Niebuhr guy, but I think it's pretty wise because precisely it doesn't say you should change everything.
Admittedly, it doesn't spell out that there are things you can change and should not change, but I always assumed it was implicit.

[fpb]

That is the trap. When you hear - to take a song I see as thoroughly poisonous - John Lennon's Imagine, you are always stimulated to contribute your own civilizing factors; but in the original work there are none. Lennon really does say that there should be no possessions - not just no wealth, but no possession whatever; not so much as your old teddy bear. (My flat, by the way, is decorated with stuffed toys.) He says there should be "nothing to kill or die for"; do you want a world with nothing in it worth dying for? I do not, and what is more, it is not possible, since if nothing else a man should be ready to die for those he loves. The content of the song is thoroughly disgusting, and the music not only cradles you into accepting it, not only cradles you into accepting the author's own completely wrong self-image as an idealist, but it also encourages you to make your own excuses for the ghastly "idealism" involved. Sorry, one of the points of having a God-given reason is, as the Gospel says, to "test everything and hold

[curia_regis]

Well if we're using personal experiences, I know several people who had abortions because they didn't want children (or more children).

And I really do believe that somebody who chooses to have an abortion for fear of screwing up her career is still choosing to have the abortion. It's not her work making the choice for her. Yes, it is unfair that she would be forced into making that choice, but she could have gone 'sod work, I'm having the baby.'

Yes, I would agree that in the examples you've used, it isn't much of a choice for the woman. But there is still a choice, no matter how unfair the choice is!