{"id":20129,"date":"2012-08-16T14:23:31","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T18:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=20129"},"modified":"2013-04-04T00:10:16","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T04:10:16","slug":"its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a horrible life: writer laments that her mother didn’t abort her"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

\"\"The reason so many Americans remain pro-choice<\/a> is not because they\u2019ve been persuaded on the merits, but because abortion apologists have scared them into compliance with deceptive horror stories<\/a> about women and children who will allegedly suffer poverty, neglect, and death without the escape hatch of ditching unwanted offspring. Despite the moral intuitions that compel them to add \u201cpersonally opposed\u201d or \u201cmorally wrong\u201d qualifiers to their answers, too many simply can\u2019t stomach the possibility of these predictions coming true.<\/p>\n

Such heartstring-tugging is nothing new, but a recent Guardian<\/em> editorial<\/a> by Lynn Beisner gives the emotional appeal an unsettling new twist: \u201cI wish my mother had aborted me [\u2026] because I love her and want what is best for her.\u201d In admittedly harrowing detail, she describes how her birth deprived her mother of the opportunity to get an education and grow beyond the traumatic childhood that all but ensured that she become an abusive parent to Lynn:<\/p>\n

At college in the late 1960s, it seems likely she would have found feminism or psychology or something that would have helped her overcome her childhood trauma and pick better partners. She would have been better prepared when she had children. If nothing else, getting an abortion would have saved her from plunging into poverty. She likely would have stayed in the same socioeconomic strata as her parents and grandparents who were professors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If killing an unborn baby is justified by the various time, economic, and emotional burdens her existence imposes on the mother, couldn\u2019t we just as easily find any number of scenarios where born humans should be killable because they impose similar hardships? Maybe you just can\u2019t take care of Grandpa anymore. Maybe your spouse is a nightmare and divorce isn\u2019t an option. Maybe your infant son is impacting your life in the exact same way a fetus does. (Oh, wait – people do believe that one<\/a>.) Beisner\u2019s argument still requires her to diminish the status of the unborn:<\/p>\n

If you believe what reproductive scientists tell us, that I was nothing more than a conglomeration of cells, then there was nothing lost. I could have experienced no consciousness or pain. But even if you discount science and believe I had consciousness and could experience pain at six gestational weeks, I would chose the brief pain or fear of an abortion over the decades of suffering I endured.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But that\u2019s not what reproductive scientists tell us. They tell us<\/a> Beisner was a \u201cconglomeration of cells\u201d in the same essential sense that she\u2019s a \u201cconglomeration of cells” today: a live, individual human being. Any scientist who tries to infer from that how much respect she deserved is practicing not science, but philosophy or metaphysics – a profoundly different enterprise<\/a>. Simply asserting that consciousness and perception were Beisner’s only qualities worth protecting doesn\u2019t end this conversation; it begins another one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Further, by justifying her position on the grounds that she would have willingly foregone her own future<\/a> for her mother\u2019s sake, Beisner has unwittingly left herself vulnerable to one of her own side\u2019s favorite questions: just because you would have made a particular choice, what gives you the right to decide it for everyone else, many of whom surely would have decided they\u2019d prefer living?<\/p>\n

The world would not be a darker or poorer place without me. Actually, in terms of contributions to the world, I am a net loss. Everything that I have done \u2013 including parenting, teaching, researching, and being a loving partner \u2013 could have been done as well, if not better by other people. Any positive contributions that I have made are completely offset by what it has cost society to help me overcome the disadvantages and injuries of my childhood to become a functional and contributing member of society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite how matter-of-factly Beisner says it, this is a shocking statement with extraordinary implications. Like a grim retelling of the Jimmy Stewart classic It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em> where Clarence never intervenes, Beisner arrogantly presumes we can know the limits of any one person\u2019s impact on the surrounding world. Worse, she reduces human worth – of all<\/em> humans, not just those in the womb – to a utilitarian calculation of how useful the individual is to the collective. I can\u2019t say it any better than pro-choice<\/em> Brendan O\u2019Neill in the Telegraph<\/em>, who recognizes<\/a> that her logic takes us farther than he\u2019s willing to go (hat tip to Rusty Weiss<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Now we have the likes of pro-choice Ms Beisner suggesting that abortion is a good thing because it can prevent the creation of young people who are deprived and depressed \u2013 that is, abortion can serve the social end of reducing the number of down-in-the-mouth teenagers and fulfilling their infantile fantasies of non-existence. Or abortion is promoted as a solution to environmental problems. Marie Stopes International, for example, is looking into ways that \u201cfamily planning could be used to combat climate change\u201d<\/a>. One American feminist has argued that abortion is a good eco-choice, since it can help reduce human numbers and shrink mankind\u2019s dirty carbon footprint. Creepily, she says: \u201cA tiny embryo must sometimes be scarified for the greater good of the human species\u2026\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Campaigning for abortion on the basis that it can solve the alleged population crisis or reduce the number of depressed teenagers or make it easier for people like Ms Beisner to live with themselves (or not, as the case may be) takes us perilously close to eugenics territory. It takes us towards a situation where abortion is treated as a tool of political and social goals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pro-lifers frequently warn that the logic of abortion poses a grave threat to mankind\u2019s very conception of a right to life. With essays like this, pro-choicers seem insistent on proving us right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going down a disturbing road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":20131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt's a horrible life: writer laments that her mother didn't abort her - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It's a horrible life: writer laments that her mother didn't abort her - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Going down a disturbing road.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-16T18:23:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-04-04T04:10:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/its_a_wonderful_life_stort1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"390\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"337\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Calvin Freiburger\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/6eb2bf94c8064b71953ba137bf413c4d\"},\"headline\":\"It’s a horrible life: writer laments that her mother didn’t abort her\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-16T18:23:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-04T04:10:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/\"},\"wordCount\":986,\"commentCount\":8,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Human Rights\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/its-a-horrible-life-writer-laments-that-her-mother-didnt-abort-her\/\",\"name\":\"It's a horrible life: writer laments that her mother didn't abort her - 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