Most of the arguments in favor of abortion, I understand, came from her family. She didn't.
Several years back I was knocking down $70K per year writing code for a Midwest commercial concern. The dot com bubble collapse hit us late; I felt it only in '03. Eventually I had to move back to this tiny town I live in now near my folks. This was the same town that was ludicrously homophobic, in which I was actively considering, at fifteen, suicide. Returning to it was painful on more levels and in more ways than I can enumerate, and I think you might know what that suggests, since I'm certainly capable of blathering on forever.
I got to know this kid through my trading card habits. We sparred, swapped Altar's Lights and Circles of Protection: Red, and eventually struck a friendship. My background in education coupled with my general tolerance of generally intolerable teens led to a fairly solid cementing of friendship. (I like kids. Why shouldn't I? I still am one in lots of ways.)
A few weeks back I was filling him in on some background about myself, and I said in passing "I gave up a seventy thousand dollar a year job for all this", meaning, cynically, a return to this terrible tiny town I hate so much, the traps I thought I had escaped in 1989.
He said, joking, "Was I worth it?"
My answer, immediate, was "yes."
Yes.
When we discuss abortion, or more accurately when I discuss abortion, I feel its possible ramifications. This kid in some fairly meaningful ways makes life here ... well, meaningful. So when I say that a fetus is less important to me than a ten-year-old, please understand that to me that's simply not the totality of the discussion. I am very glad this kid is alive, that his mother did not abort, and I can't forget that in anything I mention here.
This is what I mean when I say I have ideas about what "human" means which can be self-contradictory.
I am certain completely that abortion is a hard, hard issue. And the liberal (libertarian?) streak in me insists it should not be up to anyone else to make the decision.
But if there are angels, if there are gods, they were there that day when this kid's mother was making a very hard choice. I stand by my atheism, but if I ever face a god, I'll have far more to be thankful for than any complaints I might be able to remember.
This is not an abstract discussion, and there are no easy answers.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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