Being Pro-Choice Was Easy, Until I Became a Parent
Upgrading Our Discussions in a Post-Roe World
I’ve always been pro-choice, especially when many years ago I was involved in an unplanned pregnancy. But things have changed for me since I became a parent for two specific reasons:
Never having been a parent, I was previously unable to understand the full impact of that choice. Never had I been face-to-face with what it was I would be losing.
In order to be on-board with terminating an otherwise healthy pregnancy and birth, I’d have to completely change the way human life is assessed and valued.I’d have to abandon the concept of potential that in large part differentiates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom.
I’ve noticed how much my genuine excitement for people who are expecting children has changed. It hadn’t affected me the way it does now that I have children. Because I’ve experienced the fulfillment of that news in my own life, I know what it means. I no longer see pregnancy solely for what it is, but for what it will be. There’s an element of that in any excitement for someone’s pregnancy, as from what I am told, it isn’t the pregnancy itself that’s all that exciting for most.My evaluation of the situation is no longer restricted to only the here and now. I value its potential.
But that was not always my viewpoint.
Years ago I was in a position where I had the choice to either step aside and let a human being exist or stop it in its tracks. Back then, I had not experienced the full cycle of what it meant to have realized a cycle of life. That being who would have been a person today does not exist. It’s not something I dwell on much at all. Probably because I never had to come face-to-face with the alternative to that decision. I say that because I’ve now been face-to-face with what happens when we make the opposite decision, and step aside to let that being fulfill it’s purpose. And I wouldn’t change a thing.
If you could do it all over again, what would you change?
We’ve all played this game. I often do it while I’m in the shower and have some peace and quiet. We think about our lives and where we are. And also, where we’re going. Sometimes, we think about what we would have done if we knew then what we know now. I used to think about a lot of changes I would make, but no longer. That game has changed.
Every time I play that game, I can’t go back further in time than the conception of my youngest child. Even if I had it all planned out to meet my wife around the same time and the same place, and get married at the same time, and so on, the chances we would conceive the same beings I have fallen in love with is close enough to zero to be zero. Any change or even attempt at redoing my life in any way prior to their conception would erase the existence of my children. But that was a choice my wife and I had access to when we originally found out she was pregnant.
The thought of it makes me ill. To look at my children and imagine that we had free reign to deny their existence is as uncomfortable a thought as any I have ever had. That is something I don’t know how to reconcile.
How can we address making a choice when the choice itself precludes ever coming face-to-face with the alternative? What happens to a society that pretends not to value potential?
How else, outside of potential, do we evaluate humanity and the world we live in?
Because there is an individual liberty element of this discussion, I am very sympathetic to it. It usually goes something like this:
My body, my choice — Absolutely
My liberty goes only as far as it does not infringe on the liberty (In this case life) of another human being — Absolutely
That’s not a human being, it’s a clump of cells.
This is where I see the inconsistency that plagues this discussion. Everything else in the world of humanity is deeply embedded in a sense of valuing potential. It’s part of what makes us human.
It’s in our language when we talk about our children living up to their potential. It’s in our assessment of a life when we mourn death differently for children than we do for our grandparents. It’s deeply embedded in the very way we differentiate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Animals see food, seeds in this case, and consume them with no regard for the future. Humans on the other hand will consume some, plant others, and create more food for the future. Humans see not just what seeds are, but what they could be.
Animals see other animals and consume them until they are full. Humans domesticate and breed that immediate source of energy with a mind to the future, creating an immensely larger amount of food for tomorrow and years to come. Humans see not just what animals are, but what they could be.
Humans are aware of the future and delay gratification for long term success. No other creatures do this to the extent that we do.
Some of us when discussing environmental issues will even entertain restricting liberty in order to make the world a better place for future generations of humans. Those humans not only do not yet exist, but have not yet been conceived, and their parents have likely not even met.
How can we put so much stock in the abstract notion of future generations but not those individuals who are already conceived?
It’s this inconsistency in our evaluation of humanity that will continue to plague our discussions.
And I know this does not address the practical implications. We’d have to think about the children who are born and assuring that they are cared for and nurtured into good citizens. We’d have to talk about access to services for women whose lives are at risk. Some of the practical consequences may not be pleasant, for sure. We can work all that out the way we have worked out so many other things.
The only reason I sit here as a citizen and not a slave is because my nation argued about what would be the right thing to do, and did it regardless of the practical implications, which were immense. We’re still dealing with those implications to this day.
But grounding ourselves in a consistent definition of humanity is what we need to do first. The rest should flow from that. Foundations come first, and there is little more foundational than first agreeing on the nature of humanity.
I’m hoping that in a “Post Roe World” we can have better discussions about this incredibly important issue — get down to what is at the root of it.
It’s not just individual liberties, but agreeing on our evaluation of humanity. What makes us human as compared to animals? How do we value potential consistently? How do we use reason — non-contradictory identification — to do all of these things? What are the practical implications of our decisions and are we prepared to deal with them?
Consistency matters.
Scrolling through social media so far, where people do little more than choose sides and paste slogans, I am not hopeful.