“We like words. We like to dig down deep into their meanings so that we can be both precise, accurate, and honest.”

This past Saturday was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the infamous Supreme Court ruling which made it illegal for states to make abortion illegal.

I read an article (which seems dismissive of some of the real difficulties that lead women to choose abortions) which cited a study from 2005 on the reasons women have abortions. This paragraph in the study surprised me:

“Opinions on adoption. Respondents were not specifically asked about adoption; nevertheless, it came up spontaneously in both parts of the study. . . [M]ore than one third of interview respondents said they had considered adoption and concluded that it was a morally unconscionable option because giving one’s child away is wrong.” (p. 117)

At first, it seems remarkable to me that anyone could find giving one’s child away more reprehensible than killing one’s child. But maybe what’s happening here is a failure to recognize an unborn child as a child. It makes enough sense, I guess. You haven’t seen it, met it. It has no face, no personality. Ancient Jewish rabbis speculated that a fetus was only water for the first forty days of its existence.

These women seem to think giving a child up for adoption is bad parenting. Maybe I can’t offer an opinion on any of this because I am not a mother myself (and have never had the opportunity to be a mother), but it seems to me that good parenting begins at least as early as pregnancy. Women take vitamins and stop drinking caffeine. The child has one continuous existence from conception through birth, growth, college, and retirement. The child’s life is affected by the actions of its mother even before birth. No child who is born begins to exist only at the moment of its birth. If we say that a child’s life is subject to good or bad parenting all the way back to conception, then I’d argue that any unborn child must be understood as a person. 

I realize that there are circumstances in which an abortion may make medical sense. But abortion deprives someone of life and a future. That, at the very least, must be recognized.

From my new favorite professor, on why he doesn’t call on students in class but instead asks them to volunteer:

“Because I’ve never felt that you learn very well by being embarrassed.”