abortion on demand
i have a friend who got pregnant for the first time at age 40. she's an anti-choice catholic who was married to a guy who, after baby number 4, apparently sat in the livingroom of their condo advising her children, while she was out buying groceries, "when mom comes home, don't let her inside because she could be the devil and we're facing armegeddon. you don't want her here when god comes to rescue us." it took her a nun and a priest to get him out, but she never questioned her decision to have and raise four children with him. or without him as it turned out. and i don't know how happy she is about that, but he was an ex-rcmp with one restraining order against him already so... let's just say it made her friends rest easier when he moved away to live with his mom. who we didn't know. so we kind of left it at that. and what that says about female solidarity, i don't know - other than that old ladies with middle-aged psychotic sons to look after don't matter as much as middle-aged ones with babies and toddlers to look after do. anyway, somewhere along the way we got to talking about all the tests and whatnot women these days are subjected to during pregnancy, especially when they are pregnant over 40, and she said to me "i really don't know why i'm having all these tests. i wouldn't abort the baby no matter what was wrong with it." which leads me to a question i've asked of myself many times over - would i abort a wrong baby? i mean, a wrong baby that i had planned? i had all the tests for my first and second baby - and they were both on the right side of the tests - but for my third, i had a young male doctor (and for some reason, i don't know why, it seems to matter that he was a young male doctor) who said "why do you want these tests?" and i said "because i want to know if there's something wrong with the baby." and he said "would it make a difference to you if you knew there was something wrong with the baby? because these tests really aren't very conclusive - if that helps." so, whether because i didn't want to make an issue of it or i didn't want to ask myself too many questions - or ask him too many questions, i ended up not having the tests. and the baby turned out to be on the right side of anything i would have had him tested for anyway. but i have asked myself since - would i have aborted a wrong baby? i mean, i wanted another baby. and at the time, i may have thought there was such a thing as a wrong baby. now? not so much. now, a baby's a baby. and let's face it - all babies grow into something unexpected. unexpected when you look back - honestly - on that right baby you chose to have. and i do believe in choice, every step of the way, well into "fetus vs woman" life rights territory. i have no qualms about that - that's life. or not. but i wonder what we are testing ourselves for - or against. how often are we choosing to have a right baby and how often are we choosing - or not choosing - to have a wrong baby? without knowing why we're making that choice other than that we've had tests to tell us - right baby/wrong baby. i dunno. maybe it's a problem of semantics and if we just called babies people...
