"Abortion is normal"?

This morning, one of the many e-mails I received came from Reproaction, and it said “Abortion is Normal.” It’s a curious statement to make.

Suppose the e-mail had said Appendectomy is Normal, or Treatment for Diabetes is Normal. Many people don’t get, or need, an appendectomy. Or treatment for diabetes.

And there are people who have appendicitis, or diabetes, but they’re Christian Scientists (whatever “Scientists” means in this context), and they would decline appendectomy or treatment for diabetes, even if the absence of treatment was life-threatening. They personally believe in Christian Science, for whatever are their reasons, and they simply wouldn’t accept treatment. The good news is that if you had appendicitis, or diabetes, they wouldn’t tell you that because they believe in Christian Science, then you can’t have an appendectomy, or injected insulin.

And people who have their own personal religious beliefs are more or less welcome to live their lives in keeping with those personal beliefs. The First Amendment says they can, with some exceptions that are not formalized by other Amendments. For example, the First Amendment says that the federal government cannot impose a religion on Americans, and that religious tenets of the various religions cannot be restricted. But we do restrict tenets of various religions. Judaism requires human sacrifice under some circumstances. We don’t permit that. Mormonism permits polygamy. The United States does not permit it. Rastafarianism either encourages or requires the use of marijuana, and the United States doesn’t permit that, in most states, either. So, we are more restrictive than the First Amendment permits us to be. What, then, about abortion?

There are many complications about abortion. If we go back to strict, “Orthodox,” Judaism, menses (the menstrual period) is considered to be equal to the death of what would otherwise have been a fetus, then a child. And since, in Orthodox Judaism, it is forbidden for two weeks (arbitrary, and without rational meaning, of course) to touch someone who has touched a dead person, a husband cannot touch his wife for two weeks after her period has begun. She has been in contact, according to Orthodox Jews, with a dead person, but this supposed dead person is only dead because an egg was not fertilized. And there is no Orthodox Jewish law that says that a married couple, for example, are required to create a fetus every time the female is fertile. In a sense, then, both the female and the male have caused a death. And neither is charged or tried.

A different version of the same problem is true of people who are not Jewish. “Abortion is murder?” Yes. Technically. Sort of. Parents are, of course, the guardians of their children, and if they are so moved, they can spank misbehaving children without fear of being accused of assault and battery, or they can subject their children to a “time out” without fear of being charged of having incarcerated them without due process, or they can take a very young, and apprehensive, child to school on the first day, when the child is experiencing school phobia, without fear of being charged with hostage-taking and incarceration without due process.

And most of the people who describe themselves as “pro-life” are not opposed to capital punishment, the one and only aim of which is to kill someone, and get nothing in return. Nor are they opposed to guns in civilian hands, even though such weapons are the commones cause of death of minors of all ages, and in suicides. I have posted extensively about the “Second Amendment,” and it has nothing to do with guns in private hands.

It is likely we all remember a few years or so back when Herschel Walker was running for GA US Senator, on a “pro-life” platform, until it came to light he had created many pregnancies in which he wasn’t interested, and paid for many abortions. Anyone who thinks the clown who lives in the White House has not paid for abortions is badly kidding him- or herself. Or he had Michael Cohen or someone else make the payments for him.

A few or several years ago, a woman tried to get a prescription filled at a Walgreens somewhere. The pharmacist asked her if she was pregnant, because the medication in question had a likelihood of causing abortion. She said she was pregnant, and the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription. But the fetus was already dead, and getting it out was the whole purpose of the prescription. The pharmacist didn’t care. He couldn’t think beyond “abortion is murder,” and it would no doubt not have mattered if the prescribing doctor had tried to explain it to him. How can you murder something that’s already dead?

The issue is not whether or not “abortion is normal.” The issue is that people should be much more circumspect about minding their own business. The compensation for them is that no matter what anyone thinks of them, or no matter how limited is their financial ability to support a family, no one will demand they get an abortion. They should have reciprocal respect for everyone else.