Althouse: "I’ve got other things to do, and I don’t have it in me to be a good enough mother to a fifth child."

April 15, 2012

"I’ve got other things to do, and I don’t have it in me to be a good enough mother to a fifth child."

"I delight in newborn babies with their delicate weightlessness, the curl of their small fingers around my thumb, but the best thing about them now is that they belong to other people. I don’t want to bear them, feed them, bring them up, be responsible for them."

A woman, Susan Heath, writing in the present tense, describes her feelings about getting an abortion she had 34 years ago. Now, she says, "I don’t have and never have had a single qualm about not bringing that child into the world. I know many women who have grieved greatly over the children they decided not to have, and I am thankful to have been spared that agonizing sadness of guilt and regret. I also know many women who, like me, have felt only gratitude and relief at having been able to take control over their lives safely and legally."

For a less sententious application of literary talent to the topic of abortion, check out comedienne Sarah Silverman: "Got a quickie aborsh in case R v W gets overturned" — tweeted, with pics of the actually-not-pregnant Silverman pushing out her abdomen and then sucking it way in, before-and-after style.

I take it Silverman's view of abortion is just about exactly the same as Heath's: That abortion should be legal and that women really do think carefully before getting an abortion. That's how I read the comedy and the precious, serious — curled-tiny-fingers — writing.

2 writing styles. Do you have a preference?

246 comments:

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MayBee said...: I don't care for the overwrought writing style of Ms Heath.

As for the message, I don't know her so I don't know if I care that she has no qualms about having an abortion all these years later.

There are times in my life I could have had an abortion without thinking twice about it. But I don't think I could have aborted the healthy sibling of my children. I can't imagine that not haunting me.; 4/16/12, 2:16 AM
Renee said...: I have four children, we can 'barely' afford. We, as in my husband, helps raise the children. I'm not on my own, plus I have extended family close by and friends. I love my planned and unplanned children no different, they are just my children. I don't think less of the fourth, because I already had three. I do not think less of my sons, because I only have one daughter.

If my mother had an abortion, I could forgive her if she didn't already have children, young, and scared, but if she had an abortion after she already had a child? (which is common)

This woman had 'better things to do', was this woman just as resentful to her four living children as well?

Sorry I couldn't bring myself to read the article, my hands are shaking. This reaffirms that abortion is NOT empowering. Abortion is not a result of female liberation, but result of utmost despair.

Sad. Sorry, her argument didn't win me over.

Being pro-life is not just about the legal aspects on the right to terminate a pregnancy within our bodies, it's a whole philosophy that adjusts your way of life. We're human beings and we are to value and respect life, and we create a foundation that works with that ideal not against it.

Children are not a burden, they're an addition.; 4/16/12, 6:48 AM
Rusty said...: You are simply taking a historically ignoranus viewpoint and defining morally permissible behavior around an arbitrary sequence of events just because they are natural and at one time, incapable of being manipulated by humans.

So. Babies just happen?; 4/16/12, 7:30 AM
Michael McNeil said...: It is by such a brainless, irrational, and arbitrary self-serving definition as this that you have proved yourself to be non-human.

It is none of those things. What's “brainless, irrational, and arbitrary self-serving” is defining “human life” as originating at either 1) conception, or 2) birth.; 4/16/12, 7:34 AM
Bob Ellison said...: @wyo sis said...
At any time is the human embryo going to develop into something other than a human being?

Yes! Sometimes it develops into a __________. [Fill in the blank yourself. I'm not going there; I just wanted to note the opportunity.]; 4/16/12, 7:39 AM
Michael McNeil said...: Approximately 1.5% of abortions are done in the third trimester. We've had 50 million abortions since 1973. So if you're willing to concede that a viable, kicking third trimester infant is a baby, the Supreme Court has murdered 750,000 of them, more or less.

I would put it that the woman and her doctor have murdered them, though Roe v. Wade did assist in enabling them to do so (many might have had abortions anyway). Moreover, as I point out above, the second trimester arguably counts too. Certainly a great many babies have survived birth prior to month 7.; 4/16/12, 7:41 AM
Michael McNeil said...: At any time is the human embryo going to develop into something other than a human being?

At any time are the egg and sperm going to develop into something other than a human being?; 4/16/12, 7:47 AM
chickelit said...: At any time are the egg and sperm going to develop into something other than a human being?

Human sperm are destined to die lonely deaths. And if an earlier commenter be believed, so to are Ms. Silverman's eggs.; 4/16/12, 8:17 AM
chickelit said...: I don't believe I've ever heard an abortion joke--Monty Python and Sarah Silverman included--which doesn't cheapen life.; 4/16/12, 8:20 AM
Michael McNeil said...: Human sperm are destined to die lonely deaths. And if an earlier commenter be believed, so to are Ms. Silverman's eggs.

A great many embryos are also sloughed off early in life. That's not a unique characteristic of sperm and eggs.; 4/16/12, 8:29 AM
chickelit said...: That's not a unique characteristic of sperm and eggs.

Did I write that or are you projecting?; 4/16/12, 8:35 AM
wyo sis said...: Oh, but we are so very civilized. When does O start with the filthy sonnet parodies? It's all good clean free speech fun you know. It's about getting the bitch to bed. After she's kicked out the intellectualizing about the definition of humanity starts. No harm no foul.; 4/16/12, 8:40 AM
wyo sis said...: Bob, sadly, Even you developed into a human being. Not a nice one. But I don't want to retroactively abort you. Please feel free to take up your opportunities to be __________. I'd expect no less.; 4/16/12, 8:46 AM
Michael McNeil said...: Did I write that or are you projecting?

Did I put it in quotes? It appeared that you were making an argument that eggs and sperm were unique or different in this regard vis-a-vis the developing embryo. If you were not, then fine.; 4/16/12, 8:49 AM
Saint Croix said...: I would put it that the woman and her doctor have murdered them

You know Stalin didn't actually shoot people in the back of the head, right? You issue your kill rules and then delegate the dirty work to other people.

The doctor, by the way, is a perfect killing machine. He ia taught to dehumanize, to think in terms of bones, tissue, organs, blood. This is why the Hippocratic Oath is so important. We must remind our doctors to respect and revere human life.

When the Supreme Court tossed out the Hippocratic Oath in Roe, they created and unleashed a brutal and vicious killer, one who feels nothing for his victims.

The Supreme Court created an ideological universe where abortion is a right thing to do. They have been backed in this by feminists (who seek to empower women, heedless of cost), by a Democratic party who wants to remove the poor in order to save money, and by a complicit media that covers the issue like Pravda (which is to say, by hiding what is going on from our people).

Why blame the young girls who are taught by our society that it is a right thing to do?; 4/16/12, 9:05 AM
Michael McNeil said...: You know Stalin didn't actually shoot people in the back of the head, right? You issue your kill rules and then delegate the dirty work to other people.

Stalin didn't issue “kill rules” but kill orders. The Supreme Court ordered nobody to have an abortion. It's the woman who made the decision and her doctor that carried it out.

And even then, prior to the development of a brain in the fetus, in my view no human being has been killed — just as no human being is killed when life support is removed following brain death in an adult (born) human. Brain life in the fetus should have similar status in conveying humanity in my view.; 4/16/12, 9:23 AM
Steve Koch said...: Imagine that your child or spouse is injured and suffers a profound brain injury. It turns out that a miracle cure (guaranteed to work) will be available in less than 9 months. This miracle cure will fully restore the health of your loved one.

Do you have the right to pull the plug on your loved one while his/her brain is not functional, knowing that they will be totally normal in less than nine months?; 4/16/12, 9:29 AM
Saint Croix said...: The Supreme Court ordered nobody to have an abortion.

No, all they did was dehumanize the baby, strip her of all legal protections, and say it was a constitutional right to kill her.

But go ahead and blame the 16-year-olds who found an abortion doctor in the yellow pages.

It's the woman who made the decision and her doctor that carried it out.

It's like saying it's the soldiers who shot all those people in Vietnam.; 4/16/12, 10:03 AM
Anonymous said...: Saint Croix, does a brain dead patient have rights under the constitution? No EEG indication of brain function.

Is it ethical to harvest organs from a "breathing corpse"? You do realize there is no pulling of the plug before the organs are removed, right?

Just how far reaching are constitutional rights?; 4/16/12, 10:17 AM
Trashhauler said...: I take it we haven't reached the point where we can send a "Happy Abortion!" card.; 4/16/12, 10:26 AM
Saint Croix said...: prior to the development of a brain in the fetus, in my view no human being has been killed — just as no human being is killed when life support is removed following brain death in an adult (born) human. Brain life in the fetus should have similar status in conveying humanity in my view.

Total brain death is the rule in all 50 states. So it's not just a question of what you or I think is a good rule. Our society has defined when people die.

These rules do not apply to the unborn because the Supreme Court has dehumanized them and placed them outside our legal system.

I also can name many reasons a state might want to outlaw early abortions, even fi they are not homicides. For instance, we might be concerned about the rightness of our death statutes, and so we outlaw all abortions out of a recognition of the possibility of human error.

We might fear that abortion will corrupt the ethics of the medical profession.

And we may want to respect the sanctity of all human life.

Here's an analogy I like to make for secular people. Imagine your favorite painting. (Mine would be a Monet).

Now imagine that I'm Ted Turner, and I buy your favorite painting.

And I put my foot through it.

I say that I own it, and it's mine, and it's none of your business. But you don't feel that way, do you? You are outraged at the destruction of an amazing work of art.

Well, the creation of a human being is far more amazing than any work of human creation. It's really a miracle of beauty and grace. And when you flush that miracle down a toilet, it's just a vile and unspeakable thing.

So we might want to outlaw that, even in situations where it wouldn't be a homicide under the law.; 4/16/12, 10:28 AM
Bender said...: While it is pointless to try to reason with someone who has not even made an attempt at reason, perhaps it might help others --

Actually, life qua life began and had its origin millions of years ago, and human life qua human life began hundreds of thousands of years ago at least. Strictly speaking, "life" is a continuum. An individual life does not spontaneously animate out of inanimate matter at conception or birth, but is alive already at the origin of that individual life.

And an individual human life does, as a matter of scientific truth (and not brainless, irrational, self-serving ideology) when one-half of the reproductive chromosomal package joins with the other half, so as to form a new completed whole, i.e. when a living human sperm joins with a living human ovum.

The presence of a human brain has nothing to do with it. You can stick a human brain in an ape, but he does not then become a human.

However one answers the metaphysical or theological question whether the fetus is a "human being" or the legal question whether it is a "person" as that term is used in the Constitution, one must at least recognize, first, that the fetus is an entity that bears in its cells all the genetic information that characterizes a member of the species homo sapiens and distinguishes an individual member of that species from all others, and second, that there is no nonarbitrary line separating a fetus from a child or, indeed, an adult human being. -- Thornburgh v. Planned Parenthood, 476 U.S. 747 (1986)(White, dissenting).

There is nothing more illogical, irrational, and wholly lacking in reason and in fact, than the specious pro-abortion argument that the entity inside the womb is not an individual living human being and, therefore, can be "terminated" with impunity. An argument advocating for justifiable homicide would be more honest and honorable.

Again, so lacking in reason is such an outlandish claim that those who assert it condemn themselves.; 4/16/12, 10:36 AM
Seeing Red said...: i hate IE 9 I lost the move to the next page thingy.; 4/16/12, 10:37 AM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/16/12, 10:40 AM
Michael McNeil said...: There is nothing more illogical, irrational, and wholly lacking in reason and in fact, than the specious pro-abortion argument that the entity inside the womb is not an individual living human being and, therefore, can be “terminated” with impunity. An argument advocating for justifiable homicide would be more honest and honorable.

Again, so lacking in reason is such an outlandish claim that those who assert it condemn themselves.

Sez you. Though the developing embryo has human DNA and is indubitably alive, during the very early stages it is not an “individual” in the sense that it can split in two or cells can be teased away from it that can themselves grow into different human individuals.

Beyond that, prior to the origin of the brain, the embryo/fetus has not the possibility of a single one of the characteristics that make us uniquely human and individual and not an animal — all of which reside in the human brain.

Even the “reasoning” that you speciously deny my discussion in your adjective-rich condemnation resides in the brain.; 4/16/12, 10:59 AM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/16/12, 11:05 AM
Saint Croix said...: Saint Croix, does a brain dead patient have rights under the constitution?

Sure. For instance, you might want to will your property to a charity. You have rights, even if you're dead.

That's kind of a snarky answer, I guess, but yes, the dead have legal rights. Actually what we're really protecting is the legal rights of the living to make plans for the future. But for that to work we have to respect the dead.

Another example--you can't take the organs of a dead person, unless they (or their family) have given permission.

So, yes, the dead have rights.

But if your question is whether the Constitution requires that braindead people be considered alive, no, it does not. The Constitution is agnostic on the life-death question. It merely insists that all live human beings are entitled to the same rule of law.

So I think our death statutes are highly relevant to the abortion debate.; 4/16/12, 11:07 AM
Bender said...: McNeil: In my view the onset of “human life” . . .
McNeil: in my view no human being has been killed
McNeil: Sez you

No, not "sez me." Rather, sez biological fact.

It is you, by your own admission, that is merely spouting your own view with your arbitrary and counter-factual assertion that a fully formed brain is what makes one "uniquely human and individual and not an animal." Again, here too, you condemn yourself.; 4/16/12, 11:09 AM
Michael McNeil said...: It is you, by your own admission, that is merely spouting your own view with your arbitrary and counter-factual assertion that a fully formed brain is what makes one “uniquely human and individual and not an animal.“ Again, here too, you condemn yourself.

More than a century and a half of brain studies have shown that injuries to various parts of the brain take away memory, will, emotion, reason, and as I say every other aspect of humanity other than the purely animal. This too is “biological fact” — and I care not a whit that you bombastically assert I've somehow “condemned myself” by saying so.; 4/16/12, 11:26 AM
Bender said...: And, sorry, but the dead have no rights. Once you are dead, you are dead.

Any "rights" concerning a deceased are held by the estate, which is a separate legal person.

And the point of the question was "gotcha."

Actually, the law is not "total" brain death, only partial brain death, from which they deem death of the person.

But the only reason for brain death is in order to harvest organs while they are still viable. Notwithstanding a determination of "brain death," the heart is still beating, the body is still engaged in delivery of nutrition and oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange -- that is, the rest of the body is still alive.

Brain death is not used for any other reason than to allow them to come and harvest the organs, like one would harvest some farm crop. In order to harvest the heart, for example, they do not wait for the heart to stop beating on its own, rather, they artifically stop it after they have opened the chest and just before they are ready to cut it out.

For all other purposes, brain death is not used. They certainly would not autopsy a body merely upon a determination of brain death. They would not bury a body or cremate one merely on determination of brain death. They would, instead, wait for the natural cessation of the heart and breathing.

So, yes, it is a gotcha question. If you are in favor of harvesting under these conditions, when the rest of the body is still living, why insist on a functioning brain at the beginning of life?; 4/16/12, 11:27 AM
Saint Croix said...: It is you, by your own admission, that is merely spouting your own view with your arbitrary and counter-factual assertion that a fully formed brain is what makes one "uniquely human and individual and not an animal."

Yes, Bender, but total brain death is not just his view, but our society's view in regard to when people die. It's the rule in all 50 states.

Pope John Paul II seems to agree.

Of course Roman Catholics remain opposed to all abortions. But there does seem to be a problem in insisting that every single abortion is a homicide.

And Michael, there is equally a problem with insisting that our death statutes must be right. What if we are wrong? Death can be tricky to define and we might want to outlaw even early abortions out of respect for all human life.; 4/16/12, 11:33 AM
Michael McNeil said...: Actually, the law is not “total” brain death, only partial brain death, from which they deem death of the person.

There are lower brain functions such as the so-called “autonomic nervous system” that only accomplish primitive biological functions such as keeping the heart pumping and the lungs breathing. These have nothing to do with our essentially human characteristics.; 4/16/12, 11:35 AM
Bender said...: Bl. Pope John Paul did not, and did not intend to, make a medical or scientific determination of death. He merely accepted that such definition was in good faith. The teaching is -- if you are really and truly dead, then organ donation is permissible. But if you are not really and truly dead, then such donation is not licit and instead contributes to the objectification of the human person, reducing him to a mere collection of mechanical parts.; 4/16/12, 11:44 AM
Michael McNeil said...: And Michael, there is equally a problem with insisting that our death statutes must be right. What if we are wrong? Death can be tricky to define…

I agree that one ought not be blase in a moral sense about just how the law happens to be worded. Indeed, prior to the present legal regimen, cessation of the activity of a mere pump was defined as indicating human death — which we now know to be wholly wrong.

However, as I pointed out before, a vast amount — a century and a half — of knowledge that we've accumulated about the body and brain confirms that all particularly and uniquely human characteristics reside within the latter. Thus, in my view, the present legal definition is in essence correct.

… and we might want to outlaw even early abortions out of respect for all human life.

At some point, one must also respect the will of the mother.; 4/16/12, 11:46 AM
Saint Croix said...: There are lower brain functions such as the so-called “autonomic nervous system” that only accomplish primitive biological functions such as keeping the heart pumping and the lungs breathing.

I don't believe this is right. The heart has a little motor that's independent of the brain. I read this in Mary Roach's book, Stiff, which is fascinating.

In the embryo, the heart starts beating before there is any activity at all in the brain.; 4/16/12, 11:53 AM
Anonymous said...: understanding brain death

"I've always understood that when an individual dies, the heart stops beating. If someone is brain dead, why does the heart continue to beat?

The human heart has its own pacemaker, and doesn't need the brain to make it beat. As long as the heart has a supply of oxygen and blood, it can continue to beat for a period of time. Because the patient has been placed on a machine called a ventilator that breathes for him or her, the heart continues to receive oxygen. If the medications being given maintain a good blood pressure, the heart may continue to beat even if the brain has died."; 4/16/12, 12:02 PM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/16/12, 12:13 PM
Saint Croix said...: At some point, one must also respect the will of the mother.

That may be, it depends on what the people of a state want to do.; 4/16/12, 12:19 PM
Michael McNeil said...: I don't believe this is right. The heart has a little motor that's independent of the brain. I read this in Mary Roach's book, Stiff, which is fascinating.

In the embryo, the heart starts beating before there is any activity at all in the brain.

That may be true, I don't deny it. However, the autonomic nervous system still exists.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (autonomic nervous system): “in vertebrates, the part of the nervous system that controls and regulates the internal organs without any conscious recognition or effort by the organism. The autonomic nervous system comprises two antagonistic sets of nerves, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system connects the internal organs to the brain by spinal nerves. When stimulated, these nerves prepare the organism for stress by increasing the heart rate, increasing blood flow to the muscles, and decreasing blood flow to the skin. The nerve fibres of the parasympathetic nervous system are the cranial nerves, primarily the vagus nerve, and the lumbar spinal nerves. When stimulated, these nerves increase digestive secretions and reduce the heartbeat.”iderms Prefl; 4/16/12, 12:21 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Sorry, the screen flashed as I hit “Post” and my word verification became part of the posting.; 4/16/12, 12:23 PM
Saint Croix said...: The onset of brain activity, by the way, is when doctors start saying "fetus" instead of "embryo." There is a medical reason for the name change.

The trimester system, on the other hand, is utterly arbitrary. It has no medical significance whatsoever.

It's really hard to grasp just how awful Roe v. Wade is. They ignored any and all biological factors in regard to the baby's life. Instead they issued arbitrary rules.

Blackmun's memo is an impeachable offense, as far as I'm concerned. Among other things, it proves that Blackmun has violated his oath to follow the Constitution.

Arbitrary

1.Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

2.(of power or a ruling body) Unrestrained and autocratic in the use of authority.; 4/16/12, 12:47 PM
wyo sis said...: It's all so clinical. It makes me want to think that we humans are in charge.

However, we don't create life and it isn't our to take away. The only time it's justified is in self defense or the defense of others. No matter how you intellectualize it, unless the mother will die she has no right to kill her unborn child. If I believed less than that I'd have to believe that life is meaningless.
Yes, my opinion, but backed up by some pretty impressive individuals.; 4/16/12, 12:52 PM
Steve Koch said...: "At some point, one must also respect the will of the mother."

That is infinitely less important than whether or not the not yet born baby is human. If the not yet born baby is human, then abortion is murder so the will of the mother is not relevant.

Is "mother" really the appropriate term for a woman who wants to kill her not yet born baby? Maybe "host" would more accurately describe the relationship.

If there is any doubt about whether the not yet born baby is human, you have to err on the side of not committing murder because preserving human life is infinitely more important than reducing inconvenience for the host.

The argument that the not yet born baby is not human because the brain is not fully developed is not very persuasive because, with minimal care and patience, that baby's brain will be fully developed. You would not kill a loved one if they were temporarily brain dead if you knew they would surely be restored to full health with just a little patience and care.

The rights of that not yet born baby are independent of the attitude of the mother.

The main reason that dems support killing not yet born babies is that women can vote and not yet born babies can't vote.; 4/16/12, 1:24 PM
wyo sis said...: One of the great feminist anthems says:

"But I'm still and embryo, with a long long way to go, Until I make my brothers understand."

So evidently an embryo feminist is something with a long long way to go. Too bad they don't respect their own embryo's that much. Maybe that's why their "brothers" have less respect for them than they used to.

Yes, I'm a little shrill, but someone has to take the side of life, and I'm not about to be counted on the side of death. And, I'm tired of being condescended to by people who think murdering a child is OK and manage to sound self-righteous about it.; 4/16/12, 2:16 PM
jocon307 said...: I feel very sorry for the woman that had her baby killed and doesn't feel sorry about it.

I also am frightened by her. Remorseless people are quite scary, don't you think?

It'll be her baby 34 years ago and you tomorrow. She'll regret nothing.

Sarah Silverman is an idiot. She needs to GO AWAY.

But, she is not scary.; 4/16/12, 11:45 PM
wyo sis said...: remorseless
The perfect word. Thanks.; 4/17/12, 12:29 AM