The first one is from the Guardian, "My triple delight," about a mother who has triplets, writing about the reactions she gets, dismay, horror, pity, etc. from others. (She's not religious, and not married either, incidentally). This idea that children are a burden, who get in the way of our happiness and self-fulfillment seems to be quite dominant around us, it seems.
The second, appeared in the NYT last year. It really was chilling. About another mother, who had triplets, and decided to abort two of the three, "When one is enough." "Selective reduction" apparently it's called.
Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn't want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ''Shouldn't we consider having triplets?'' And I had this adverse reaction: ''This is why they say it's the woman's choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That's easy for you to say, but I'd have to give up my life.'' Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.[snip]
But Peter [boyfriend] was staring at the sonogram screen thinking: Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can't believe we're about to make two disappear.Yup, because shopping at Costco was so unthinkable. Ok, that might be a bit flippant. Or is it? I don't know why this story has affected me so much. It just seems to be so, calculated, so premeditated. Whatever one thinks about the legality of this, it seems to me, there's no denying, that what happened here was that two human lives were extinguished (I'd say murdered. But that makes me a right-wing nutjob, it seems.) Too bad for them. Smaller jars of mayonnaise are so much easier to deal with after all.
I forget who it was who said it, but it seems that under the current regime, life doesn't begin at conception, but with the mother's choice.
And that, to me, is chilling.
(Aside: it's fascinating the little editorial clarification at the bottom of the story. How the editors, apparently, forgot to mention that the author was at one point an employee of Planned Parenthood and an abortion rights activist. Hmm.)
(Second aside: interesting conversation after Mass today with someone who's a survivor of sexual assault, on this. A very honest, refreshingly rancor-free conversation, dialogue even. I tried my best to explain that it wasn't just because I'm Catholic that I'm anti-abortion. Like this was just an article of faith, about a religious opinion, like, say, no meat on Fridays in Lent. This is about life and death. Human life. Yes, at one level, the issues are very complicated -- this coinhering of two human lives, one within the other. But, at another level, it's radically simple. The mother is a human being. But so is the child. She doesn't become human when the mother decides to keep her. She's human when she's conceived. And, correct me if I'm wrong, any objective embryologist would agree.)
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