Right to Life and Freedom to Choose

“A plague on both your houses.” So spoke the Duke of Verona to the Capulets and the Montagues in “Romeo and Juliet”. He could say the same thing to the “right to life “ crew and the “freedome to choose” crowd in the fight over abortion, which threatens to becloud the real issues in the November election. Both groups are a little less rational, and therefore more strident than civility allows.

The efforts of the right to life-ers to silence the Democratic candidates by rowdyism arouses suspicion of the validity of their position. Even President Reagan’s permission to repeat their vulgarities does not excuse their crudity. They should be honest in their attacks on those who disagree with them. Geraldine Ferraro does not favor abortion. Personally, she objects to it, but she will not dictate that her preferences must be universally observed.

There is a certain inconsistency in the right to life agenda. On the one hand, they want to insure life to the unborn babies, and on the other hand they support the Reagan program to cut back on school lunches and child support for hungry and deprived living children. One could have more respect for them if they were as concerned about suffering children in the ghetto and neglected children in suburbia as they are about fetuses in the womb.

The dogma of the freedom to choose crowd, “A woman has a right to choose what happens with her own body,” is just as inconsistent. A woman, with cooperation from a willing male, chooses conduct which results in the creation of a baby. In any other realm of affairs, when we make a choice, we have to live with the results. There is no reason to make an exception in regard to pregnancy.

The logic of freedom to choose advocates would eliminate all legislation banning the possession and use of pathogenic drugs – heroin, cocaine and others. If a person chose to dose himself (or herself) with heroin, the results are long term and unavoidable. In neither case is there any choice as to avoiding the results. And in neither case should the public be expected to foot the bill to help the victim escpae the results of self-induced trouble.

It is a fact though; that society will have to pay to deal with a drug shattered mind, and also an unwanted, neglected, maladjusted problem child. Such is our situation.

What is to be done?

First, both “right to life” and “freedom to choose” adherents should unite in an effort to prevent unwanted pregnancies through education and use of contraceptives. Both groups could agree on this objective. The Pope may object, but a goodly number of his flock would support such a move. Prevention of unwanted pregnancies is a top priority. The solution of the abortion problem goes beyond the use of contraceptives, but in the present state of sex morality such use is a time-buying necessity. If both groups put into a campaign for such use the enterprise and energy they put into their vituperative squabbling, they could accomplish a lot.

Second, family, church and school must cultivate a sense of personal responsibility in the individuals in their care. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.” In my career I dealt with several hundred persons with criminal records. In general, those who took responsibility for their crimes, faced up to them, and accepted the results in the way of discipline were on the road to rehabilitation. Those who blamed someone else or something for their misdeeds and their plight were sure to repeat them. A sense of personal responsibility is a prerequisite to acceptable behavior.

Third, a sense of responsibility develops out of a sense of self worth. I was the executive of a vocational rehabilitation agency for thirty-five years. On one occasion the State referred to us a thirty-two year old black man. He was a drug addict, an alcoholic, and had spent twelve of his thirty-two years in correctional institutions. He was referred to us as an arrested tuberculosis case. We had a number of problems for a while, but he learned a marketable skill at our facility, and left us for a good job. In the process he broke his drug and alcohol dependency, cold turkey. Not only had he straightened himself out, but he set out to rectify some of the wrongs he had done, and make up for his past.

Occasionally he came back to visit us. Once I mentioned that he was a different person from the one who first came to us, and asked him, “What happened?” His reply was clear. “Two things occurred that never occurred to me before. You were concerned about what happened to me. Not about how you could use me. And you expected me to be a man, and not a bum. I never experienced that before.”

A sense of self worth is a tremendous powerhouse.