Many in the powerful ruling class seem enthusiastic about supporting the idea that women should produce more babies. What I want to know is – why?
To support the aging population? hmm…
- It’ll take at least 18 years for today’s newborns to be eligible for that task.
- In the meantime, the aging generation is spending time and money caring for their grandchildren, even in some cases for their children. I suspect there are more creative ways to help the current – and potential — parent generation, like:
- Parental leave. At least adequate maternal care. Well supported infant and child-care facilities. Support for families whose children require expensive special needs care. Affordable housing for all families. Adjusting social security financing to more adequate coverage for the elderly, with complete coverage by folks at all levels. Even, for example, the top 1% paying at the same average level as the poorest among us. Fair food distribution for the healthy development of all children. A clean environment for all children to reduce such problems as asthma. Excellent schooling for all children encouraging each child’s special ability, including freedom of reading choice, encouragement of interest in all arts.
- Reducing the appeal to violence and drugs by encouraging delight, respect, and rewards for the potential of all children.
Or maybe it’s to provide worker bees for the economy?
- It’ll take at least 18 years for today’s newborns to be eligible for that task.
- In 18 years there’s no doubt our economy will be running with fewer worker bees.
- Even amateurs like me can see that methods that worked with the introduction of the industrial revolution are old fashioned.
- We can’t know now what the work world will be like in 18 years.
- Chances are, though, that special skills will be needed at all levels. Even now I see stories of buildings being constructed by 3D printers. Artificial Intelligence will require human intelligence in ways we can only try to predict.
- Retirement no longer means what it used to mean – (fruit for a future blog?)
Or maybe it’s to provide more fodder for wars to protect whatever it is the world will become.
- From what I read, trench warriors will be needed less and less.
- Computer directed attacks even now are increasing.
- Wouldn’t it be great, though, if we helped some of the people we already have to develop their creative skills in the service of peace.
Well, I guess that’s the end of whatever I have the know-how to talk about. I just know that in my academic days it didn’t make sense for students at the beginning of a college career to make their choices for majors on the basis of what well-paying jobs would still be available when they graduated. They just might not be. By the same token, requiring women to have babies to meet today’s needs is ludicrous.
I know there are at least some 350 people following my blog. It would be great if a few of you, or those on Facebook, would help me to understand what would be so great about having more babies for the simple sake of increasing the size of the population.
“I know it’s hard on a woman,” my acquaintance/friend said, “but I’m thinking of the baby who needs a chance to live.” “Funny thing,” I’m thinking. “Caring for the life of the potential baby/ child/ person is one of the most significant reasons from my point of view for leaving abortion decisions to the people and situation directly involved.” Forcing a child to be born into a situation of being unwanted is nothing short of child abuse that in the long term affects not only that particular individual, but the culture and government that will potentially be dealing with the consequences.
As my sister, the mother of two adopted boys, once said. “A baby is not a Lifesaver” and I would add that a woman’s womb is not just a warm, cuddly container. Okay, forget for the moment about the potential damage to the body that harbors the womb. Forget that part of the process is change to the immune system that prevents the expulsion of the zygote, embryo, fetus, with the potential for long-term effects on the mother’s health. Just focus on the damage to the well-being of the potential person being bathed in the stress hormones circulating via the mother’s blood stream and transmitted by the connecting placenta.
Or maybe the potential mother is sufficiently healthy and well supported that she manages to carry off a relatively stress-free pregnancy. Then the baby has lived for approximately nine months in a comfortable environment from which it is shockingly expelled at birth. Now here’s where we see a lovely diaper ad in which the baby is placed gently on the mother’s breast and, at the best, gazes lovingly into her eyes, drawing on the new source of comfort and support. But this is a baby who started out unwanted. For whatever reason it can’t remain there. Torn, or even gently removed, from that cozy place, it begins life in a condition of grief. And no, that baby is not unfeeling – that body memory will stay with him or her, maybe to be recalled years later in a deep therapy session but always, consciously remembered or not, to be a source of pain. No, a baby is not just a piece of candy to be passed around, no matter how caring adoptive caretakers may be. Have you noticed all the stories lately of adults seeking to learn more about their birth parents, longing for contact with that initial nine-month home?
“But unwanted babies can always be adopted” my acquaintance/friend claims. Really? Show me the evidence. But if that is the case, then the people who would force the birth of an unwanted child should be supporting massive research into the understanding and support of adoptive situations. Especially the adoption of babies with major, or even minor, birth anomalies calling for special care – often expensive. Or racially complex situations. Yes, I have read news stories of exceptionally loving and giving foster care or adoptive parents who have successfully pored love into the development of several children. They are in the news because, like all news, it is exceptional – out of the ordinary. As my sister said, “babies are not just Lifesavers.” Logic, even morality, would require that those who would ban abortion should be ready to support equally strict governmental legal and financial support to all involved.
I sometimes think that those who oppose abortion have in mind the vision of an attractive young woman in her early twenties who engaged in unprotected sex and now doesn’t feel up to devoting a life to the care of her love baby. Of course, I find myself confused when I say this because, as I understand it, those who fight to ban abortion would also ban contraception. Be that as it may, there are many reasons why people seek abortion. How about rape? Or family rape called “incest?” Not too nice for the child born with the genes of a rapist. Or youth — a young body not quite ready physiologically to sustain a pregnancy and birth and certainly without the wherewithal to commit to a lifetime of support? Or body anomalies that lead to a life of suffering? Or a family’s loss of a mother who dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Yes, that does happen. There are so many other reasons that a seasoned medical person could describe.
But at bottom lies poverty. It’s not the wealthy who will, in general, suffer under abortion bans. As my former husband used to say, “Money can buy anything.” And certainly it can buy an abortion. The fact is, those who suffer under abortion bans – in addition to medical practitioners who are not free to put care of their patients first – are those living in poverty.
Well now we’ve hit on the ways in which government could be helping to avoid the damage of abortion bans. If caring for the child is really at the root of such laws, then there will be active campaigning for that same government to support paid maternal medical care for all, extended parental leave, and family support to guarantee all families adequate healthy housing and provision of food. Plus full and expert mental health care for adults suffering the effects of being unwanted for one reason or another.
Exploring the issues related to abortion bans is not easy – much too complicated to be solved by decree. But there is one thing clear. Those who will suffer are babies born into a world that doesn’t want them. So back to my acquaintance/friend who feels sorry for the mothers but cares about the child. Are you willing to think again?
monagustafsonaffinito 