A Personal View of Abortion

It was a well kept, hush-hush family secret that I ( as an embryo or fetus ) might have been on the abortion block. Were it not for the simple, clear faith and love of my beautiful mother, I might never have been at all. I would have missed all the fun I had as a kid playing stick ball and learning the fascinating discoveries of school. I would never have had the joy of being a Missionary in Africa or the excitement of hosting a TV show on NBC for 15 years.

I would never have known the warmth of human affection and appreciation of human beings. I would never have had the opportunity to feed GOOD into others’ lives as I have done. I would never have had the thrills of teaching in seminaries and graduate schools. I would never have had the belly stretching paroxyms of telling and hearing jokes. I would have missed all the exhilaration I have known in the " dining out" experience. I would never have known about the landing on the moon and computers and CD music. My personal list seems endless.

It places me solidly, obviously, in the Pro-life camp. I do not need any recourse to abstract statistical argumentations arid graphs. Nor even concrete argumentation. OUT FRONT I have enjoyed being alive. And absurd as it seems,if there were such a forum for aborted babies, I would have lodged a formal complaint with the highest court of that forum. I would have been VERY much upset if I had been denied life.

My thanks to my God and to my beloved mother who, though only 21 at the time, had the inerrant instinct about the value of a kid-- and particularly HER kid. Because of the fierce and irrational prejudices of the earlier 20th century one of my father’s family suggested abortion to my mother since she had already had one child who was obviously headed for the Christian family. Another would have been difficult to conceal from my Jewish grandparents who, likewise, were part of the family conspiracy of silence, This was a process where everyone nonverbally pretended that things were not the way they were.

The family member proposing what she sincerely considered to be the "sensible" way out of an inconvenience offered to pay the total cost of the procedure. Then all would be just Dandy. Except for me.

The human mind clearly is complex beyond words. When something confronts me which I find unpleasant, terrifying, inconvenient or difficult, I can --by the remarkable device called denial--simply not see IT. Case in point. The American Declaration of Independence posits certain inalienable rights coming from the CREATOR; the first of which is LIFE. Without life, nothing is possible. If I find that an embryo is inconvenient, perhaps I can look away or under or above or through but let me never look AT the truth of that little life which does deserve a shot like the rest of us.

My cousin David, good, intelligent, compassionate, could never agree with me. Nor could other countless and good Americans. So be it. Because this is, as stated, a PERSONAL view of abortion. Boy, am I glad Mom stood her ground !