If you want to have a clear example of the selfishness of our modern society as exemplified in the pro-abortion attitude, one need only look at this article in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. In it a woman describes how she and her boyfriend (she doesn’t want to get married) decided to go off the Pill (she was tired of how it affected her moods) and that if she got pregnant they would have the child (how magnanimous of her). Unfortunately, She is not the master of the universe and all creation, or even in control of conception.
I found out I was having triplets when I went to my obstetrician. The doctor had just finished telling me I was going to have a low-risk pregnancy. She turned on the sonogram machine. There was a long pause, then she said, ‘‘Are you sure you didn’t take fertility drugs?’’ I said, ‘‘I’m positive.’’ Peter and I were very shocked when she said there were three. ‘‘You know, this changes everything,’’ she said. ‘‘You’ll have to see a specialist.’‘
My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to? I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ‘‘Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?’’ The obstetrician wasn’t an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more.
Ugh. Have you ever heard a more self-centered litany, a more glaring example of selfishness? “Poor me, I don’t want to change my life, let’s kill one or more of my children.” Look at the language: “get rid of”, “eliminate.”
