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other thoughts politics

Pro-Baby

[Today’s run: Limerock Road, 4 miles]

I’ve been thinking about this some more in the past few days and it may not be completely formulated yet, so bear with me a bit.

 

 

Many states now have laws, variously called the ‘castle doctrine’ or ‘make-my-day’ laws.  If a homeowner is on her own property and someone breaks in or attacks, that homeowner can use deadly force to stop the intrusion.

One night you are lying in bed when you hear a noise.  Someone is in your house.  You slip out of bed and pull a shotgun out from under the dresser.  You put the safety off.  Quietly you creep down the hall.  There’s someone over by the front door.  You wonder if  you forgot to lock the door last night.  It goes through your mind that if you shoot someone it’s going to be a lot of trouble.  Just think of the mess to clean up! And you know you are going to have to explain this to a lot of people.  You see someone moving, over by the lamp.  He’s got a knife, something shiny.  You raise the gun and aim.

 

You’re a young woman of child-bearing age.  Maybe you forgot to lock the front door, maybe not, it doesn’t matter now.  There’s a baby in your body and whatever happens there’s a whole lot of explaining to do.  According to the laws of our land you have the choice to kill it.  It’s going to be messy and painful and it may ruin your life.  Or… you can let it grow and eventually come forth: It will be messy and painful and it may ruin your life.

 

I agree with the pro-life position that the baby is a separate human being and deserves respect.  Nobody asked the baby whether he or she wanted you.  So you are both in this place together, a place of fear and uncertainty.  But you’re the mom and you have the power and the choice.  Your first big decision as a mom: whether the baby will live.

And I’m pro-choice.  You are allowed to make wrong choices.  I don’t know of anybody that wants to send mothers to jail.  So you are not going to go to jail.  With either choice you’ll have some explaining to do, and it will be bloody and painful and it may ruin your life.

I’m pro-baby.  I like babies. They are the future.  I wish we had more of them, not less. In one state where I lived, they passed a law that any mother who was overwhelmed could take her baby to a fire station and leave it with the firemen.  No jail, no “unfit mother”, none of that.  I think that is a good idea.  But, I also think that you’ll like having a baby.  Babies are like puppies except they are more real.  In addition to biting and pooping, babies eventually walk and talk and turn into little people. Then big people. Maybe even people you might like.

There used to be a commercial on TV when I was a kid.  An elderly black woman, in an office building or public building,  down on the floor on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor.  And the story was about how she scrubbed the floor so her children could go to college.  It might be nicer to be the kid going to college, maybe.  If you have a baby you might be the one scrubbing the floor.  But if you don’t have a baby, there’s nobody to scrub the floor for.  I’m Pro-Baby.  I think it is probably worth scrubbing the floor if you can put your baby through college.

But what if your baby has Down’s Syndrome or some other problem?  What if it’s a girl and you wanted a boy?   (Some people kill the runt in a litter of dogs.)  I’m Pro-Baby, I think every one of them has something I like.

The best thing you can do for your baby is to have a stable household with a mother and father, lots of time together, good medical care, safety from all the troubles of the world.  But most babies don’t get all of that and they seem to do mostly ok, particularly if they stick together.  Your situation might be the two of you on your own and have to have a stranger baby-sit while you work 20 hours a day.  I’m still Pro-Baby.

In the final extreme, maybe you’ll need to have someone else care for your baby, give her a good home, more than you can do.  I’m Pro-Baby.  Bring on the baby.

So, here you are and now there’s a screaming baby boy on the living room floor with a “Happy New Year!” banner on his chest and you are standing there holding the shotgun.  What are you going to do?