The Day I Became Steadfastly Opposed to Abortion

In today's edition of the liberal online magazine Slate, Hanna Rosin penned what could be the most honest opinion piece on the Progressive view of abortion in her article Abortion is Great, arguing that the political left needs to stop the "safe, legal and rare" rhetoric and embrace it as a social good, to be celebrated and fought for. In reading what might possibly be the most vile and disgusting article I've ever read, she championed the opinion of fellow left-wing author Katha Pollitt's recently released Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights. As I read through Rosins callous and utterly selfish diatribe, I could not help but think back to two days of my past, one at a time when I foolishly considered myself "pro-choice" and that very important and blessed day that my opposition to abortion became steadfast and forever clear, the day I met my daughter.

Before I share my personal story, a little information on Hanna Rosin is order. Rosin is a leading Progressive voice and a major force within the American left-wing intelligentsia. She's appeared throughout the early years of this century, becoming a recognized malcontent on various outlets such as the New Republic, Atlantic, The Colbert Report, Salon and of course Slate, with whom she collaborates on the DoubleX platform featured in the site. DoubleX purports itself to report "What Women Really Think About News, Politics and Culture." She gained some measure of national prominence in 2009, with her controversial New Republic article "The Case Against Breast Feeding, " in which she opined that social pressure drove women to breast feed, questioning the science and insinuating it was yet another means of male domination over women.

She further provides insight into her prejudices and hatreds in her two published works, 2007's God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America in which she mocked the Christian students of Patrick Henry College and 2012's The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. She shocked millions in America when she called the 2012 death of Berenstain Bears creator Jan Bearenstain a blessing and publicly apologized for stating "good riddance."

Given her resume, it comes as no shock that she would take the opinion that "abortion is great," even given the fact that she herself has engaged in one. Where she is valuable in the national discussion however, is her brutal honesty and condor. In this regard, I will acknowledge a respect for her I do not extend to her Progressive allies, for she provides us with an unvarnished and honest look at the mind of the modern liberal-Progressive's who control today's Democratic Party. She takes the time to document the inner soul of modern liberalism, a side we generally only see in heated exchanges or mindless ramblings on social media where such personality indicators are often brushed aside as hyperbolic trolling.

Rosin agrees with Pollitt's assertion that liberals and Democratic Party politicians should refrain from describing abortion as "thorny, vexed, complex and difficult" and fully and celebrate the issue, and should say "out loud that abortion is a positive social good." In a curious opinion that conflicts with statistics on abortion, she laments that minority and poorer women don't have adequate access to abortion "drift into parenthood without thinking about it too much," as opposed to college-educated (white) women, who have babies "when they're ready." While there may be some credence to her views of planning difference by demographics, if she were to study the abortion issue further, she would find that poor and minority women make up a large percentage of abortion recipients. Whereas black women make up less than 10% of the American population, they account for 41% of abortions each year, at a startling count of more than 488,000 annually. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported that as of 2012, more black infants are aborted in the city than are born. Given that Democrats have proven woefully unable to solve the economic problems of their largely poor and minority voting blocs, this may explain Rosin's belief that abortion is a "positive social good." If you cannot solve the problems of the ghettos and barrios you politically control, simply kill off their children and convince them its an act of "empowerment." For Progressives and the Democratic Party they control, it's a win-win.

I make the distinction between liberals and Progressives for good reason. While I certainly disagree with our liberal opponents, I sincerely see the "liberal" as a misguided "useful idiot" for the radical Progressive element now firmly in control of the Democratic Party and left-wing politics. They are for lack of a better term, our enemy. There can be no middle ground to be found with the likes of Rosin, Pollitt, Wendy Davis, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others who pull the strings that intellectually lazy urban liberals dance to. On abortion as well as so many issues, they have willfully placed themselves to the exact opposite of the ideals of America, natural law and the forces of the Creator. Whether by design or as a consequence of practice, they serve a far different entity that those who consider themselves people of faith.

Given that I read Rosin's piece on the day of my daughter Tatiana's ninth birthday (happy birthday sweetheart), I couldn't help but be taken back to the very day I met her. As I read through an article reeking of bitterness, selfishness and (no other way to say this) evil, I thought back to an earlier point in my life, and relived one of the great moments of shame and regrets of my time on earth.

In my early twenties, although a steadfast Republican, I considered myself "pro-choice" in that I looked at the issue in terms of political expediency and dismissed pro-lifer's aims as unrealistic and harmful to GOP electoral chances. I can recall a heated argument with a party ally in which I took the firm position that if we simply downplayed the issue, we would win more seats and might possibly take the Presidency in 1996. While my position has evolved greatly since that time, this was a prelude to a far more sinister act of selfishness on my part.

Around the same time I came across a "scare" involving a young woman I was dating at the time. Although we were quite attracted to one another, I didn't see her as someone I wished to build a life and family with (given the person I was at the time, I wouldn't blame her if she felt similarly). Midway through our six month tryst, she was "late" on her menstrual cycle which of course led to a very serious discussion one evening. Despite that we had only the timing of her monthly visitor (no tests had yet to be taken) the discussion was largely speculative, but my intentions were not. The younger me literally lobbied (subtly at first, not so as the discussion went on) that she should opt for the "choice" of abortion. I used much of the same "soft-sell" rhetoric one hears from Planned Parenthood and so-called women's rights advocates. The timing wasn't right for us, we were still "discovering" one another, we both had career goals to work toward, etc. As it turned out, the conversation was moot, as if by fate of Providence, the next morning saw the arrival of the blessed visitor, received by both of us with a heartfelt sigh of relief.

Things were never really the same with us from that point on, and our relationship ended a few short months later. I was never really the same either, however I was yet unable to fully articulate the change to myself. Although politically I had far more sympathy for the pro-life movement, I still unable to fully articulate the change to myself. It was not until a truly blessed event roughly a decade later that it all became clear, and has remained so to this day.

A little over a year after I was married, my wife Maria shared with me the news (on Valentines Day no less, true story) that she was pregnant. After the initial moment of shock, a rush of happiness ran through me. I was going to be a Dad! Excited phones to friends and family, a beautiful evening of tenderness, planning, wishing and wondering made it a truly special holiday. It was not until a few weeks after that, however, that I had the life changing moment I referred to previously.

That momentous occasion occurred on the day of the first ultrasound. As I stood there in the doctor's office, watching the monitor display a tiny heart that looked much like a small pea, thumping with life, I fell in love. In meeting my daughter that day, I felt a love unlike anything I experienced before. It was an unconditional love that even at that moment, viewing nothing more than a beating little heart, I would happily kill or be killed for this human life my wife and I created.

Later that evening the joy and excitement was intruded upon by a recollection of that evening roughly a decade before. In an instant my entire motivation of that discussion, as well as the roots of my "pro-choice" position became crystal clear, it was pure selfishness. I wasn't thinking about my former girlfriends wants, needs or desires. I wasn't thinking about the actual consequence of the abortion I was lobbying for and I certainly wasn't thinking about the possible life that she may be carrying at that (had she actually pregnant) I was responsible for. No, I was thinking about lost weekends of revelry, being forever tied to a woman I had my doubts about, as well as women I may miss out due to fatherhood.

Even my position on the issue itself was motivated by greed and self-interest of some sort. Forgetting the specifics of the issue aside, I saw it as a matter of political strategy, giving far more weight to polling, focus groups and the 1990's "gender gap" which I felt my Republican Party needed to address at any cost. And in terms of the personal aspect of it, it would be a flagrant lie to say my position didn't have at least something to do with "scoring" with hot pro-choice chicks in college. Not to mention, should these attempts be successful and I were too careless and stupid to adequately guard against pregnancy, it was an easy out of responsibilities I had no desire to undertake.

All of this came rushing to my psyche like a freight train as I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. These mere seconds of self-realization felt like hours as I stared at the same face I had for years, all of sudden uglier and contemptible than I had ever viewed it before. I became physically ill as these thoughts crossed with the images of my daughter from that afternoon. Just the thought that I could conceive to kill a life that I had created, life that I found I could instantly fall in love with from just one view of a beating pea-sized heart on a doctors monitor, filled me with a horror and sense of shame so strong it required my stomach to expel the remains of a fine dinner. I didn't share this with my wife, laughingly dismissing it as a possible psychosomatic gesture of sharing in the discomfort she was to go through these nine months. That was, of course, simply a cover for something that would cause me to get little sleep that evening and has continued to haunt me all of my days since. That my early twenties experience turned out to be a hypothetical discussion has given me no comfort other than the knowledge I have never participated in an abortion. Just knowing I was capable of trying to coerce a young woman who was as scared and confused as I to simply "take care of it" still troubles me to this day.

Because of this experience, as well as the joys of fatherhood, I find it hard to look at the abortion issue in any other light. As I see it, the act of murder is when one man (or woman) kills another man who poses no known immediate physical threat to himself, but in whose death the killer will benefit in one way or the other. This could be a monetary benefit, could be to pave the way for career advancement, eliminating a romantic or business rival or any consequence in which the perpetrator is better off with the death of another human being.

In her nine years (and nine months) as a living member of our species, my daughter has already taught me more lessons that I can ever hope to share with her. She not only taught me what unconditional love is all about, she helped me to process the motivations behind a previously held belief which I now firmly rebuke. The evening that my twenty-something self used all my powers of persuasion to convince my former girlfriend to have an abortion I acted with the same motivations as the murders I described above. This all became clear to me on that blessed day I met my daughter, and forever became steadfastly opposed to the barbaric practice of abortion.

“she opined that social pressure drove women to breast feed, questioning the science and insinuating it was yet another means of male domination over women.”

Yep. Some rich white men plotted to give women that biological function. I think it was the Rockefellers. Or maybe Rotschilds. Goes back too far to be Kochs.

“...I sincerely see the “liberal” as a misguided “useful idiot” for the radical Progressive element now firmly in control of the Democratic Party and left-wing politics. They are for lack of a better term, our enemy. ...”

Spot on.

Too many on our side fail to understand who and what we are dealing with.

SAFE: a baby dies

LEGAL: man-made ruling defying all common sense and a turning of a blind eye to PREMEDITATED MURDER

RARE: is now the highest cause of infant deaths in the US, but it’s not included in any statistics

A disgusting and disgraceful sham.

"social pressure drove women to breast feed, questioning the science and insinuating it was yet another means of male domination over women."

Nah. Nothing to do with domination. Simpler than that, and nothing more than the usual explanation -- it looks hot.

I just happen to find breastfeeding erotic in its very tenderness. Watching my wife do it with my three children drove me wild.

In an instant my entire motivation of that discussion, as well as the roots of my "pro-choice" position became crystal clear, it was pure selfishness.
Just the thought that I could conceive to kill a life that I had created, life that I found I could instantly fall in love with from just one view of a beating pea-sized heart on a doctors monitor, filled me with a horror and sense of shame so strong it required my stomach to expel the remains of a fine dinner.
As I see it, the act of murder is when one man (or woman) kills another man who poses no known immediate physical threat to himself, but in whose death the killer will benefit in one way or the other.

This could be a monetary benefit, could be to pave the way for career advancement, eliminating a romantic or business rival or any consequence in which the perpetrator is better off with the death of another human being.

A few bookmark quotes for reuse later with confused family and friends.

Thank you for posting this!

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