Letter: Not pro-abortion: Pro-ignorance
To the Editor:I find myself once again rocked by the extent of the power of ignorance. Evan Lerner's '04 column, "Not pro-choice or pro-life: Pro-abortion," struck me in a very painful place. I am pro-life and can defend my position with both secular and religious arguments. Since I became interested enough to research the topic a few years ago, I have seen many interesting essays on the topic of abortion. In summer 2001, an op-ed piece appeared in the New York Times that asked why a woman can make the choice to not support a fetus whereas a man cannot.
I've heard arguments based in rabbinic law claiming that abortion is not immoral because a fetus cannot sustain its own life for a reasonable period of time. I even once heard the (extremely worrisome) argument that an abortion is immoral because it defies a woman's natural place as vessel for man's seed. But, Lerner's position that we should support abortion as a means of population control is perhaps the most outrageous that I have ever heard.
The position does not seem to be grounded in either conservative or liberal politics, but rather a simplistic view of the future and an uncontrollable urge to "piss off some religious-types." Simplified, Lerner's argument reads that the world is overcrowded and has limited resources, and the only way to ensure reasonable survival of the species therefore becomes to tell people to abort their fetuses unless they can promise a life without poverty or struggle.
Similar arguments were made by believers of eugenics in America 80 years ago and by the Nazi Party 20 years later. What a beautiful dream Lerner has. Imagine a world where only the fit and the elite survive, taking the most from life, not needing to give their "hard-earned" money to support welfare mothers, not needing to watch thousands dying of hunger, not needing to watch precious natural resources squandered on the unworthy.
It sometimes worries me that I never saw a pre-Reagan America. I do not know what America was like in the days before the era of self-indulgence and justified egotism. What I do know is that I am tired of hearing what people are "entitled" to, the attitude akin to,"If I'm rich it's because I've earned it; if you suffer in poverty it's only because you haven't worked as hard as I did and how dare you ask me for another handout."
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but I would ask Lerner to look deep within himself and ask why he has taken a position of sheltered ignorance. What he's advocated is murder. The world is too crowded; let's kill those who cannot appreciate it the way that you or even I, in our hard-earned positions of luxury: Unborn fetuses, the homeless, the old, inhabitants of overcrowded Third World nations, the mentally-challenged, the physically-handicapped, the money-grubbing Jews, the eternally lazy African-Americans, the job-stealing Asian-Americans, the sabotaging Liberals - the "not me."
Genocide is a dangerous way to start thinking. It doesn't worry me that Lerner doesn't have a uterus and is making this argument; it worries me that he doesn't flinch in the face of mass-murder and is making this argument.
-- Dave Firestein '05
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