Abortion: A Reasoning Suite

I.

I think abortion is bad. And so do you.

Right?

Like, it's an eventuality no one wants to reach. No one wants an abortion. No one enjoys an abortion. No one finds an abortion a to be desirable experience.

What would we think of someone who says having abortions makes her feel good? -- lunatic? -- psycho? -- masochist?

So, all sane people think an abortion is a bad thing. They may not think it is ethically wrong to do, given particular circumstances, but they would all agree that it is a bad thing that is best avoided.

II. 

Getting pregnant at the wrong time makes women (or couples) either consider having or have abortions (which are bad).

No one wants to get pregnant at the wrong time, so, if they do, one of four things has happened:

1. They were irresponsible and had unprotected sex because it felt good at the time and they were not considering the consequences.

2. They were completely ignorant and did not know about birth control and/or abstinence.

3. They intentionally got pregnant at the wrong time, either for the attention or to garner some weird kind of credibility; to have a juicy, past ordeal to brag about. (Either a baby or an abortion will do the trick.)

4. Intended birth control failed, either by intrinsic flaw or as a result of misuse.

(Use of the pronoun "they" is meant to encompass the couple, and, so, not just pile responsibility on the woman.)

Can you think of any other reason? Anything else that comes to me is sort of a sub-heading of these.

III. 

People in categories 1 and 3, above, are fully responsible for their unwanted pregnancy.

People in categories 2 and 4 are, arguably, not as responsible for the pregnancy.

IV. 

The ethics of an abortion in either of the groupings above are on sort of a sliding scale; better or worse by degrees. The end-result, though, is the same, if there is an abortion: a person either ceases to or fails to exist.

V. 

The person who either fails or ceases to exist would have been the consequence of having gotten pregnant at the wrong time. Abortion, then, is an attempt to erase the consequences of either human irresponsibility, human ignorance, human ego, human carelessness or of really bad luck.

In any case, the end result is an abortion, which I think is bad.

And so do you.

Can you offer any revision to this? Is this reasoning sound? Can we perfect it?

"From now on, sin no more."

The story goes that Jesus was hanging out in the temple courts and the scribes and the Pharisses brought him an adulteress. They told Jesus that this woman ought to, according to the old laws of Moses, be stoned to death and they wanted to know what he thought about it. (Look out, Jesus! It's a trap!) Jesus told them that they were welcome to do it, so long as they had no sins of their own. This let the air out of their judgemental balloons, and the crowd dispersed, leaving Jesus and the adulteress alone. Then, Jesus said this -- the part I think people forget:

Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on, sin no more.”

I reference this not because I think all of my readers are either religious or even Christian, but because I think the message here (I am Catholic, in the interest of full disclosure) is the right one. And, like it or not, Jesus is the model for most Western ethical thought. Religious or not, we have ingrained in our Western culture many of His teachings. So, I think the Biblical reference here is valid...

...but I think this message has been misrepresented and that this misrepresentation has created a generation (or at least a general philosophy) that thinks having -- or, even worse, speaking -- an opinion of the actions of others is being "judgmental."

Morals, Law and the Yuck Factor

Is it yucky or is it not yucky for consenting adult siblings to have an incestuous relationship?

(Please answer aloud.)

Is it immoral or moral for consenting adult siblings to have an incestuous relationship?

(Please answer aloud.)

Should if be a crime or not for consenting adults siblings to have an incestuous relationship?

(Please answer aloud.)

The venerable Peter Singer wrestled with this question recently because Germany is in the process of trying to figure out the last question.

I have question one pinned down: Yes. It is yucky. And I do think it should be yucky to all sane people. If you disagree with me, that is fine. It's what I think and feel.

Question two is tougher. It brings in lots of questions, including sanity and insanity and how these mental states relate to moral choices... I could give that a whole article, but that is not what I am up to here.

Question three, is difficult, too. Unless, of course, I answer from my gut. If I answer from my gut, I will be compelled to try to stop such yucky behavior. Should a harmless spider die because I think it is disgusting? Is homosexuality as much of a crime-able offense as incest just because I am heterosexual and am strongly averse to the idea of being with a man the same as I am averse to the idea of sex with a sibling?

Olympus or Mars?

This deserves a little more than the Facebook post I gave it a few days ago. I have heard so many people complaining (not just now, but over the years) about the expense of space programs -- about how we should use that money for problems on Earth. Recently, lots of people were bent out of shape about the landing on Mars -- of the new rover, Curiosity.

What cracks me up is that I never heard one complaint about the expense of the Olympics: 14 Billion dollars; as compared to the 2.5 billion it cost to build an exploration vehicle to send to Mars.

In lots of places on the web, you can find lists of things, from kitchenware to aviation safety, that have benefited from the technology that NASA has developed for space travel -- I won't spend time looking stuff up. But there is a lot, believe me. (I'm sure the computer I'm working on wouldn't be quite what it is if scientists hadn't had to develop computer technology for space...)

Apollo 11 crew at work.

As you might expect, it's the human nature piece here that interests me. It made an impression that the Olympics were going on when Curiosity landed and the complaints started flowing, but none of them about the exorbitant amount spent on the Olympics. We tend to miss the obvious stuff, don't we?

Indeed...

This just popped into my head today as I was talking with a class that is writing a paper about school violence.


My father once said:

”If  everyone in the world were me, a little, three-year-old girl could wander out of her front door at three o’clock in the morning, out into a big city, and she’d get picked up and find herself safely at home before she knew it . But everyone in the world is not me. “

Amen, Dad. Amen.


Seems so basic, doesn't it?

My dad, arranger and composer, Joe Matt (his professional name from a
time when it was best not to be obviously Italian -- center),
in the studio with celebrated
jazz organist
Joey DeFrancesco (2nd from left)

What I Love About Me

You know what I love about me? There's only one thing, really, that I think is perfect about Chris Matarazzo. Just one.

Before I tell you what that thing is, it's important that you understand that just because I grew up in the American generation that heard a song that told me "the most important person in the whole wide world is you" three times every Saturday morning on TV, it doesn't mean that I bought into the pervading approach to self-evaluation...

...I don't believe people can do anything they set their minds to. I don't believe positive thinking is the answer to every problem. I don't believe "attitude is everything." I don't believe that arrogance is an acceptable way to express confidence. I believe that we should be careful when we make statements like the one I am making here.

The Burning of Darien

In the great Civil War movie, Glory, a young, white colonel named Robert Gould Shaw [Matthew Broderick] is given command of an entirely black regiment of soldiers, made up of freemen and runaway slaves. (This movie based on real history, but, please, history buffs: I know there are gaps and suppositions in the film. I'm talking more theme and message, here.)

Shaw

He wins their dedication through his own dedication to them, culminating with his refusal to take pay if the government does not pay the black soldiers the fair rate. They become a formidable regiment: excellent soldiers. Finally, they are given a job to do: foraging for supplies in a town called Darien, in the Union occupied South. They march down with another regiment -- a "contraband" regiment of black soldiers who are not well-trained and who are under command of a mad man, who is Shaw's superior, Col. George Montgomery.

When they reach the town, Montgomery begins, after having shot one of his own men for stealing from a white person's house, to drone about how he needs to wipe the town clean, like the hand of God sweeping through. He commands Shaw to have his men (who are standing neatly at attention, faces open and innocent while the "contraband" soldiers pillage and smash windows) to "fire the town."