Empathy, Part III

Many abortion people, of course, don't need our empathy.  They're fine, no problem.  And that might be because abortion is no big deal.  On the other hand, what it might be is that you are detached from your feelings about what you did.  This might be why the most fanatical pro-choice people all seem to be Ivy League eggheads.  Really smart people can be a wee bit cold on the emotional side of the spectrum.  When's the last time Ruth Bader had a big, blubbery cry?

      

I imagine a lot of women feel kinda bad about having an abortion.  Even women who are pro-choice might feel bad about their abortion.  You imagine all the happy moms.  And you realize you're not one of them.  You're not a loving mom, and the father is not a loving father.  At some level, this realization has to suck.  And when you get pregnant again, for real this time, how will you feel about that first one?   

 

What do we do, as a society?  We don't talk about it.  And we deny anybody feels bad.  Here's Justice Ginsburg, in Carhart II:  "the Court invokes an antiabortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence:  Women who have abortions come to regret their choices, and consequently suffer from severe depression and loss of esteem." 

Yeah, cause abortion is just a routine medical procedure.  This is empathy?  Does Justice Ginsburg know every single woman who has had an abortion?  Have you talked with them, Ruthie?  Have you held their hand?  Or are you talking out of your ass?  

Here's a website, Madam Justice:  www.afterabortion.com.  It's a website run by people who have had abortions, so that other people who have had abortions can talk about them with each other.  It puts me and my blog to shame.  Here are people who are genuinely distraught about their abortions.  And they are pro-choice, they are pro-life, they are all over the ideological map.  Emotionally, they are a mess.  Very upset women. 

This is humanity, and this is what humanity is like.  Messy.  Illogical.  Emotional.

How is empathy going to help the Supreme Court deal with these women?  "You have a constitutional right to feel like you killed your baby."  I want to give these women a hug.  What can I do for them?  What can you?  Nothing.  Cause feelings are feelings and you feel them and they're not even logical sometimes. 

My rationality fails me.  "It might not be a homicide.  He didn't have brain activity.  Under our death statutes..."  And she's just bawling.  What can I say, what can anybody say, to make her feel better?

I don't say anything to these women.  I can't.  It's too painful.