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opinion
Existential
answer to abortion
Adolescence is an inevitable phase of human life, in which,
due to biological and psychological shifts, teenagers -- especially
college students -- experience intense emotional and sexual
stimulation and, more often than not, choose to have sex.
Teenage pregnancies
normally result from a lack of concern for protection. Whatever
the causes may be, whether planned or not, the fact remains
that teenage pregnancies do happen. Once the pregnancy occurs,
should the teenage parent(s) keep the baby or abort it? Which
action is the morally correct one?
For a practicing
Christian, Jew or Muslim with conservative beliefs, for instance,
the traditional ethical choice would be birth, regardless
of consequences. These beliefs reject the moral sentiment
behind abortion on the grounds that we, humans, cannot take
away the life almighty God gives us. So, for a religious conservative,
abortion is intrinsically immoral and should never be practiced.
On the other hand,
a secular liberal may assert that the religious belief cannot
justify anti-abortion, on the grounds that the baby would
have to endure the hardships of life once born. This is the
couple's final decision, one that the baby never makes. If
the baby does not choose to come into life in the first place,
aborting the baby is not taking away its choice to live either.
In this sense, a liberal would support abortion to be morally
correct.
Anti-abortionists
and pro-abortionists have moral arguments against each other
that are equally plausible and disputable. The moral nature
of abortion thus is controversial and open to personal interpretation.
Let us now focus on my existential answer to abortion, the
purpose of this article.
The first principle
of existential philosophy asserts that an individual is nothing
else but what the individual makes of herself. It states that
every individual is in charge of her actions and places the
entire responsibility for her existence solely upon her shoulders.
Moreover, existentialism states that every human is free so
long as he or she continually and consciously makes free choices.
According to existentialism
then, regardless of what your personal beliefs may be concerning
abortion, when your pregnant friend asks for advice you should
abstain from imposing your personal beliefs upon her, even
if you share those beliefs in an unassuming manner. Since
she is a free being, you need to give her the mental independence
to decide regarding her own life.
Remember that by
being neutral and not choosing to impose your beliefs upon
her, you are nonetheless making a distinct choice of not imposing
your beliefs. Therefore, abortion is not an issue where there
are only two moral sides to support -- either for or against.
There is at least one other moral option, supporting neither
side.
The morality behind
abortion is not predetermined by God or anyone else. It is
one of personal sentiment or individual choice. Simply stated:
Since nobody faces the consequences of such an important decision
regarding abortion except the mother or couple, no one but
them should influence the process of that sovereign thinking.
Clearly, the existential
answer to abortion that I propose here is "pro-choice," since
it is against imposing dogmatic values on the freedom of others
to choose for themselves. Existentialism, first and foremost,
respects the qualities of an individual that make her an individual:
the freedom to make sense of her life by taking conscious
responsibility for her choices -- continually.
In this sense,
the existential answer to abortion is not only pro-choice,
it is the most "humanistic" approach to abortion as well!
F. Barlas Esin
is a public relations major and philosophy minor at Cal State
Long Beach.
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