Chapter 9 – Tue. Dec. 6
I put aside my essay on marriage laws and followed Jessie to the living room. Dad sat in his big chair.
“Hey guys. Come to discuss my heart condition?” he chuckled grimly. Jessie settled next to him on the couch and I carried a chair in from the dining room.
“So, Bug, are you pro-choice or pro-life?”
“Neither. My premise is that nobody’s truly pro-abortion. For the mom it’s invasive and painful, and something a lot of women regret. For the doctor it’s dangerous – like Doctor Gunn and Doctor Britton? They were killed for doing abortions, and some of the people who worked for them, too.”
“So do you think a fetus is a baby or just a clump of cells?” I asked.
“For the paper, I say it’s a person, so its life has intrinsic value – just like the mother. The baby has a very sympathetic role – it’s pure and helpless, and can’t defend itself.”
“Wait,” I said, playing devil’s advocate, “Are you saying that the baby should get more rights than the mother because it’s cute and cuddly? That makes it sound like if I’m pro-life, I’m actually a bleeding heart, uh, conservative?”
Dad winced and groaned. “Hush, Cory. Go on, Bug.”
“I’m saying that mother and child both have intrinsic value and rights, but the law’s based on whose rights come first. That’s when I thought of kidney transplants. I think there’s a real parallel. First, donating a kidney’s a life or death decision, and about as life-altering and dangerous as giving birth.
“If my sister needed a kidney and I was the only viable donor, I’d want to give her one of mine. But what if I had diabetes or hemophilia, and the procedure was too risky? What if I simply didn’t like my sister? Legally, should one person be forced to keep another alive at the risk of their own health? Just as she has a right to live, wouldn’t I have an equal right to refuse? Should anyone but me – especially the government – have a say in either decision?”
Dad leaned on his elbows. “Well, that’s a unique angle, one I haven’t heard. You’ll get some extremely negative reactions.”
Jessie shrugged; that never stopped her before. “I ran it past Beth’s mom.”
Beth Johansen was Sis’s best friend, and Beth’s mom was Jessie’s chosen surrogate for girl stuff. Georgia would drive Jess and Beth out to Shopko or Sears for underwear and things like that. I appreciated what Georgia did for Jessie, but I couldn’t stand to be around her. She was super religious, which would’ve been fine, but she was so shrilly negative that she drown out her own well-intentioned opinions. Worse, she attributed the things she said to God’s law. To me, that seemed beyond arrogant.
“She’s a devout Catholic,” Jess continued, “And the most anti-abortion person I know.”
It was true. Georgia was a very fervent believer. We’d been to Mass with her many times, and even knew the priests. We were Lutheran, but Dad didn’t mind us going. He said that Martin Luther had been an excellent Catholic.
Dad scowled. He tried hard to hide his dislike for Georgia because he knew that Jess needed a woman friend. I knew it was bad if he couldn’t control his flinty face.
“She liked that I agree with her about a fetus being a baby, and that it has rights. She still didn’t agree that the mother’s rights should come first, of course, but I didn’t expect her to. That’s all I want the paper to do, is to make people think, instead of just react.”
“Let me see if I can challenge you on this, Sis...”
“Please, go right ahead,” she grinned. She loved a good debate.
“If you intervene by donating a kidney, you save a life, but if you intervene with an abortion, you end a life.”
“That’s too simplistic. The donor could die in the process. The mother could die in childbirth. And there’s no guarantee that the kidney wouldn’t be rejected, or that the baby would come to full term. It’s a judgment call, and I’m just saying that no one else should make that judgment call for you. What else have you got?”
“Okay, but you’ll admit that nine months of pregnancy is a small thing when compared to giving your baby a whole lifetime.”
She pursed her lips, but then nodded.
“You may be right – one may be worth more than the other. The question is how do you measure it? Let’s get specific. How much money is each of those things worth?”
“A million dollars?” I suggested.
“For giving birth?” She tilted her head and looked up, as if considering the amount. “Okay, a lot of people would do it. Some might hold out for two million, though, right?”
“Yeah...”
“Or a hundred million. But there’d still be people who wouldn’t give birth for a hundred billion bazillion dollars, true?”
Sensing the trap, I retorted, “You’d be one of them.” It came out harsher than I meant it to.
“That’s right. You can’t buy me. I’m not property, and neither is anyone else.”
“Okay, I get it. You can’t put a price tag on something like that, so there’s no way to compare.” But something else occurred to me.
“Wait a minute; you’re going to turn this in to Mr. Palmer?”
“Duh, he’s our Current Events teacher.”
“Last year – didn’t he get a kidney transplant from his brother?” I asked.
“Um, yeah, I’ve heard that.”
I tilted my head, looking at her crooked.
“Hmmm... He’s Catholic, too. I’ve seen him at Mass.”
Dad frowned. “It sounds like a good paper, but I hope you didn’t pick that subject just for him. Are you planning on a good grade because otherwise he’ll look defensive? You know I wouldn’t approve of that.”
“Actually, I think he’ll like it. He thinks that China’s a threat to us because it has too many people, but he still liked my paper on world hunger.”
“Okay, well, I’ll be interested to read it when you’re done,” Dad said.
Later, I stopped by Jessie’s room.
“What do you really think about it, Sis? Abortion, I mean.”
“I think it should be a legal right that nobody ever needs to exercise.”
“Would you ever have one?”
I expected a quick reply, but she pondered the question.
“I want to be a mom someday, and I know I’d never want to do that – I’d never even want to make the decision, much less act on it,” she said, “But honestly, I’m not so sure. I think that sometimes… Sometimes we do what we have to, even when it’s not what our heart really wants.”
“Even have an abortion?”
“Um, yeah, even that.”