Every Child A Wanted Child

Would that it were so. That every child born into this world was anticipated with joy by its expectant parents. That the parents would be so delighted with the incipient birth of their child that they would be prepared to dedicate their lives to this child's well-being - and in extension that of their society.

Raising that child to recognize and practise right from wrong through their own example, and always being there for that child to feel nurtured, valued and loved. Exposing that child to all manner of situations which would ensure that a happy, functional, well-rounded and educated member of society would result.

There are a good many children in this world whose parents would do anything to further that child's future. Parents who practise loving discipline in the nurturing of their child. Giving equal measures of patience, emotional support and their physical presence during the most critical growing years of that child from infancy onward.

Teaching the child that achieving a good level of education is a practical start in ensuring a reliable future of fitting into the society they inhabit. Teaching respect for others and acceptance of variations in human beliefs, behaviours and values.

And then there are always elements of society who give birth to children they cannot bother raising with even a modicum of loving kindness. Children whose presence is cause for bitter resentment from the parents who see them as impediments to their own carefree existence, as anchors to a regimented way of life they wish no part of.

These children are left to fend for themselves, left to their own devices, and many mature into individuals who can find no value in emotional closeness to others, who feel devalued themselves and become social outsiders. They are inevitable products of parents who though, mature in physical appearance, remained emotionally immature and incapable.

If children are not wanted and their parents are not emotionally bonded to fulfilling the needs, practical and emotional, of their children, a positive outcome is certainly not guaranteed. So for those reasons alone women who find themselves bearing an unwanted pregnancy should have the availability of safe and legal abortions as an option.

Not as a means of birth control, but as a last-gap means of correcting a situation they want no part of. Women have always been faced with situations where pregnancies are unwanted - for a myriad of reasons. Economic, social, and perhaps even political.

Women have always sought out abortions, generally out of a sense of desperation, that they are not prepared, for whatever the reason, to bring another child into the world. Unwed mothers; mothers burdened with too many children, too few resources; unstable relationships; emotional upheavals.

The sad and sordid story of back-room abortions and women dying as a result of botched and unsanitary procedures is an old and familiar one. Women, even in the best of circumstances, who are in solid marriages, and for whom a late pregnancy occurs when they already have significantly older children, may choose not to follow through with a pregnancy.

Women should have available to them choices for interrupting a pregnancy - at least in the early stages of pregnancy. In our enlightened world that recognizes egalitarianism, equality between the genders, and the need to offer children stable family relationships, society and politicians have finally agreed to provide safe and legal options for women wishing to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

This was a difficult decision to arrive at, one that was strenuously and vociferously opposed by many other segments of society, notably the orthodox religions. Those who espouse human life as sacred, not to be terminated. Politicians were loathe to lend themselves to such an unpopular debate, to express an opinion one way or the other. It's still a polarizing, divisive debate.

And while there's a great deal to be said of the view of life being sacred, reality is that forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy she is unprepared and unwilling to proceed with, to raise children whose well being she will not devote herself to, condemns those children to a life bereft of promise.

Forcing women to seek out dangerous abortion procedures by making them illegal - only propels women into a state of desperate abandonment. Society can do much better for its vulnerable. As it is, in Canada, there remains inequality among the provinces and even within hospitals for the provision of these procedures. Necessitating the presence of stand-alone clinics.

And it is to Dr. Henry Morgentaler's credit that, while having himself experienced the worst abominations that humankind can visit upon other humans, he could distinguish between needful terminations of a life not yet delivered into existence and the millions who perished through a deliberate program of racial extermination.

He paid the price for his steadfast support of women needing to be liberated from a condition that threatened to circumscribe their lives in ways they were unprepared for. He was incarcerated for his determined efforts to provide safe and timely abortions for women, yet he remained defiant and determined to continue. It was his challenge to society and to government that finally loosened the restraints and resulted in allowable, legal procedures.

He earned the righteous condemnation of large segments of society, the anti-abortionists for whom a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest still would not qualify for interruption, nor yet a pregnancy of an immature young girl. The right-to-lifers who mostly support the concept of capital punishment, while shuddering in horror at the thought of a fetus being aborted found the very thought of abortion unfathomable.

Now Canada has honoured Dr. Morgentaler with the Order of Canada; on the very day that Canada celebrated its 141st birthday. This has pleased the many supporters of Dr. Morgentaler, and has outraged those for whom his actions constitute a crime against humanity. One can understand that.

It is telling, however, that in their battle against legal abortions, characterized on the one hand as a defence of the unborn by those who insisted on the death penalty for capital offences, right-to-life advocates themselves have committed murder.

Doctors whose compassion for women in difficult straits, and who practised safe medical procedures aborting unwanted fetuses were targeted for murder by some outraged opponents of abortions, people whose religion informed them that abortion equates with murder. And who consequently sought to murder those who used their medical knowledge to terminate the lives of "innocents".

Perspective really is everything, isn't it? Congratulations, Dr. Henry Morgentaler.