Letter did not address `reality'
Emmet Day
Notre Dame law student
In her letter in the Monday edition of The Observer, Emily Dagostino promises one thing and then delivers the opposite. With a title like "Facing Abortion's Reality," you might expect either a discussion of a woman's right to privacy, an unborn child's right to life or even whether or not a fetus is a living human being. Instead, the letter is a series of stream-of-consciousness musings on such things as our imperfect world, God and the evil of judging the behavior of others. It essentially bypasses any serious discussion of the abortion issue.
Ms. Dagostino says that "God understands that we're just humans and so we screw up every once in a while." Therefore, she says, we should be allowed to "deal with the sometimes unforeseeable and unexpected consequences of our actions without being condemned by our more perfect neighbors." The fact that Ms. Dagostino could make it to her junior year in college believing pregnancy to be an unforeseeable result of sex is the most compelling argument for sex education that I have ever heard.
Beyond that, the suggestion that we should be above reproach in however we choose to deal with the consequences of our mistakes is so overly broad a statement that I doubt even Ms. Dagostino actually believes it. Suppose I "screw up" and spend all my money on beer and cigarettes. Broke and hungry, I decide to deal with the consequences of my actions by walking into a 7-11, shooting the clerk and stealing a couple of big-bites.
Would Ms. Dagostino support me in this decision to deal with the consequences of my actions or would she become one of those "more perfect neighbors" and condemn my decision to shoot the clerk and rob the store? I have to think that the latter would be the case and she'd be right. As soon as my decision to deal with the consequences of my mistakes involved trampling on the rights of another person, my decision ceased to be personal and rightfully became the business of Ms. Dagostino and the rest of society.
Likewise, the question of whether or not a woman's right to an abortion outweighs an unborn child's right to life is a matter for debate. However, to offer a supposedly considered opinion on abortion without even addressing the argument that it destroys an innocent human life can hardly be described as "facing abortion's reality."
Emmet Day
Notre Dame law student
Fischer Graduate Residences
Nov. 7, 2000
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, November 8, 2000
