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The Best and the Worst of Times

Well, it's official. We live in interesting times. It's nothing new. Charles Dickens seemed to express similar feelings of ambivalence 160 years ago with his memorable opening line in "A Tale of Two Cities".

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

I have friends who feel exalted and victorious, and friends who feel horrified, defeated, and enraged. My personal feeling is that we have merely exchanged one form of barbarity for another. Remember, we did not solve a problem -- we have only driven it underground where it will fester and quickly give rise to much more and much worse barbarity.

The monied have always had recourse to "vacations" in "Switzerland". Those people will experience little inconvenience and no disruption to their ability to "travel" freely. This means that the entire burden of the newly reinstated Back-alley Barbarity will fall on those who already are the least able to cope with the project of child rearing. History has shown us that the societal consequences of this are truly horrific. So brace yourselves.

To those who come at this problem from the perspective of a woman's bodily autonomy, I respect your opinion. But not ever having had a uterus, I acknowledge that I cannot ever have an opinion that matters in this space.

To those who come at this problem from the perspective that we can never foresee all outcomes, that a child conceived is a life with potential that must be respected, I respect your opinion. As a parent myself, I can relate to both the awe and the 'aww' of the miracle of life. But I also acknowledge that the weighty, expensive, multi-decade undertaking of raising a child from infancy to adulthood is a responsibility that must be taken seriously, both for the sake of the child and for the sake of society.

We have this unfortunate tendency to think that "We" have truth and rightness on our side and on that basis we feel justified in imposing our beliefs on others. If you think I'm talking about "Them", you're wrong. I'm talking about "Us". Politically, we have ALL been guilty of shoving our beliefs down each other throats. This has caused rage on all sides -- rage that our religious and cultural values are constantly ignored and ridiculed, rage that justice and fairness are so blatantly trampled on.

And now, we have allowed our rage to eclipse our good sense, our ability to put ourselves in each others' shoes. We have imposed a draconian, one-size-fits-all solution on an area of life that is fraught with complexity, difficulty, strong emotions, and most of all with a high likelihood of adverse consequences falling on the shoulders of those that did not choose and do not deserve them.

And actually, it is not a solution at all. It is a naïve denial of reality, the consequences of which will plague our nation for the next few decades at least. We have driven a problem underground, where what we should be doing is focusing all our efforts on preventing the problem from arising in the first place.

I firmly believe that our cultural divisions do not constitute an unbridgeable chasm. People of good sense can take a step back from their certainties and convictions and view them for what they are: opinions that are informed by their personal life experiences, but that might be absolutely wrong and harmful when applied in a different set of circumstances.

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