A young college student recently told me a story. She is in a program filled with classmates who aggressively support abortion. They attack and mock those few peers who dare to voice their moral opposition to unrestricted legal access to abortion. Last week, they turned their attention to this young woman. A male classmate of hers asked, "Where do you stand on women's rights? I support women's rights.” Before the young lady could answer, this champion of women's rights exposed his true colors by saying, "If they got rid of abortion and I got someone pregnant, I would want to abandon them. Without abortion, I would be forced to abandon her."
Even more disturbing, a young female champion of abortion supported him saying, "I would want to abandon the child too. But I couldn't."
I told this student two things in response. First, when someone tells you who they are, believe them. Believe that this champion of women's rights is actually a champion of irresponsibility. He wants to have sex with young women, and, based on statistics regarding sexually transmitted infections, he's perfectly fine risking giving a young woman a lifetime of HPV or some other infection. What he absolutely does not want is to be a father. He wants that so little he unashamedly voices his desire to abandon any young family he accidentally brings into existence through a voluntary action that is procreative by nature but in which he only participates for a quick thrill. A new life begins through the process by which almost all human life does, but he didn't agree to the presence of that life. He mistakenly believes he is not responsible for consequences to which he did not consent however foreseeable or natural those consequences may be. Other human beings are like theme park rides to be used entirely for amusement and left behind without a thought after the ride is over. He, like so many others, is chasing the unicorn of consequences free sex. Sex is an enormously complicated human interaction, but he wishes away complication to sate carnal desires. If that is the moral authority by which this young man questions anyone else's commitment to women’s rights, then his detractors are right to be bold in standing against such arguments. His easy answers make us all worse.
I'm often asked to talk with college students about the hard cases regarding abortion. How do we argue in cases like rape, incest (which is almost always rape by a relative), or life of the mother? These cases are hard because to live consistently with a high view of the equal dignity of all human life we are required to make strong demands on one another when things go terribly wrong. If every human life ought to be treated with dignity and respect, some scenarios can be thrust upon us that eliminate easier options. Do we unjustly destroy innocent human life or require an innocent woman to carry a child conceived in the worst moments of her life? As Catholic philosopher Christopher Kaczor has written, we may be left with only the morally prohibited and the morally heroic options. The moral evil of rape or the natural evil of disease and illness stripped away all other choices. If pursuing the good of life requires morally heroic decisions by women, then we must strive to build a life affirming community which supports those women.
This leads to the second thing I said to that student; something I also told a group of university students at a recent presentation. As hard as it is to address difficult issues, I appreciate what answering hard questions does for me. It reminds me I have extraordinary duties and responsibilities to the other human beings in my life. We all do. Our ordinary circumstances in life may allow us protracted periods when those obligations are not obvious to us, but hard cases intrude eventually. The lives of others, the trials of others, the sufferings of others push through the cloud of distraction and remind us that the most important things we encounter everyday are the people God put in our lives. Answering the hard questions is a constant reminder that we can be better than we are, and we have a duty as a community to rise to the occasion when others need us. An inclusive view of human value, a high view of human dignity is a more beautiful view than the one that drives a young man to want to abandon the woman who had the nerve to get pregnant with his child when they had sex. His view of human relationships is impoverished. Women in his life are diminished. His role in this world reduced to the trivial pursuit of the next moment of pleasure at the expense of the joy of deep, human relationships.
I said to that young woman again, when people tell you who they are, believe them, but also fight to help them see a better version of themselves; a better version of us all.