“Look at the streets. They are full of them, kids with nowhere to go, for ever suffering. Apprehension is what those lucky to have had a home accord them, because they associate delinquency and crime with them…” “Those children are not there because somebody did not want them. There are very many reasons they end up there, some are orphans, others HIV/AIDS victims.”
Josephine felt her brain snapping with the challenge of defending pro-choice, not because she was trying to convince her boyfriend, the Senator who led the committee to approve the bill she had presented to the parliament; she knew deep inside her that many people thought that she was whacky. “All I am saying is there is a chance we can reduce the number of unwanted families. Many of those who abort do not want the kid for one reason or another. They should be allowed to choose instead of being denied that right and end up dumping the baby in Dandora. Do you know how many babies are dumped daily by mothers who don’t want them?”
“But how logical is killing innocent unborn babies because the stupid, insensitive mother does not want them,” Anthony continued, “to setting up children’s homes to take care of those kids that their mothers don’t want?”
Josephine thought for a moment. “Well, setting up children’s homes is good, and humane; but for how long, how many would be there in the long run? That is where you are categorically wrong. In the end, the society ends up indebted to taking care of those children. The cost of living is high. You can’t preach morality to an already immoral and rotting society.”
“Not yet,” he qualified. “But once you figure out that preservation of life is much important than self-gratification, that killing just takes the problem away but doesn’t solve anything…”
“There is a difference between problem solving and eliminating the problem. Second, we are offering an avenue to professional medical abortion, for those who can’t live with the mistakes they make, free or relatively cheap as opposed to those quacks they go to. Do you have an idea how many mothers die because of that?”
“Since 2010 the government has been offering free maternity health care, how free is free in those hospitals? And here you are talking of free abortion…”
“You can’t criticise me until you talk to a woman who has been raped, or a girl who has been defiled, and they want to die because they can’t bring themselves to bring up the by-product of the ordeal. It would be a constant reminder…” Josephine shook her head. “I have seen smart, bright girls who have been disrupted by that one single incidence. Their lives are never the same. They end up distraught, suffering the rest of their lives.”
“You want the government to kill its sun? If I was aborted, who would you be talking to today…?”
“You were not aborted because your mother wanted you.”
“I don’t think this is going through…, or it’s going to be OK with the people whom we are ought to…”
“Why don’t you do your part and leave the rest to the accidental mother?”
“But there are many accidental mothers out there who would not want to get rid of their babies…”
“—-they are not babies at the time, just a clot of cells. As for the mothers, it is their decision, their choice to make.”
“Seriously, Jo? The point is, this thing is mucky…”
“With or without the bill abortion will go on. Once you listen to that woman or young girl who does not want to have that thing inside her, you will see that abortion is not a crime as you make it sound…”
“You can’t tell me that’s what you tell those who look up to you.”
“No,” she admitted. “But it does happen. And it is exactly why abortion is not a crime. Is it so right for you to be collecting dumped kids at dumpsters?”
“Where would humanity go if we mutilate our morals?”
“Humanity has nothing to do with the burden of bringing up children who are not wanted, and needed, in the first place.”
“But why not provide another avenue instead of killing…”
For a moment Josephine did not respond. Then she asked, “Haven’t you ever wondered why I don’t talk about my family, or my past?”
He fell silent, looking at her, wondering about the answer he would give. Of course he wanted to ask, so many times, but he wanted it to come from her. At that moment he knew that there was a story behind the sad eyes staring at him.
“I have, but…” he said.
“I am a by-product of rape, I was dumped by my mother, I grew up in the streets being despised by everybody, daily living the trauma of life’s pains, I have been raped over and over – do I need to go on? – Well, no, I guess you now know. Abortion is not a crime.”
