MORGENTHALER NOT SO MUCH OF A HERO?

I formerly revered Dr. Henry Morgenthaler. By making legal abortions so much more accessible to pregnant women he in effect, restrained human population growth in Canada from what is now a still unsustainable pace. Each Canadian newborn is an earth-trampling shit machine who will grow up to emit 23 metric tonnes of CO2 gasses annually, consume 3 million tons of fuel, minerals and metal in his life and generate about 65 pounds of waste each day. A new Canadian from any port of entry is something the planet definitely doesn’t need. Morgenthaler did his best to limit the damage. The human “rights” of women to procreate or not procreate are immaterial to the right of existing humans to retain a share of resources that diminishes with each additional human. Not to mention the right of non-human species to retain their habitat which each day is being shrunk by the bulldozer---the iron glove and ugly face of population growth.

Yet, for all his heroic efforts, waged for less consequential reasons but for the correct result, Morgenthaler actually did the cause of sustainability a disservice. Why? He only made legal abortions more possible and therefore safe. If there had been no recourse to safe, legal abortions, a great many pregnant women would have sought out back-street butchers who would have botched the procedure. The result---these women would likely never be able to have children in the future.

Presently, some 25% of all pregnancies are terminated by abortions in British Columbia. The first reaction to this statistic is to believe that without that option, there would be 25% more births in the province and thousands more consumers in the years to come. But we know from historical experience that making abortions illegal does not prevent desperate women from obtaining them. The demand for this procedure is constant. Therefore, the only question is, shall abortions be made safe?

In the short run, it is obviously more humane to offer safe abortions. But in the long term it is very inhumane, for nothing is more inhumane than allowing women who have had abortions to go on replicating at some future date. Pro-life is pro-death. More births in the future will compromise the quality and longevity of life for even more people.

The morality of this largely secular culture is still distorted by Christian “ethics” which place so much emphasis on motives rather than results, on the continuance and proliferation of life than its quality or long term viability. If a compassionate man attempts to save my life at a roadside accident but by incompetence ends it, the law mitigates his actions by focusing upon his motives. His good intentions were that of the “Good Samaritan”. But I would much prefer to be saved by the swift, competent actions of a cold-hearted bastard. I don’t care if my surgeon is a nice guy, I just want him to act with icy precision.

The back-street abortionist was typically a mercenary of criminal ineptitude, while Dr. Morgenthaler was a decent man of professional competence. He performed abortions, and in so doing he took some pressure off the environment. He deserves much credit for that. But if he had sterilized his patients, he would have done us an even greater service.
Many feminists are outraged at the concept of population control. They argue that we can’t advocate “reproductive freedom” on the one hand, when a woman wishes not to have a child, but then turn around and deny it when she wants to have a child. This logic is nonsensical. I can argue that women have the right to drive cars. But granting that right surely does not mean that they should be allowed to drive cars beyond the speed limit. We can grant women the privilege of birthing one child, but deny them the privilege of having more than one child. In a world of critical overshoot, there can be no procreative “right”. No one has the right to deny me my right or the right of existing children to a fuller share of existing resources or deny other species the right to exist at all.

Some parents attempt to disguise their selfishness by heroic acts of “green living”. They believe that they can expiate their eco-vandalism in burdening the environment with children by raising them to follow their example of becoming “green” consumers, of making the “right” eco-friendly choices in the market place and by religiously “re-using, re-cycling and conserving.” This is the self-serving delusional rationale of a classic Green yuppie hypocrite. The only “right” consumer choice is not to consume at all. And the only “Green” consumer is the one not born. At best, “responsible”, “green” living habits can only attempt to minimize the major damage already done by the mere existence of these wonderfully green and responsible people.

In this contemporary era, a “Green” parent is akin to a virgin whore.

Tim Murray
August 6/09