If a mother agrees to abort the foetus within her, the child that would have been born is better off.
Is this statement true or false? Is it pro-life or pro women’s right? I know that I’m grateful to have been born to a loving mother and father. I think that a child born to parents that don’t want that child is in for problems. Of course problems can be solved.
There could be many reasons for abortion. The mother’s life might be at risk. The baby born might be fated, genetically, to have dreadful disability. Philosophically, the law of the land (U.S.) allowing abortion, would support the idea that some humans are better off not being born, no? Maybe this last sentence should be rephrased? Yet I don’t care to rephrase it. Abortions, which have been occurring for millennia, perhaps for as long as homo Sapiens has been around, seem to cast a deep and dark shadow on the human understanding of existence. Is existence worthwhile? Yes for most, but not for some is the legal answer. Is it a good answer?
A famous figure said, “woe to the man who betrays the Son of Man. It would be better for him if he had never been born” (Mk 14:21). To never be born, what does this mean? Conceivably, souls that are refused entrance into this world by abortion, are living free in the realm of heaven. This is a matter of faith. Also there is the idea of reincarnation. Then there is the secular idea that the unborn just is zero, without moral or spiritual consequence.
To be or not to be
is a question facing us, and it involves guilt.