L’aborto è un male?

Su The Nation («Prochoice Puritans», nel numero del 13 febbraio, ma già disponibile online) Katha Pollitt ha risposto a William Saletan, le cui banalità sull’aborto avevamo visto esaltate l’altro giorno dalla nostra theoconette, Eugenia Roccella.
La risposta della Pollitt ha suscitato una replica dello stesso Saletan e quindi un botta-e-risposta di un certo interesse tra i due su Slate («Is Abortion Bad?», 1-3 febbraio).
In sintesi: Saletan ritiene che l’aborto sia un male, e che i pro-choice (i sostenitori dell’aborto) dovrebbero impegnarsi più a fondo nella diffusione dei mezzi contraccettivi e nell’educazione sessuale; la Pollitt risponde facendo notare che un tasso zero di aborti è a tutti i fini pratici irraggiungibile, e che i pro-choice sostengono da sempre la contraccezione; chiede quindi a Saletan perché ritiene che l’aborto sia un male. La risposta è che il feto, benché non sia una persona, sta per diventare una persona. La Pollitt, invitata da Saletan a dire a sua volta cosa sia per lei l’aborto, risponde:

You ask what my own view of abortion is. I think the meaning of abortion is what the woman says it is: For a woman who wants a child but can’t have this one it can be sad; for a woman who doesn’t want a baby, it can feel like a huge relief, like having your whole life given back to you. Negative feelings – the sense of the road not taken, that maybe you would have wanted to take had life been different, the feeling that you chose yourself instead of the baby-to-be and maybe that means you are not a good woman, the feeling that you messed up somehow – are often confused with morality, but they are not the same. Morality has to do with rights and duties and obligations between people. So, no: I do not think terminating a pregnancy is wrong. A potential person is not a person, any more than an acorn is an oak tree.

E più avanti:

Legal abortion is a good thing, and not just because it prevents illegal operations. Without abortion, women would be less healthy, less educated, less able to realize their gifts and talents, less able to choose their mates; children would be cared for worse and provided for less well; sex would be blighted by fear of pregnancy, as it used to be back in the good old days; families would be even more screwed up than they already are; there would be more single mothers who can't cope, more divorce, more poverty, and more unhappy people feeling sandbagged by circumstance. We hear a lot now about regret and sorrow, and I know some women who have abortions feel that way, but we don't hear about the regrets and sorrow women feel who went ahead and had the baby, and we don't hear much from women who are just completely relieved and thankful that the clinic was there for them and they can get on with their lives – lives that are good and moral.

Siamo ben lontani, come si vede, dalla frusta retorica dell’aborto come «dramma», alla quale indulgono sempre più smodatamente i nostri ‘progressisti’.