Consequences Are So Inconvenient

Another story that's all over the blogosphere, see here and here . The original story is in the NYT. A woman, Amy Richards, who went off the pill became pregnant with triplets and decided to have a "reduction" to get rid of 2 of them because she didn't want to have to change her lifestyle, something babies have been known to do.

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

Abortion is one of those things that I've struggled with. Most of my life I've been pro-choice; I've felt that in the case of rape or incest or the health of the mother, the woman should have the option to end the pregnancy. But I've always had problems with the idea of getting rid of the baby because it's inconvenient, especially in this day, when women have access to reliable birth control. She was on the pill but she went off because it made her "moody". She has the ability that women in previous times didn't of controlling her fertility, but it became inconvenient. She became pregnant, but 3 would have been inconvenient. She wants the perogatives of adulthood without the responsibilities. Funny, but nowhere in the story is the word "adoption" mentioned.

Michele includes a quote from a friend of Amy's, Jennifer Baumgarten:

If abortion were connected to actual women--people like my friend Amy Richards, who had an abortion at 18 and a selective reduction last year when she found she was pregnant with triplets, or Nancy Flynn, who was a single mom finishing her BA at Cornell when she had an abortion and who told me she would "never have been able to have the rich life I've had and help my son as much as I have if I'd been the single mother of two children"--perhaps the mounting restrictions wouldn't pass so handily.

Jennifer seems to be wrong; the more people see of people like Amy (a self-centered, shallow, irresponsible snob), the more they come to question abortion without restrictions. Amy is not a sympathetic figure.

More and more people seem to be insisting on rights but no responsibilities, actions without consequences. Whoopi Goldberg says some outrageous things at a Democratic fundraiser and the Slimfast company fires her as a spokesperson. Her response:

America's heart and soul is freedom of expression without fear of reprisal," she said in a statement.

The government took no action against her; that would be censorship. It was the company that hired her that decided she was no longer an asset. She thinks there's a law that says companies have to keep spokespeople who damage their image with consumers?

The fact that I am no longer the spokesman for SlimFast makes me sad, but not as sad as someone trying to punish me for exercising my right as an American to speak my mind.

People get "punished" for speaking their minds all the time. DJs get fired for being obscene. Jimmy "the Greek" and Al Campanis got fired for making what were considered racist remarks. Trent Lott lost his leadership position in the Senate for praising Strom Thurmond, an old-time segregationist. The Constitution says that government may not infringe on your right to free speech. It never said there would be no consequences.

Actions have consequences. Slimfast didn't want the consequences for Whoopi Goldberg's actions, so they fired her. Amy Richards was able to evade the consequences of her actions, but the babies she aborted weren't. One seems fair. The other doesn't.