Today was day #2 of the long-anticipated, and dreaded, discussion on the ethics of abortion. Today was worse than Friday, day #1 of the discussion. Last Friday morning I awoke to the following horoscope: "A deep and meaningful conversation will radically change the way you feel today." No kidding. That really was my horoscope. Not a snowball's chance in Hell of that ever applying to our discussion on abortion, but it was still a hilarious cosmic "fuck you."

Friday's discussion was civil, mannered, and well...lukewarm and fairly namby-pamby, actually. I think there was a lot of feeling each other out going on in the room. Several people, including myself, came right out and stated their position on the issue. And I lived to tell the tale. Today we were back in our larger group. Oh yeah, forgot to mention. On Fridays now we are in smaller "break-out" groups for a more intimate and productive discussion. Which means I cannot hide, even during the moments I most wish I could.

So anyway, back to today. We resumed our regular large classroom where the professor lectured on "Christianity and the Morality of Abortion" giving points from both the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life cases. Some students were struggling with the logic of the arguments from both sides. Some of them really really need to get out of their heads once in a while. I'm not saying this should be a debate guided solely by emotion (absolutely not!), but many of the students in the class simply could not get past the systematic arguments, the structure of ethics, involved in this issue. They are the ones who need desperately to let go of their academic training just a tad and accept that some things, no matter how hard people try to make them so, are not and cannot be guided by method. One innocent little, theoretical, methodological, non-emotional question from one student seemed to open up the floodgates and all sorts of people, as if on cue, whipped out their soapboxes and hopped up.

It is at this point in our story that I must introduce two more characters. And I do mean characters. I have no idea what their names are, and have no desire to learn them or become any better acquainted with them. But I call them the Godly Twins. Apologies to Edward Stratemeyer, beloved creator of the Bobbsey Twins (and the Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew...), but I really don't know what else to call them. The name makes me giggle and smirk in a very naughty way. I take sheer delight in it. They are the very caricatures of the upright, self-righteous, socially conservative, astonishingly naive, prudish and priggish American youth that populate the youth groups and purity pacts of many wealthy, suburban, lily-white, Protestant churches.

He is tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed; and handsome in that white bread all-American, boy next door sort of way. She is just as cute as a button! Short, slim, with shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes, freckles! Oh! She's just adorable! The kind you take home to Mom! (can you hear me gagging?) They are always together, and I suspect it is her most ardent desire that they stay together forever. Forever! Oh, to be a minister's wife; and the wife of this particular minister! His idea, on the other hand....well, she's a friend. A good friend. But just a friend.

Anyway, enough obsessing over their personal lives. Time to move on to what affects me directly. They usually sit in front of me. I mean directly in front of me, so that I have to move a few seats over in order to still be able to see the PowerPoint screen. I think they are just oblivious, and not malicious or bratty. Just self-absorbed in their own piety. Which has the potential to carry a corresponding unintended maliciousness, in a way...but I digress. Me, on the other hand, well...I can barely disguise my contempt for them. Today they decided to sit next to me. Apparently, I miscounted and sat one row further forward than I usually do.

So, here we are in the middle of our discussion on the morality of abortion. I know precisely what their views are on the subject. They wear them every day. There seems to be no end to their supply of incredibly vapid t-shirts with (NON)pithy pronouncements of faith and political and moral proclivities. We come to the part of the Pro-Life debate that focuses on personal responsibilities and obligations to the fetus that was created through a voluntary act by two people wholly aware of the consequences of their actions. I could feel her getting all worked up. And then...it happened. She dropped the A-bomb. Abstinence. "Well, that's why we should be promoting abstinence in the schools and churches." To the credit of everyone else, the whole room seemed to lurch forward with the attempts to restrain gasps of shock, bile, and laughter. The professor's eyes seemed suddenly too large for his face, and Jane Godly's creamy white complexion turned three shades of purple. Even Jon Godly looked slightly appalled. She turned to look at me. I like to think she was compelled to do so by the heat of my gaze. I was trying to convey, "please remove your head from your ass so we may all welcome you to Reality." I hope I was successful. I hope our collective efforts were enough to shut her up for at least a week. That's all we need to get us through to the ethics of the just war, and out of this minefield that is the ethics of abortion.


Footnotes

I did it again. I visited Comcast Forum. But I was intrigued by the subject line: "I quit! I don't want to be a mom anymore!" Not the sort of thing one is used to seeing on this particular forum. It was posted by the poor, put-upon mother of a fourteen year old "demon child" who is quickly approaching the end of her rope with this lying, sneaking-around, disrespectful, little brat. She writes: "I thought up a new bumper sticker: ABORTION: Kill 'em while it's legal!" I love it. At least she still has her sense of humor. Sanity waved bye-bye to her long ago. Fourteen years ago, I'm guessing...