Red Is For Love And Other Moral Dilemmas That Aren't

recent news reports about the south dakota abortion law had me both cheering and cringing. i cheered because finally some people somewhere had the guts to just do the right thing and challenge the high holy roe v. wade. i cringed because of the lack of exception for rape and incest. then, i felt like a big knee jerk.

several years ago, when i was teaching high school, one of my students brought a grave problem to my attention. another one of her teachers, a recent college grad, had explained to the class that teachers shouldn't grade papers in red ink because red was a color that said "stop". this new teacher, fresh from the indoctrination of the psychobabble of an american university, graded only in green, a color which said, "go". when i handed back a bunch of graded papers, complete with smiley faces, balloons, and even confetti (if the score was high enough to merit a party...), my students grimaced in dismay. they explained my faux pas, in slow careful words, as if an old-fangled teacher like me could not possibly have been expected to comprehend this new-fangled understanding of children's sensitive minds. i informed them that they had it all wrong, and, in actual fact, red was a color of love. witness the schoolgirl drawing hearts all over her books- red, red, red... lipstick kisses on the mirror? red. all manner of valentine's day gifts and confections? red and more red. so really, when i mark their papers in red, it shows that i love them and care about them becoming literate and succeeding in the future. after a few weeks, the ban on red ink faded away, like so many other fads, but that experience stayed with me, showing me the power of programming people's expectations and reactions. what a paradigm shift...

so, what does this have to do with babies and abortions? it's all about the paradigm shift. what if, and please just go with this for a second- we are so trained to look at carrying a baby who is the result of rape or incest as a victimization that we don't even stop to think about shifting the paradigm? what if, instead of viewing the pregnancy as a further abuse perpetrated on the victim, we were trained to look at it as a totally redemptive thing? how about viewing the baby as the only good to come out of a tragedy? what would our perspective be if, throughout our lives, we had heard about these heroic girls, who in spite of horrible acts inflicted on them, were so privledged that they were able to bring new (innocent!) life into the world? i have been so indocrinated to believe that this baby that would grow inside of the girl like a cancer, would be a constant, festering reminder of probably one of the worst times in her life, that i can barely wrap my mind around the idea that this might not objectively be the case. what if human life (or at least new, innocent human life) was so valued in our society that pregnancy resulting from rape or incest would be the moral equivalent of having a burglar in your home leave behind a lottery ticket which turns out to have all the winning numbers? the original event was an abomination, but the aftermath was completely transformative and uplifing. how much more clarity would we have if we could look beyond what we have been trained to believe and just accept a paradigm shift?

what would society look like if protecting innocent human life was never a moral dilemma?

what if red pen really just shows up better against black or blue ink?

what if every decision uplifted instead of agitating or disturbing?

what if having a baby really is like winning the lottery?

just some food for thought after a long hiatus...