the law of the mean
Sun 7.10.22
THE LAW OF THE MEAN:
The commonsense observation that probability influences everyday life so that over the long term the possible outcomes of a repeated event occur with specific frequencies.
Today as I sit to write in my journal the topic of abortion comes to mind. I should start by telling you my biases. 1. I was raised in a Catholic convent governed by nuns; 2. abortion is not a concern of mine; 3. I have counseled women in emergency psychiatric situations. The nuns absolutely shaped my moral attitude, the boundaries of right, just and and balance are measures I try to live by. At first I did it because society demands it, (but not the government.) Later I came to understand that I may behave badly and get away with it . . . sometimes. If I did it out of a sense of righteousness it now became apparent to me that adopting balance and proportionality works and makes for good relations at all levels. I’ve become a trusted person, someone whose word is her bond.
Abortion is not my concern because I will not bear children. I am able to look at the question of abortion at a remove from it. That question, many women believe in this case, is not my concern and therefore not my decision to make about it. My body, my right, they say. There is a larger question at issue here. Trump spoke about it when the court overturned Roe v. Wade. It “is the answer to the prayers for millions and millions of people,” he said. More than half, (the mean,) are not concerned about getting an abortion. They have made their decision from a remove; is it morally correct to destroy a fetus, especially after a heartbeat is felt and life has occurred, they ask? Some go further and assert that abortion is taking life and should not be performed at all.
This moral question also has an instinctual species component. We are undoubtedly hard-wired against destroying human life. Assuredly, we have travelled far from our natural instinctual self, yet it is still a horror when someone is cold-bloodedly murdered, whether by the state, or the individual, Is the question greater than the pregnant woman’s right?
To my third bias: as part of an emergency team counselor working with individuals in crises situations I noted a pattern among women in crisis, no matter what the crisis entailed, would at some point confess to me that they had an abortion. The trauma of it never healed. They believed that the abortion was wrong and they were ashamed of what they had done.
There are very good reasons for getting an abortion if you are 17 years old, your parents have cast you out, and the boyfriend who impregnated you is not interested in becoming a father; you are a career woman whose life is her work, all else being secondary to you. Irresponsible women should not bear children, nor victims of rape and incest. If the life before birth has value, the life at birth has just as much value if not more. Denying these women the right to abort a life that they do not want to be responsible for is to sentence that life to neglect, abuse, repulsion.
The Supreme Court’s decision was based on the parameters of the constitution. Abortion is not a federal question decided at the national level, and returned it to the states to rule, based on their constituents, and the law of the mean, to make their decisions. My thoughts: we should not eliminate the right to abortion, BUT there has to be some checks. One is killing a human life once a heartbeat is detected. I believe 15 weeks is the reasonable cut off point where the right of abortion should be denied. This gives a woman or girl who has missed her periods and is feeling some changes in her body time to consider her choices. What’s been happening is that abortion rates skyrocketed and the mean cast aside by abortion seeker, that is the balance between abortion and moral responsibility was no longer respected.
I think of these things as I prepare for my federal trial. I have now placed a motion with the court to have a jury trial. It was too intimidating when I first filed my complaint and didn’t ask for one. Every document I submit involves a lot of research and I flubbed up a few times because I may know the law, but the federal rules of civil procedure were beyond me. The complicated structure for choosing a supportive jury, your opponent’s choices, and the court’s is a chess game. All of it created to impose the law of the mean. To avoid the problem occurring with the balance when the rights of the abortion seekers overwhelmed the right of those who questioned the ethics of a society condoning abortion of human life on demand.