Editor, The Times:
There are so many interesting doors to open and corridors to explore from the content of K. Ferguson’s letter of June 13, in response to my May 30 ponderings about 1+1+1+1....
Shall we research statistics and collect facts about who exactly is in prisons? How many were “unwanted” babies? Or perhaps poll successful parents, entrepreneurs, Joe Average, those who serve our country to see how many “unwanted” children became contributing members of society? Or their grandchildren, or their...?
Shall we debate nature versus nurture? Can a “neglected, uncared for, unwanted” child overcome their hardships?
Even if we skip the topic which this writer opens, accusing my pondering as placing guilt on the women/girls, and respond that her forecast of the future instills fear into these same women/girls and what a powerful pressure that fear would be on an undecided, confused, wanting-to-do-the-right-thing young person trying to make sense out of the attitudes our society has for herself and her pre-born child.
Or we could go down the passageway labeled “the responsible thing to do” and ask why it is that the women/girls carry not only the child, but also the weight of responsibility of such a history changing decision and wonder why they are not joined in this burden by the men/boys were who were present and actively involved while these 1+1+1+1 babies were conceived?
Then there is the opportunity to discuss what options are available for an infant when his/her own parents (and they all come equipped with two last time I checked) are “not able to care for” him/her. And there are options besides death.
However, of all these side roads, the word “unwanted” is enough to focus on and pause to ponder and consider various facets: What is “wanted”? What is “unwanted?” It implies ownership. It implies property. It implies discarding and disposable-ness. It implies that “I” am the one who can balance and take action as to the value of this “other.”
Who else is “unwanted”? Does the man/boy actually “want” the woman/girl he has just had sexual relations with? Does the woman/girl actually want the man/boy she has just been impregnated by? Do the rest of us want those inmates, the elderly, that “other” race or religion, those born with permanent problems? If wanted-ness is the measuring stick, we could all be in trouble!
Is “I want!” really our creed?
Just me pondering.
Eleanor Deckert
Avola, B.C.