"It's easy to talk about values when you're a teenager" a friend of mine said once. "You've never put them into practice."
"I always thought I was against abortion", another friend replied. "Until the day a friend came to me asking for money to pay for hers. She was 16 and we were still in school." Abortion was illegal, so how much money you had, commanded in what kind of place it could be done and indirectly, the safety of the mother.
The dilemma became clearer when she realised that her friend had already made the decision: it was out of her hands to do anything about it. All she could do was to contribute or not with money to help gain access to a "better place".
Finally
she decided that her friend's life was more important and gave her
money. "I'm not proud of it but I felt I had to do it".
Somehow, this lack of pride reflects the bitterness of an imperfect decision. She lost something with her decision, her innocence, perhaps. In this situation, my friend discovered her own hierarchy of values which -until then- was in a limbo, in no particular order. By forcing a decision that put them in conflict, she had to bring them to her consciousness, and assign priorities. She learned something about herself, and ironically, in doing so, she changed.
AB
Links:
Prof. Renata Salecl:
Choice – RSAnimate
http://vimeo.com/25141033Jessica Valenti: "No one can prevent all abortions. You can only eliminate safe abortions."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/29/prevent-all-abortions-eliminate-safe-abortions
No comments:
Post a Comment