Emily and Kasper: On Abortion

Kasper stepped into the aisle of the small plane to St. Louis, holding his laptop case close as he slid down the aisle to find his seat.  One of the last to board the plane, Kasper wasn’t surprised to see two other people already in his row.  He was shocked, however, to see that Emily Porter was in the window seat.

Emily sensed the unmistakable presence of worn jeans and Converse sneakers. Looking up from her copy of Elle magazine, she exclaimed, “Kasper! What are you doing here?”

“Same thing as you,” said Kasper, sliding past the heavy man in the aisle seat and sitting next to Emily. “Going back to WashU.”

“Ah yes, summer’s over and it’s back to our day jobs. How did your internship go over for you?”

“It was great working with Jim McGovern. How did it go with the conservatives?”

“Delightful, but honestly I’m glad to be off the Hill for a while. I don’t want to be present within a mile of the chaos when debate in Congress commences over healthcare. There’s so much to consider like gays, immigrants, smokers, and of course, the most unseemly of evils: abortion.”

“Oh, no, Emily,” moaned Kasper. “Don’t start this argument. Abortion is not evil- it’s a reasonable, if not desirable, choice.”

“Desirable?!” Emily slammed her Elle magazine shut on the fold-out tray so hard that a passing stewardess peered curiously into their row. “Why would anyone want to make the killing of innocent babies legal, much less federally funded?”

“Abortion is not killing babies; it’s terminating fetuses that are not developed enough to be called babies, or humans. They’re little more than groups of cells. I realize that it’s hard to wrap your head around that fact, but if you don’t then you are forcing some women into very difficult, even jeopardizing situations.”

“Technically speaking Kasper, you and I are still nothing more than an agglutinate of cells, albeit highly complex. Now I’m not saying that abortion has to be infinitely illegal. There are certain extreme situations like rape and incest that warrant it. However, it is still heinous, and without the proper restrictions it’s open to abuse and overuse.”

“I’m not going to get into an argument about the science of the matter, because I’m scientifically illiterate,” said Kasper. “But the cells that make up cognitive humans don’t come along until later. I don’t know what you’re getting at with ‘abuse and overuse’ of abortion, because I’m sure that women would prefer safe sex,” Emily gasped at the use of the ‘s’ word, “to getting an abortion every other month. It’s not an alternative to birth control- it’s a last resort when something unplanned happens, and no one really wants one. I don’t think abuse of abortion is a plausible fear.”

“Oh but it is. People act more responsibly when left with tighter options. And, you have to admit, the government has a vital interest in preserving life, and that includes the potential of life as well.”

“Potential,” snorted Kasper. “Most fetuses are naturally aborted anyway. If you leave people with tighter options in this day and age, Em, they won’t act more responsibly. There will be an abundance of teenage mothers, babies put up for adoption, not to mention an increase in world population.”

Emily contorted her perfectly arched eyebrows in deep thought. “I agree with that,” she said. “But the way to decrease the number of teenage pregnancies and manage the population is not by terminating life. Instead, there should be better access to birth control and sex education. We can’t allow those innocent babies to suffer for the ignorance of their parents.”

“They’re not babies!” said Kasper, louder than he intended. The third occupant of their row, in a near stupor, opened one eye. “And there is sex ed in school, and most schools will give out some form of birth control with no questions asked. I’m with you for good education and the availability of birth control, but sometimes things fall through, and that’s what abortion is for.”

Emily peered out the window, wondering when the plane would finally be airborne. She was always amongst the first to claim her seat on any flight, and waiting for the roar of the turbine engines made her antsy. Turning back to Kasper, she replied, “Hmmm, we’ll see what Congress thinks this November when it reviews abortion provisions in the healthcare bill. You may think it’s us Republicans who mess everything up, but really it’s atrocities like abortion. What would you say to the baby, seven months old, highly viable for life outside the womb, who finds out that it’s to be killed, or ‘aborted’, as we have euphemized the word?”

“Seven months is the official cap for abortions,” said Kasper. “Personally, I think that’s too late, and most states agree with me. But I do think that anyone is at fault who messes with abortion rights, because it’s such a personal choice. Sometimes I wonder if I should be talking about it, because I’ll never have to make such a decision. This is the thing; scientifically (I hate saying that) it’s not killing a baby because said baby is too premature to have any characteristics that make it human. Potential doesn’t exist that early, and anyone who starts talking about what the fetus ‘could’ turn into is just imagining things. So many other factors create a person; practically nothing is decided that early on, and when people start dreaming and getting romantic about all these possibilities, they could very well be destroying the life of the mother instead. Think about it– no one should have motherhood forced on them, and going through pregnancy, admitting that you’re having a baby, has serious ramifications on a girl’s or woman’s life.”

The heavy set man seated beside Kasper had apparently awoken and was intently listening to their discourse. All three passengers ignored the flight attendant’s safety presentation. “You know,” he began, “if I may interject, the right to choice is necessary to a–”

“Oh, stuff it you old geezer,” spat Emily. She hated when people invaded her private conversations, especially if it was to speak out against her. She then took Kasper’s hand gently in hers, just as the seatbelt light flashed green. “If my mother aborted me, you would feel sad, wouldn’t you Kasper?”

“You wouldn’t have been you,” said Kasper looking into Emily’s deep chestnut eyes with his dark brown ones, after mouthing an apology to the geezer. He let go of Emily’s hand and fastened his seatbelt. “You would have been some cells. So, no.”

Emily controlled the plethora of emotions that instantly erupted within her. She felt abashed, hurt, and angry at Kasper’s curt, dismissive response, but she would never let him see it. She smiled sweetly as if he made some sort of witty remark and refocused her mind on the subject matter at hand as the taxiing plane finally brought them into motion down the runway.

“Look, Em, no matter how you put it, abortion is a sticky subject,” said Kasper, easily seeing through Emily’s facade. “It’s hard to distinguish personal feelings from political ones, and that’s one of the biggest problems. I’d be sad if you died, but if you never existed, how could I be then? You’re Emily now, but we were all just cells once, and that’s what I was talking about. That’s what abortion’s about.”

“To you men, that’s what it’s always about, cells and science. Not the promise of life unborn, not the horrors of snipping away at human flesh. Just about disposing of some mere cells that can be then used in stem cell research. Disappointing.”

“They don’t have flesh,” said Kasper in a singsong voice. “And you know there’s plenty of women who agree with me. Are we really going to transition into stem cell research?”

Emily had intended to use this time on the plane to reimmerse herself in the fashion world, but she could never turn down a discussion with her favorite liberal. With the plane soaring amidst the clouds, she slyly smirked, “Naturally.”