Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

Part of what made him restless was his sense that she was working toward an argument for abortion on demand, an argument that, for all its popularity, even present legal dominance, filled him with fury. She began with the claim, legitimate enough, that a mother with four children dependent upon her is of more worth to society, including her husband, than is an unborn foetus; and she moved, not unreasonably, to a claim that any mature human being, given society’s various kinds of investment, should take priority over a foetus. (He wondered if she would find it equally easy to argue if she used the words unborn child.) In general, she seemed fair, even-handed. She was properly annoyed by extreme “feminist” arguments that describe the foetus as a “cannibal”; she rightly noted the possible implications of a widespread practice of aborting when the foetus is not of the parentally desired sex, among other things the possible consequences of population imbalance (but she treated the matter too flippantly, he thought: “If present correlations remained constant, a United States with many more males would have a lower life expectancy, fewer church-goers, higher crime rates, and more Democratic voters”); and she neatly side-stepped the trap involved in turning all anti-abortionist feeling into cheap religiosity or male-chauvinist-piggism—though she couldn’t resist those little raps at silly Billy and the Pope.

Nevertheless, Mickelsson had to concentrate on not wringing his hands, and, furtively glancing around the room, he saw that he was not alone. At first the battle-lines seemed male vs. female, a condition that would not have surprised him. But on closer inspection he saw that at least two women were similarly uncomfortable with Ms. Morris’s position—which finally did indeed turn out to be a defense of abortion on demand, “for the avoidance of the needless humiliation of women, too frequently socially disadvantaged young women; and for the sake of social justice, since only the female must suffer the pain of childbirth and, in our society, the shame of unwed-motherhood.” One of the women who seemed displeased was the short girl, Janet, daughter, Mickelsson suddenly remembered from his first conference with her, of Orthodox Jews; the other was the tall Polish woman, who stared at the table in what seemed acute distress. He wrote himself a note to bring up, when time for discussion came, Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson.

After the break, which was unusually quiet—not surprisingly; abortion was always a touchy subject, even for those who thought they knew what they thought—Pinky Stearns asked, frontally, the first question. “I notice you don’t say anything of murder.”

Mickelsson sighed.

Ms. Morris was ready for it, of course. She sucked deep on her cigarette, lowering her eyelids (evilly, one might have said, but it was obviously nothing but the gesture of one threatened, attacked), and said, “To many people capital punishment is murder, or war is murder, just as, to other people, abortion is murder. But we traditionally make a distinction between killing by the society and killing by the individual.” A stupid distinction, Mickelsson thought. He thought of Heidegger, cloistered in his university, encircled by disciples, sending out his praise, however qualified, of the Third Reich. Why not prefer murder by a Raskolnikov? Not that anarchy was an answer either. Stop everything! No more painters, no more writers, no more musicians … Ms. Morris was saying: “In the case of abortion, of course, it can be argued that the thing killed is not even fully human.” She threw a look at Mickelsson that, in spite of himself, he found touching—the uncertain young girl looking out through the eyes of Portnoy’s mother. Hesitantly, like an umpire under duress, he nodded, the curl of his lip no doubt showing his distaste. Stearns fumed but was too stupid, or maybe too angry, to spot the weaknesses in her response. He shook his puffy, filthy-bearded head, an impressive display of disgust and perhaps right feeling, but not an argument. In this much, anyway, Heidegger was right: judging philosophy by the standards of science is like judging the capacity for survival of a fish out of water.

Gail Edelman said softly, looking gently at Ms. Morris, perhaps to avoid looking at Mickelsson, “I suppose one might argue that the problem’s partly one of sped-up modern time.” Her hands made a tent on the table in front of her. Her voice was an almost inaudible tinkle. “As Professor Mickelsson has often pointed out, morality is based on reality, including our knowledge that our conduct has future implications.” She smiled a weak, frightened little smile, perhaps intending to tell Ms. Morris in advance that eventually she meant to support her position. Gail’s dark hair was cut short, her Irish-Jewish features perfect, china-doll-like, beautiful in the way a museum piece is beautiful. Her eyes—black irises, and whites that were faintly blue—were astonishing. It had occurred to him, the night of his drunken visit to her, that Helen of Troy might have had such eyes; they were as striking, in a different way, as Jessica’s. The girl said, “The problem is, when social roles and social premises are changing with lightning swiftness, as we all know they are, these days—when one cannot tell what the acceptable and defensible norms are—one’s wisest choice may be to argue one’s own life-necessities, since …” She looked down, as if troubled by a mental conflict. “Of course the difficulty is that, in acting in a way that seems best for the self, leaving the welfare of the other to the other’s self-defense, that is to say, the future, we may in fact be poisoning our own future self. …” She broke off, the outside ends of her eyebrows sinking, as if she were convinced that no one would understand her. No one ever did, no one ever had. She allowed the tent shaped by her two frail hands to collapse.

Mickelsson said, though not entirely sure what she was trying