I tell my friends to get a flu shot. But maybe I shouldn't! At the time of the great flu epidemic of 1918, my Grandfather was about to marry someone who was not my Grandmother.
Fortunately for me, she and her four sisters died on the same weekend from the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. A pandemic is an epidemic that infects a large proportion of the world's population on a global scale. Statistics vary, but reports put the number of deaths globally that year at 50-100 million. Even now the number of flu related deaths ranges from 3,000 to 49,000 per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As a result of the 1918 outbreak, I can honestly say that my daughters, grandchildren, and I would not be here without influenza. We cannot even imagine the tragedy felt by that one family, and my Grandfather, when they lost so many dear ones suddenly. But life goes on, and my Grandfather married my Grandmother. Making the decision about getting a flu shot may amount to making a decision about this kind of parallel universe.
Abortions amount to an even more difficult life or death decision, as they relate to the future of both the parents and the child. I am against abortion, personally. But, I favor the decision to have an abortion to be the decision of the mother rather than society at large. We had a society like that before Roe v. Wade, and it was shameful in many respects.
In the two weeks before my Mother died, she revealed to me a long held deep dark secret. Both of my Grandmothers had abortions. One had two and the other three. I don't know which was which. Those abortions must have taken place in the 1920s, when the choices were coat hangers, abortionists in dark allies, or a few brave doctors, who risked felony convictions for assisting. Many women died in the process.
We cannot know how the world would have been different if these five aunts and uncles would have been born, but I do know that my family is the result of our random luck.
I do understand why the abortion "debate" is such an effective smoke screen for the Republican Party to hide the fact that they are giving away our birthright as Americans to Wall Street bankers, who want to gamble like drunken sailors and grind down the middle class with impunity. Abortion is a difficult and painful topic for nearly everyone, regardless of which side of the political spectrum you vote. But, what I can say to those who don't remember the time before 1973, and who have had the lux women's jackets ury of effective birth control methods all of their lives, is that making abortion illegal will be much worse for society.
The truth is that banning abortion will save exactly zero babies. Any woman who is motivated to make the tragic decision to abort a pregnancy can easily get one outside the United States. All we would do by prohibiting abortion once again would be to brutalize our society. There is nothing gained by sending women who cannot afford an international trip back to their well-meaning sorority sisters, abortion pill smugglers, and backyard butchers.
From my point of view, every time I hear the topic come up, I immediately recognize it as part of the smoke and mirrors that has let the Masters of the Universe create our corrupt and unfair economic system.
A decision about whether to have the influenza vaccine injected into our body is a personal one, but this article points out that it can be a life or death decision to avert or lead to tragedy. An abortion is always tragic for someone, and it is surely a life or death decision, but that decision is best made privately.
My mother's revelation was a testament to the courage of women who have to make that decision. From my point of view, my Grandmothers were both conservative American women, who built a Norman Rockwell style life for us. I never would have imagined that at five times in their youth they were faced with such horrifying and tragic decisions—to break the law and end their pregnancies. I am just glad they allowed my Mother and Father to come to full term.
Who knows what parallel universes would have existed if there was influenza vaccine in 1918 and/or if my Grandmothers had access to proper birth control? I surely can make no judgments at this point of time. But I can say that both of these questions we now face lead to life and death decisions, which need to be made seriously, without putting the fabric of our society at risk.
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