MSNBC host Touré (born Touré Neblett) used the 40th anniversary
of the Roe v. Wade decision to
tell the story of his abortion experience:
I was in a committed relationship with a woman who I knew was
just not “the one.” She also knew it probably wasn’t going to work
out. And then she got pregnant.
Right off the bat we see that Touré deploys a rather loose
definition of the word “committed.” When two people are in a
relationship and both acknowledge it’s not going to “work out” but
they stay together anyway that’s not commitment, it’s
convenience.
After a strong acknowledgement of the important role of intact
families in raising children, Touré admits that he and his sexual
partner were far too selfish to take up such a task together.
She decided to have an abortion and some days later she did. We
did. And in some ways that choice saved my life. I was not then
smart enough or man enough to build a family and raise a child and
I only would’ve contributed to making a mess of three lives.
Splitting the rent with a f*** buddy? Good deal. Raising a
child? No thanks. Better to end one life than complicate three.
In a twist, Touré admits that later he met a woman, married her,
and made the decision to have a child. This time, he was into it —
doctors, sonograms and all. The desire for a child created a child
where before only inconvenient tissue had been. This was jarring
for Touré.
It was a thrill to watch that boy grow inside her, but I must
admit that during that second trimester as we watched him move
around on 3-D sonograms I saw how human
they are at that stage. My lifelong belief in abortion rights was,
let’s say, jostled… I had to rethink my position.
Confronted with (or willing to see for the first time) the
facts, abortion rights became less obvious. But don’t worry! Not
even the image of a living, breathing, playing baby boy can top
Touré’s unshakeable selfishness.
In the end I remain committed to being pro-choice because I
cannot imagine arguing against a woman’s right to control her body
and thus her life. I believe in, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
wrote, “A woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s couse.” …I
find something deniably misogynist about the impulse to deny a
woman dominion over her own body and limit her ability to share her
life and impose another’s sense of morality on her.
Touré goes on with the usual jibber jabber about making abortion
“legal, safe, and rare” while decrying any and all state-level
limitations that conform to precisely that goal. He ends terribly,
thanking “god” that abortion was there to “save” him and “praying
that the safety net remains in place.”
Of particular interest to me in this jumble of self-preserving
rationalizing is the use of the term “dominion.” It’s a biblical
word found very early in God’s story. After creating the universe
and everything in it, God says:
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over
the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the
earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God
said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and
subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the
sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing
that moves on the earth. (Genesis 1:26-28)
God gives humankind dominion over the entirety of the world he
has created. It’s a tremendous responsibility. Remember, after each
act of creation God describes his work “good.” Far from being a
self-empowering thing, dominion means service. The best word to
encapsulate the responsibility is probably
“stewardship.”
Touré describes the “misogyny” of limitations on abortion,
declaring them an infringement on woman’s dominion over her body
and future. I too believe that we ought to be stewards of our
bodies and of our futures. Indeed, this is precisely why I argue
often that premarital sex is not only immoral, but a bad idea. When
a woman offers a man temporary dominion over her — which is,
albeit a bit technical, exactly what sex is — it follows that she
offer temporary dominion to the natural result of that act, the
child. And if she is unwilling to do so, she must abstain from the
first.
Likewise, a man who desires temporary dominion over a woman must
also be willing to steward the natural result of the act, the
child. And if he is unwilling to do so, he must abstain.
Let us not forget the child who has taken up temporary dominion
in the physical being of his mother and in the lives of both his
mother and father. We all agree that miscarriages are tragic.
Unborn child protection laws that allow states to prosecute those
who harm pregnant women and their children show that as a society
we get that pregnancy is special. So, by what standard does Touré
deem the legal protection of one incidence of uteral dominion
“misogyny” and another a “thrill.”
Mere personal preference.
Is that it? Put aside the rare circumstances like rape, incest,
and the physical health of the mother. It’s too much to ask a woman
who has made the choice to let a man have sex with her to carry the
child for nine months and then offer it to a family eager to
nurture it? For Touré — and many like him — it is. It’s a burden
they can’t be expected to endure.
I don’t know Touré and know nothing of his faith. But I do know
this: the God of Genesis did not listen to his prayer or give
credit to his thankfulness. And though the child whose life Touré
helped end is surely spending eternity with God in Heaven, Touré
had better reconsider once again his understanding of how these
things work if he wants to join her.
