When we are kids we don’t have a clue what is happening to us, we just go with the flow. From the time we are born to the time we set out on our own we are perpetually indoctrinated with thought systems, religious beliefs, moral codes, customs, methods, rules…all of which come from somewhere outside ourselves. We grow up believing our small world is the one true way of living.
Never giving much thought that billions of others who share this planet with us believe the exact same thing about their world. When you add to that any gained enlightenment that we stumble across when we finally find the ability to think for ourselves, I think it’s safe to say that our current world is full of vastly different beliefs and perspectives.
With this reality in mind, it amazes me how a select population’s moral justification always seems to find its way into our legal system. The enactment of laws that exclude, the dis-enactment of laws that protect, the non-enactment of laws that discriminate, it’s all rather maddening. Especially when moral justification takes the place of logical thinking.
Many of our laws are based upon the opinion of what is right and wrong according to a certain set of held beliefs instead of focusing on how the world is changing and what is working and what is not. This could apply to almost any topic, but I’m going to discuss what I know.
The recent ban on abortion might seem to many as the right thing to do. The moral reasoning for such an act…saving a life…can certainly be justified in the eyes of many. However, one cannot stop there. Moral justification can’t be the end-all be-all. There is always a price to pay for unconsidered consequences.
Take a moment and think about the millions of individuals who will be negatively affected from this action. Not just the millions of unwanted babies, but the parents of these children who may be under-age, criminally violated, ill-equipped, unprepared, mentally and emotionally immature, financially incapable, and/or addicted.
It’s nice to want to envision nothing but healthy babies being adopted into loving homes. However, this is so far from reality and certainly not the case in most of these pregnancies. Most of these babies will not be adopted. They will be brought up in all kinds of abusive environments. Many of them will be born addicted themselves who will have a lifetime of on-going physical, emotional, mental and cognitive issues. All life is not a gift. Sometimes it’s hell on earth that entails a whole lot of pain and suffering.
The reversal of Roe v. Wade is going to have serious repercussions on this country. The influx of unwanted and abused children is going to crumble an already broken foster care system. The health and education systems in this country are sufficiently lacking when it comes to aiding children with special needs (the term special needs defines many things, including any child who suffers from emotional, mental, or physical trauma).
I know this to be true because I have been dealing with these two institutions for years trying to help my own special needs child. The health system lacks the necessary therapies that are needed for these kids and if you do by chance find a therapy that helps, you can safely bet insurance won’t cover it. The educational system is set up for “normal” children.
Special needs kids get lost in these tough to change systems. The private school which my child now attends (that was specifically created to help children like mine) has a waiting list in the hundreds. Families awaiting special education funding from the state number in the thousands.
We are failing these kids and nobody in political power seems to notice that we are already in crisis mode. The number of children who require unique services, therapies, and education are rising exponentially every year. I’m afraid to think what will happen in the near future now that another morally justified legal opinion has taken effect that will have the result of significantly increasing the number of children I’m referring to.
There needs to be solutions in place before “righteous” opinions such as the overturn of Roe v. Wade ever hit the law books. By not paying heed to the consequences of such an opinion, an already existing failure will just proliferate.