The Game, Abortion, Compassion

In the summer of 2005 I often listened to the song "Hate It or Love It" by The Game. Surely it was the refrain that caught my attention, but it didn't take long for the lyrics to sink in. The Game sings about parts of his life, his days dealing drugs and eventual success. Then at the end he thinks about what might still be going on in his old neighborhood and sings:

"I wanna know what's going on like I hear Marvin
No school books
They use their wood to build coffins
Whenever I'm in a booth
And I get exhausted
I think what if Marie Baker got that abortion
I love you Ma"

I have no idea what its like to be a black guy growing up in Compton-- I am a white girl who grew up in the burbs on the other coast. So I'm left only to wonder.

Now The Game, born Jayceon Taylor, implies that he draws strength from the fact that his mother did not abort him when she was likely to or thought about doing so. That must shape who you are as a person, knowing that you were wanted enough to be born even though statistics and circumstances were slanted against you.

But the very fact that you are a person likely to be aborted, what does that say about your worth in the eyes of others?

It is abortion under the guise of compassion that hangs me up more than anything. The logic seems to go like this:

You are a in a bad situation (no spouse, or no job or in the middle of school, or perhaps you already have a number of kids)

Another child will exacerbate the situation for you and your dependents, or you will be able to provide a less than ideal life for the unborn child

So you should have an abortion to show compassion on yourself, your family, your unborn child

Okay, how do we know (or how can we even begin to guess) that life for that child might be bad? We look at children already born in similar situations.

So while Mr. Taylor may be able to thank his mom (and rightfully so) that she chose to bear him into the world he is still the once poor, black, urban child people often look to as an example of why other poor city children should not be brought into the world. The only thing more invalidating than not being allowed to be born is someone pointing to you and saying "we use you to justify why other children like you should not be brought into the world." Same goes for people with disabilities.

As clear as day, when you tell the poor mother or the young mother or the mother carrying a special needs child "you should probably have an abortion" you are telling all those kids born into similar circumstances "you probably should not have been born." That, my friends, is not compassion in any way, shape, or form.