Another Modest Proposal

Here's what gets me.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this abortion problem is a nasty business. Tempers have flared, curses have been shouted and people killed, not to mention both innocent and guilty bystanders swept by their emotions to commit unnatural acts in the name of decency and the "right thing to do"--and I'm just talking about outside the clinics.

Ever since Jan. 23, 1973, and the sexual peak of Baby Boomers everywhere, no solution proposed so far is going to satisfy everyone, because both sides currently have valid arguments. The pro-choice proponents believe that a woman has the right to do what she wants to her body and she can choose to prevent an unwanted child just as readily as she can choose to prevent an unwanted tumor, although certainly with more emotional involvement.

The pro-life proponents (or, by extension, the anti-choice people) believe that the "state," the government, society, other people or even God has the right if not the duty to do what it wants in order to prevent people from living a life of free will.

Hasn't anyone else recognized that this argument was angrily conducted centuries ago with great acrimony, hard feelings and probably lost lives and that therefore society is moving backwards?

Well, Ladies, Gentlemen and Others, I have a solution to the problem as plain as your own backyard or living-room easy chair: namely, our pets.

The idea came to me when I acquired a kitten from the Humane Society and afterwards watched a disgusting, predestination-disguised, anti-choice commercial that was crude in its production values, but just as slick in its manipulative techniques as any Madison Avenue, truth-mangling, morality-bending, self-aggrandizing advertisement.

When I bought the kitten, I was pressured into having it neutered. I was amazed that both the Humane Society and my veterinarian were so cavalier about a practice that is nothing more than a subversive act that eventually should put them both out of work.

Of course! Neither the Humane Society nor veterinarians would be so naive as to work toward putting themselves out of business, so something noble must be behind their desire to have a world full of aging, non-procreating pets.

And therein lies the solution to the problem of pro-choice, pro-life, anti-choice, anti-life, free-will, predestination, pro-abortion, anti-abortion dilemma: Whenever a child is born or whenever a child is adopted, neuter it. Snip-snip.

Only then can we cease this senseless anger, fighting, demonstrating and killing that is pitting sister against sister, brother against brother and family against family over a matter that should be between a woman and her conscience.

"What?" you say? "That would be silly!" you say? "Not to mention stupid and inhuman!" you say?

Not if we call it "humane." The time-honored tradition of society and Madison Avenue is to use language to sway thinking. Therefore, we simply call the act of desexing all children at birth and adoption the "Humane Solution," and all our worries about unwanted children, the agonizing of abortion and the morality of the way we live others' lives is over. Snip-snip.

"Wait a minute!" you say? "If all children are prevented from having children of their own, then how does that affect future generations?" you say?

Now, I don't want to sound callous or unfeeling, but another time-honored tradition of society and government is to answer "That's their problem." I am sure that pro-choice advocates, pro-life advocates and busybodies everywhere are more concerned with the immediate problem: how to prevent unwanted children and how to prevent women from destroying society by doing what they want to their own bodies.

Otherwise, we need only look at our own backyards and living-room easy chairs again. The practice and pressure of neutering our pets certainly hasn't created a shortage of pets. The unnatural but humane act of forcing our will upon the nature of pet procreation hasn't caused us any sleepless nights, and those pets are coming from somewhere.

Perhaps it's as simple as "Nature always finds a way."

Now, to head off any accusations that I have a personal interest in my proposal, I have no other motive than the public good of society by relieving the suffering of women, satisfying the desires of the religious and giving some short-term business to doctors. I have no children by which I can get a single penny, the youngest being 42 years old, and I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV.

I rest my case.