DEEP IN THE FOG OF "CHOICE".(Column)

Recently, newspapers carried the following exchange between a reader and a widely-read medical advice columnist, Dr. X (his real name is not important here, and a wave of letters reprimanding him would be counterproductive):

DEAR DR. X: I am responding to your column about counseling for a woman who continued to feel guilty about an abortion she had 20 years ago. Planned Parenthood is not an appropriate resource. These people are probably the ones who convinced her to have an abortion in the first place! Your reader should probably more properly receive treatment from a church-supported pregnancy counseling center. E

DEAR READER: From the tone of the letter to which I responded, I believed that anti-abortion counseling was not what the reader needed. So I referred her to a more eclectic resource.

Personally, I feel that adoption is preferable to abortion, but I support a woman's choice in the matter. And I agree with you (and other readers) that alternative organizations can certainly play a vital role in helping such people deal with the emotional upheaval of abortion. Such help is available through many community institutions.

Dr. X's response is typical of the well-meaning "mushy middle" in the age of "choice." I'm sure that Dr. X wants only the best for the people seeking advice from him. And I'm equally sure that Dr. X is a very competent physician. Yet when it comes to the topic of abortion, he appears to be pressured to conform to the foggy thinking that the culture of "choice" demands of the "enlightened" among us. The point here is not to berate Dr. X personally but to illustrate the intellectual and moral confusion that results from the uncritical acceptance of "choice."

Dr. X thought it unwise for the woman to receive "anti-abortion counseling." Well, yes, 20 years after the abortion it is, of course, rather late for the "anti" part of abortion counseling. Dr. X uses the media's code word "anti-abortion" instead of the more descriptive term "pro-life." But pro-life counseling does have something to offer to women who suffer from the devastating guilt over an abortion. The pro-life movement has been joined and energized by thousands of women who have had abortions, have experienced the emotional upheaval and guilt over their abortions, and have found spiritual healing and forgiveness. These pro-lifers understand the problem, and they can gently direct women suffering from the aftermath of abortion to churches and support groups that will help them.

That Dr. X thinks that Planned Parenthood is an appropriate counseling agency for the woman in question is rather odd. Instead of following the elitist mainstream where one only thinks nice things of Planned Parenthood, Dr. X would have been better off applying the same kind of independent thinking that he usually displays when he discusses the usual medical matters for his readers' benefit.