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Woman Films own Abortion; No Guilt, but . . .

  • Paul Dean Dr. Paul J. Dean's Weblog
  • Published May 09, 2014

So Casablanca ends up being about putting personal feelings aside for the more important effort of fighting for freedom in the war. Ilsa thinks her husband Victor is dead and falls in love with Rick who loves her back. Victor turns up alive and Ilsa leaves Rick when she finds out. As time goes by, she and Rick end up meeting again and she vows never again to leave him. In the last scene, the cynical and sidelined Rick becomes a hero when he joins the fight with this:

Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

Ilsa: But what about us?

Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.

Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.

Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. . . . Now, now . . . here’s looking at you kid.

There are things that are bigger than our feelings or convenience. There’s right and wrong.

And there’s this twenty-five-year-old abortion counselor who got pregnant and filmed the procedure to show women that there can be a positive abortion story. Emily Letts says she’s not ready to have children and should not be made to feel guilty for having an abortion nor should anyone else.

Two things come to mind. First, she certainly takes God out of the equation with her decision but also with the credit she gives herself: “I feel in awe of the fact that I can make a baby. I can make a life.” That said, it’s interesting she sees making a baby as more than a mere biological process; it is a baby and it is a life. Yet, her awe is not enough to keep her from killing her baby. Since she made it, she can kill it. After all, the lord gives and the lord takes away, no matter who she is.

Letts went on to say, “I knew what I was going to do was right, because it was right for me and no one else.” Of course, she didn’t include the man who got her pregnant in the decision to kill her baby. After all, it was right for her and no one else whether her partner or her baby. And now she says “she doesn’t feel like a bad person, sad or guilty.”

Which brings me to the second thing that comes to mind which actually has two parts. The first is that she’s aborted her baby and she'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of her life. The second is it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday she'll understand that.

It’s too bad people no longer put aside their personal feelings for something more important. And that’s why they end up losing more than they realize – only then – it’s too late.

Check out Dr. Dean’s audio news and worldview commentaries, The Dean’s List as well as his new e-book “Naked and Unashamed: Liberating Sex from Cultural Captivity”. You can also follow him on Twitter: @pauldeanjr.