Items of possible interest

Dear MOJ friends:

I’ve come across two items of particular interest, a recent poem on abortion from the Alsop Review, found below. It’s not quite as good, but it reminds me a little of Pulitzer-laureate Gwendolyn Brooks’ truly great poem “the mother” [“Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get,...”]

Let me also mention an insightful article by Jon A. Shields, “Bioethical Politics”, from the March/April 2006 (vol. 43, issue 3) issue of SOCIETY (the social science journal published, I believe, in New Brunswick, NJ, by Transaction). Shields argues that  pro-life activists use Rawlsian public reason while pro-choice activists typically refuse to do so. (I believe he has also written a longer piece (dissertation?) on the same topic; I found part of it on the web.) I do not know what his personal view of abortion may be.

Shields also seems to show that the large “gory photos” of abortion can be put to good use in furtherance of reflective debate on college campuses, something I had always doubted.

Sorry I couldn't find a way to link you directly to the article.

Here’s the poem:

The Abortion

Jennifer Reeser

Fold this, our daughter’s grave,
and seal it with your kiss.
For all the love I gave,
you owe me this.

Inside of me, she had
your lips and tongue, my air
of grimness, thin and sad,
with your thick hair.

Inside of you, I trust,
she was a simple mesh
of need and paper, lust –
potential flesh.

And there was such pure song
in life begun from you,
I held the dead too long,
as women do,

but leaving like you did,
when only I could feel
the biding, body, bid
of what was real,

she’s put out with the cur,
the garbage, heartache, cat.
Promise you’ll sing to her.
You owe me that.

Jennifer Reeser

Noted On the Gazebo | Alsop Review

Richard Stith