Maurizio Mori
Aborto e morale

I would like to begin the drafting of this essay by accommodating the suggestions of some courteous users who have variously criticized the excessive impersonality of my writings and the coldness of their impartiality, with a personal anecdote that can certainly help everyone frame the theme I intend to address; just as the classics, from Livy to Tacitus or Polybius, did.

A few days ago, while attending the wedding of a former colleague, I saw a child joyfully running around the patio of the restaurant where the reception was held, whom I soon recognized, due to the obvious resemblance, as the son of a dear friend of the couple who were being united in marriage at that same moment: as I started to talk to the mother, who quickly joined us, I understood that she did not have a husband and that she was in the uncomfortable position of a single mother.

Then, perhaps catching a shadow of questioning melancholy in my gaze, she said to me, "You know, it was a mistake. But the most beautiful mistake of my life".

And so, after a few minutes, returning to the wedding table, I could not but ponder the eventuality that my acquaintance had, at that time, exercised her right to abortion, even if it was considered a possible alternative: correction of a mistake, certainly; but also no joyful child, and no happy mother despite the evident struggle of experiencing motherhood without the solid support of a partner educated in values of ethics and responsibility, which, remembering the environment in which the wedding was celebrated, reminded me of my formative and professional past.

In the days that followed, I thus intended to delve deeper into the topic in light of the book I will analyze in the subsequent paragraphs, hoping for a careful consideration of the issue by courteous users, and, especially, by those who habitually comment on these writings merely based on the reading of the reviewer's name and the book title.

The book starts with a consideration that, in my humble opinion, is completely agreeable, which, alerting that group of readers perhaps accustomed to the worst aspects of male chauvinism, should not be questioned: I am referring to the fundamental right of a woman to a conscious motherhood, in which the ability to terminate the pregnancy must necessarily be included whenever the moral, psychological, economic, social circumstances, or the subjective beliefs of the woman make this experience intolerable, to her own detriment and, indirectly, to that of her future offspring.

We think of a woman afflicted by personality disorders, or of a woman who became pregnant due to sexual violence, or still within the scope of a casual relationship or an unsatisfactory relationship destined to end, or within the framework of an extramarital affair or with a citizen of a different religion or geographical origin; but also of a woman in difficult working conditions, either due to a lack of work or conversely, an excess of work commitments, or a mother of an already large family that she could not support the marginal growth of her family.

These are hypotheses I would go on to separate from those of so-called therapeutic abortion, a narrower concept that refers to the health risks to the woman during the continuation of the pregnancy (think of tragic events highlighted by recent editorials) or serious malformations of the unborn child, where, in fact, there is no authentic choice to abort, but a sort of tragic necessity linked to the archetypal motto "mors tua, vita mea", understood both as the possibility of living and the possibility of allowing to live.

Therefore, precisely moving from this personalistic and liberal conception of femininity and citizenship, the ability to abort can be rightly understood, in Berlin's terms, as negative freedom of motherhood: the freedom of a woman "from" motherhood, hence the freedom not to be a mother where the autonomy of the person does not identify reasons and premises.

Thus framed are the terms of the question - as it seems to me the author of the book under review also does - it becomes abundantly clear how our State, as early as the 1970s, rightly understood to recognize the faculty of abortion as an indispensable and legitimate corollary of women's freedom.

The point is not, as it is claimed in some places, and partially argued before reading this book in another essay last December dedicated to the freedom to use drugs, one of a preventive renunciation by the State to punish a theoretically contrary conduct to the collective interest, nor one of a sort of surrender of the State before the social uncontrollability of the phenomenon of abortion, characterized, especially before the introduction of the law on voluntary termination of pregnancy, by recourse to improper techniques of intervention by the infamous "midwives".

Phenomena, these, which certainly are relevant, but that cannot be invoked to justify the faculty of abortion: if only because they would not justify the exercise of this faculty with the intangible freedom of the woman as an individual endowed with her reason, but would keep fixed the subordination of the woman to the traditional values of the system, "granting" her in a certain sense the practical possibility of aborting without being punished. And it seems evident, even to the eyes of users less inclined to weigh the use of words, the difference between freedom and concession.

Having exhausted the perspective, and recognized the faculty of abortion, separating obviously any judgment of the phenomenon from moral or religious evaluations, the discussion could end.

But it would be a conclusion that is certainly unsatisfying, as the reading of this book was partly unsatisfying, and not very respectful, on my part, of the intelligence of the readers of this essay.

If the right to abort is acknowledged, it is equally evident to observe how this right must be used by women consciously, in compliance with the canons of responsibility that necessarily correspond to the exercise of a freedom like that of terminating a pregnancy.

To put it in terms accessible even to the now-notorious "average" website users: once the right is recognized, it is necessary to avoid that it turns into an abuse of rights, or its arbitrary use contrary to the very reason for the attributed freedom: as, for example, already occurs, to simplify, with reference to the father's right to educate his children, which however cannot turn into abuse of corrective means; or the right/duty of law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations, inspections, checks, interrogations without exceeding the limits of proportionate use concerning the purposes.

It then becomes essential to understand what constitutes the abuse of the right to abortion, which a liberal and democratic system should necessarily oppose.

In my humble opinion, it concerns primarily the problem of the third excluded having a right over the unborn child, if not equal, at least similar to that of the mother, or the potential father of the child, who, if known or knowable, should be put in the conditions to adequately participate in the mother's choices, expressing their own direct view on the exercise of the right to abortion.

This has significant consequences in the case, often typical, where the woman goes for an abortion in secret, or without the knowledge of the child's father, who thus sees amputated his natural right to conscious and aware fatherhood.

It would then be appropriate for Parliament or the courts to recognize a right to compensation for damage (or indemnification) charged to the mother. This right could on occasion be extended to other third parties harmed, such as, especially, the grandparents and close relatives of the child who see their relational rights with the unborn grandchild compromised or suffer emotional or existential damages from the woman's choice.

From another perspective, the abuse of the right to abortion runs underground in the inner motivations with which a woman resorts to it, sometimes based on sudden decisions she might later regret: well, it is one thing for the right to be recognized, as it is, in front of atypical circumstances but still typifiable on common sense; it is another for the decision to be entrusted to a woman who, perhaps taken by surprise by an objectively difficult situation like motherhood, is unable to assign the exact meaning of what she is doing, potentially making a misguided choice. Not to mention cases where the abortion is carried out by teenage girls (and by teenage girls, I mean those of our times, raised outside of stable family units and values).

I believe a good remedy in this case could be to strengthen the intervention of clinics or volunteer organizations in defense and protection of life and childhood, imposing their mandatory consultation, to guide the woman in her choice, even through financial support should she choose to carry the pregnancy to term and thus contribute, as a mother, to the beginning of a new life: which, in the almost absolute majority of cases, is always good news. Even in this case, the omitted consultation of these associations could be punished with the payment of sums of money, to be obviously donated to charity.

In conclusion, abortion is indeed a right, but exercising a right implies responsibility, awareness, respect for oneself, for others, and for the Kantian categorical imperative that every individual choice must be universalizable. And in this sense, it is necessary to go, even for the protection of the woman, as a responsible woman: only if exercised responsibly, and thus as an extreme choice, alternative to a true existential drama, comparable to a disease, abortion could be legally and even morally acceptable.

I apologize for the lengthiness, but the topic certainly required it; I invite the usual suspects to reflect even more than usual before commenting, particularly asking themselves what they would think, from Limbo, of their own mother if instead of bringing them into the world, she had taken an abortion pill...