Long after Adeline and Rose were gone, Jessica sat in bed, her hands on her chin and contemplated her grim future. There seemed to be no way out of the quagmire. Agreed, abortion may offer her temporary relief, but what about the other things like infection and the psychological trauma. It’s also true that new drugs and invention may keep her from becoming fully blown over the years, but things will never remain the same again. There will always be that missing link in her life, that vacuum and emptiness. She was still lost in thought when Ijeoma came bouncing into the room.
“Good that you are here, I was just wondering whether I will see you,” Ijeoma said as soon as she came into the room. “How is it?” she asked, and without waiting for her reply, she said. “Jessica, you see, I didn’t quite understand how you arrived at the answers yesterday,” she complained, coming to sit down on the bed and turning the pages of her note book. “I was thinking maybe you could help me. I looked for you during school hours and …” she paused, and looked at her friend who has not said anything throughout her entire monologue. “Won’t you say something?” but the words died on her mouth when she saw the tears on her eyes, the swollen eyelids, the wet lashes, the dark smudges and the dark furors on her forehead. “Oh my God! Jessica, what is it? she cried. “Why are you crying?” She was too shocked to see her in that mood. “What is the problem? Come on, tell me.”
“There is no problem, Ijeoma, believe me,” she said as she tried to hold back the tears.
“I hope you don’t expect me to believe that, do you? What is the problem, did anyone die?”
“No, IJ, no one died. There is no problem.”
“Daddy called from home? His election … is he having…?”
“No, no, no, it’s not that.”
“Then, what is it?”
“I said there is no problem, unless you want to invent one,” she snapped. She was afraid Ijeoma will blame her for believing in safe sex.
“Don’t feed me that crap. Everything is not okay, Jessica. Look, I know you like I know the back of my hand. There is something worrying you. But if you think you can’t confide in me as a friend, then do as a sister.”
“Look, Ijeoma, I will appreciate it if you will kindly leave me alone.”
“No, problem. If that is what you want, I will leave you alone, but remember two good heads are better than one.” She turned to go but Jessica stopped her.
“Ijeoma,” Jessica called.
“Yes, what is it?” Ijeoma asked, coming to sit down beside her on the bed.
“I’m so…so…so sorry. I disappointed you,” she muttered.
Ijeoma was puzzled. “Look Jessica, I don’t understand. I mean, what are you sorry for?”
“Ijeoma, please forgive me.”
“Look, baby girl, you are speaking in parables. What are you talking about? Forgive you for what? Okay, I’ve forgiven you, but every problem has a solution. What is it?”
“Ij, you can’t believe it, Ij you can’t…oh!”
“Pull yourself together, I understand. Besides, it may not be as bad as you are making out.”
“Ijeoma, I’m ruined; tell me, what am I going to do? Ijeoma, safe sex has played me wayo.”
Ijeoma frowned. “What happened?”
“Ij, I am…I’m pregnant. Imagine me, pregnant. I will just kill myself.”
Ijeoma caught her breath. “You are what? What are you talking about? You Pregnant? How… how come?” Ijeoma bombarded her with half, unfinished questions.
“I don’t know, honestly, I don’t know how. It was safe sex, Ijeoma, I swear it was.”
Ijeoma was so moved that she broke down and started to cry too. She wondered why Jessica would fall into the same old trap despite the circumstances surrounding her birth.
“Gosh! I’m ruined.”
“No, you are not. This is not the end of the road for you. There is hope,” once again, Ijeoma avoided the temptation of blaming her. “God has a reason for sending you this temptation. You have to be strong and see it through.”
“It was safe sex, Ijeoma. I swear, it was.”
“Pull yourself together. How old is it.”
“I don’t even know.”
“That’s the first thing you must find out tomorrow morning.”
“What for? Oh Ijeoma, I’m ruined.”
“Pull yourself together, Jessica. There’s always a way out.”
“My God, Ij, I wish I’d listened to you,” she moaned. “I wish I’d listened to you. I wish I…”
“Look, Jessica, you have to be careful not to fall into the blame game. You are pushing yourself too hard. This is not the time to lay blames but a time of finding solutions. In fact, this is the time for sober reflection, a time for deep, entrenching soul therapy. Having a baby out of wedlock is not the end of the world for you. God could have sent you this trial for a special reason. You have to find out the reason yourself. It is a good thing to be a co-creator with God. That is the opportunity motherhood bestows on you as a woman. You have to recognize it and give God the glory.”
“But…but you don’t expect me to …to keep the baby?”
“Why not? Of course I do.”
“There’s my education, my future, my…I mean, I have no job. How will I cope? Surely, keeping the baby will be suicidal, besides Dad will let hell loose on me.”
“You are right,” Ijeoma agreed. “But you can give it out for adoption after birth.”
“That’s unthinkable. What if he intrudes into my future? Besides, I will look like a bad mother who gave up her own child. No, I won’t do that.”
“What do you want to do then?” Ijeoma asked.
“Abort the bastard, of course.”
“But abortion is killing. Why would you want to do that?”
“For God’s sake, Ijeoma be reasonable for once. Keeping the baby is out of the question, can’t you understand that?”
“I know and I’m trying to be reasonable. But no reason is good enough to warrant taking the life of another person. The right to life should supersede every other right and reason.”
“That’s where you’ve gotten it all wrong, abortion isn’t killing.”
“Why? I mean, how if I may ask?”
“The fetus is not a human being. I mean, they are not really fully persons. Of course, I know you know about ‘personhood’ and ‘deliberate rationality’, and those kinds of stuff?” she fed her the same excuse Adeline had fed her. But such scientific jargons hold no water for Ijeoma.
“Just listen to yourself, if the fetus is not a person, then what is it, a worm bat, frog or a dog? Listen, whatever else one might call them, beings that are not non-persons must be non- persons,” Ijeoma counteracted.
“No, no, no, no, I didn’t mean that. I mean they are not fully humans. They are only potential persons. You know about the potentiality principle, don’t you, the growth in degrees? Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Potential human beings my foot! Okay, let’s consider personhood to mean the state of being a person. But does it make sense to think of it as being present in degrees?” Ijeoma asked. “Can you really put two people side by side and say they are both persons, but that one is more of a person than the other?” she paused to let that sink in. “We can hardly speak of ‘half a person’. A person can only be a person, no more, no less. Personhood in the sense of the ‘state of being a person admits of no degrees. It is a self-evident truth that development continues in human beings for many years, and in more ways than often, we could nearly always be said to have potentials which we have not yet realized, and if that is the truth, then doesn’t maturity also fall short among children and teenagers like you?” she construed, pointing at Jessica. “And adults who are unable to act with maturity and in a thoughtful purpose-whatever the criteria for deciding who is and who is not a person. If that is the case, then we are also less than fully persons and if less than fully persons, we are less than fully humans. Clearly so, then we too must yield to the interests of the more fully humans, all that remains is to sort us out. So you see, the need to justify abortion drives us inexorably to a system of moral castes, more preposterous than anything the culture of death has ever devised. Of course, we can fiddle with the grading criteria; racial purity has been tried, self awareness and contribution to society proposed. So you see, once a different explanation is accepted between human beings who are persons and those who are not, a dangerous path is opened up and that could lead to almost anywhere.”
“Look, Ijeoma, you’ve gotten it all wrong, it only applies to pre-natal existence.”
“Only to pre-natal existence, you said? So what makes you think babies in the womb are less than human beings and the rest of us human beings? What you are telling me is that you, Jessica, were not a person from the moment you were conceived until the moment you totally emerged from your mother’s womb? In other words, our law says ‘personhood’ begins when a ‘non-person’ comes forth from the womb of a ‘non-person’s mother. The first nine months of your life, as you grew and were nourish in the warmth and security of your mother were, to the law, irrelevant? You existed but legally you were not acknowledged?” she paused, and taking her hand in hers; she said gently, “Jessica, most of our laws are based on reasons, though this is not nor has it always been the case, although the history of those who have designated some humans as ‘non-persons’ is a grim one. For example, just as recently as 100 years ago, women and blacks were not considered people. In the late 60s, the ruling that unborn children do not have the legal status of a person was similar to its 1857 decision that black slave were not legal persons. And in 1936, the denial of legal personhood to Jews and the treatment of non-Aryans as effectively sub – humans by the Nazi regime, are just like this,” she paused, took a breath. “With the clarity of hindsight, we can see how unreasonable and unjust this was. Then why must we live as blindly as those of past generations too, defying reasons and justice to preserve the legal status quo? How can we when the legal status quo permits the killing of hundreds of thousands of children each year in this country alone?”
“Oh my God! I didn’t know that,” she cried as Ijeoma hit home truth.
“Yes, they wouldn’t tell you that. By the way, permit me to ask you just a question.”
“Go on. What is your question?”
“Who then is a person and what is the criteria for deciding who is and who is not a person? Do we look for the ability to produce brain activity, recognize the presence of others, speak fluently, pass a basic intelligence test or produce a certain pedigree? Once this distinction is attained, personhood inevitably becomes something to be accomplished or acquired. And sadly, the criteria for deciding who has attained the required qualities must necessarily be arbitrary and subject to opinion and change. Once again, we are placed in a frightening position of deciding for ourselves who is and who is not a person.”
“Gosh!” Jessica blew out her cheeks.
“So you see, it’s not up to us to designate any of our fellow human beings as ‘non-persons’ or ‘unwanted’ because we live in an increasingly utilitarian age in which many people are ready to make value judgment of their fellow human beings based on materialistic assessments. This shouldn’t be so, so don’t let them use you to further their cause.”
“Well, it’s my right to do whatever I want with my life and …and my body. I will do whatever pleases me.”
“Jessica, truly I know just how you feel,” Ijeoma said gently. “I know the pains and agonies. I know what you are going through. Agreed, it is your body, your right and your life, but abortion will not make you unpregnant again. You will only terminate a natural process and the result could be hazardous.”
“Lie, lie. There are no complications, so just don’t go there. Abortion is an easy, safe procedure.”
“Who told you that? Believing abortion is safe is like believing in safe sex, you know what I mean? They are all entrenched in lies. They wouldn’t tell you of the physical and emotional consequences of abortion and other Post Abortion Disorders. Abortion is not safe; in fact, statistics has it that abortion is 10-15 times more deadly than childbirth. Just imagine for instance, the unhygienic condition of the instruments used to procure abortion. They don’t use different instrument for different people, you know and so there are the chances of catching an infection.”
“But the instruments are sterilized.”
“Well, that may be, but you know there is also the chances of parts of the baby being left inside or damage to the uterus and so many things. Again, it may be your body, but remember it is not your life that is threatened by abortion or that is assailed with lethal intent in abortion procedure-whether that involves dismemberment by suction or forceps, expulsion by drugs or intact surgical removal- though it is true that you may be accidentally injured in the process. It is a separate human being whose identity is physically and genetically different from yours and who may be of the same sex or opposite sex or different blood group or may have a health condition quite at variance with yours.”
That really had her going, “How did you know all these things?”
“Pastor Okechukwu.”
“Pastor Okechukwu, your pastor? The one you’ve always told me about?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you more about him when I finish. As I was saying, it may be your right-reproductive rights, fertility control and regulation and stuffs like that- but it is also the right of the unborn to live. And the right to life should supersede every other right– parental, reproductive or civil- because it is on life that every other law is based. Why make laws when there are no human beings to obey it?”
“So…so what do you suggest?”
“It’s simple, keep the baby. You can give the baby up for adoption after birth if you don’t want the baby.”
“Adoption? But that’s criminal. What if the baby intrudes into my future and makes things difficult for me? No, I won’t do that. Besides, I will look like a bad mother who gave away her own child to strangers, no.”
“Don’t look at it like that. He will appreciate your courage for not killing him. He will be grateful to you for being alive. So don’t worry.”
“No, Ijeoma, I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Listen, I didn’t mean to say this, but have you ever given a thought to the fact that if your mother had aborted you, hadn’t stood by you; you wouldn’t have been here today. Is it not because your father never wanted you or had wanted to abort you that you hate him so much? Have you asked yourself why you hate your father? God has a special reason for sending this baby to you, don’t abort it. Remember, you are an abortion victim yourself. Meanwhile, who is the father of your baby?”
“Tony,” she replied absent-mindedly. “Why do you ask?”
“Does he know you are expecting his baby?”
“No.”
“Have you been to the scan yet?”
“No.”
“Why? What are you still waiting for?”
“What’s the point? I mean, is it necessary?”
“Of course, it is. You’ve not been to the scan, then how the hell do you know that you are pregnant?”