My column in The Kerryman. 15 May, 2013
The most important advice the editor gave me about writing a column, was that I could either be a mouthy know-it-all or I could write columns which people may disagree with, but would not be offended by. I almost quit before I begun. To write honestly while trying to avoid needless provocation is not easy. It’s especially not easy for a mouthy know-it-all. It means having to see things from other people’s points of view.
When the issue is abortion? Well it can seem like giving and taking offense are the whole point. The terms used by the meekest pro-lifer and the most restrained pro-choicer, are usually the most extreme available. Most of us when arguing about anything else, will leave the really heavy language to the rare times when we want to get very nasty.
In a debate between a pro-choicer and pro-lifer it quickly gets vicious. Pro-lifers (or anti-choicers to their enemies) will hint or out-right state that abortion is the murder of babies. Pro-choicers (or pro-abortionists to their enemies) will demand to know if raped children should be forced to have babies. This is no ordinary war. The nuclear weapons are brought out every single time, leaving everybody devastated.
Cards on the table; I am pro-choice. Very pro-choice and I’ll argue with anyone, anywhere, anytime defending that point of view, but a column is not an argument. You can’t shout back at me when I shout at you. That can be OK on almost any other issue, but not abortion. I can hector the pro-lifers, bully the undecided and play to the pro-choice gallery, but what happens next week? What happens when I want to offer my opinion on how to help those in mortgage distress or explain why I love hurling?
I will end up speaking only to those who see the world as I do and I know that number to be very small indeed. What point is there to writing if no one reads what I write? Worse, why write if I’m so predictable, no one need read it?
Yet I’m pro-choice, with a column, during a national debate on abortion. How do I write honestly without offending someone? Simple answer, I can’t. This debate is so horrible, that just by declaring a position, I offended. No doubt, I’ve already forever lost some readers.
That stings, for there’s nothing and no one, so in need of attention than a writer. Nothing so hurts a writer than not being read. Yet I am pro-choice, with a column, during a national debate on abortion.
I’m so pro-choice, that I feel a knot of anger in my belly anytime I hear a pro-life spokesperson make a point. I’m so pro-choice I often avoid abortion debates for fear I will lose friends and alienate loved ones. That’s how strongly I feel. A strength of feeling, a passion, a calling, that I know is also felt in the hearts of those I call opponents, pro-lifers.
Our only hope, my only hope, is there being enough people so passionately dedicated to finding a middle path, that the rest of us are finally pushed to the sidelines. Our only hope is the middle-roaders drowning out our noise. The silent must find their voice, or this fight will never end.
