The Cynic Express(ed) 2.02: A Good Tragedy

     Thank the beneficial hand of government providence that we are not the nation of unenlightened barbarians that we used to be, back when we believed that people whom we would not entrust to watch our household pet could parent effectively without our collective intervention. Now, thanks to a couple of state, not federal, legislative tendrils, we can weave a snare of judicial parental decisions, made with the best interest of third-party children about whom we have only a fleeting, academic interest.

     Case in point: the recent tragic pregnancy of a twelve-year-old girl by her seventeen-year-old brother. This has all the earmarks of a modern melodrama. Judicial jurisprudence, sex, and media coverage.

     A real tragedy was averted. It can easily be imagined that in past dark ages, the result would have been that the young lady was given an abortion or perhaps even carried what would become her "little brother" or "little sister" to term. The young man would have the piss beaten out of him perhaps, sent to live with relatives or off to military school, or maybe given some sort of help by a religious or family figure. The whole affair would be a rumor in a small upper Midwestern town, a skeleton in some family's closet, and the rest of the world would not share in the spectacle.

     But these are enlightened times. In Michigan, the more thoughtful, educated, and/or moral segment of society have a better idea.

     In Michigan, where it is against the law to have an abortion after twenty-four weeks of pregnancy even if you are twelve and have only been diagnosed as being in that motherly way after your twenty-fifth week, things are different. In Michigan, whose crisp and cool air provides the vapors so necessary for clear thought, the twelve-year-old girl is wrested from her parents, because--how do they put it?-- "We wanted to make sure she wasn't being rushed out of town by parents who were embarrassed." (Or that's how Prosecutor Carl Marlinga put it.) After a couple of days' residency in the warm, nurturing environment of strangers, a quick trip to a state psychologist, a judge's decision, and national media attention, the child is relinquished to her parents' custody after the decision is reached that the parents perhaps have the necessary information to make an informed decision on their daughter's behalf.

     And with the Official Michigan State Writ of Adequate Parenting (renewable every thirty days), the girl can be taken to Kansas to receive an abortion. However, alerted by the media, the anti-abortion groups are ready to educate the girl with picket signs and perhaps a couple buckets of blood to splash on her as she goes by. After all, these strangers, too, want what's best for someone else's child. How did the Kansas Katholic Klub (ahem, the Catholic diocese in Kansas City, Kansas) put it? "People love her and are concerned about her future and the future of her baby." (Or that's how director of the diocese's Respect Life program put it.) They want to greet her with picket signs and solidaritous shouts to make a better life for her. And I'll bet it even hurts them more than it hurts her.

     In this nation, the contemporary popular demagoguery shrieks "We are doing It for the Children!", and those Its encompass everything from taxation to regulation to this minute's ABCNews/CNN poll issue. And when the big-W We shriek those platitudes, it's all right to sacrifice this one child to the media gods to draw the attention of the nation to one minor little moral thunderstorm. This twelve year old child that is caught up in a maelstrom of national controversy when she should be best left playing Sega and wondering if high school will be that bad. But she became pregnant and from thence an icon for a portion of America to target its obese sense of misplaced morality and deliberate judicial meddling. Let's not forget that the center of the parade, somewhere invisible among the beating drums and marching jackboots of all colors, that little girl suffers. She should suffer in the silence of her family and support circle.