This is one of those ideas which seemed to come to me from another place, beyond my own human capacity for realization. I don't want to call it a revelation from our Universe itself, but let us not deny that possibility here, lest we commit to blinding ourselves to truths outpacing ourselves....
Often the debate over
abortion seems framed as a contest weighing the rights of the mother against the rights of the
unborn -- the inherent assumption imposed being that the unborn wishes to be born. That is, naturally, an assumption in keeping with the human condition. Most humans want to live, and continue living. We are powerfully programmed that way, but it is as well a product of our social conditioning. Even those who claim strong belief in an
afterlife wish to cling to this one as long as possible, perhaps for fear that what lies on the other side of life will not match their hopes. But
what if the unborn in fact didn't necessarily
wish to be born at all? What if some preferred not to be brought into a human life, and these ones were able to influence their mother's actions towards fulfilling that desire? That, then, would seem to stand this aspect of the abortion debate on its head.
Specifically, suppose that in cases of abortion the unborn child has decided that
it does not want to be born, and so has used an inherent psycho-spiritual communicative power to inculcate into the mother the suggestion that she desires an abortion. Naturally, a mother has an instinct to have a child and one who really wants a child would resist such an urge, so if this were the case, an abortion would really only be likely to happen where
both the mother and the unborn child wish it to happen.
How might such a thing work?
It is common in religious and spiritual discourse to presume the property of human beings having a
spirit or a
soul -- we will use "spirit" here for the sake of convenience. This cannot be proved one way or the other, but for purposes of this examination, we presume such a things does exist -- however it is called, and whatever the parameters of its knowledge and abilities. Additionally, a common thread in many cultures is the claimed ability of one being's spirit to communicate with others. Most often this comes in the form of the spirits of the deceased communicating with the living, but reports exist of even far distant communication between living beings. How, exactly, these communications are effected, there is no concrete scientific explanation, but so long as we are presuming the existence of spirits, this comes part and parcel with that presumption.
Why might this be so?
The realization of the possibility lends the further question,
why would the unborn decide that it wished not to be born? Here we must consider the state of the spirit before
birth. Many religious traditions teach that before birth and after death, we are at peaceful oneness with our Universe, or (in explicitly theistic faiths), with "
God." If this is so, then the human experience of separateness and isolation from such oneness (or from their god) would be a jarring displacement. If the spirits of the unborn are in oneness with our Universe, they will have a much clearer view of its state and their place in it than we, who stand detached from universal oneness. And though many spirits might well crave the adventure of experiencing such separation, surely others would shy from it -- and when plucked from the bosom of the Universe and placed in a human womb -- knowing that in a few short months it would be cast out from even
that level of comfort, and into the comparative cold of the human world -- they might use their spirit energy towards preventing such an eventuality.
The spirit-being of the unborn would then simply return to peaceful oneness with the Universe -- a blessing to those not wishing birth -- perhaps to enjoy eternally this state, perhaps to again have an opportunity to be born at another time when it is at last ready for this. And perhaps many
miscarriages result from precisely such a protest against birth into a human state; and perhaps many or most abortions come about where the unborn is unable to bring about its own miscarriage, but has the wherewithal to plant within the mother's mind the determination that she ought not bear this spirit into the world. True, the unborn would still probably experience some pain in the process of having its physical form aborted and its spiritual being thusly conveyed back to a spiritual existence (unless means exist by which the spirit departs the body before the pain of the procedure occurs) -- but it would be in a position to know that everybody dies at some point, and most experience suffering along the way, so choosing to be aborted simply moves up that date.
Another possibility which must be considered is the
love of the unborn for its own mother, and desire to protect her from the harms and strains which might accompany its own birth. The instinct of a child to love its mother is close in power to that of the mother to love her child. If the unborn were aware in a specific circumstance that its very birth would endanger its mother's health, or impose upon her severe psychological or cultural or economic stresses, it might easily choose to remain in oneness with our Universe not simply in protest to being separated from that oneness, but out of an incipient love for its mother as well.
Whatever their
motivation, so long as we believe that some element of our spiritual experience exists apart from our physical bodies, we cannot discount the possibility that it is the unborn who chooses abortion as its own destiny, and that a mother's actions in choosing abortion reflect desires conveyed by the unborn. And, we ought not disrespect the choice of a being to remain in the comforting and familiar folds of the spiritual oneness of our Universe.