Camus on abortion

One If not the most horrifying topic of humanity since then Is the topic of murder. Every now and then, there is a wide range of news concerning death. Either somebody watches news from the television or Just simply listens from a radio. Whether one kills someone, doing the act of suicide (killing oneself), or somebody meeting an accident is still an alarming incident. What makes murder a frightening act is that death is the shadow of every murder. Whenever there is murder death, follows.

This Irrevocable reality called death Is the one concerned with making the act comes a favorable act for someone who runs away from the absurdity of living. One kills for one’s security, self-preservation, or just simply having the assumption that when a problem that causes anxiety will be remove everything will be Just fine and things will make sense again. In our age today, one of the acts in line with murder is the act of abortion. This abortion Is the activity of getting the fetus out from the mother’s womb.

Someone who does not see abortion as evil assumes that fetus Is not yet human. And “since no person will ever exist who will suffer for having ever been born, destroying (it) before it becomes a person capable of valuing her life does not constitute any moral wrong,” this is a common alibi from a pro-abortion person. In the other hand, for someone who looks at it as an act of evil, it is an act of murder having the notion that the fetus is indeed a human. Any potential mother can commit abortion, and It Is now a prominent act.

Abortion is not Just done by married potential mothers but even high school and even college students are dominant costumers of this act called abortion. Often, communities, groups, persons, and anyone who hates abortion blames just the mother. It is assume that the particular act of abortion is largely a decision of the mother. It is being forgotten at times that there is a role off male participant called a partner, father or at least a potential father in the act of deciding whether one should or not to commit abortion.

And if a potential mother alone decides, maybe It Is because the father Is gone for good with any reasons or she Just cannot bear the fact that she Is going to be a mother soon and the world suddenly confronts her and makes her anxious of what will happen if she continues having the child. Or what will happen if she tells somebody about her pregnancy. Also one of the reasons why anti-abortion persons and pro-abortion people keep fighting each other is that both sides do not have a common denominator of whether a fetus Is human and not human. Often, antiabortion researchers talks about the welfare of the fetus and not more of the mother.

In the other side, pro-abortion groups talks about more on the concerns of the mother. For a couple who did abortion, one common reason is that they “regard having a baby as huge financial burden in an already financially overburdened world. ” For a couple, having a baby is not that good idea for that moment. Both of the couple partners or even Just one of them sees the world as a big capitalist reality wherein everybody needs money in order to continue living and be competitive and having a baby would for the future means to use little amount of resources each day and keeping a baby is hard.

Another reason why most married couples decide to have abortion is that “they are carrying massive debt and both parents have to work Just to pay the mortgage. They regard children as a factor that will break the bank. ” Both husband and wife have to work. This means that they don’t have time to have a baby. A woman can also commit abortion even if she is not yet married. Whether she is living in with her partner or they Just simply got pregnant out of nowhere.

Cases like this usually arise among students (high school or college) or any young girl who has the capacity of bearing a child and all of a sudden got pregnant. Often times these kind of situation puts a girl under a great dilemma of having a child. Frequently, this type of girl is a woman whose boyfriend has left her, who is at school and has yet to finish her studies, a woman who cannot afford to bring a child, woman who was taking the pill but didn’t realize that being sick reduced its effectiveness, and some are afraid of hat the community or her family would say about being pregnant.

A woman is confused of what to do because she is afraid of being criticize by everyone. And in the same manner a man who is not ready for big responsibilities will take the case as a treat especially if a potential father is still a student or a young man without any stable Job. Today a typical religious person looks at an atheist (someone who does not believe in a God) as someone who can do no good, as someone evil, or at least someone who cannot give a good insight for the world. Well, if someone thinks as such, then reading Campus is a great gift for such a person.

For a religious philosopher, teacher of philosophy or any other student of philosophy who believes in a God, one of the most important contribution that one can give to the world in the field of philosophy is to (may be) Christianize any concept or Just simply make good out of it, even an atheist concept (e. G. SST. Augustine using philosophy of Plato and SST. Thomas using Aristotle) for a better world. And this method is also greatly used by the atheist philosophers (e. G. Sartre using the philosophy of Livings. ).

In line with the philosophy of Campus, how will somebody interpret the act of abortion, not may be in he perspective of the one being killed (fetus) or Just for the goodness of the “potential man” inside the womb, but on the parents’ point of view. In a sense Campus talks about absurdity and lets us try to creep in into the mind of a potential parent who commits abortion and see if Campus’ concept of revolt can be use as a repellent act against abortion. In a novel of Campus entitled The Plague, Campus uses the plague as a symbol.

The problem comes because “Campus’ Plague is more indirect about what plague ‘means,’ preferring ambiguity and multiple possibilities to the narrow symbolism of a single doctrine. This means that the word plague is itself a very wide emblem of may be death, suffering, or even the absurd itself. With this point one may see the plague as an allegorical picture of absurdity. Within the topic of abortion: a parent’s feeling of absurdity of having child. In a sense the word plague usually refers to an unknown disease wherein there is no medicine yet made.

In the novel, it is characterized by a disease which has no cure. This means that nobody in that certain area called Roan (setting of the Novel) is capable of escaping such fate of having the disease. Young, old, man, woman, strong, weak, – all are dying each day. With the concept of Campus’ plague, one can see that it is somewhat tantamount to is a “separation from the universe, the condition that characterizes the exile of absurd solitude. ” This is the feeling of absurdity. It is when suddenly one feels that everything is useless, hopeless, or even worthless.

And that feeling of absurdity is universal, universal in a sense that nobody can escape the feeling of absurdity. In process of deciding whether one has to commit abortion or not, everybody can be a factor (both parents of the girl or boy, friends, even some religious persons and etc. ). Anyone who is capable of bearing a child is a potential mother and anyone who can impregnate a girl is a potential father. And any person who concerns them, any event around them, and factor that they meet every moment may affect the decision of committing abortion.

In line with this, absurdity is the mother’s feeling towards giving birth to an unwanted child or a father’s feeling of being unsure of having a child. This is when the mother or father no longer can explain the familiar world, the moment wherein the potential mother sees herself as a stranger and alienated to others, or the potential father being afraid of the responsibilities. This happens especially to a student who surprisingly got pregnant or a young man who realizes that he will be a father soon.

Some if not all of her friends, parents, and relatives will ridicule, and Judge the potential mother for such an act of being pregnant and in the same manner the potential father will have the same feeling of being criticized as well. The world that a potential parent knew and enjoys being-with suddenly transforms into a world of uncertainty. Campus dictates some possible areas where absurdity reveals. Campus said that things begin with simple ways and not in a grand ND logical way. “Life is absurd, senseless, that anything can happen to anyone at any time, without rhyme or reason; life is illogical… To bear an unwanted child is to be surprised that one day in a very usual, normal, “unexacting” day the mother wakes up, goes to the C. R. , vomit and then finds out that she is pregnant without her liking it. The father of the unwanted child finds out that his partner is pregnant in a moment like any other moment. Rhythm (of unthinking, not noticing,) disruption- “one day the Why arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement… Eeriness comes with the ends of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness. This is a picture of a woman enjoying her life, Job, mechanical living and one day she asks herself, “why did this happen, why did I become pregnant? ” In the same manner the father who enjoys his life working everyday or Just living a happy go lucky life of being a student, meeting girls every now and then, then suddenly he finds out that he will be a father to a girl he is not even in love with. The moment when somebody from his Joyful routine way of living ND enjoying the world suddenly realize he can no longer stay like that.

Realization of one’s position in time- “he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. ” As a person who can think logically, he uses his mind to predict what will happen in the future. He plans for the future, he does everything for his future and for that he willingly wishes for that future to come. This is what happens when a couple wishes to gain secure money for the future or a student dreaming of graduating from high school or college, and how they wish for that time to Just come.

Suddenly one finds out that she is pregnant or someone will to be so indistinguishable or uncertain. The plans that someone made suddenly crumple in front of that person. Man wishes for the future to come but everything in him rejects the possibility to be in an uncertain future. Denseness/ strangeness of the world- “he (man) can no longer explain his familiar world,’ even with bad reasons; in a universe suddenly deprived of illusions and of enlightenment, man feels himself a stranger. ” The world that seems so familiar before becomes unfamiliar.

The food that the pregnant woman enjoys before now tastes awful. The cigarette that she enjoys before suddenly smells awkward. The places where a potential father used to go are now a place of terror. This happens to a man who runs away from his responsibility of being a father. He is afraid of going to a place where he used to go because somebody might know or look for him there. MAN- “Thus the land was cruel to live on even… People, who nonetheless made nothing better. ” The loving, kind, peaceful, and understanding parent that a girl thought she knew already suddenly becomes a treat.

A parent becomes a treat in a way that no one will know what a parent can do if a parent finds out that his aught is suddenly pregnant. And the moment that a parent finds out, he starts to appear as somebody and not the parent that somebody thought they be. The woman tells her boyfriend or partner that she is pregnant, and then suddenly the all promising boyfriend or partner begins to act violently with his words and actions. The man that she loved suddenly becomes a stranger in a sense. And what is worst is that the following day he is out of the picture.

He stops testing the girl, not even a reply and there is no place to find him. This feeling of absurdity can also happen to a very kind hearted girl by being raped. If this is the case, one might ask of why people with such a kind of character will have to exist in this world. So, other persons can also give the feeling of absurdity. “Ultimate indignity and humiliation visited upon humankind: death,” it is a way of going out from the absurdity but in a sense it also gives us a sense of absurdity.

When a pregnant woman finds out that her baby will be a handicap and the doctor will say that the baby will not last long after giving birth, there is a feeling of absurdity in a way that it will seem useless and worthless to let the baby be born. “Abortion is allowing termination of pregnancy when the true person is very likely to be so severely handicapped that her life would not be worth living, either because this person would suffer beyond a certain limit or because she would not be capable of valuing her being alive. These are some of the ways in which one can try to feel the absurd at least for Campus. But where exactly is this feeling of absurdity comes from? The world itself is not absurd. The feeling of absurdity comes in into our consciousness. “The three characters of the [absurd] drama: the irrational [this vast land’ that denies man], human nostalgia [the desire to understand and belong] and the absurd [absolute meaning that springs from their encounter. ” As a human person it is natural for someone to have the capacity or ability to think and rationalize.

As human person, man tries to rationalize everything, to make sense of everything and to reflect upon things. In other words man wants to understand and humanism the everything. This is where the absurdity comes in, when man realizes that the world is irrational, the the gap between man and the world, between the rational and the irrational, between the logical and the illogical. And the feeling of absurdity is only accessible to he one conscious of it. In the case of the abortion, one can only feel the absurdity of having a child in the moment that one finds out the she is pregnant or his partner is pregnant.

For a couple or at least potential parents (even those who do not want abortion) who find out that they are going to have a child, it is basic to think what will happen to them and to their child if they pursue having the child. In some cases of a single parent, she asks herself of what will happen to her and the child if she continues delivering the child into the world. These are all feelings towards absurdity. There is only two possible way of confronting the feeling of absurdity. First, in which one can remove the feeling of absurdity. The gap between man and the world or anything is the passage way of the absurd.

Without the thing that makes no sense, man cannot be conscious of the absurd and in the other way, absurdity cannot exist without the man thinking of it. And so in the philosophy of Campus, one way of confronting the absurd is to go away from it. It is either that man removes the world or that something that makes no sense from the picture or in the other hand one can remove the absurdity by annihilating man out from the picture. This is where the concept of Campus suicide (killing) as a means of getting out from the picture or going away from absurdity comes in.

Of course, the issue of abortion is not that the same with the issue of suicide. But in a sense, they are both issues concerning the act of annihilation (or getting rid of something) and both suicide and abortion is an annihilation of that source where absurdity may arise. One is in concern with the issue of killing oneself (suicide) as means of going away from the feeling of absurdity. This act is removing the subject (man) out of the picture and no one will have to be conscious of the absurd. The other is an act of annihilation of the cause of being conscious of absurdity which is the fetus inside a mother’s womb.

Others do not actually consider a fetus to be a human and some would not consider the act of abortion as a murder, but in either way the act of abortion is a means of going away from the feeling of absurdity. If there is no baby, if there is no fetus, there will be nothing to think and to be bothered with. So, in the first way of confronting the absurdity, it is either a question or answer of, “if you find having a child is meaningful then continue giving birth, and if you don’t find it meaningful then do abortion. ” This is also how Campus asserts suicide in the first part of his book Myth of Sisyphus. If you find life as meaningful then continue living; and if you do not, then commit suicide. ” Both abortion and suicide are confessions they are confessions that asserts it is too much to bear (suicide- it is too much burden to live, abortion- it is too much burden to have a baby). What is good about having the feeling of absurdity is that one is suddenly awaken to a deep assumption and illusion that everything is familiar and clear. The feeling of absurdity enables man to live away from exceptions. From living in a very routinely and mechanical way of living, absurdity opens a new possible way of worldly perspective.

And it helps man to live and recognize that he his living in a very dull way of living, this is the same manner that problems and difficulties give man the lessons of life. These are the lessons that man can use in dealing with hardships, obstacles, rejections, and frustrations that the (man) from the picture. One of the things that man cannot deny is that he is existing, if he commits suicide, then that is removing one of the things that he is sure of (his existence), and worst is that it is the most important thing that he can be certain of.

In some way, the act of abortion is also a way of going away from absurdity. If one removes the source of absurdity into the picture and that is equivalent to denying that there is absurdity. One thing that man can be sure of after being conscious of the feeling of absurdity is that there is absurdity. And once again, man should not go away from something certain. One of the consequences of going away from the absurd is going back to the life of unconsciousness. Man can be absorbed once again in the rhythm of mechanical life.

One can go back to the assumptions, delusions, and illusions, of being familiar with the world. The second and the more authentic way of confronting the absurdity is what Campus calls “revolt. ” “Revolt before a world that does not hear, a universe that is indifferent to our demands. To live in the world of the absurd, and to salvage meaning from such a world, one must live with the belief that absurdity, in the sense of recognizing and accepting the fact that there are no metaphysically guaranteed directives for conduct, can by itself generate a positive ethic.

Only by this recognition and this acceptance of the world’s absurdity (the lack f order, the lack of guarantees) in contradiction to the anguished demand of our innate need of order and purpose, and only by the conscious espousal of human purpose and action can we transform nihilism from a passive despair into a way of revolting against and of transcending the world’s indifference to the human being. ” This is a more authentic confrontation against absurdity because it is a way of confrontation itself and not a negation or annihilation of something or someone out of the picture.

It is an act of embracing the reality that there is absurd. But it is embracing in a sense that it is a rebellion against absurdity. It is never a movement of returning or going back to the mechanical way of living. It assumes the things that produce absurdity. It is a constant and on guard confrontation to the feeling of absurdity. In the issue of abortion, it means a continuous process of accepting the reality where one is at a certain moment (of becoming a parent). It is a decision to continue having a baby even if it is the source of absurdity for a married couple, someone not yet married, or even for a single parent.

Before it was a question of “is there an assurance of a good future with having a baby at this moment,” but at this mint the question becomes, “can I continue bearing a child even if I do not have an assurance of the future? ” Because of the problems “the weak succumb to despair; the cowardly try to evade it; the religious receive it as due punishment for their sinfulness and pray that they may be forgiven and spared; the racketeers traffic in and plot to profit from it; and the engaged man’… Undertakes to heal its lesion. ” One must continue living his life because even in the midst of absurdity and difficulty, man can always be happy and man can always choose to be happy. Happiness and absurdity are two undivided things and this is what Campus is talking all about. “Consciously engaged, receives satisfaction, sufficiency (= absurd happiness). ” Before being aware of the feeling of absurdity, man is so futuristic and this act sometimes leads to forgetting his present situation.

He thinks too much for the assumes before having conscious of being parents that everything that they think of will come true. After the experience of the absurd, future parents realize that everything is absurd and that the future is always a mystery and no one actually knows what will happen. “The return to awareness, the escape from daily sleep [I. . , from illusion and unawareness of the absurd] represent the first steps of absurd freedom. ” By this a parent who confronts the absurdity with revolt and continues to have the baby, tends to be more free.