David McElroy

I don’t really want to write about abortion. I can’t tell you anything new about this complicated legal and moral issue. My observations here aren’t about the issue itself. They’re about the people who are reacting to it — in ways that are irrational and downright idiotic.

Let’s get one thing out of the way. I didn’t support the Roe v. Wade decision. I also don’t support the decision which overturns it. I assumed my position about this would be obvious, but I was mistaken. Several people asked me Friday what I thought, assuming that I would either love the new decision or hate it.

I don’t “support” coercive government. Period.

I don’t recognize the legitimacy of the system which rules over us. I obey governments only because they have guns and can put me into a cage if I disobey. I’m not going to pretend I have a choice about any of it.

I have no say about abortion. Or taxation. Or wars. Or fiat money. Or anything else which politicians have taken it upon themselves to control without my permission.

But this doesn’t stop me from being both amused and annoyed right now at people on the progressive left who have loudly cheered for intrusive government for years — right up until the moment they discover they want some freedom after all.

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Babies don’t come with instruction manuals. The creator doesn’t provide a book for parents which explains how to grow a baby to physical maturity and mental health.

A baby is more complex than any artificial machine humans have ever created. We’ve been studying the human “machine” for as long as we’ve existed. We’ve managed to muddle through for many thousands of generations of change and growth. But we still don’t really know how to consistently raise babies into emotionally healthy adults.

My father was about to turn 30 years old when I was born. I was his first child. He was incredibly proud to have a son of his own. The photo above is one that someone snapped of his reflection when he was watching me in the hospital nursery through the glass.

I know all the things that are ahead for him (and for me) after this photo was taken. I know how unhappy he became. I know how badly our family fell apart. I know how miserable I became — and how confused I was by almost everything in my childhood.

On this day, though, he was full of love for his baby boy. He had the best of intentions. He wanted to be a great father. But with a job this difficult, good intentions aren’t aways enough.

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When shame comes over me, I often don’t recognize it. Not at first, anyway.

I often find myself feeling angry and hurt over some small thing. Someone might have insulted me. Someone might have simply disagreed with me. A person might have been rude or belittled me in some way. Maybe some tiny way.

And something in me feels ready to explode. I’m furious. I’m hurt. I feel the need to strike out and hurt whoever is hurting me. I just want the hurting and humiliation to go away. And that’s about the time — if I’m lucky — that I’ll realize I’m dealing with shame.

Someone has pushed one of my buttons. Maybe it was an intentional slight. Maybe not. Either way, I feel shame. Before long, the shame has morphed into a passive form of self-directed aggression. I’m not good enough. I’ll never be loved or understood.

Then my harsh and brutal superego — the imagined channeling of my childhood father’s voice — tells me to stop whining. To stop feeling anything.

“Just get over it,” the voice screams.

And then I hate myself for having needs. I hate myself for hurting. I hate myself for feeling anything. As I simmer in this toxic stew of shame and hurt, I realize I’m not as close as I’d thought to the emotional health which I’ve been seeking for decades.

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