But her stern examiner had not yet completed her line of inquiry. “Suppose your parents were morons?” “Then,” said the little girl, and quite emphatically, “I’d be ‘pro-choice.’”
The teacher’s attempt to discredit her pupil’s basis for holding a pro-life position obviously backfired. By unintentionally implying that only morons are pro-choice, the child exploited her teacher’s logic to her own advantage. This exchange, which actually took place at a Toronto elementary school, is a parable for the unworkability of the “pro-choice” rhetoric. The child’s words are far wiser than she could possibly have suspected.
Having loving parents is not a bad basis for being “pro-life.” By contrast, having a manipulative teacher is not a good basis for being “pro-choice.” By listening to her parents, the young girl was responding to people who, in turn, formed their “pro-life” convictions by responding to a reality, namely, the human value of unborn human life. Her conforming colleagues, however, were not responding to a reality as much as reacting to a word. Who would not be in favor of choice?! Who would not be in favor of green? But a green face! Everyone loves a surprise, until it reveals itself to be terribly bad news.
The “teacher,” who apparently is willing to abandon pedagogy for demagoguery, does not inform her students what the particular choice of abortion actually entails. Had the teacher asked, “How many of you are in favor of removing all rights to life from unborn babies so that their own mothers are free to kill them?” one would suppose that no normal seven-year-old could possibly endorse such a thoroughly heartless position. The innocent mind of a child must be tricked into supporting the murder of babies. Being “pro-choice” can be maintained only by suppressing reality. Like reaching for candy, the children are attracted to the sweet sound of certain abstract words. As in advertising, what is sold is not the steak but the sizzle. The ideology of choice uses words to evoke dreams. “Choice” draws us into fantasy; life leads to reality.
Grade-school children should be fed fairy tales, not ideologies. The former are infinitely more realistic. A good fairy tale will always make sure to include some frightfully wicked individual (whose iniquities cannot be justified on the basis of choice alone). Reality is full of them, and the wise student will come to realize that dealing with reality demands a great deal of courage and various other virtues. But an ideology, such as the one pro-choicers proselytize, invites people to withdraw into a dreamworld where they imagine that everyone is free and no one is ever constrained. In such a frictionless world, how could one ever determine whether anyone is a moron? Could we determine that anyone is a moron apart from how he relates to an undebatable reality? Could not a real moron — if he were well-coached — always excuse his peculiar behavior simply by claiming that he is “pro-choice”? In a world of choice without measure, how could we find justification for calling even a moron a “moron”?
Dreams are popular because they are undemanding. But a good teacher does not want his students to fall asleep in class. Realities, on the other hand, are unpopular precisely because they are demanding. Yet the very purpose of education is to prepare students so that they can better meet the rigorous demands of reality. Life is challenging; “choice” is evasive.
Education should arouse us from a dreamlike trance in which we are mesmerized by agreeable, though unrealistic, thoughts. In this regard, returning to our opening anecdote, the roles are reversed. We may have more to learn, at least about “choice” and “life,” from a seven-year-old girl than from her salaried and certified teacher. Out of the mouths of babes!
Did the Shepherd of Hermas, in the second century, have any inkling into how prophetic he was when he uttered these words: “Be simple and guileless, and you will be as the children who know not the wickedness that ruins the life of men.”
Dr. DeMarco is a professor of philosophy at St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo, Ontario. He is the author of The Many Faces of Virtue and The Heart of Virtue
This article originally appeared in Lay Witness, a publication of Catholics United for the Faith, Inc., and is used by permission. Join Catholics United for the Faith and enjoy the many benefits of membership.
