The Cry of the Weakest

Tension hung in the air, suspended, awaiting the gavel signaling the beginning of the life and death struggle. It was a capital murder trial of a young black man, accused of murder. On jury duty for the second time in as many years, I sat near the outside edge of the jury pool, listening as lawyers maneuvered to select the most advantageous jurors for their purposes. My turn came. There was a moment of silence, then half-embarrassed whispers among the attorneys, then a carefully-worded objection to the judge even before any questions were directed toward me. “Mr. Parker, will your er blindness effect your ability to render a fair verdict in the trial before this court?” asked the judge. In my mind’s eye, the statue out front of the courthouse rolled her eyes behind her makeshift blindfold and shook her head slightly in ironic resignation. I stood, hoped I was facing the judge and, leaning on my white cane, addressed the court. “Your honor, as a United States citizen it is my duty, my privilege and my right to serve on the jury in a trial. However, the rights of the accused trump my rights. If there is any chance that my blindness would interfere in a fair hearing for the accused, then his rights supersede mine.” (I think retroactive memory may have colored the phrasing a bit,. It was most likely far less dramatic and formal than my memory presents it to me now.) The judge conferred with the two attorneys and dismissed me with thanks. In this real, but perhaps slightly dramatized retelling of the event, two rights are in conflict: my right to serve on a jury versus the rights of the accused to have a fair hearing. How does a society like ours, built on the rights of individuals, resolve such conflicts? In this example, there are two layers of rights: The first is in the severity of the consequences; the second the relative powerlessness of the two. For the purposes of this essay, I would like to dwell on the second. A young black man in custody for murder in a mostly-white courtroom. Probably in handcuffs and with armed guards in the room, with the accusation staring him in the face, the accused was the one with the least power. Any attempt to escape would be met with instant dire consequences; I was free to leave of my own accord. His rights trumped mine. This relationship of power between two incompatible rights, I will call the Powerless Axis. Election 2012 is a little over two months away. Debate, accusation, lies and innuendo are flying thicker than flies on a cow patty. Abortion has just hit center stage with Todd Aiken’s “legitimate rape” comment. Stripped of all the political hot air, the issue crystalizes into the rights of an unborn fetus versus the rights of a woman over her own body. Many would disagree vehemently with my basic assumption that life is a continuum from conception to death. But since none can agree on a definition of life and since one cell divides into two, two into four until more than a trillion cells make up a living adult human, so the logic, for me, is that any dividing line is an arbitrary one, subject to legal definition but not to a moral definition. Back to my premise: Leaving all other considerations such as rape, incest, mother’s health out of the equation, and judging one versus the other and applying the Powerless principle, it is clear the fetus is the weaker; the more powerless; without any means of self-preservation against an abortion procedure. Our Founding Fathers did not consider women, slaves and non-landowners equal to the landed gentry such as G Washington and T Jefferson. Yet they laid a foundation on which the rights of these groups could be and would later be built. Recognizing their humanity, their individual worth, their value made it possible to eventually make these groups more equal with rich white men than they were in the past. Slaves were freed; women got the vote, land-ownership and other tests of voting were struck down. I believe that one of the reasons these eventually won out is that of a recognition of the relative powerlessness of one group under the domination of another. We are faced with an incredibly complex and divisive issue in abortion. Compounding the problem is its politization: being hijacked by both right and left for their own political power and appeal to various blocks of voters. We need to step back, take a deep breath and begin to assess abortion with at least this axis in mind. We will probably never come to consensus, but perhaps we can begin to speak to one another without the nails-on-blackboard screech that passes for discussion today. Perhaps we can wrestle the issue away from the idiocy of the political process and begin to discuss it in human terms among ourselves. Perhaps, over time, we could even resolve the dilemma in a way that protects the rights of mother and babe with dignity and compassion. May it be so. 08.23.12