Fraudulent Fertilisation

Car­los Stel­li’s prac­tice was com­fort­able and warm; the wait­ing room with its large win­dow look­ing onto the gar­den and its small fire­place was an in­vi­ta­tion to stay. Mabel was sit­ting with her head down, pre­oc­cu­pied and tor­tured. Her re­cent abor­tion had left her moral­ly wast­ed, she felt like the most wretched woman in the world, in­con­solable. She con­stant­ly thought about the baby who, ac­cord­ing to her, she had mur­dered, plain and sim­ple. It tor­ment­ed her to re­mem­ber what she had done, to imag­ine what her child would have been like. The voice of Fa­ther Tomás pur­sued her con­stant­ly, ac­cus­ing her of hav­ing elim­i­nat­ed her baby. To stop suf­fer­ing, she thought about sui­cide more and more; this idea had be­come an ob­ses­sion. Ali­cia was next to her, keep­ing watch over her an­guish, Rober­to too. In the last few days, Mabel had found a great deal of un­der­stand­ing in him, so she want­ed him to be pre­sent at that mo­ment. Burán had rec­om­mend­ed con­sult­ing Stel­li, a vast­ly ex­pe­ri­enced gy­nae­col­o­gist who was a close friend of his. Ac­cord­ing to his cri­te­ria, this doc­tor was an in­ter­est­ing guy, full of hu­man­i­ty. Doing abor­tions had worn him down psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, he had given it up a few months ear­li­er. He was pre­pared to help Mabel get over the acute de­pres­sion she was suf­fer­ing from. He would speak to her di­rect­ly and frankly.

A man in his six­ties, of medi­um build and with very white hair, ap­peared in the door. His blue eyes, sharp and pen­e­trat­ing, stood out in his wrin­kled, manly face, with a wide smile, show­ing his per­fect teeth. He wore an im­pec­ca­ble white apron.

“Come in, please,” he said with a deep and af­fec­tion­ate voice, “How are you, Rober­to, how’s it going? A plea­sure, you must be Ali­cia, no? And you’re Mabel... I’m Car­los Stel­li, let’s not stand on cer­e­mo­ny, please, don’t worry about me being old. I know how you’re suf­fer­ing, I’ve seen lots of cases like yours. Please tell me about it, would you like us to be left alone?”

Mabel felt com­fort­able with Stel­li, he didn’t judge her, he seemed to un­der­stand her, to take pity on her for her pain. She an­swered him...

“No, doc­tor, Ali­cia stuck her neck out for me and Rober­to gave me a lot of sup­port. I’d like them to stay, they know every­thing, we’ve al­ready spo­ken about the mat­ter. I don’t mind them being pre­sent, on the con­trary. I want them to lis­ten and give their opin­ion...”

“All right, dear,” agreed Stel­li, “Tell me what is the spe­cif­ic prob­lem, what most af­fects you. I’ll try and help you.”

“I feel filthy,” the girl man­aged to say, “I can’t get it out of my head that I killed my child. I was self­ish, I didn’t want to wait and give him away for adop­tion. If I had done that, I would have saved his life.”

“But, Mabel,” an­swered Stel­li, “would you have been able to give away your child, after see­ing it be born? After hav­ing held it in your arms?”

“No, I don’t think so, doc­tor,” said Mabel, hes­i­tat­ing a few sec­onds.

“So then, you shouldn’t tor­ture your­self so much for some­thing that was im­pos­si­ble.”

“It wasn’t, doc­tor, it wasn’t. I could have done it.”

“But, Mabel, you’re look­ing at it from a the­o­ret­i­cal angle; the re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion didn’t allow it. You should be more tol­er­ant with your­self. Don’t judge your­self so harsh­ly.”

“All right, doc­tor, I’m grate­ful for every­thing you’re telling me. I know you’re try­ing to al­le­vi­ate my guilt com­plex, I’m full of re­morse, be­lieve me, I can’t take any more. Fa­ther Tomás warned me, he said that I’d re­gret it until I died, and he was right. It’s as if I’m bro­ken, doc­tor, I can’t go on liv­ing like this, I can’t bear it any longer.”

“Now then, tell me, you think you’re a mur­der­er, right?”

“Yes, doc­tor, I am re­al­ly.”

“I told you not to stand on cer­e­mo­ny, call me Car­los, oth­er­wise you make me feel more de­crepit than I am, un­der­stand? Don’t let it hap­pen again, I’ll lose my tem­per, eh?” the doc­tor said, smil­ing and wink­ing at the teenag­er.

Mabel agreed with a whim­per.

“Look, girl,” con­tin­ued Car­los Stel­li, “let me ask you a ques­tion, have you got any friends or rel­a­tives that have had an abor­tion?”

“Yes,” an­swered Mabel.

Ali­cia hur­ried­ly ac­knowl­edged.

“Doc­tor, I had an abor­tion when I was 19, now I’d have a lit­tle five year-old...”

“Thanks for telling me,” said Car­los. And he con­tin­ued, “Mabel, if that’s the case, do you think your sis­ter is a mur­der­er be­cause she did the same as you? Do you think a friend that did the same would be one?”

“No! No way! I’ve got no right to judge any­one, least of all my sis­ter. She’s a very good per­son...”

“Ex­plain then, why, if the cir­cum­stances are the same, you’ve com­mit­ted mur­der, but she hasn’t?”

“I don’t know, doc­tor, you’re con­fus­ing me.. I’ve got no idea what Ali­cia felt, but I know what I’m feel­ing. I’ve thought about the mat­ter a lot, but it’s un­de­ni­able that I’ve killed my baby, it’s un­for­giv­able...”

“But tell me, Mabel, if you could go back, would you have an abor­tion again, or not?”

The young girl fell silent, a slight trem­ble made her shud­der. She had never con­scious­ly asked her­self that ques­tion. Ashamed, she had to admit, “Sin­cere­ly, even though I can’t un­der­stand it my­self, I think I would, doc­tor. I know it’s an ab­surd con­tra­dic­tion, but I must be hon­est, I think I’d do it again.”

“Girl, I’ve al­ready told you not to stand on cer­e­mo­ny, I’m ask­ing you nice­ly.”

“All right, doc... Sorry, Car­los.”

“You your­self ac­knowl­edge that your an­swer is con­tra­dic­to­ry, why don’t you analyse it more close­ly? That means you’re not re­pen­tant, if you were, you wouldn’t be able to ever have an­oth­er abor­tion.”

“It’s true, I don’t know, per­haps I shouldn’t call it re­pen­tance but sim­ply feel­ing guilty, aware­ness of hav­ing sinned.”

“Ah! Is it a re­li­gious prob­lem for you? Are you a be­liev­er?”

“More or less, doc­tor... I mean... Car­los. Sorry, I for­got to call you by your name... As for the ques­tion, the truth is that I don’t go to church very often, but I be­lieve in some su­pe­ri­or being, at least I sup­pose I do; I’d like it to be the case.”

“Well, dear, let’s see... You ac­cuse your­self for an act that you jus­ti­fy in an­oth­er; you tor­ture your­self for vi­o­lat­ing pre­cepts you don’t be­lieve in, or at least which you doubt. Don’t you think there’s some­thing here that doesn’t add up?”

“I don’t know what to say, Car­los, be­lieve me, I’m not pre­tend­ing.”

“I don’t doubt it; I know you’re not act­ing, but I don’t think you’re analysing your cir­cum­stances ob­jec­tive­ly. Tell me, what do you think sin­gle women nor­mal­ly do when they get preg­nant?”

“I don’t know, per­haps lots of them have abor­tions, I don’t know what pro­por­tion; lots of oth­ers will take the de­ci­sion to have a fam­i­ly, I’m not sure.”

“Well, I can as­sure you that the ma­jor­i­ty ter­mi­nate their preg­nan­cy. Do you un­der­stand that it’s like that?”

“Yes, I went through it, I know how painful it is.”

“Mabel, I’ve had many years of ex­pe­ri­ence, let me speak to you in a way few peo­ple will speak to you. We live in a world full of hypocrisy; this prac­tice has been vis­it­ed by judges, politi­cians, very pow­er­ful peo­ple and also very hum­ble peo­ple. I’ve re­ceived moth­ers who were hor­ri­fied by the thought of being grand­moth­ers and oth­ers who were only wor­ried about what the neigh­bours would say. Re­cal­ci­trant Catholics have begged me to free their daugh­ters from their sin­ful bur­den. Rigid moral­ists sud­den­ly for­got their prin­ci­ples here... Don’t judge your­self so harsh­ly, the world is not like a re­pres­sive priest tells you it is. True char­i­ty be­gins with com­ing down to earth. Sen­tences can’t be de­creed from heav­en.”

“But Car­los, we’re talk­ing about a life!”

“Yes, a po­ten­tial life, a tran­scen­dent ex­pec­ta­tion that de­serves pro­tec­tion. I don’t deny it, but it’s not the same as a crea­ture that breathes for it­self, that cries in your arms. Don’t sup­pose that I’m say­ing abor­tion is good. Look, I know it’s heartrend­ing, ter­ri­ble, but a two day-old em­bryo is not the same as an eight month-old foe­tus. If we say this is not true, pre­vent­ing con­cep­tion with the coil should be pro­hib­it­ed, be­cause it’s sup­posed to be abortive. Do you think it’s bad to use it?”

“No, not at all,” an­swered the girl, as­sim­i­lat­ing the doc­tor’s every word. “On the con­trary, I think its use should be pro­mot­ed. It would avoid hor­ri­ble sit­u­a­tions like the one I’ve been put through.”

“Right, there­fore the ar­gu­ment of life is rel­a­tive in prac­tice. In the­o­ry, we can agree, it’s al­ways life that is an­ni­hi­lat­ed. But real life shows that we must dif­fer­en­ti­ate ac­cord­ing to the de­vel­op­ment of the foe­tus. A priest would raise ob­jec­tions with re­li­gious ar­gu­ments, he would preach that life comes from God and only He can take it away. He would claim to be the bear­er of the Only Truth, be­cause Our Fa­ther has placed his trust in him. He would equate morals with re­li­gion, which is a very se­ri­ous mis­take, be­cause they are to­tal­ly in­de­pen­dent con­cepts. There can be athe­ists, in fact there were, who were ex­am­ples of moral­i­ty. Bertrand Rus­sell is the best ex­am­ple I can re­mem­ber... This shows us that the typ­i­cal prin­ci­ples of Catholi­cism, for ex­am­ple, do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have to co­in­cide with our own. On the other hand, the no­tion of life is cur­rent­ly spread out of all pro­por­tion. Each of our cells has life.”

“I don’t un­der­stand that,” replied Mabel.

“It’s quite sim­ple, al­though it doesn’t sound it. It has been shown that, through cloning sys­tems, a new being can be man­u­fac­tured using, for ex­am­ple, a piece of skin. This means that the act of giv­ing blood al­lows the ges­ta­tion of in­nu­mer­able sub­jects like the donor. A French Nobel prize-win­ner al­ways said that his most ter­ri­fy­ing ob­ses­sion was find­ing him­self face to face with five Ein­steins on the New York sub­way. This is per­fect­ly pos­si­ble. Now then, if each cell con­tains an en­tire ge­net­ic code, if it has the abil­i­ty to du­pli­cate a human being, doesn’t that mean that it has life? Can this be de­nied?. How­ev­er, no­body wor­ries about giv­ing blood, or wast­ing sperm. The church does not ap­prove of mas­tur­ba­tion, but it doesn’t con­sid­er it a se­ri­ous crime like abor­tion.”