Hahah I can’t say I recommend it, honestly. But I do think you’re right in that people are flawed and can be terribly weak. But at the same time, feeble as we are, there are endless permutations of things that befall us that are out of our control (like losing a job, suddenly inheriting mountains of debt, a partner suddenly dying or abusing you, becoming extremely disabled, among many many other examples) that I would argue very much affect how much grace we can and should give people.

But I think that’s also part of a broader societal conversation about how we want to be. It’s not so simple, but some people believe in a very ruggedly individualistic paradigm, others believe in something very communal and primarily forgiving. The reality, amidst all these different opinions about how to be and how to navigate the human condition, will be an invariably muddled admixture of all these many ways of being.

But bringing it back to the issue of abortion specifically, I think where I struggle with that is the notion (for lack of better words) of gestation as a punishment. This is tricky, but even if a baby can be put up for adoption right after it’s born, I think from a medical and psychological perspective that optimizes human health and wellbeing, babies would ideally be wanted and cared for— even in utero. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to that utopian ideal, even with children that were technically wanted and cared for in utero. It’s tricky!