“The world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it.”
– Helen Keller
– Helen Keller
October 10, 2012 (Unmaskingchoice.ca)
- Viktor Frankl witnessed and experienced the far reaches of human
suffering. “Life in a concentration camp,” he wrote, “tore open the
human soul and exposed its depths.” Man’s Search for Meaning—his
reflective recounting of his imprisonment by the Nazis—has much to tell
us about life, suffering, and what it is to be human.
Frankl and his fellow prisoners had everything taken from them that
could be taken. They were forcibly removed from their homes and
separated from their families. Their possessions were confiscated. Even
their names were replaced with numbers. Others told them when and where
they could sleep, when they must arise, what work they must do, and even
how much (or how little) they could eat. And yet we find many heroes
among the victims of the concentration camps; for, as Frankl tells us,
“everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms—to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of
circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
I, and probably most people who read this, have never experience the
depth of suffering Frankl and his fellow prisoners experienced. Our
lives, nevertheless, are not without suffering in some form or another,
and so I want to examine how suffering affects opinions and choices in
our society. In particular, I often hear suffering given as a
justification for abortion, whether the suffering be that of the mother
or of the child. Does the suffering of either justify abortion?
Abortion to alleviate the suffering of women?
So many times I hear people condoning abortion out of a sense of
compassion for women. An unexpected pregnancy can be a terrifying thing.
Sudden responsibility for another human being, if she accepts this
responsibility, may reshape a woman’s life—both present and future.
Fear, uncertainty, and lack of support are just some of the factors that
may contribute to the suffering of a pregnant woman. For some there are
further difficulties to deal with—her child may have been conceived in
rape, or her health may be in danger. If a woman is considering
abortion, it seems reasonable to infer that she is suffering in some
way, and that she sees abortion as an acceptable means of alleviating
that suffering.
Viktor Frankl witnessed many men, who when confronted with difficult
circumstances sought only to alleviate their own suffering, with no
regard for the wellbeing of others. He tells of the Capos—men who
betrayed their fellow prisoners and took the side of the Nazis. They
made their own lives easier, but increased the suffering of others, even
condemning some to death by their actions. While we may sympathize with
the desperation that led people to behave in this way, these are
certainly not the people we remember as the heroes of the concentration
camps. We look up to those who chose the harder path—that of retaining
their dignity and moral conviction in spite of their suffering, those
who sacrificed in whatever ways they could for the benefit of others.
We admire people who do hard things when the right things are hard.
We admire people who suffer with dignity, and who suffer for the sake of
others. And yet, as Frankl points out, admiring this noble suffering in
others is no assurance that we will respond this way when faced with
our own sufferings. Most people can probably relate to this. Even in the
simple things, we may blame our circumstances for our irritability,
impatience, or our failure to help another. While suffering can be an
opportunity for courage, so often we use it as an excuse. Frankl, on the
other hand, maintains that to be worthy of suffering is to seek the
ways our unavoidable suffering can benefit others.
While removing (in the case of abortion, killing) another human being
whose presence is causing us difficulty is something we can do, and is a
decision which some may sympathize with because they see the difficulty
of our circumstances, this is not to say that it is something we ought
to do. Acting to alleviate our own suffering at the expense of the lives
of others is something many people have done throughout history, but on
a deeper level we know that this is not a choice we would commend or
even condone in other situations—why should we do so with abortion? Why
should our society say that because one human being is suffering, she
has the right to end the life of another? The answer is, we should not.
We should instead do our utmost to alleviate the suffering of women in
crisis, and to preserve the lives of their children.
When we talk about people having freedom to choose, we should always
consider what is being chosen, and should strive to challenge one
another to choose the highest good. For a woman in a crisis pregnancy,
this may mean choosing to see her child as someone to fight for, rather
than as something to be gotten rid of. Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a
why to live for can bear almost any how.” Living for her child will not
take away a woman’s suffering, but it can help to give that suffering
meaning.
Abortion to alleviate the suffering of children?
There are times, according to some defenders of abortion, when
abortion is what is in the best interest of the child. “The child is
going to have a terrible life. The child is going to suffer. The mother
is choosing what’s best for her child.” And what’s best for her child
(according to these people) is death.
If someone is going to suffer—perhaps to suffer greatly—are we doing
that person a service by ending his or her life? Is abortion justified
in cases where children are very ill, or will be born into difficult
life circumstances? Is sparing them this suffering an act of compassion?
What was the correct response for Viktor Frankl when confronted with
the challenge of speaking to fellow inmates who were in despair? He knew
with certainty that if these men remained convinced that their lives
had no meaning, if they remained without hope, they would die. Their
suffering would end. He could have told them this. He could have said
that they were all better off to give up on the miserable lives they
were forced to live and simply die. Instead, he challenged them. He
challenged them to consider not what they expected from life, but what
life expected from them. He challenged them to find a “why” worth living
for. He could do little to eliminate their suffering short of ending
their lives, but he did much to alleviate it, to help them see meaning
in their suffering.
Sparing others suffering when we can is, most certainly, an act of
compassion when our means are moral. Sparing someone suffering by ending
her life, however, is a misguided attempt at compassion. To deny
someone a chance to live will indeed prevent her from suffering, but it
will also prevent her from experiencing joy, from loving, and from
having the choice to overcome her suffering with dignity. You are the
only person with the choice to see meaning or despair in your suffering.
You are the only person to make that choice of how you will respond to
your circumstances. Why would we deny this choice to others?
We live in a culture that abhors suffering. Suffering is to be
avoided—almost at all costs. Life is seen as good and valuable when it
is pleasant, comfortable, and pleasurable. We may admire the noble way
in which others suffer, but most of us would rather avoid suffering
altogether for ourselves. No life, however, is devoid of suffering.
There are times when it is inescapable. What then does this mean for our
life? Every living human being will suffer in some way or another. Is
life then less valuable? On the contrary, Frankl reminds us, “We must
never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted
with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed…
When we are no longer able to change a situation… we are challenged to
change ourselves.”
Every human life will have suffering. Every human being will be faced
with choices as to how to respond to his own unique suffering. Some
will allow their suffering to chart their course, to dictate their
thoughts and actions. Others will be the masters of their suffering.
Some will hurt others because they themselves are hurting. Others will
face their suffering as a means of protecting others from harm.
What did Frankl discover in his time in the concentration camps? “The
truth—that love is the ultimate highest goal to which man can aspire.”
To love is to choose the highest good for the other. If we love someone
we certainly do not want to see that person suffer. We may do all we can
to alleviate the suffering. But when we cannot take the suffering away,
to love is to walk beside them and help them recognize their dignity,
to help them suffer with their head held high.
To love a woman in crisis is not to offer her death for her child in
order to take away her suffering, but to empower her to live for love,
and so to find a meaning for her suffering. To love a woman in crisis is
to walk with her so that she may not say “My circumstances forced me to
do what was wrong,” but rather, “I had the courage to do what was
right.”
To love one’s child is not to deny her life so that she may never
suffer, but to give her life so that she may experience it in its
fullness, and to teach her to suffer with dignity when suffering cannot
be avoided.
We live in a culture where people seek to make their lives easier by
ending the lives of others, but to love our culture is to constantly
call people to live for something higher, to recognize their own dignity
and the dignity of others. Humanity is capable of great cruelty,
selfishness, and evil. We see this now with abortion, as we see it
throughout history. Humanity, however, is capable of still greater love,
selflessness, courage, and good. We must decide how we will respond to
our own sufferings, and to the sufferings of others.
“We have come to see man as he really is. After all, man is that
being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also
that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s
Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”
—Viktor Frankl
