Notre Dame

Incredible Danger: You dropped the Prolife bomb a while back, and you had to know it was something I couldn’t let go of quietly- especially in light of the flare up over the President speaking at Notre Dame. What do you think of all of this?

Superman: If you’ll recall, my statement was a little more nuanced than that; I’m personally against abortion, but have difficulty with the concept of telling someone what to do with their bodies.

ID: Too nuanced. What if a young woman who you cared about, say Kara, became pregnant? Now, you know she's still too young, emotionally and physically, to safely have and then raise that baby. How do you council her?

S: I don't know if Kara's actually having sex yet, um, and I don't want to know, actually. I've had that talk with her, with Lana, so I know she's at least heard the public service announcement version. It's kind of a difficult thing to know what to say on the fly.

ID: You can type as fast as I think- nothing's on the fly with you- but if you want to take a time out to think about it.

S: No. I'd really hoped to avoid politics as much as possible, but this is America, and a very specific time in the country; I guess avoiding politics right now just isn't possible. But before we get into that, I want to talk about the phenomenon itself.

I think the entire issue at Notre Dame hinges on polarization. I think too often in this country we abandon the common, middle ground, and retreat to our familiar fortress on the edges of issues. I think if you paid attention to the response from some people on the abolition side of the argument, you saw a lot of venom, and even hatred.

And here's where I get to say I'm proud of our President, because he addressed the issue and all its nuance in a real way, said that while the argument will eventually go one way or the other, it's important we continue to discuss it publicly in a rational, respectful way. But perhaps, more importantly, he didn't let the controversy consume his speech, and didn't forget that he was there because nearly 3 thousand students were graduating. I think he gave the debate its due, but then moved on, to show that it's less important than a lot of other things in life, that it has its place, but it shouldn't become an obsession.

ID: And what about Kara?

S: Like a dog with its favorite toy, you never let go, do you?

ID: My favorite toy is controversy.

S: I think you have a point, though. It's easy to oppose something in principal, especially when the collateral damage is so high, but when you try to put it in real-world terms, and examine the human costs on both sides, a kind of amorphous issue firms up a bit.

Now, I'll simply accept your premise, that Kara gets pregnant with a child she doesn't want, and that she isn't prepared to raise it- since I think coming to those conclusions myself would take more time and thought, and wouldn't really be appropriate to air like this. But I think I'd try to be honest with her, try to give her all the information, let her know everything she should know, about the potential physical consequences (though some of these are mitigated by her Kryptonian physiology), but most importantly about the psychological consequences. Since she isn't prepared to raise a child, in all likelihood this decision is also a bit beyond her, but I'd try and be as open and accepting and helpful to her as a resource and as a friend and a relative, as I could be. But I think what I'd try to stress the most is that it's her decision.

And I want to clarify, because I think it would be irresponsible from that to determine that I was against abolition. I find abortion to be abhorrent. The procedure itself, the concept.

But people who are “pro-life” aren't even having the same conversation as the people who are “pro-choice.” No reasonable person on this planet is pro-death, so the implication of calling someone pro-life is that anyone who's against them is against life. Likewise, no reasonable person wants the government to have the last say over their body; Green Arrow is the biggest lefty I know, and even he balks at the idea of too much government control. What I'm saying is nobody is anti-choice, either.

So when I say abortion is disgusting, and horrible, and may even be murder, I'm not in disagreement with 90% of the people out there- I'm not. But abortion is only half the issue. The other half revolves around the government's ability to dictate terms about our bodies, and back-alley abortionists, and all the corollary effects of abolition.

The real issue is whether or not a woman's right to determine the destiny of her own body trumps the right to life of a potential human. And that is most definitely a real question, and one I know I don't know the answer to. People lean back on pro-life and pro-choice because no one is comfortable standing up and saying they really know the answer to that conundrum, so they focus on the definitively darker sides of the issue, rather than discuss the merits themselves.

I think Obama framed the conversation rather well, and, like it or not, it is a conversation right now, that we as Americans are having and need to continue having. And I hope, for the soul of America, that it's one we can conclude peaceably.

We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.