CULTURE

‘My Body, My Choice’ Debate Highlights Absurdity of Pre-Packaged Political Dogma

Comedian Chris Rock reclaims common sense on abortion from the black hole of ideology

Chris Rock’s audience sat in stunned silence. The comedian had thrown them a curve ball. And it was obvious he was enjoying their discomfort.

I was watching Selective Outrage, Rock’s aptly named comedy special on Netflix while I folded clothes. I was already a fan of his comedy. Now I am an admirer of his character.

He fires up the audience with jokes about how abortion is not just a woman’s issue because he’s paid for so many abortions.

“When I go to the clinic, I say ‘Give me the usual,’” he says with his signature deep-throated inflection. “When I go in, they give me a punch card. Two more and I get a free smoothie.”

Rock paces across the stage in his crisp white fit to the cheers and applause of his audience. “I am absolutely pro-choice.” It’s clear he is enjoying his inside joke he’s about to drop on the lively crowd.

“I believe women should have the right to kill babies.” Rock’s bright smile lights up his face from ear to ear. He basks in the silence. “I’m on your side. I believe you should have the right to kill as many babies as you want.”

A few scattered claps punctuate the room.

“Let’s not get it twisted. It is killing a baby. Because whenever I pay for an abortion, I request a dead baby. Sometimes, I call up a doctor like a hit man. “Is it done?” People argue: first trimester, second trimester, I think women should have the right to kill a baby until he’s 4 years old. Ladies, if you have to pay for your own abortion, you should get an abortion.”

Laughter trickles in by the end of the bit. Killing a four-year-old is obviously ridiculous. And those people paid good money to laugh at Rock’s commentary on the stupidity of everyone else except them. No one gets dolled up for a comedy show just to get pummeled with an existential crisis like they were working opposite Dirk Diggler in “Boogie Nights Meets Deep Thought.”

So most of the applause at the close of the bit came off like a long sigh of relief that it was over. But his words stuck with me. I was in awe of his lack of fear, at his eagerness to surprise the audience with a mirror reflecting what their beliefs look like under even the most superficial scrutiny.

Rock demonstrated how vital fearless comedy is to the health of a culture. In any other forum, someone saying the same thing on stage to a room full of liberals wouldn’t end in applause. But he highlighted the simple truth with such genius, he left his audience speechless.

I Know You Are But What Am I?

Our culture is notoriously sensitive. Any hint that we may be wrong in any way is met with a version of the classic burn “I know you are but what am I?”

But what if I’m more interested in clarity than being right?

The ability to peel away the layers of ideology cloaking an issue requires a certain detachment, as Rock proved.

I try to maintain a professional relationship between me and my opinions, allowing me to adjust them as I grow. My opinions, like my job, are not my identity. And just like I don’t get offended when someone has a different career than I do, this detached approach insulates me from being provoked when anybody expresses an opinion contrary to my own.

For many years of my childhood, my mom brought me and my sister to pro-life rallies. It wasn’t uncommon for us to stand in front of an abortion clinic and watch our mom beg for the lives of the babies growing inside the women walking past us to “terminate the pregnancy.”

Language is very important on both sides, as it is for any contentious issue. So “terminate the pregnancy” was always said with bitterness in our circle. It was murder, as far as they were concerned.

And as a kid, I couldn’t help but agree. I’d seen the pictures of fully formed infants who could have been sleeping except for the purple burns from the saline injections their mothers had used to end the pregnancy.

When you’re a kid, it’s natural to see the world in black and white. There’s Batman and the Joker. He-man and Skelator. Lorena Bobbitt and her husband’s penis.

For most of my childhood, I was She-Ra (He-Man’s beautiful cousin). As a young adult, I definitely saw myself as a Lorena Bobbitt. Heroes.

But with the little bit of maturity I’ve struggled to nurture, I’ve had to accept that John Wayne Bobbitt and his Frankenstein penis are just as much a part of me as that unicorn-riding bombshell She-Ra. The world, of which I am a reflection, is not black and white, it’s full of color.

Accepting this reality makes it impossible for me to feel anything but compassion for others even when I disagree or am hurt by their actions. My dark side, my shadow, as Carl Jung calls it, is just as dark as any other person’s. Hating someone’s dark side can only result in a self-loathing made unbearable by my refusal to acknowledge its existence in myself.

Most of us recognize when we are doing something we know is wrong because we instinctively hide it. But what about the things we all do in full view of the public? Like joining rallies either for or against abortion.

Every single person on either side believes they are doing the right thing. How can we fault anybody for standing up for what they believe is right? Not identifying with my beliefs positions me above those beliefs, allowing me to empathize with all sides. It also allows me to distance my emotions when analyzing the issue.

Occam’s Razor Cuts Through Pre-Packaged Dogma

I’m a firm believer in Occam’s Razor, the idea that a simple explanation is usually the correct option. I’ve watched the videos, I’ve seen pictures, at a certain point in its development, a fetus is a human baby. Denying this is almost impossible. We don’t need scientists or their studies, we have eyes.

But, there is no denying that the fetus is a part of a woman’s body. This gives the relationship between a woman and her unborn child a unique designation. As long as she is pregnant, her body includes her pregnancy. And liberation over our own bodies is the absolute first requirement of freedom as granted to us by a government.

Conservatives already believe this. They argue against government mandates for vaccines. And they are right. No government should be able to force its citizens to inject anything into their bodies.

In the same vein, bodily autonomy requires that we be free to use any substance we desire. We already have laws protecting citizens from crime we might associate with the use of drugs. The right to our own consciousness may be even more fundamental than bodily autonomy.

Yet many conservatives seek to use the government to police our consciousness by making arbitrary decisions about which substances we are allowed to put in our bodies. And liberals shout from the other side that it’s their body, their choice, while pressuring the government to impose mandatory injections.

Political parties serve as the big-box retailers of ideology, and do just as much damage. When we have our opinions pre-packaged and delivered to our door, the hard work of thinking is done for us. We don’t have to worry if it makes sense as long as half the country agrees.

I have friends all over the spectrum. We’re talking flat-Earthers vs liberals who are so pure even their dreams are woke. They are all good people. And I wish they could see that.

Labels are responsible for whipping up a lot of unnecessary turbulence. The pushing and shoving have created an atmosphere where you have to choose between ignoring what your own eyes tell you about a fetus being a baby, or supporting government-imposed forced pregnancy while overlooking your desire for freedom from Big Brother.

Do We Deep-Down Kinda Like Hating Each Other?

Politics is buried in contradictions. If I didn’t know how honest everyone in politics really is, I might suspect the inconsistencies are deliberate. When we don’t make sense, even to ourselves, we have to anti up on the belligerent attacks and hyper focus on the wickedness of our enemies.

This dystopian-esque school-yard conflict is a small price to pay for increasing the wealth and power of those benefitting from our distracted anger. Deep-down, we kinda know this. But maybe even deeper down, we really enjoy hating each other.

It could be the ego boost we get from knowing how much righter we are than all those idiots. Or perhaps we just don’t know how to live without having enemies. Whatever it is, it’s created and sustaining a world where disaster always seems to be looming on the horizon. And it’s always their fault.

The threat of disaster keeps us in a reactive state. It allows us to be angry at the wealthy and powerful while continuing to enable their modus operandi with our misdirected outrage.

I couldn’t care less about the rich getting richer. Let them saturate their lives with all the inner desolation they can stand. What someone else has doesn’t effect me. But I am interested in being part of a world where the rest of us are infected with a radical compassion that breaks free of labels.

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” Charles Bukowski

There are three types of people in America — the rich, those who are envious of rich people, and happy people. When more of us grow out of our resentment of those who have more than us while at the same time lining their pockets with our misdirected focus on arbitrary labels, happiness will grow at the same rate. With no one left to blame, happy people start taking responsibility for everything.

“I Am Responsible For Everything”

Indian mystic Sadhguru’s simple statement that I am responsible for everything defined a feeling I had never been able to articulate.

I’ve been involved in animal rescue my entire life. I still can’t walk by a struggling bug drowning in a pool. I got it from my mom. We pretend we’re joking when we say it’s a family disorder.

When an animal my mom has rescued needs to be fed, or given medication, I do it. That annoying little itch of resentment that the dog is her responsibility never irritates me. The dog needs help and I can do it, so it is my responsibility. It doesn’t have anything to do with blame. It’s not my fault the animal was abandoned or abused.

But I would never have reached this conclusion by force. I know nurturing a community that embraces responsibility for itself is possible because I see the attitude expand every day.

I can’t count the number of people who started helping animals from simply being exposed to my rescues. I could never force people to help animals because they would grow resentful, and the kind of society required for animals to no longer need rescue (at least from abuse at our hands) would never materialize.

I am responsible for everything. No one can make me believe this. I need my own voluntary actions to drive me to this conviction.

Coming to this conclusion is where we will find true freedom. It seems counterintuitive at first. But when I am responsible for everything, only I have the power to change things.

If I want a better world, I don’t need to depend on anyone else. I don’t need to resent others who don’t share my opinions. I don’t need to wait for everyone to get on board, or for my side to win this round of tug-of-war.

And if I can do it with a big ass grin on my face while my shocked audience silently fumes at being called out, so much the better. Chris Rock wasn’t waiting for someone else to say what needed to be said. He decided it was his responsibility and he wasn’t afraid of what anyone would think or say.

That model of freedom might be the only thing that saves us from ourselves.