The problem, of course, is that I have no man. And I know that finding a man to marry and have children with is pretty nearly an impossible goal these days in Germany. But that is not what Dr. Becker was referring to.
“Don’t do it,” said Jennifer, for the umpteenth time. She is an American, a pediatrician who trained at Mainz. Like me, she is youngish and single. Unlike me, she is religious. “You do not need to live like these people. It is a dead end street. There is a better way to live. There is hope.”
“Probably half the German women in our maternity ward are pregnant by artificial insemination,” I replied, trying to sound rational as we walked through town, hunched against the early spring wind. “Most of them are over 35 and not married. Why should I wait that long?”
I could talk to Jennifer that way because we are friends. I say this with all due respect to every European who thinks that Americans are incorrigibly shallow, and incapable of true friendship. When Andreas moved out of the apartment, I was virtually immobile with grief for days. Jennifer patiently stayed by me, sleeping on my couch and cooking me simple meals, talking to me endlessly about her God, and how He would help me if I would just ask.
While I appreciated the sentiment, it fell on deaf ears. Perhaps it is because I do not come from a religious family. My mother’s idea of religion lies somewhere between Celtic earth goddesses and the Tarot. My siblings and I acquired good German skepticism about these things in our education; in this, we are like most Europeans. To be perfectly honest, talk of religion makes me uncomfortable. And my Christmas experience, coming so soon after Andreas’s desertion, had made Dr. Becker’s brisk suggestion that I simply go to the sperm bank very attractive.
“Not a good idea. Look at these women,” Jennifer responded with emotion. “I see them in my practice, all grim and stressed out. Man-less, or between lovers. Their kids alternately cling to them or berate them, depending on whether their current man is in the picture or not. I am telling you, this is not a good idea. This whole way of life – the contraception, the abortions, the artificial inseminations…it is all playing God. Women deserve better than that. You deserve better than that.”
The tears suddenly sprung to my eyes, unbidden. I swallowed, hard. I really don’t understand why, but suddenly all I could think of was the abortions. Not even the panicked young girls coming into our clinic, sometimes accompanied by their grim-faced mothers. (Almost never by their boyfriends, of course.) No, what I was thinking of was the selective abortions, when too many babies are conceived by artificial insemination. And one – or more – must be aborted.
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