Abortion In Homer's The Cider House Rules

The Cider House Rules is a story about a young man named Homer, who leaves his long time orphanage home, where he worked as a doctor under the tutelage of Dr. Larch, to explore the outside world. Homer is taken in by a man named Wally, his family, and his fiancé, Candy, at their apple farm. During his stay at the farm, he lives in the cider house with the other apple pickers, where he becomes acquainted with Mr. Rose and Rose Rose. After returning from a winter of working down south, Rose Rose comes back pregnant, Homer finds out that Rose’s dad is also the father of her baby, and one night in the middle of the night Rose stabs her father, killing him, and escapes. Around the same time, Homer discovers that Dr. Larch has died, so he finds Rose

and takes her up there with him to preform her abortion and become the permanent head doctor at the house.
During Homers early years of working at the orphanage as a doctor with Dr. Larch, it is clear that the two had developed entirely different views on the issue of abortions. Dr. Larch has a more medical approach to the situation, he believes that abortions are justified and if that is what the mother wants, there is no reason for him not to do it and help her out. Homer, on the other hand, thinks that abortions are wrong and coming from an orphan background, he sees nothing wrong with putting children up for adoption and why the parents would not rather chose adoption, and the possibility of a happy life for their children over abortions. Homers view point can be seen when he sates, “One, it’s against the law; and two, I didn’t ask you to, you just showed me.” Homer is uncomfortable breaking the law to preform abortions, and he never wanted to learn how to do it in the first place, so he never had much of an option to do anything otherwise. Similarly, when Homer exclaims, “Think of it this way, Buster and I could have ended up in the incinerator,” he is saying that he and the other orphaned kids could have all easily been aborted instead of being adopted, but because they were not, they have been able to grow up and live a healthy, seemingly happy life.
Overtime however, Homers view on abortions begins to slightly shift.

Homer begins to see why people might have abortions and why, in some cases they might be justifiable and worth while. Homer’s viewpoint changes when he encounters Rose’s situation, where he sees the unfortunate events take place right before him and he starts to really understand why a person might want to have an abortion in situations like Rose’s. Homer preforms the abortion for Rose because he knows her well, he knows her reasoning behind wanting to have the abortion and he knows that she will most likely have a hard time continuing to a have a happy life if he does not preform her

abortion.
I believe that Homer will do more abortions after Rose’s but he wont just do them for anyone at anytime like Dr. Larch. I believe that if a woman came in to the orphanage asking for an abortion, Homer would sit her down and talk to the woman, ensuring that she was making the right decision and had explored all her options before finally deciding on an abortion. I think he will do this to make sure every woman is choosing the best option for herself, and to make sure that she has not chosen abortion selfishly, she has not picked having an abortion just because she does not wish to have a baby at that time.
My personal view on abortion is similar to that of Homer’s.

I believe that in certain circumstances, such as Rose’s, abortions are a completely viable option and a woman should have control over whether she should have a child or not. I do not think that any person should have an abortion for just any reason, but at the same time, I feel that it is no one’s place, but the mother herself, what she does with her body and that it is entirely her decision if she gets an abortion or not. I also believe that if women are denied abortions, then most likely the babies are coming into this world unwanted, and that is never a good start to living a happy life, so in some cases, it might be in the babies best interest to have an

abortion.