Abortion and the single woman as literary tropes in the works of Amos Oz — Page 5:
21 Another strategy of antiabortion rhetorics has been the paternalistic contention that women must be deprived of the option to choose because its exercise would result in severe psychological scarring, consequent miscarriages and infertility. In this regard, it may be helpful to recall the research results conducted by American doctors who concluded that safe abortion procedures carried no adverse effects on fertility, and that establishment of a uniform nexus between abortion and mental adversity was extremely tenuous (Faludi 30).
22 It is in A Perfect Peace that this imagery is exceedingly embodied in the character of Rimona, through which the entire narrative is presented as a cautionary tale. First, the reader is presented with the physical health effects of Rimona's only abortion: "The preceding summer, several months before Yonatan made up his mind to leave, a sad thing happened to his wife [...] Two years before, Rimona had lost a baby. Then, when she became pregnant again, she was delivered at the end of the summer of a stillborn girl. The doctors advised against her of trying again, at least for the time being (12).
23 Add to this the description of the stillborn delivery which threatened her life: "Two hours ago we decided to get Professor Schillinger himself out of bed [...] He drove all the way from the outskirts of Mount Carmel just in time to save, I mean literally save, your wife's life [...] all that matters is that your wife is alive. Professor Schillinger literally revived her" (71).
24 Moreover, it is strongly suggested that Rimona's eccentric behaviour, bordering on mental retardation (critic Gershon Shaked asserts is that she is partly insane (Gal 87)) was caused by the abortion and the subsequent miscarriage. She oscillates between reality and fantasy, acting as if the baby she lost during the second pregnancy, whom she has named Efrat, is still alive. For example, when she speaks of her day's work, she includes her imaginary daughter: "Efrat's crawling on all fours, the golden sand around her warm and clean. And the moonlight swaddles her with silver webs" (171). "I have put Efrat to sleep, too, and now I am all alone" (163). Elsewhere, she plans to soothe Efrat at night, and when the Military police who are investigating Yonatan's disappearance confirm his particulars with her, they are puzzled by her interjection that she and Yonatan have a daughter. At that point, Jonathan’s father intervenes to explain Rimona's mental frailty and the loss of the baby.
25 The terrible punishment meted out to Rimona for the abortion, and the paralysing ghost of the child she is haunted by, suggest both on a literal and allegorical level that the moral universe that dominates A Perfect Peace, and the other texts under discussion in this essay, is clearly driven by a patriarchal standpoint.