Posted on 11/08/2004 7:35:13 AM PST by dead
NOBODY would disagree that 1967 and 1973 were important milestones in the history of western civilisation, although we might differ on what sort of milestones they were. 1967 saw abortion legalised in Britain and 1973 saw abortion legalised in the United States. The order of legalisation, Britain first, US second, always seems curious to the generation brought up on Friends, Sex and the City, Will and Grace or Frasier. All of the characters in these shows, with their sentimental values and almost pathologically non-judgmental liberalism, would, I guess, have voted last Tuesday for that most uncomfortable of creatures, Senator John Kerry, a Catholic who upholds what is always called "a woman’s right to choose". It has therefore come as both a shock and a shocker that American women have turned out to be more Maude Flanders (lately of The Simpsons) than Carrie Bradshaw and, instead of Kerry, chose a president who is not frightened to reveal that abortion is, to him, abhorrent and he will do everything he can to curtail it.
Cue to predictable horror, on both sides of the Atlantic, among those feminists for whom abortion has become kind of benchmark for women’s freedom. Such people refer to the next four years as "dark days" and find, in what both Pope and president call the "culture of life", some kind of sinister plot to turn back the clock until women are once again obliged to produce a baby a year until their early deaths from birth-related illness and exhaustion. Even otherwise quite sensible commentators have adopted this tone of appalled outrage, digging up horrible visions of historic backstreet abortions, termination by wire-coathanger and, most bizarrely, seriously suggesting that women will be forced once more to hurl themselves down the stairs.
Such hysteria might be in order if George W Bush, through his expected nominations to the Supreme Court, had set his sites on abolishing birth control pills or contraceptive devices, but is grossly over-the-top concerning abortion. Since 1967 and 1973, contraception has made huge strides forward. Although there are occasional slip-ups and no method is completely foolproof, it is indisputable that regarding consensual sex (please note that I exclude rape) these days you have to be either stupid, exceptionally careless or incredibly unlucky to become pregnant by mistake. The only 100 per cent guarantee is, clearly, celibacy, but with all the myriad contraceptives on offer, many given out completely free, together with the billions of posters, advice centres, teachers and clinics telling you exactly how to use them, avoiding pregnancy has never been easier.
However, since abortion was legalised and then liberalised, abortion itself has increasingly been used both in the US and in Britain as a contraceptive, just as it is in Russia, a country towards which Britain and the US always display extremely unattractive moral superiority.
Some British and American women do agonise over terminations, of course, but since there are now so many of them - 193,817 in Great Britain in 2003, compared with 27,197 in 1968 - it is unarguable that for many abortion has become a method of first rather than last resort.
SURELY, whether you like President Bush or not, you would agree that this is not a good thing? An unborn child, whether you call it a foetus or an embryo or whatever, is a human being and deserves to be treated as such. We may, as I have pointed out before in this space, be hypocritical in our condemnation of embryonic stem-cell research, knowing full well that we will use whatever treatments result, but that does not mean we should simply abandon all attempts to protect not only unborn children themselves but also ourselves from the kind of moral collapse which says "if you’re pregnant and you don’t want it, you can, without any fuss at all, get rid of it".
In indicating that he wants to curtail abortion, President Bush, far from moving us away from civilisation, is moving us towards it.
Moreover, it is not as if even the British are happy with the status quo. Britain may not have a Bible Belt, but after the "walking in the womb" pictures published in July, even Sir David Steel, the champion of the original abortion act, was moved to press for tighter time restrictions. Along with others, he suggested in strong tones that a 12-week limit might be more appropriate than the current 24-week limit, or up to birth in the case of a disabled baby, an anomaly which you would have thought contravened every human right in the book but about which those whose political correctness forbids us to use the word "blind" seem strangely silent. For those who believe life begins at conception, any discussion about a 12-week cut-off may seem somewhat specious, but nevertheless, if it does nothing else, such a discussion draws much needed attention to the unintended consequences of legalised abortion - the year-on-year rise in teenage pregnancy, the pressure on girls to have sex because an abortion is only a doctor’s visit away and the notion that abortion is just a medical procedure. Leaving any religious scruples aside, given current knowledge, sensibilities and sensitivities, there is nothing sinister about looking at the law again on whichever side of the Atlantic you happen to live.
This should have been John Kerry’s stance. Instead, he floundered about on this issue until a good percentage of the Catholics who were his natural constituency were disgusted enough to abandon him, choosing instead a man at least unashamedly clear in his intentions. It was Bush, after all, who, in 2003, banned abortions achieved through the disgusting "dilation and extraction" method during which a baby is either dismembered or, after what is described as "evacuating the contents" has its skull crushed for easy delivery. Who on earth could think that this kind of thing should be allowed? Well, John Kerry. Catholic he may be, but he voted against the ban. Big mistake.
It was said by many that in the 2004 presidential race, John Kerry was the intelligent candidate and President Bush the red-necked thicko. Not from where I’m standing, at least not on this issue. What Kerry failed to realise is that abortion is no longer only, or even predominantly, about a woman’s right to choose. With contraception so sophisticated and embryos viable at an earlier and earlier stage, how could it be? The debate has moved away from women’s health and the control we exercise over our own bodies and much more towards what abortion actually is. Far from being the conservative regressive portrayed by the feminist lobby, President Bush has shown that he is keeping up with the times. With doctors calling for abortions to be carried out under anaesthetic given what they are learning about the development of an unborn baby’s nervous system, it is John Kerry who seems to be living in the past.
It does seem strange to us that the office of president of the United States could depend on your moral take on abortion. In secular Britain, such a notion is inconceivable. But for the British chattering classes to sneer at the American electorate for their qualms about killing the unborn, and to condemn President Bush for responding to those qualms, shows that it is us, and not him, who are going backwards and need to hurry to catch up.
Maybe the Dems will back off on abortion now.
Who am I kidding? Those dinosaurs can't change their spots (so to speak..)
Republicans for the 21st century and beyond!
Pro-choice, pro-life. Such red herring, one issue, all heat no light agenda items.
Ronald Reagan summed it up best (as usual) when he said words to the effect that "I notice all those in favor of abortion have already been born."
For those of us who consider unborn human beings just as deserving of protection as others, it is NOT a red herring. Please don't trivialize human life that way.
Another soldier in the battle against abortion.
A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE?
(Death for her children and grandchildren!)
Without the born, the unborn are in deep doo-doo. I myself voted for the born.
Besides antional security, it's the only truly important issue. The rest is all negotiable.
Well said!
Absolutely!
I can think of at least 5 issues more important than abortion:
1. National Defense;
2. Controlling the borders;
3. Welfare reform;
4. Social Security reform; and
5. Medicare and Medicaid reform.
I could go on and on, but what boots it?
Please note that the writer of the above article is suggesting that abortion be scaled back from the second trimester to the first - what a novel idea.
Pay no attention to the "Uriah Heeps" who are out there plotting and planning to co-opt the 2004 conservative victory for their own secret agendas.
The Uriah Heeps of the world would manhandle the social conservative victory----and dilute the presidential mandate conferred by proto-conservatives----for their own self-serving agendas.
The Uriah Heeps could care less for the rights of the unborn and the restoration of conservative values to our Nation-----the proto-conservative issues that drove millions of Christians to the polls.
The agenda-laden, elliptical thinkers lurk in the shadows plotting ways to take over conservative victories.
It ain't gonna happen.
Any mucking up of our hard-won conservative victory will be met with fierce resistance.
Moral issues were this election's key to victory, and moral issues will set the agenda.
Every card-carrying conservative worth his/her salt knows what "moral issues" means.
Karl Rove knew where to get the "values voters" to give Bush the majorities he needed to win. Rove is not the only one who knows where they are.
You have to wonder who is goading these comments, although I'd gladly wager a guess, and I would be right.
"For that one reason among many, the United States will suffer unless there is placed into your government a group that fears the Lord if they cannot love the Lord. They will fear Him and find measures to stop the slaughter of the unborn." - Our Lady, April 14, 1984
Source: http://www.tldm.org/directives/d23.htm
Somebody ping Arlen.
Darn tootin!
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