Posted on 03/21/2005 1:19:32 PM PST by Pokey78
I am, as Tony Blair might say, deeply passionately personally deeply personally opposed to abortion. But, unlike him, I think it ought to be an election issue.
Not because of my personal beliefs: I happen to believe a lot of what we call "late-term abortion" is in reality early-term infanticide, but, if you don't accept that that's a human life that's being destroyed, my deeply personal passionate beliefs aren't likely to sway you one way or another. That's where so-called progressive politicians such as Blair and John Kerry have it all backwards: the point about abortion is not that it's a "matter of conscience" for individuals to "wrestle with", but that it's a crucial part of the central political challenge of our time.
Almost every issue facing the EU - from immigration rates to crippling state pension liabilities - has at its heart the same glaringly plain root cause: a huge lack of babies. I could understand a disinclination by sunny politicians to peddle doom and gloom were it not for the fact that, in all other areas of public policy, our rulers embrace doomsday scenarios at the drop of a hat. Most 20-year projections - on global warming, fuel resources, etc - are almost laughably speculative. They fail to take into account the most important factor of all - human inventiveness: "We can't feed the world!" they shriek. But we develop more efficient farming methods with nary a thought. "The oil will run out by the year 2000!" But we develop new extraction methods and find we've got enough oil for as long as we'll need it.
But human inventiveness depends on humans - and that's the one thing we really are running out of. When it comes to forecasting the future, the birth rate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2005, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2025 (or 2033, or 2041, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management, Systemic Racism and Gay Studies degrees). If that's not a political issue, what is? To cite only the most obviously affected corner of the realm, what's the long-term future of the Scottish National Party if there are no Scottish nationals?
When I've mentioned the birth dearth on previous occasions, pro-abortion correspondents have insisted it's due to other factors - the generally declining fertility rates that affect all materially prosperous societies, or the high taxes that make large families prohibitively expensive in materially prosperous societies. But this is a bit like arguing over which came first, the chicken or the egg - or, in this case, which came first, the lack of eggs or the scraggy old chicken-necked women desperate for one designer baby at the age of 48. How much of Europe's fertility woes derive from abortion is debatable. But what should be obvious is that the way the abortion issue is framed - as a Blairite issue of personal choice - is itself symptomatic of the broader crisis of the dying West.
Since 1945, a multiplicity of government interventions - state pensions, subsidised higher education, higher taxes to pay for everything - has so ruptured traditional patterns of inter-generational solidarity that in Europe a child is now an optional lifestyle accessory. By 2050, Estonia's population will have fallen by 52 per cent, Bulgaria's by 36 per cent, Italy's by 22 per cent. The hyper-rationalism of post-Christian Europe turns out to be wholly irrational: what's the point of creating a secular utopia if it's only for one generation?
Shortly after 9/11, I wrote in these pages about one of the most curious aspects of the new war - the assurance given to Islamist "martyrs" that 72 virgins were standing by to pleasure them for eternity. The notion that the after-life is a well-appointed brothel is a perplexing one to the Judaeo-Christian world, and I suggested that Americans would be sceptical if heaven were framed purely in terms of boundless earthly pleasures.
But, on reflection, if the Islamists are banal in portraying the next world purely in terms of sensual self-gratification, we're just as reductive in measuring this one the same way. America this Holy Week is following the frenzied efforts to halt the court-enforced starvation of a brain-damaged woman for no reason other than that her continued existence is an inconvenience to her husband. In Britain, two doctors escape prosecution for aborting an otherwise healthy baby with a treatable cleft palate because the authorities are satisfied they acted "in good faith". You can read similar stories in almost any corner of the developed world, except perhaps the Netherlands, where discretionary euthanasia is so advanced it's news if the kid makes it out of the maternity ward. As the New York Times reported the other day: "Babies born into what is certain to be a brief life of grievous suffering should have their lives ended by physicians under strict guidelines, according to two doctors in the Netherlands.
"The doctors, Eduard Verhagen and Pieter J. J. Sauer of the University Medical Center in Groningen, in an essay in today's New England Journal of Medicine, said they had developed guidelines, known as the Groningen protocol."
Ah, the protocols of the elders of science. Odd the way scientists have such little regard for scientific progress. It's highly likely that many birth defects - not just the bilateral cleft lips - will be treatable and correctible in the next decade or two. But once you start weighing the relative values of individual lives, there's no end to it. Much of that derives from the way abortion has redefined life - as a "choice", an option.
In practice, a culture that thinks Terri Schiavo's life in Florida or the cleft-lipped baby's in Herefordshire has no value winds up ascribing no value to life in general. Hence, the shrivelled fertility rates in Europe and in blue-state America: John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest birth rates; George W Bush took 25 of the 26 states with the highest.
The 19th-century Shaker communities were forbidden from breeding and could increase their number only by conversion. The Euro-Canadian-Democratic Party welfare secularists seem to have chosen the same predicament voluntarily, and are likely to meet the same fate. The martyrdom culture of radical Islam is a literal dead end. But so is the slyer death culture of post-Christian radical narcissism. This is the political issue that will determine all the others: it's the demography, stupid.
Known as the Roe Effect!
Thanks for the ping, Pokey!
Mark never leaves me without a LOL.
FMCDH(BITS)
Mark Steyn for UN SecGen.
Lack of babies and the revival of XIX free market ideology have the same roots.
To really save Western (European) culture we'd have to do the following:
1) Ban abortion execpt in extreme circumstances such as ectopic pregnancy.
2) Prohibit all extensions of marital rights to anyone outside of marriage.
3) Allow employers to discriminate against single mothers, divorcees, atheists, and homosexuals & lesbians. This will have the effect of immediately reducing the numbers of those groups.
4) End welfare in every possible form. Social safety nets will be found in the churches once again and in nuclear families once again. Government spending should also be reduced to eliminate the 'other' welfare: Public Employment.
5) Prohibit immigration by Muslims, atheists, Communists, and any other undesirables.
6) Eliminate tax exemptions for non-Judeo-Christian faiths.
7) Require competency in English, Christianity, and Citizenship as a condition of citizenship for immigrants. Further, Citizenship boards should have the right to reject applications for citizenship arbitrarily.
8) Require a minimum two-years of public service from EVERYONE in some form or another as a condition of suffrage. People who do not serve their country should not be allowed to vote. You want to vote? Serve.
9) Amend the Constitution so that all of the above are legal and so that Constitutional rights are only allowed to US Citizens.
Honestly, I'm afraid we'll be living in a Sharia State before anyone has the balls to do any of this.
"Soylent Green"
What a shame. Those Democrats made such nice furniture, too.
BTTT
When you read Steyn, you keep thinking he cannot top what he wrote last time. His combination of wisdom and wit has never been seen in our lifetimes, and we MUST begin to push for more exposure of this genius with words and political thought.
For my next birthday wish, it is going to be that I might meet a man as smart and conservative as Mark Steyn. LOVE steyn bump!
Excellent post. Thanks.
I agree with Steyn most of the time but abortion has very little to do with the birth dearth, although I do see his argument is it is also part of a pervasive way of thinking on many issues
I believe in Canada the rate of abortion has begun to decline steadily, actually and on a per capita basis, which is good news......and the 2000 stat was 105,000 abortions which is hardly going to stop the birth dearth in a country of 30 million.....Canada has also been more conservative in this area as well, in part because a large percentage of our hospitals are Catholic based/funded/supported hospitals, a hiccup from the days of the French in early Canada,
for example, I'd never heard of partial birth abortions which I think is disgusting......until it was an issue in the US
the birth dearth is a function of a whole host of other factors, the days of popping out the sprogs until menopause rescues you, like my poor old Grandmother, who had 12 kids in 24 years, are gone....except of course in the countries where they can't seem to feed or support those large families, it amazes me that poor malnutritioned women can pop out that many sprogs
I think Steyn's point is that abortion is more of a symptom than the problem itself
You're going to have to fight me for such a man, Lawgirl!!
Steyn is my ultimate fantasy man, and I'm serious about that. His wife is ONE lucky woman...
Hey! The Shakers were celibates, capitalists, and darn good farmers!! (Concepts foreign to most Democrats).
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