On no one issue in America’s culture wars is the combat more viciously hand-to-hand than over abortion. Since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against state laws restricting a woman’s right to abortion, anti-abortion forces have conducted a relentless, grinding, guerrilla campaign to defeat that decision. Their tactics include feigning health and safety justifications to pass laws whose true purpose is to severely restrict or virtually prevent abortion. Boisterous anti-abortion zealots station themselves near abortion clinics and harass women seeking abortions. Maniac anti-abortion militants have used deadly force in attacking abortion clinics and assassinating physicians.
While abortion is not a preferred method of eliminating unwanted pregnancies, and is understandably disagreeable to both its supporters and opponents, the consequences of prohibiting abortion may be worse than the act itself and adversely affect all of society.
On a recent front page section of the Los Angeles Times was a photo of two young men being sentenced to life in prison for the cold-blooded murders of two teenagers who were killed for kicks during a convenience store robbery. The photo captured one of the two killers who, upon hearing his sentence, turned to the victims’ parents and beamed a demonic smile. It was chilling.
These soulless creatures cared neither about their own miserable lives nor the lives of others. They wanted to randomly inflict pain and suffering on others regardless of the penalty. It is a safe bet that society would have been better off had the mothers of these two homicidal sociopaths never carried them to term. Who are they?
Most violent crime is committed by people who are born into poverty, to mothers who do not have the resources or the will to properly socialize them. More tragically, many, likely most, were born unwanted, and certainly raised without the necessary attention and nurture of loving parents or caretakers. These are the children who easily grow into vicious, predatory savages.
Meanwhile, Texas, arguably the epicenter of medieval mentality in America, has not only passed legislation that prohibits abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and essentially shuts down nearly all abortion clinics in the state, but has also introduced legislation further prohibiting abortions to six weeks, and, additionally, requiring all women seeking abortions to get a permit to do so after completing a mandatory three-hour adoption seminar.
In places like Texas, where conservative means civilization and human intelligence reached their peaks of perfection in the 12th century, those born with a womb are simply human breeding stock subject to roundup and prodding into unwanted parenthood by conservative cowboys.
The crusaders for the unborn may feel good, moral and right with God when they succeed in effectively preventing or impeding women’s abortion rights, but the consequences of their success are frequently misery and death for others. Impeding and preventing abortions will affect those who are least able to find or afford safe alternatives, and least able to properly raise the children they are forced to bear.
Ironically, the folks most concerned about the unborn show little concern about them after they breech the womb. Mission accomplished does not include post natal care that ensures all children are properly nourished, educated and given opportunities for a decent life. In Medieval America, if divine providence does not assist you, don’t expect the taxpayers to do so. Tax money is better spent on needless corporate subsidies and unnecessary wars. You can, however, join a street gang and live a short, violent, but relatively lucrative life of crime.
It would seem reasonable that if you oppose abortion you would want to do what you could to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But, in Medieval America it is considered wrong to teach sex education in public schools or to allow access to contraceptives to those most likely to suffer unwanted pregnancies.
What drives Medieval America’s mindless pursuit for population? The human race is certainly not at risk of extinction due to lack of fecundity. More likely its extinction is at risk from a profusion of human population. Nearly all life on the planet is choking on human effluvia. And, because Nature on this planet has limits, a burgeoning human population will eventually exceed the technological magic to provide it with vital resources.
It is the sanctity-of-life ethic derived from religious beliefs that so fervently opposes abortion and contraception regardless of the negative consequences of unwanted births. Nothing is more effective at aborting logic than is religion.
Sanctity of life is not realized by bringing children, especially unwanted children, into the world who are doomed to die of starvation or disease before reaching adulthood. Nor does forcing births of unwanted children who consequently become homicidal criminals sanctify life. It does just the opposite.
Finally, those who argue that an aborted or prevented pregnancy could rob the world of another Einstein, Beethoven or Lincoln display a perfect example of aborted logic. For the chances are equally as great that such could spare the world of another Hitler, Osama bin-Laden or Adam Lanza.
— Randy Alcorn is a Santa Barbara political observer. Contact him at randyalcorn@cox.net, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.