Thinking to Believe

William Saletan of Slate once proposed some new rhetoric for abortion-choice politicians to use when they are debating pro-lifers.  His proposal was as follows: “My opponent and I both want to avoid as many abortions as possible. The difference is, I trust women to work with me toward that objective, and he doesn’t.” 

Pretty good!  It makes the abortion-choice candidate look sympathetic to the pro-life and abortion-choice positions, all the while making the pro-life candidate look like someone who doesn’t trust women to make their own choices.  But there are some serious logical problems with this approach. 

First, if you truly want to avoid as many abortions as possible then the ultimate goal should be to eliminate all abortions.  Why?  Because abortion is unnecessary, making it possible to eliminate the procedure altogether.  One might argue that some abortions are necessary, particularly when the mother’s life is at stake.  I can accept that qualification, but since that situation accounts for less than a fraction of 1% of all abortions we’re still talking about the real possibility of eliminating more than 99.9% of all abortions.  Does the abortion-choice candidate truly want to eliminate 99.9% of all abortions?  I highly doubt it.  I would advise a pro-life candidate to call his opponent on this.  Make him say he wishes to eliminate all elective abortions.  I’ll guarantee he won’t do it. 

Secondly, if you want to avoid as many abortions as possible, and you know there are women out there who are opposed to your desire, why would you trust them to work toward your objective?  If you desired to save more Jews during the Holocaust, would you say the difference between you and the Allies is that you trusted the Nazis to work with you toward that objective while they did not?  Of course not!  How about murder?  Would anyone say the difference between them and their opponent is that they trust murderers to work with them to eliminate murder while their opponent does not?  Of course not!  Then how can we trust women who want to murder their babies to work with us to avoid abortion?  We can’t.  We must legislate morality on them just as we do in every other area of the law.

“Why do the people of the church continue to affirm things like, ‘I’m against abortion, but I think it should be legal’ and ‘I think everyone should decide for themselves’? Because no teaching on abortion is teaching on abortion: it communicates the implicit message that abortion is not the sort of serious wrong about which we can have knowledge. In other words, we learn from a pastor’s silence that abortion is not a sin. When a practice as pervasive as abortion is not treated as a serious matter of faith and practice from the platform of a church, church members never reconsider the pro-choice beliefs they’ve assimilated from their culture. In short, when the leadership of the church acts pro-choice by not speaking on abortion, the church follows suit and adopts the pro-choice view, both in word and deed.” – Steve Wagner

Les Français sont fous! 

Western societies seem to be calling everything a “right” these days.  Now, France’s highest court has declared that free access to the Internet is a basic human right guaranteed by France’s constitution.  Basic human right?  C’mon!  Life and liberty are basic human rights, not access to the Internet (for free, nonetheless).

People are pulling rights out of thin air these days, and in the process, they are demeaning the value of true human rights.  Basic human rights only come from God.  Governments do not grant them, they recognize them.  The last time I checked, free access to the internet is not on God’s list.