This started as a rejoinder in this comment thread, but it got so long I thought I’d make it a post. I was addressing one of my interlocutors, Phillip, as follows:
You’re touching on one of the many reasons I don’t like the terms "liberal" and "conservative." If words mean anything, "conservative" should refer to people who prefer the status quo; traditionally, those have been the ones who benefited the most materially from things as they were.
And yet, I sense a lot of class envy today among people who see themselves as conservative. At the same time, those who react negatively to the social agenda of elites on the coasts are in fact sticking up for traditional values, and therefore manifesting conservatism in a true sense.
Then let’s look at the term "neo-conservative," which a lot of people who call themselves "liberals" today use with a vehemence that suggest they think it means "REALLY conservative." Whatever they think, the ideology seems to offend them far more than the "paleo" conservatism of the Pat Buchanans, which is bizarre.
But what DOES the term mean? My first memory of hearing the term regularly was early in the Reagan administration. It seemed synonymous then with "survival of the fittest" economic libertarians — the Laffer Curve folks, the fans of voodoo economics.
Well, I knew I wasn’t one of those, so I figured the word referred to a bad thing.
Then, right at the turn of the century, everybody started using it to describe people who believed in using U.S. power to liberalize the world — a sort of muscular Wilsonianism, the kind of thing liberals used to believe in. It seemed to me that those folks were on the right track. It still does. (And yet Dave sees this position as evidence of my conservatism, while I see it as evidence of Bush outgrowing his reflexively conservative isolationism — no "nation-building" was to occur on his watch — into a more liberal position, at least on this point. What converted him? 9/11. It would have done the same with Bill Clinton, and perhaps with Gore. Actually, I’m not sure about Gore.)
Sort of related to that, another definition I’ve heard is that "neocons" are liberals who were alienated by the turn that "liberalism" took in the 1970s, toward identity politics and such.
So is a "neocon" even a conservative? I don’t know. Some of them are pro-choice, for instance, but I don’t think all are. There does seem to be a pattern in which they tend to be disdainful of social conservatism (which to me is the better half of modern "conservatism"), to some extent.
And what about "liberals?" What happened to the "bleeding heart" part? Oh, we hear a lot about the downtrodden, but it is an absolute must among today’s liberals that the most defenseless, dependent and powerless of us all — the unborn child — is not to be considered as an entity having legitimate interests. Yes, I know all the rhetoric about how this is necessary to help tragically helpless women in a bad situation. And such situations can be heartbreaking, and call upon anyone with a conscience to help. But that doesn’t change the fact that no matter how pitifully disadvantaged a woman is, she is still more empowered to determine her fate than the fetus that depends on her absolutely. How can one have compassion for one and not the other? Is it just that the first one can vote?
Why can’t we build a society that would affirm and help them both? I’ll tell you why — because we’ve split ourselves into camps of "liberal" and "conservatives" who refuse to listen to each other.
Well, I would go on, but this just makes me tired, and I have a column to write today. Thank goodness, it has nothing to do with any of this.
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Why don’t they have funerals for miscarriages?
It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to find some sort of shared ritual to support women — and men — through the grief that miscarriages tend to entail. It’s a real loss. It happened to someone in my family just recently.
One thing I know; it’s certainly nothing to be facetious about.
I’ve been there too, Brad.I also had a family member who died from an illegal abortion.
The abortion argument can go on forever,but to
call it a political left/right issue is not realistic.I’m not making light of this issue at all,I know it all too well.The answer to my question is simple.A fetus is not a child.
“The first one can vote”??? Who’s being facetious?
Oh, I’m deadly serious. And let me pose a question to you: Will you grant that a fetus is either a child or is not? Maybe that question doesn’t make sense, but neither does the argument that I’m trying to counter by asking it.
Here’s the way “reality” is defined in a Roe v. Wade world: If the woman wants it, it’s a baby. She talks about the baby. She dreams about the baby. She shops for the baby. She (and, if she’s economically lucky, her husband, although he scarcely needs to be mentioned in such a world) fix up a room for the baby. She invites people to place their hands on her belly so they can “feel the baby kick.” She talks about how the baby seems to like some things she eats, but not others (she’s eating for two, after all). Everywhere she goes, from the day she first shares the news until the birth, all conversation is about the baby, the baby, the baby.
But if she DOESN’T want it, it’s a fetus, and most certainly NOT a “baby,” and how dare anyone suggest it is?
This is Orwellian madness. It’s either a baby or it’s not. An individual’s humanity is NOT determined or defined by another individual’s ATTITUDE toward him or her. It’s an irrational abomination to suggest that it could be.
And yet that is the essence of the “pro-choice” position: There is no objective reality. It’s all up to the pregnant woman, and how she FEELS about it.
By this standard, every fertile woman in the world is God. She brings human souls into being, or banishes them from existence, by the sheer force of her almighty will. (Not being a feminist, I do tend to put women on a pedestal, high above men. But not THAT high.)
I still marvel, after all these decades, that any thinking person can subscribe to such an appalling position. And yet so many otherwise wonderful people do. I find this infinitely confounding.
Those who have abortions are to be pitied and prayed for as studies are showing that down the line psychological problems develop when it sinks in that a mother murdered her own baby. Abortion rates have been dropping gradually and that is a good sign. There are some gray areas involving incest and rape that I can support the victim’s decision to abort, but most abortions are done because someone doesn’t want to suspend high school or college classes, pass up a promotion at work, or they want to buy the boat instead of paying for the child. The comforts of life come first to some people for sure. They may not realize it, but in the end, like all of us, they will answer to the Creator, not to what I think or anyone else.
What has always surprised me about the left worshipping at the abortion altar is that this has been a holocaust foisted on the poor and minorities for the most part. Yet, there you have Jackson and Sharpton, (I could never refer to these two as reverends) singing the abortion songs of praise. Margaret Sanger, a legendary hero of the abortionists and radical feminists and founder of Planned Parenthood, believed in the sterilization of the black race. Mark, you want to discuss facsism, let’s talk about leftist and socialist Margaret. Distasteful for sure to the compassionate left.
“Not being a feminist” You see women as objects you should be able to control.
It’s simply the fact that there are only two political parties in the country that reinforces this rigid division. There are, in fact, more and more prominent Democratic leaders who are pro-life. Though we come from different religious perspectives, I agree very much with your view of abortion. The question for me and many like me is, should this be a matter for law, or for personal conscience? (Nobody is “for” abortions.) I wrestle with that. Is making abortion illegal a more effective way of reducing abortions? Are there other problems caused by that approach? And for me, one of the biggest obstacles is that so many pro-life organizations also work to obstruct the options for contraceptive access and education, insisting on a abstinence approach. To me, fighting sex education or inhibiting access to birth control while at the same time opposing abortion is (with all due respect to the Catholic Church) not a sustainable position.
Sorry, turns out the link I made above requires registration. To see it without registering, just Google “liberals opposed to abortion” and scroll down to find the Georgetown Independent’s article.
A FETUS IS NOT A CHILD
Superb, Brad, and I would almost say the same for Phillip’s comment (after all, I am a Protestant). I think it was one of Kristof’s commentaries about anti-abortion legislation in Spain a couple of years ago that asked the question, “is this what we want here?” Maybe we don’t want to legislate every moral eventuality. But I struggle to figure out what the right thing is: I’m not allowed to kill my grandmother, so why are we allowed to kill babies (sorry Bill, but I was once one; so were you)?
Phillip, I suspect that folks like Hugh Hefner are actually for abortion, and the fact that they really don’t care makes those of us who care about moms and kids, and all the issues involved, really angry.
I was told the other day, but haven’t been able to substantiate it yet, that the Booster generation had 80 million babies (Boomers, like myself). My Boomer generation had 80 million babies, too, but we’ve killed 30 million of them.
Dave, you’re right. We’ve got a lot to answer for.