Life & Death
September 28, 2004
I know a number of American Christians with more or less authentic conservative philosophies who are sorely tempted to support Kerry and Edwards in November. The painful prospect of yet another electoral “pick your poison” is clear to these people who are committed to the furtherance of a truly just society–a project with seemingly few positive prospects under the questionable leadership of a so-called “conservatism” that merely justifies a slightly different (though largely overlapping) set of exploitative motives relative to “the Left.”
Others say they may not vote at all, while others plan to vote for “third party” candidates. For those in the first category–and perhaps the others as well–I like to prescribe certain bracing reminders that the Republicans still are the lesser of the two evils. I freely admit that both evils may turn out to be toxic in the short or long run, so I am not stumping for the Smirking Chimp/Dr. Evil ticket. However, a Democratic party, as it’s currently configured, which triumphs over the scruples of principled, thinking, orthodox Christians, is certainly the worst political outcome I can imagine at present as a realistic and distressingly probable possibility.
Two of my current “bracing reminders” are typical “pro-choice” arguments recently spewed from typical “progressive” venues:
1) “Crossing Over,” by Robin Ringleka for AlterNet.
Here is a personal narrative by a woman who, in her youth, was a dedicated Catholic anti-abortion activist until she and her boyfriend conceived a child. Ringleka’s plan was to “do the right thing”–arrange an adoption and then tell her parents. However, the case worker at the adoption agency she contacted turned her away when she found out that the father was “black” and the child would be “bi-racial.” Evidently Ringleka never challenged the agency about the treatment she received, as her essay simply launches into a tirade against the presumptive racism of “the pro-life movement”–as evidenced from her contact with one person in one adoption agency. Only at the end of her essay does Ringleka retrospectively mention that she had an abortion and predictably “came to feel like a fraud, doubting my goodness and dedication to anti-racism work. Because when it came down to it, hadn’t my decision been based on race?” It would seem so, but Ringleka does not wish to probe the matter further and has been helped in that cause by “a course in Women’s Studies,” participation in the Vagina Monologues, and “sharing” her story with others who presumably think like Barbara Ehrenreich.
2) “Owning Up to Abortion,” by Barbara Ehrenreich, from The New York Times (July 22, 2004) and republished on Planned Parenthood’s website.
This essay utterly undermines Ehrenreich’s work on behalf of the working poor and articulates an overarching philosophy of life that is blatantly self-serving, anti-family, and anti-child. It is inaccurate to call this a “radical” philosophy, as that implies a political marginality that does not really pertain to those who subscribe to it. The proper word is “deranged”–or “twisted” or “evil.”
Ehrenreich reveals that it was an “easy choice” for her to have two abortions when “[she] was a dollar-a-word freelancer and [her] husband a warehouse worker, so it was all [they] could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level.” Ehrenreich’s readership and the culture of The New York Times evidently do not see such a statement as being utterly destructive of Ehrenreich’s argument and credibility. This situation remains symptomatic of a disease that must not be excused or accomodated.
Evidently Ehrenreich has made similar revelations in the past. Crisis recalls that “Ehrenreich once wrote of her own two abortions that her ‘one regret’ is that ‘they cost money that might otherwise have been spent on something more pleasurable, like taking [other] kids to movies and theme parks.’”
Ehrenreich wants her “easy choice” approved, lauded, and aggressively supported in the legal and political arena; she feels betrayed by the many women who regret having had abortions or who wish to draw a moral distinction between abortions “of convenience,” like hers, and abortions that eliminate a “defective” child. I agree, there is not much of a distinction to be made; both are evil choices. But of course that is not what Ehrenreich means. Behind her desire for public affirmation that such choices are acceptable, if not good, one senses a soul in denial. A dollar a word in the late 60s/early 70s? That’s not bad at all–it’s not even bad today. Ehrenreich has the honesty not to try to pretend she was “poor” when she had unexpected pregnancies, so the question emerges from her own argument: if sufficient economic pressures can justify terminating a pregnancy, what ethical criteria defines “sufficient economic pressures?” Consider what it would mean if a truly poor, single mother followed Ehrenreich’s logic–all pregnancies ought to be terminated if they will keep the mother out of the middle class. Maybe Ehrenreich would take her principle this far. But then one has to ask why she is advocating such dramatic accommodations to the horrific beast of late capitalism. Sacrifice your children to Mammon, says Ehrenreich – the progressive, the liberal, the Democrat.
This is Life & Death in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Pantagruel for the Present | Next: Kudos for Calvinists, Particularists | TrackBack (2) | Comments (0)
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