I’m frustrated by the way in which the Republican leadership has largely suppressed debate about moral and cultural issues in this electoral cycle. Yes, the economic situation is very important. But in the long run a productive economy requires a healthy culture. I wish Karl Rove would put a post-it note on his computer screen: “It’s the culture, stupid.”
But the question of abortion came up yesterday. Romney said he had no anti-abortion legislation in mind (how could he in light of Roe v. Wade?), but would reinstate the Mexico City policy that forbids U.S. aid that goes to funding abortions. Basically, since Reagan this has been the Republican position when the party has controlled the White House.
No news, but what caught my attention was the statement by the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund: “Mitt Romney’s views on women’s health are far outside of the mainstream, and that’s why he’s trying to hide them in the last weeks until the election.”
“Women’s health.” That’s now the standard euphemism for abortion, which can’t be anything other than encouraging to those of us eager to defend the unborn. You know you’re winning when the other side does everything it can to avoid saying the word “abortion.”
“Out of the mainstream.” That’s another rhetorical device that suggests weakness. Pro-lifers aren’t people one argues with on the merits. No, they’re “extremists” who are “out of the mainstream.” I guess the Catholic Church is out of the mainstream, and so are Evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews. And then there’s the rising percentage of Americans who find our abortion regime morally troubling, a cohort now in the majority. I suppose they’re “out of the mainstream” as well.
When liberals talk about views being “out of the mainstream,” it’s sign that they are on the defensive, retreating behind the barricades of the Establishment.
October 10th, 2012 | 1:47 pm
No argument with the point about euphemisms as a sign of weakness. I wonder, though, if the point about cultural commentary is expecting too much. If our politics is a reflection of our culture, then maybe it is too much to expect that politicians, in their roles as political actors, somehow stand outside the culture to make commentary. In our Rieffian cultural theatric, I think I’d assume that such a hypothetical politician was adopting a previous era’s God-terms for present political gain.
Just a thought.
October 10th, 2012 | 1:54 pm
One more point…
When Obama flipped his position on the redefinition of marriage, Mitt Romney issued some meandering statement written so as not to offend anyone. This is what he should have said:
That’s how you fight the war on two fronts at the same time.
October 10th, 2012 | 2:34 pm
The liberal position on abortion is entirely Orwellian and depends absolutely on mangling the meanings in words, equivocations, and deceptive ambiguity as in no other controversy in history. Encyclopedias could be written on the topic.
Let me quickly list some persistent examples concerning which the left is ineducable:
1) The word LIFE. It has several meanings: literal life, that which distinguishes anyone reading this from a corpse. The Greeks used the word zoe for what might be called literal “life.”
The other common sense of the word “life” is what living things do WHILE alive. The Greeks used the word bios for that sense. Notice, zoe and bios, impossible to confuse. the one is a complete mystery, the other rather well summed up in the word “career,” as when the pro-abortionist weeps over how having a bay when she does not want one would “destroy my life.” So of course, the blather continues, to spare the life of the fetus is to take a the life of the mother, and who’s to choose, and similar malarkey. It’s idiotic, but that is in fact the way many, many women actually perceive the facts. On the one hand a corpse, on the other a delsy in getting a law degree. How can one possibly distinguish between these two calamities. It’s hilarious.
2) CHOICE. this is the biggest bit of tomfoolery of all, a most amazing piece of verbal legerdemain. If you ask the average pro-abortionist what exactly IS the choice confronting a pregnant woman, it seems to them obvious: choice one: have the baby, choice two don’t have the baby, i.e., abort it. In reality there is no such choice because that pregnant woman is going to have that baby whether she wants to or not. For the baby in the womb to eat, drink, and breathe and do a thousand other things particular to a living human being, it is necessary only that the mother eat, drink, breathe, and do a thousand other things, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF WHICH includes a positive “choice” to have that baby or anything resembling it. In other words, a woman’s choice to have the baby, if it means anything more than saying “No” to someone who offers to perform an abortion for her, consists of NOTHING AT ALL and HAS NO CONSEQUENCES. Can something without consequences be fairly characterized as a choice?
Another way to look at that is to consider the case of a young woman who is pregnant but is ignorant of that fact until she goes into labor (which HAS happened numerous times). Was a “choice” required of her to have that baby? Of course not. Did she have that baby? Yes.
The word “choice” has been more or less conscripted into service by the literally bloody-minded to dress up what it is they are actually doing as something bright and beautiful. It is not and mangling language won’t make it so.
As someone (I can’t recall who) put it very aptly: A pregnant woman is a mother. The only real choice she has is: What sort?
3) “MY OWN BODY.” Fine and dandy. The baby in the womb’s body is NOT your “own body.” This is universally recognized by law and science. “OWN BODY,” we learn practically daily, means “OWN DNA,” and that in matters of the greatest weight. Convicted murderers, men and women, are regularly freed from prison on the basis of DNA evidence, so conclusive a means of identification has it proven. Moreover, DNA test that has ever conclusively identified a person HAS EVER IDENTIFIED HIS MOTHER INSTEAD.
The pro-abortionist who defends the killing of a baby in the womb who appeals to a categorical right to “control her own body” simultaneously denies herself a right to an abortion for it is not simply her “own body” that she seeks to control, to put it very mildly.
So let her control her own body until her eyes water, her nose runs, and her ears bleed. More power to her, says I! But for that very reason, leave another’s body quite the hell alone. At a minimum do not pay someone else to poke at it with sharp instruments. If that’s what you want done, do it yourself.
4) PRIVACY. This one really is a hoot! Scraping a living, breathing human being from the walls of his mother as though removing paint with sandpaper, we are encouraged to believe, partakes of that quality of privacy as did the very marriage bed on which the baby was procreated by TWO parents. It is a ridiculous proposition. What is allowed to take place in an abortion clinic, as should be obvious, involves an entirely different sort of privacy, which is to say, the “privacy” of a business transaction, such as occurs any butcher’s shop in the land, which governments, the US Department of Agriculture, say, or the FDA or HHS regulate all the time, in big matters and in small. Inspectors visit the clinic, hygienic standards must be met, certifications of training maintained and displayed, books kept. It is the privacy of the tax laws, what is or is not deductible as a medical expense, and so forth. Dressing it up as anything else borders on obscenity.
No baby’s life ever ended because a woman had a conversation with her doctor. Is that crystal clear? The woman and her doctor may talk themselves silly and at the end of the conversation the baby will still be alive in her womb. Ending a life, any life, is a physical action that has to be PERFORMED. It has to be performed BY PEOPLE, and cannot be performed by Platonic noumena. People with hands and arms and legs and brains in a accessible TO THE PUBLIC. It is not a matter of wishing makes it so.
October 10th, 2012 | 3:22 pm
Romney said he had no anti-abortion legislation in mind (how could he in light of Roe v. Wade?), but would reinstate the Mexico City policy that forbids U.S. aid that goes to funding abortions.
First, it is illegal for U.S. aid to be used for funding abortions whether the Mexico City policy is in effect or not. What the Mexico City policy does is to refuse funding for non-abortion-related services to overseas organizations that provide abortion counseling or services as a part of their operation separate from what they are funded by the United States to do. If we had a “domestic Mexico City policy,” no organization would receive tax dollars to provide things like contraceptives if they performed abortions as another part of their operation. Planned Parenthood would obviously not get any funds, which of course would please many, but U.S. tax dollars do not fund abortions at Planned Parenthood.
Had Romney wished to merely throw a bone to the pro-life movement, there are any number of things he could have said. He could have simply mentioned he was pro-life. He could have said he would appoint pro-life judges. And of course there is plenty of abortion-related legislation that has come up or may come up. Recall that only a few months ago there were two anti-abortion bills put forward by Trent Franks of Arizona—banning abortions in D.C. and banning sex-selective abortions. There is also the move to defund Planned Parenthood that Romney might have pledged to support.
Of course, Romney is the only presidential candidate that the pro-life movement has, so I suppose they can’t be too hard on him. But it looks to me like he has reverted to the Romney he used to be as a candidate for senate and as governor of Massachusetts. He is, in effect, pro-choice.
October 10th, 2012 | 4:24 pm
With respect, but the Catholic hierarchy is out of the mainstream, even when compared to Catholic believers. The vast majority of Catholics strongly disagree with the hierarchy’s position on contraception and abortion in cases of rape and incest.
I do not know why Orthodox Jews are thrown into this mix. I would not be surprised if most of them were pro-choice. According to Pew, Jews are as pro-choice as atheists and agnostics.
October 10th, 2012 | 5:08 pm
@ Maximilian:
Are Catholics in disagreement with their own hierarchy because of reasoned disagreement with Humanae Vitae, the theoretical arguments of the “Theology of the Body” and phenomenological evidence that refutes those arguments, or because they’ve a). Never actually heard an argument from the pulpit against contraception, and b). If they did hear such an argument would respond with a well-reasoned reply such as “but I want to [use contraception], so I’m going to.”
To ask is to answer.
The whole point is that invoking the “mainstream” doesn’t tell us anything useful unless you want to redefine “right” by arguing that whatever habits the majority of people want to engage in are tautologically right by virtue of being what most people do.
October 10th, 2012 | 7:10 pm
The liberal position on abortion is entirely Orwellian . . . .
Joe Sansonese,
I thought we were discussing Romney’s position, whatever it may be today.
What does this mean: “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.” I think it means, “At this point in my campaign, I don’t think it would be helpful to take a pro-life position.” I think it also probably means that the formerly pro-choice, then ardently pro-life, now noncommittal Romney doesn’t really care much about abortion. As I heard some talking heads opining this morning, he’s a businessman, and what he cares about is the economy, not social issues.
October 11th, 2012 | 8:26 am
Joe Sansonese –
I’ve watched my wife carry four babies. Pregnancy does have consequences for a woman. Whether those consequences can or do justify abortion is a separate question, but you’re not going to convince anyone if they can see you’re mistaken about a matter that’s easy to verify.
The situation there is a bit more complicated than that, too.
Note: this doesn’t argue against the conclusion you come to; it just points out problems with some of your arguments.
October 11th, 2012 | 9:13 am
Arty: because they’ve a). Never actually heard an argument from the pulpit against contraception, and b). If they did hear such an argument would respond with a well-reasoned reply such as “but I want to [use contraception], so I’m going to.”
Probably a, and if the churches started to push it, b – as well as a rather large exodus from the Catholic Church. The hierarchy knows full well that its stances on abortion and contraception are very unpopular with Catholics, which is why these matters are not pushed.
Arty: The whole point is that invoking the “mainstream” doesn’t tell us anything useful unless you want to redefine “right” by arguing that whatever habits the majority of people want to engage in are tautologically right by virtue of being what most people do.
I agree, but I was responding to the writer, who did not think that the Catholic hierarchy is out of the mainstream on these issues.
October 11th, 2012 | 10:07 am
“. . . you’re not going to convince anyone if they can see you’re mistaken about a matter that’s easy to verify.”
The fact that you use a word like “verify” goes to the heart of the problem.
My post is about words and how they’re used and abused. What I am pointing out is what seems to me to be a chronic and unchallenged abuse of the word “choice,” more as a matter of logic than of fact. That is important, I admit, only to the extent that the CONCEPT of “choice” is extolled by pro-abortionists, the degree to which, almost as if by talismanic incantation, the WORD “choice” serves the abortionists art. I would argue that the use of that word alone holds 99% of the power that persuades otherwise sensible people to adopt a hands-off approach to a very filthy business, lending it a nobility that is wholly counterfeit and undeserved. It’s hardly original of me to point out that pro-”choice” is how abortion mongers, every one of them, INSIST on being addressed.
To resume: a positive choice “to deliver a baby to term,” if that makes the matter any clearer, is unnecessary “to deliver a baby to term” as a matter of logic. So it is important to understand that I am talking here about a NECESSARY consequence. The consequence I referred to is “delivering a baby to term.” That consequence follows not at all on a mother’s choice “to have the baby,” as should be clear from the knowledge that women miscarry regularly. That demonstrates that “choice” is not even necessary as a matter of fact.
“Having the baby” IS a consequence, as should be obvious, of impregnation, which is a consequence of engaging in sexual intercourse. THERE, of course, she had a choice—or at least one which can be assessed statistically—of having or not having a baby.
October 11th, 2012 | 10:13 am
Sir Keith Joseph famously advised Margaret Thatcher to forget about the people who would never vote for her and the people who would never vote for anyone else and target the swing voters in the key marginals.
October 11th, 2012 | 10:23 am
“I thought we were discussing Romney’s position, whatever it may be today.”
You thought wrong. The last three paragraphs of Mr. Reno’s post are about so-called mainstream positions on abortion, which my remarks address head on.
How do you have an inkling of what Gov. Romney “cares” about? Or even what he “only” cares about? Over the course of his life the man has contributed perhaps $50-million to charity. Someone could be forgiven that that sum constitutes 50-million things he cares about more than money.
October 11th, 2012 | 11:34 am
“Pregnancy does have consequences for a woman.”
Permit me to return to this briefly, as I did not address it in my previous post.
You are absolutely correct here, and you are making my point for me: PREGNANCY has consequences; a woman’s mere “choice” to deliver a baby has none. I repeat: she will have that baby whether she chooses to or not (or above 80% of the time, as I understand it). She may “choose” to have the baby every 10 minutes for 9 months and the result will be no different than if she never thought about the matter once, indeed, no different than if she had no idea at all that she was pregnant. That so-called choice is an illusion.
October 11th, 2012 | 11:44 am
Joe Sansonese –
I think I see what you were getting at. But then… is a “do not resuscitate” order a choice or not?
October 11th, 2012 | 12:19 pm
Rusty Reno’s point is all well-put. I’d like to add a little more…
Many Republicans I know don’t want to hear a word about “social issues,” and they have it in their heads that if Romney loses the election it’ll only be because someone heard the murmur of a social con coming from out from under some rock. Ask these Republicans what is the reason behind our economic ills and they’ll lay out a list of government intrusion and engineering gone wrong.
Here’s the thing: they understand the results, but they are missing the reasoning that got us here.
The two big social issues of the day–abortion and marriage–are examples of the government redefining the very natural rights it was created to protect. And look, once we cut the government free to redefine the very meaning of “life” and “marriage,” then in what universe do these socially indifferent Republicans think we can somehow restrain this Leviathan on economic affairs?
But social conservatives too need to do a better job too of connecting the dots. Social cons need to say more than that abortion and redefining marriage are morally wrong. Left at that, we allow our enemies to portray us as totalitarians that want to impose some kind of Christian caliphate, when what we really want to do is to restrain the state in the fashion of our Declaration of Independence. Social cons need to learn how to make the case that abortion and redefining marriage represent a state unrestrained. They need to explain to their friends on the Right that once those chains are cut, there’s nothing the government can’t do.
Connect the dots, people.
October 11th, 2012 | 12:35 pm
Joe: How do you have an inkling of what Gov. Romney “cares” about?
Judged by his behavior, the only thing he cares about is getting elected. In 1994, he cited the death of a relative due to an illegal abortion to explain why he wanted to keep abortion legal, and why he wouldn’t waver on it. Until he needed to, to get elected president. Under the bus you go! A man who actually cares about improving his country will not be a weathervane.
Joe: Over the course of his life the man has contributed perhaps $50-million to charity.
Apparently, you have seen his tax records, because other people do not have access to any of his tax returns, save for the two he released when he was already running for president for 5 years. Apparently, he paid more taxes than he owed the IRS, six months after telling people that a man who paid more taxes than he had to would be unfit for office. The different positions this man takes make my head spin.
It turns out that when Mitt Romney is running for office, for Pete’s sake, he will give money to charity. It also turns out that this will also lead him to tell companies he employs to mow his lawn not to hire illegal immigrants. But what would actually show his character is what he would do when he wasn’t running for office, for Pete’s sake – and we don’t know that.
October 11th, 2012 | 1:08 pm
“… is a ‘do not resuscitate’ order a choice or not?”
Since it’s an “order,” I shall assume that you mean a “responsible doctor’s order,” written into the patient notes, intended for physicians, nurses, and aides answerable to him, and signed and dated by him.
But I still must ask, a choice for whom? To follow the order or to write such an order with the intention of its being followed. Or does it refer to a patient’s request for such an order?
October 11th, 2012 | 3:04 pm
Joe Sansonese –
That one.
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