A response about the possible demise of Roe v. Wade [Video]

At The Duran, we are blessed to have a very open and broad range of viewpoints from our writers. Some of us are Trump conservatives like me, some are extreme statist / liberals. Everyone is certainly welcome to post opinion or their own views and analyses on major issues.

When the news broke that there was a preliminary draft in the US Supreme Court that indicated that the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade (which “created” a national right for a woman with child to abort that child at will) was set to be overturned, the uproar was predictable from most liberal sectors. Outrage. Sheer outrage. [LANGUAGE WARNING: What you see here is full of vile language, not suitable for children. Take precautions.]

What was not really expected and which (in my opinion) was a sad surprise was a report from supposedly “conservative” Fox News that reflected a poll saying six in ten Americans supported leaving Roe alone but who also supported increasing restrictions on abortions, such as the 15 week limit, the “Heartbeat Bill” (abortion cannot happen after a fetal heartbeat is detected), and other similar things.

Further, it must be noted that the rates of abortions are falling in the United States. The “fashion” of ending the life of an unborn child to support the POWER of the woman has been slowly replaced with horror over such callousness for many people, even among liberals. One liberal (in fact, lesbian) woman once wrote to me about this in her own view:

Abortion is horrifying to me. If I were ever in the position to have to make such a choice, it would be absolutely terrible. I would never want to be in such a situation. Nevertheless, I think that the ability to make such a decision safely and legally is important.

I appreciated this response because it reflected that this lady was still mostly capable of critical and ethical thinking. Further, this response is kind of a “middle of the road” and comfortable theme for many people: We should not be getting abortions, but if one is needed, it should never be illegal.

Or even Hillary Clinton’s uber-reasonable campaign rhetoric “I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.”

If this argument only stuck to this sort of principled set of viewpoints, it would be very difficult to refute, but this argument does not stick to this set of viewpoints. It runs wide and it runs wild, from “Abortionists are murderers” to “I am proud (!) of my abortion”

Both of these viewpoints are very strong, but in my view as a Christian, only one is right.

First, as a Christian, the notion that anyone should be “proud” of ending the life of a brand new human being – and one who is innocent of any wrongdoing at all – is radically distorted and anti-life, anti-person. Said another way, this is evil.

Predictably, the liberals would then wade into this and say something like “well then, killing people in wars is also evil so that is wrong.”

To that, these days, I would just calmly suggest that they then talk to Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and the rest of that group about this and tell them that the Ukraine-induced attacks on Donbass and on civilians throughout that country should stop, and they will say “er, but wait, that is okay, and it is ALSO okay to kill Russians, because… because… (spluttering in anger)… Putin is a KGB thug, and because… RRUUUUUSSSSIIIAAAAAA!!”

Right?

Nonsense. This is a totally false equivocation, and any person capable of critical thought can see that there is a difference. I will try to illuminate it:

What grown-up men and women do to one another is often very bad, very sinful. But taking the life of an utterly innocent human being is evil on a whole different level.

So, in going farther with my response, I want to make two very important points which may also be understood as both legal and theological premises:

1. The overturning of Roe v. Wade does not make abortion illegal. What it does is it declares that abortion rights are a “states rights” issue, not one for the Federal level of government. Each state can decide the matter as its voters wish.
2. Life is not something human beings create. Only God creates life. So destruction of life means you are interrupting His work.

A recently posted piece by a much better writer than I, Eric Zuesse, begins on the premise that outlawing abortion is insane. He tries to explain the horrors away:

An insane belief is one that is so blatantly false so that even pointing out scientifically proven reality won’t change it. The generalized opposition to abortion is an excellent example of a common insane belief. Like most of the common insane beliefs, it is usually a reflection of a religious or other philosophical school-of-thought. Specifically, in the case of abortion, believers typically view their own position on the subject to be “spiritual,” and view the supporters of an individual right to abortion as being “materialistic” (and therefore supposedly inferior to themselves).

Abortion is generally opposed because people confuse the meanings of such terms as “life” and as “consciousness,” and because the majority of people don’t think or care about their own ‘philosophical’ assumptions and about what harms or even evils can result from one’s having false assumptions at the very foundation (or basis) of their ethical viewpoint. But, in fact, even genocides can result from such falsehoods — ethical falsehoods.

For me, this reasoning is sharply limited and avoids the ontological and of course, theological, point.

Life is not a scientific process, nor is it a cosmic accident.

Mr. Zuesse is eminently educated, very prolific, and I would say, successful as a writer. I often find a lot of agreement in our shared points of view about many topics. But on this one, apparently, Mr. Zuesse is trying to solve the problem from a framework that excludes the existence of God as Creator of all things, and with this annoying piece of information conveniently out of the way, he tries to solve it according to human reasoning. I would further opine that Mr. Zuesse’s mind is “too made up” on this issue for me to be able to accept this latest contribution as an effort of careful thinking. I do not know why he is so passionate about this as to call opposition to abortion “insane”, but this language suggests passion, not reason, at the heart of his argument.

“Life” and “Consciousness” are both not precisely definable, especially “consciousness.” But for the secular thinker, these topics are source for thought, rage and infinitely malleable according to the viewpoint of the thinker at that moment in time. 

This accounts for why it is okay for Ukrainians to kill Russians, but not the other way around. Both nationalities consist of human beings, representatives of homo sapiens sapiens, but only one side is justified in an action both sides are doing. The secular thinker has to think even more to justify his or her point of view, and, folks, it doesn’t work! If it did, all secular thinkers would be very likely to come to the same conclusions all the time, and our judgements would always be right.

In the case of Ukraine and Russia, the assessment put forth by the governments of the West is completely backwards in terms of “who is right”, but that assessment is still largely secular, and so the real problem is never addressed.

Here, then, let me go to my second premise first:

Life is not something human beings create. Only God creates life. So destruction of life means you are interrupting His work.

Viewed through this lens, everything changes rapidly. The taking of any life means you are going toe-to-toe with the Creator and telling him you disagree with his work.

Viewed this way, abortions are the worst possible thing anyone can do to a human being. The snuffing out of a life that has not even had the chance to be lived is horrifying beyond all comprehension. There is simply no excuse for doing such a thing, and it is for this reason that the Orthodox Christian Church sees it as such a grave sin. The Roman Catholics have also labeled it a terrible sin but the Roman Church has a more “brittle” praxis, and seems unable to do what is needed to restore that person who committed the abortion back to sanity and health of mind, soul and spirit. Some Roman Catholics may read this and disagree, and I hope they will post their comments about this in my piece – but as someone exposed to both faiths (but who IS a member of the Orthodox Church and trained in her theology), this is the observation I have.

At any rate, what we are talking about is beyond the pithy word “murder” – it is worse.

It is actually participation in the work of the demons. Here is how, as analyzed from a theological point of view:

Christianity alone is life- and person- positive as an understanding of reality. It starts from the premise that everything God created (and creates) is good, exceedingly good, including human beings, the crown of his creation. Orthodox Christianity holds that this goodness is not destroyed in the Fall, but that it is hindered, damaged, subject to corruption of all kinds, and afflicted with sin, decay and death.

Yet the goodness of being created by God still remains.

One of the other religions in the world talks about a to-be-achieved state called “Nirvana” – in Wikipedia discussed in an overview starting with this: “Nirvāṇa… refers to the profound peace of mind that is acquired with moksha, liberation from samsara, or release from a state of suffering… In the Buddhist tradition, nirvana is described as the extinguishing of the fires that cause rebirths and associated suffering.”

Now, I hope the Buddhists in the crowd will forgive my ignorance, but one of the key terms is “release from rebirths and associated suffering.” While Christianity does not hold with reincarnation, the concept of Nirvana is also understood to be a state of “non-being,” yet Christianity upholds the opposite, that is “glorified and perfected being, FULLY being.”

In other words, non-existence is the goal in many religions. Well, non-existence is where the fallen angels want to be. They exist, and they suffer, and they want to destroy creation, because creation reminds them who they are and what they lost in turning their backs on God’s will. Their effects on us are significant: think of the songs Suicide is Painless, Blasphemous Rumours, Comfortably Numb… and many others that ‘glorify’ the ending of oneself.

One of the connections I made while studying this matter in Seminary, guided by the teachings of the Patristic Fathers, is that the demons seek to destroy all of God’s creation, to bring all to nothingness, because then, they think they can rest because they cannot be reminded any longer of what they did. As human beings are the pinnacle of God’s creation, to destroy us is a big factor in them achieving this goal.

How better to do that than to suggest the idea that “it’s just a mass of tissue, without meaning, and getting it removed is no different than removing a cyst or a tumor. Pregnancy is like a disease…”

Or even worse to more hardened and demonically prideful individuals, “show your POWER, ladies! Your body belongs to YOU alone!!”

Dear Leftists: when a baby starts, the woman is given the opportunity for a crash course in selflessness. She may accept this and change her life. Or not. A woman seeking to eliminate a barrier to her freedom to do only as SHE wants – well, that again is demonic, and it is an attack specially tailored for women, hitting them right where it scores the most.

For men, the attack is different, but certainly no less – the man who forces his woman to get an abortion is consumed with selfishness, for a child’s coming into existence means he, too, must give up selfishness and doing what he wants to do, for the sake of his child and its mother.

This is a great gift from God, actually, and it often brings people into line with him and hence into great joy.

But when they rebel against it, both the man and woman stand responsible for the gravest of evil deeds, the destruction of an innocent life, done in cold blooded selfishness.

And now, for the first premise I made:

The overturning of Roe v. Wade does not make abortion illegal in the United States.

Here, our friend Mr. Zuesse completely seems to have missed the point. He talks about the insanity of making abortion illegal. However, overturning Roe does not do that. It does send the issue back to each state for that state to decide. Of the fifty American states, about 26 have severely restrictive laws regarding elective abortions. 24 apparently do not. We can expect that the pro-abortion states will strengthen their “protections” of the procedure as the pro-life states continue to gradually push the procedure out of their jurisdictions.

This would not work at all if not for another piece of the puzzle:

The rate of abortions and the popularity of the procedure as an elective form of “birth control” is generally decreasing in the United States.

Many American states no longer have even one abortion clinic. Why? By choice of the people that live there – they have found other ways to deal with the matter of unwanted pregnancy that apparently do not require the baby to be dismembered in utero – Adoption, counseling, helping the mother and father realize the gift they have been given. All these are restoring sanity and they are saving lives in more ways than just that of the child.

I would propose that the increasing strictness of abortion legislation in states like Texas follow as the result of the will of the citizens of that state to make this so.

Dr Steve Turley makes a fascinating point in his video, that many states are aligning as “pro-life” states and others are aligning as “pro-abortion” states. I will propose that in doing this, each state is making its stand before God about this issue. I will further propose that the states that are pro-life will do very well. Those that don’t will continue to experience decay and self-destruction. Look at the map below and think for yourself, especially if you have been in these places – what is life like in them?

My view is theological, because my education and experience shows me that human ontology and Orthodox Christian theology are one and the same. The only thing that goes wrong in it is me and the decisions I occasionally make to try to work against these facts, as I am free to do. One is certainly free, after all, to walk off a thousand-foot ledge and step into the thin air.

But what happens next is completely out of their control and unstoppable. It is just that simple.