The Pending Doom Of Abortion

My original title for this post was, "What if the anti-abortion crowd actually wins?"

Then Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his pending retirement.

With two out of the last six presidential elections stolen, a stolen seat on the Supreme Court, and a 5-4 Citizens' United decision allowing the rich to spend at will leading up to all this, conservatives are about to steal one more. Heaven forbid, if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, this could become a loss for generations. The wall of church/state separation will be breached in a major way, and one can kiss women's rights, gay rights, voting rights and equal rights out the window.

Conservatives owe us all one year of leaving the court at 8 justices. But of course, they won't pay that debt. Not now.

One aspect of women's healthcare is about literally be against the law. Some women will turn to underground and less than sanitary sources for abortion. Others will turn to self-induced "coathanger abortions" which might go badly, resulting in internal bleeding or sepsis. Some women will certainly die.

But I argue that another consequential death will be Christianity in America.

Consider for a moment: Look what happened in Ireland. Abortion had been outlawed in that country since its inception, and the influence of the Catholic Church strengthened anti-abortion law in the mid 1980's. But over decades of suffering the consequences of their anti-abortion laws, the Irish attitude changed. By an overwhelming vote, the people of Ireland voted to legalize abortion in a country-wide referendum back on May 25. The Irish outlook changed because the harsh realities of outlawing abortion became too much for people to handle, and they rejected the religious right's arguments, and the Catholic Church with them. Ireland turned secular!

The same thing will happen in America.

In a way, it will be much like prohibition. In the 1920's, the religious-right campaigned strongly against the evils of liquor until they successfully got it banned. Then, several years later, after living with the devastating consequences of outlawing hooch, the American people realized their mistake, and quickly repealed the ban. Prohibition against abortion will work much the same way as prohibition against alcohol did. Today, there isn't a single hyper-conservative in the world who dares to suggest that alcohol be outlawed. Our nation learned its lesson the hard way!

Abortion is about to be moved into that same category.

In other words, Christians, beware what you wish for, you're about get it.

Think about it: With Roe v. Wade overturned, what leverage does the political right have on trying to force more Ayn-Rand disciples onto the Supreme Court? What reason do Evangelicals have for supporting the most un-Christian president (Trump, naturally) this nation has ever seen? What wedge issues does the Republican party have left except assault weapons or Euro-centric racism?

In fact, the consequences to of abortion being struck down are so severe to Christianity that my first draft of this blog entry actually argued that we might be better off doing a strategic retreat on the whole issue and letting reality slap the other side into submission. Naturally, my wife talked me off the ledge on that one. And the very next day, bam! Kennedy announced his retirement. I'm glad I didn't publish that blog post, and I'm ashamed that I ever considered advocating paving the road to freedom with the blood of the innocent. But on the flip side, we are so blind as a species that we don't tend to learn any other way but the hard way, and we never realize what we have until it's gone. I guess when one feels the tug-of-war being lost, the temptation is to suddenly let go of the rope to let the other guys fall on their asses. But that's all moot, now. We're about to lose, and the blood of the innocent is about to be shed anyway.

Jerry Falwell's Faustian bargain from decades ago linked the interests of the ultra-rich to the Christian culture-war. The result has been Christians joyously stomping on the rights of immigrant children and throwing our healthcare away, all while letting our healthy economy turn to complete shit through tariffs. For the sake of stopping abortion, Christians have been willing to vote for absolute monsters like Roy Moore and Donald Trump, and only when they are that monstrous does a Democrat stand a slim chance (and sometimes not even then).

Do Christians really think the next generation will turn out religious after all that?

Yes, the suffering that will follow abortion prohibition will be acute. But the silver lining of that cloud is that people will finally come to realize the fallacies of anti-abortion logic. With half the population getting the cold slap of reality across the face, this nation will have an Irish-like awakening!

In short, this is a loss, but not the loss. Not the end of the women's rights movement, but the beginning of its resurgence. In fact, it will probably be the major turning point in the culture war.

In the words of Rear Admiral John Paul Jones, we have not yet begun to fight!

So enjoy your Pyrrhic victory, Christians. When your religion is reduced to a tiny minority, and you stand in the charred ruins of its past glory, you'll at least be able to bask in the knowledge that you were able to elect a monster for a president and then outlaw abortion for a few nightmarish years.

I hope you'll think it was worth it.

Eric

*