Denial of Reality and of Womanhood

A week ago Andrew Klavan spent much of his weekly video talking about bodies, their importance in experiencing life and relationships. And there’s some good stuff there, for deep thinking, as he tends to do. In there he shows and talks about a short clip of a woman on TikTok. He admits that, of course, you can find crazy people out there. But the craziness of what she says is worth discussing.

Andrew Klavan, screenshot from here

As an intro, he mentions a piece in the Wall Street Journal by diagnostic radiologist Grazie Pozo Christie, talking, as Klavan says,

about how the science behind Roe v. Wade, which is about to come up, to be challenged before the Supreme Court—the science behind Roe v. Wade is out of date. With the tools that we now have, we can see that a baby at 15 weeks is a human being. It’s alive. It’s kicking, scratching himself. And it is in this mother’s body, being nurtured, being kept alive.

In the wake of that mounting scientific evidence, here’s what this crazy TikTok woman says:

screenshot from here

At no point ever has it mattered whether it’s just a clump of cells or a fully fledged person already accepted to Harvard University. It has never ever mattered when life begins. The point is that a person cannot use another person’s body without their permission. By forcing women to share their bodies with fetuses to keep them alive, you’re actually suggesting that fetuses should have more rights than any other person in the world, and that people with uteruses should have less rights. If you want a fetus to have the same rights as other people, I hate to break it to you, but you’d be pro-choice.

So, all those decades when the pro-abortion crowd claimed it was just a clump of cells, or that viability mattered—those were lies all along. But looking at this woman’s now bold claim, there’s a lot in there that seems obtusely unaware of how babies are made. I shouldn’t have to point out this biological fact, but, except in cases of rape, there’s a voluntary act that results in pregnancy. It isn’t, as Andrew Klavan points out, someone coming along and forcing a human being up inside of you. It’s a procreative act. We know what it is that results in pregnancy.

So the flaw in her argument is “a person cannot use another person’s body without their permission.” Engaging in the procreative act is granting permission. It’s more than that; it’s an invitation.

Metaphorically speaking, you can’t invite someone over to your house for dinner and then shoot them for trespassing on your property.

Even more metaphorically accurate, you can’t invite them—and hire the Uber driver to bring them to your house—and then kill them for trespassing on your property.

Except in the very rare instances when a pregnant mother’s life is on the line—which more than likely means the baby’s life is at risk as well—the baby’s presence in the womb is not a threat to the mother’s life. And in those rare cases, the medical community and doctors agree that you save both when possible; when that is not possible, you prioritize saving the mother.

So the castle doctrine doesn’t really apply here.

image found here

You don’t get to invite people to your house, bring them inside with the promise of feeding them dinner, and then kill them for trespassing because of the inconvenience of having to feed them when you failed to note the invitation on your calendar.

You don’t invite them inside and then kill them—and announce to the world that you had the right to do that—so they wouldn’t interfere with your career or travel plans. You don’t invite someone to your house for dinner and then get to indulge in resentment for their showing up. You don’t invite them unless you plan to provide. (This is why abstinence before marriage and complete fidelity within marriage has been such a good idea for so many millennia.)

If you invite the guest, and then, once they’ve arrived, you suddenly find your plumbing has gone out, or your stove doesn’t turn on, and it’s going to be a hardship—you still just do your best to get through dinner. You don’t at any point kill the invited guest for showing up at what isn’t a good time for you.

It’s not like you can tell the invited guest already in your living room that this isn’t a good evening for dinner after all, so they should leave and come again some other evening. Because “going,” in the case of pregnancy, involves snuffing out the life of the guest—so there cannot be a next time for that person.

The crazy TikTok woman speaks as though some cabal of cruel conservative humans is forcing her to host another person in her body. But that “cabal” is God, who made us in a way so that we can miraculously participate in procreating—in bringing new life into the world. If the woman doesn’t believe in God (and that’s a safe assumption), then it’s the nature that arranged for procreation to happen in similar manner in pretty much all mammalian species.

The pro-abortion opinion is premised on a denial of reality. The denial that women are different from men is the denial of nature. And the significant difference between men and women is the ability to get pregnant and bear a child. Denying that fact erases women as important for being women. Everything about the “right” to kill an unborn child says that bearing the child is unimportant—the unique difference about women is unimportant. But going to school, having a career, indulging in sex without consequence, or whatever other life pursuit—those are important. Everything supersedes womanhood. It says there is more fulfillment in having a career like a man. It says indulging in sex without worrying about getting pregnant—like a man in a decaying society—is what a woman should want. She “shouldn’t be punished with a baby” for being a woman; we should pretend she is more like a man and manipulate reality, even dispose of a baby, to make it seem so.

There is nothing about abortion that is empowering to women. Everything about it denies the unique value of being a woman.

The crazy TokTok woman might be evil. Or she might just be self-centered and duped. She did not come up with the argument she is giving here. She is parroting an argument fed to her by people more entrenched in evil.

In Michael Knowles book Speechless, he says, “No social relation influences the ‘human essence’ more than sex, which sits at the center of every creation account.” He lists a few such accounts to illustrate. And then adds,

Sex also plays a role in the construction and destruction of society’s fundamental institution: the family. Culture-minded Marxists have long understood that any successful “march through the institutions” must overcome the family.

The denial of family, favoring the individual, plays into the hands of those who devalue the individual and value only the collective. That’s why you don’t find pro-life Marxists, only pro-abortion Marxists.

There’s a selfishness that’s obvious. But refusing to become a family doesn’t lead to “being able to do whatever you want”; it actually leads to doing whatever the tyrannical ruler allows.

It’s a trap. It’s the same trap the adversary has used since the beginning: “I’ll take care of you; you just have to surrender your free will so I can make you do what I command.”

We’re getting down to the bottom of something here.

At the Spherical Model, we often point out that civilization requires two foundational things: a religious people who honor God, life, family, truth, and property ownership (that’s a summary of the Ten Commandments); and the family must be supported as the basic unit of civilization.

If you want to destroy civilization, you attack the foundation. Abortion dishonors God and His creations; it dishonors life; it dishonors truth; and most particularly it dishonors family.

And what do you get when you destroy civilization? Savagery. We rightly think it’s savage for a culture to sacrifice children to their idols. It’s pagan and horrifying. But that is what we’re looking at in our modern pro-abortion culture. People like this woman spouting off on a social media platform are trying to frame baby killing as the logical and right thing—calling evil good. She is so smug as she says, “I hate to break it to you,” as though we were too stupid to see the rightness of her position before, but now that she’s explained things to us, we should simply acquiesce—when she was too stupid to know how pregnancy happens.

Texas Heartbeat law illustration found here

The savage crowd are weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth about the recent Texas abortion law, outlawing abortion after a heartbeat can be detected. During September and October, since the Heartbeat Bill took effect, abortions in the state dropped by 50%. That’s an estimated 2,149 babies not aborted. It’s hard to say whether women went elsewhere, or whether they rethought abortion and reconsidered giving birth. If that represents the 50% not aborted, that still leaves another 2,149 babies who were killed during that two months.

The separation between savagery and civilization is indicated by those who regret not getting another 2,149 babies killed (savagery) and those who regret that, even with the law, there were still 2,149 babies killed (on the way to civilization).

What kind of a person invites an innocent human being into their life and then kills them? A savage. What kind of a person convinces a woman that her ability to bring life into the world is a punishment put upon people with a uterus by an unfair society? An uglier savage. And probably a Marxist. Definitely an anti-free-will tyrant.

Deep in the Heartbeat Law of Texas

On September 1^st, a number of bills became law, bills that passed during the Texas Legislature regular bi-annual session, ending in May. One of these was what is termed the Texas Heartbeat Law.

Since it passed, there has been a lawsuit asking for it to be, essentially, struck down—and stopped temporarily until such strikedown. That injunction moved through the courts, where recently the US Supreme Court ruled against the injunctions. More explanation below. But first let’s deal with the explosive panic from people who don’t like the idea of a state where killing babies is in any way limited.

Gov. Greg Abbott signs the Texas Heartbeat Bill
image from CBSDFW.com, found here

Here are the claims:

·         Women are going to be fined $10,000!

·         Uber drivers are going to be fined $10,000!

·         Roe v. Wade has been overturned!

·         Women will die because of this law.  

None of these things is true. You can read the law yourself, here. 

 

Arguing with Smoke

I made the mistake of engaging online, to an extended family member—who lives very far from Texas, never visits here, and who after many years of infertility is now raising a darling pair of twins, is in her 40s, married, and never going to have more children. So why she’s worried about this law in Texas is a puzzlement. But she posted something (no longer available for me to view) that claimed that the law put a $10,000 bounty on women. So I said the law doesn’t do that; it allows people to open a civil suit against providers who kill babies after a heartbeat is found. Then I provided the link to the actual text of the bill.

And I got attacked, by additional extended family whom I don’t engage with on social media, and who also never visit Texas, nor are of an age or inclination to ever have another pregnancy.

One said, “what ever trumpettes,” which has no actual meaning I can discern, lacking punctuation or point. Another said,

I will not be visiting Texas. This law is so restrictive. It even goes so far as to be able to charge a taxi or Uber driver that drives a woman to a clinic. Since there is a HIPAA law, no one else should even know why a woman is going to a clinic. It is none of their business. This law will not stop abortion, it will only cause more women dying. The fact that some of these laws that go so far as to criminalize a woman that miscarries is beyond crazy. The next thing you know, they will be charging women for having a period!

I kid you not. Of course no Uber driver is going to be held accountable, because they do not know what a woman is doing at a clinic, whether she’s pregnant or how far along, or just stopping by for birth control; nor do they have anything to do with the procedure. The law addresses abortion providers, not casual workers at other jobs going about their daily tasks. While it does outlaw abortion after detectable heartbeat, it does not provide any criminal penalty; it only allows the civil lawsuit. And what kind of idiot actually believes—and spouts off about it without any research—that this or any law criminalizes women for having a miscarriage, for which she has no control and probably mourns? 

Normally I wouldn’t respond at all. But I added one more comment. I pointed out the irony of the sudden resolve never to visit a state they never visit, and assured them Texas wouldn’t feel the harm from their continued absence. I pointed out the error about the Uber driver. I added that there is already an exemption for women whose life is at stake, untouched by this law, which has no provision about criminality for the woman anyway. And I called her out for not reading the bill—since I’d already provided the link.

The person who had, I think, intended to call me a “trumpette” [Is that meant as a sexist slur against a female who may have voted for Trump?] added, “another armchair anti- women’s rights throw up on the web comment,” which I guess is their ungrammatical code for, “How dare you present facts to us!” That was the end of my engagement, although others continued to add comments in the thread for a day or so.

Other than posting links to this blog, about which I avoid saying anything too controversial, because Facebook tends to censor, I don’t engage politically online. I read a lot, and offer “likes” and sometimes comments in groups where there is much agreement. But I don’t enjoy contentious arguments. And I especially don’t enjoy debate with fact-free spewers of lies and vitriol.

It’s like having a conversation with smoke. It has no substance, it’s annoying, and it follows you just to annoy you longer.

campfire smoke image found here

I do have something to say about speaking truthfully. This law, and others, are intended to reduce the number of babies killed in the womb. Those of us who are against baby killing think it doesn’t go far enough. But if we can only do an incremental movement thus far, at least it’s something. We’re honest about what the law actually does.

The other side can’t say, “We want to see babies killed in the womb as much as possible—any time a woman feels like doing it.” That would not attract people to their side. So they lie—about the Uber driver, the woman dying, the woman having a bounty put on her, the woman being in danger of breaking the law by allowing her body to spontaneously miscarry, various metaphors about A Handmaid’s Tale, etc. If there could be a debate with people who favor killing babies in the womb (and some who favor killing babies even after birth), then it ought to be on truthful terms. Let people know what side they're choosing.

 

About This Law

I wasn’t very happy about this law when it went through the legislature. After all the decades of incremental pro-life work, I felt impatient. Every law that allows abortion prior to a particular point acknowledges that life before that point is not worth protecting. Not good. But the actual abolition of abortion bill didn’t go anywhere this legislative session. So this was at least an increment, OK for now. And also, a trigger bill passed, to abolish abortion when/if the Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v. Wade. But the Abolish Abortion people have some persuasive arguments. Bradley Pierce, executive director for Abolish Abortion Texas talks about their reaction this week here. 

A number of people have been discussing how this bill doesn’t have any teeth. In the long run that might be true, but Robert Barnes, in his weekly livestream with Viva Frei, has a different take on the way the bill was designed. Here’s his explanation: 

What’s unique about this law is two things. One aspect is not that unique in that other states have looked at passing heartbeat bills. Whether that’s six weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks, that can vary. Sometimes it’s considered, you know— But the earliest a heartbeat can be detected typically is six weeks. I think the norm is more like eight to ten weeks.

But, putting that side aside, the key to this law is that it is only enforceable by private lawsuit. No government actor can enforce the law. So it doesn’t make it a crime. You can’t be suspended from medical practice. You can’t be fined. None of that. The only people who can enforce it is private citizens bringing a civil suit on the grounds that you did an abortion when the fetus had a heartbeat.

Viva Frei and Robert Barnes on their livestream September 5, 2021
screenshot from here

I’m still not sure how private citizens get the evidence they need to file a suit. Nevertheless, Barnes explains that it brings a new cause of action, that a private citizen may now have locus standi to file suit. “It’s like private attorney general actions.” He says,

It was a smart way of creating the suit, in my theory, in my view, because the problem was, the people who sued—the various abortion care providers and pro-choice groups—they sued the state actors. And the state’s point was, “We don’t enforce this law, so you can’t sue us. You can raise this as an affirmative defense, which the law allows for; you can raise this as an affirmative defense if anybody sues you. But that’s the only way you can resolve this.”

They didn’t like that, so they asked the district court to declare the law illegal and to enjoin it. The declaration action is still pending. They do have a right to [sue for] declaratory relief. But they wanted to stop it from even being enforced, while the declaration relief was pending.

The district court said there’s nobody to enjoin, because this is a private cause of action law; it’s not a state actor law. Fifth Circuit said the same thing. So it goes with the US Supreme Court, and the US Supreme Court splits 5-4 on the injunction aspect.

Barnes says this is why the law was written the way it was: “It was written so that you could not enjoin it.” Planned Parenthood and the like have a legal hurdle they can’t seem to get over. They’re enraged, he says, that “the state legislature came up with a smart mechanism that made it tough to sue outside of Texas State Court.” He says he thinks it should have been a 9-0 ruling. The three democrat justices and, “not surprisingly, Roberts would have enjoined it even though there was nothing to enjoin.” He explains,

You don’t enjoin a law; you enjoin somebody enforcing the law. That’s how federal courts have jurisdiction over state government actors. Otherwise they’re immune from suit.

Of course, in state court, the declaratory relief action of the Planned Parenthood case is still pending. That hasn’t been ruled on yet. He says, “So, really, what they’re mad at is having to face a lawsuit. But they don’t have any problem filing lots of lawsuits against people. So this is— It seemed to me a logical extension.”

The Mississippi abortion case is making its way to the Supreme Court, dealing with whether the standard should be viability or heartbeat, or life at any point, or whether it’s up to the states to decide on their standard. Things could change entirely next year.

So, overall, the panic over this Texas law is overblown. But that didn’t stop the US Department of Justice from filing suit against the State of Texas today. On what basis is hard to say. In the ACLJ podcast today, Jay Sekulow speculated that the DOJ suit is only for political show. They don’t have a basis for the claim. They mutter something about national interest. But if they have an interest in killing babies, while claiming that they are protecting life, liberty, and property, it’s probably not going to go well.

Meanwhile, the State of Texas has taken no action but to grant standing to ordinary citizens in their efforts to protect human life.

 

Abortion Disempowers Women

Back in the 60s and 70s, during the so-called sexual revolution, birth control pills were newly available to give women the opportunity to have sex without the resulting pregnancy. Early court cases determined that married couples had the right to make those decisions. And I’m not going to dispute that. Some women don’t do well having a baby every year or two during their entire reproductive life.

But the idea that women should be equalized with men by having sex without having to deal with the consequences of sex was not a good thing for women. It was not a good thing for men either, but you have to connect a few more dots to understand that.

Before the sexual revolution, meaning during the entire several millennia of human existence, women knew that a possible consequence of sex outside of marriage was pregnancy without a father for the child. It was a burden on society overall, but it was a particular burden on the woman, who would either raise the child alone, probably in poverty, or would deal with the heartache of giving the child up for adoption. Women knew this, and so did men. So if a woman was reluctant to have sex outside of marriage, a man understood that. It wasn’t necessarily that she didn’t find him attractive, or have feelings for him; it was that she had to think about the very serious consequences. So a man was more likely not to push a woman to have sex before he married her. And, if he did, he was more likely to marry her and care for the child—to do what was understood to be the honorable thing.

The shotgun wedding scene from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
image found here

Once "the pill" became available, it gave men permission to assume a woman could/would avoid the consequences of sex. So he felt even more free from moral constraints than he did before. But women, while they sometimes could prevent the consequences, lost the respect that they previously had, and lost the expectation that sex—along with its consequences—should come within the marriage covenant.

Add abortion into that mix. If birth control failed, well, what was that to the man? It was her body, her problem. She had been given no promise from him. So she is left in the same predicament as before birth control, but she doesn’t understand how she got there. I mean, she knew about the basic biology. But how could a non-committal involvement meaning no more than a kiss lead her to this predicament? The woman was led to believe that sex meant, “I find you attractive, and I think I might really like you, and I’d better put out so you will like me in return,” rather than, “I want to be committed to you for life, so we can raise our offspring together.” 

That was a pretty overwhelming social change. Now, a man could offer to pay for her abortion. He could pressure her to have one—to relieve himself of responsibility, not to help her. Or, if she wouldn't abort her child, the courts could force him to pay child support—and maybe he would follow through and maybe he wouldn’t. But the consequences of sex without commitment weigh most heavily on the woman. And using abortion as a de facto birth control further burdens her. The man tells her, “You weren’t worth marrying; it was just about the sex.” Lust, not love. 

The pro-abortion crowd—rather than correcting the societal error, doubles down on it. It’s unfair for the woman “to be punished with a baby,” so let’s give her the right to kill that baby.

Is talking the woman into killing her baby, referring to this preborn person as just a "clump of cells," recovering the respect and protection she used to earn by abstinence before marriage? Hardly.

I comprehend the desperate feelings a woman has when she finds herself unmarried and pregnant, and abandoned by the sex partner who never intended to be father to her baby. But the solution is not to compound the sin; it is to repent. Let’s stop telling women it’s her body, when another entirely different person—with a heartbeat and DNA and potential—is the one whose life is at stake. Often when a woman is shown the developmental level of her baby, she chooses to step away from abortion herself, despite the challenges in her life.

We need society to repent of the sin—of killing babies to get rid of the “inconvenient” consequences of unmarried sex. Texas has declared its repentant state. Mississippi has declared its repentance. Other states are doing that. If the Supreme Court got out of the way, many other states would follow. And some others wouldn’t, but at least we could choose locally.

Individuals are moving ever toward that repentance, according to polls. The more we recognize the preborn as human life, the more people repent of their casual attitude toward infant sacrifice.

Part of repentance is re-valuing children. There are about three dozen families ready and willing to adopt every baby that becomes available in this country. Maybe we could trust that, as we honor life, every child would be wanted—even (maybe especially) those whose birth mother can’t manage to parent them.

Healing of our society can come through repentance. Let’s restore women to their honored state as bearers of new life, and stop degrading them as disposable sexual objects unworthy of concern about consequences. And let's never again be silent about the taking of innocent human life.