Thin Places
The Radical Left Is A Religion
Talk about unhinged. It may seem like the usual radical left vs. pro-life drama. But it’s not. When the Supreme Court recently handed down its decision on abortion, the radical left went bonkers. That’s when it became evident to people that the radical left has turned into a religion. It has codified its creed: human autonomy is the chief right. This is clarified in that jingoistic popular mantra–“My Body, My Choice!” And though it has a creed, its belief system does not have a logic. That is because it bases its tenets on feelings and gives those emotional paroxysms moral credibility with one word–tolerance. Tolerance, never a virtue for the past 200,000 years of humanity, now becomes the virtue par excellence. Don’t misunderstand. Tolerance can be a good, but it can also be an evil when, for instance, people tolerate slavery, child abuse, poverty, and, may it be said, the death of the unborn. That’s why it’s not a virtue; it is too susceptible to manipulation by one’s emotions. Nothing wrong with emotions; it’s just that humans do not base laws or recognize rights on the basis of feelings.
Abortion Is The Radical Left’s Sacrament
All real religions have to have a sacrament–a ritual by which earthly things are used to manifest divine reality. For the radical left, that sacrament is abortion. One of the interesting things to come out of the pro-life struggle of the past generation is that this movement managed to reset the vocabulary of abortion. 95% of biologists state unequivocally that human life begins at conception. Now, most pro-choice people admit that if an abortion occurs, a baby will not occur. Some of the more enlightened pro-choice people say out loud what all of them know: the conceived child is not a parasite nor part of a woman’s body; it is a human being, period. Yet, that does not dissuade most pro-choice people from advocating abortion. Why? Because on the back of the fetus, the radical left performs its sacrament guaranteeing human autonomy. The death of a pre-born child releases the supposedly observable fact that a human being is totally in control of his or her body. For the radical left, it becomes a celebration of human sovereignty.
Human Autonomy As The Pre-eminent Right Is A Fallacy
The problem is the radical left’s sacrament of abortion guarantees no such human autonomy. Abortion can’t produce the so-called divine reality of human sovereignty that this pseudo-religion promotes. For the whole of human history, where individual autonomy is seen as a right, it is never seen as a top-tiered right. Human autonomy is fungible. That means it gives way to more important rights, the right to life being the chief human right. Even when paired with a right lower than the right to life, such as property rights, human autonomy is awfully flexible. The principle of eminent domain can snatch a person’s abode even if that person screams, “It’s mine; it’s all mine!” OSHA has a lot to say about individual autonomy as well. Try wearing crocs in a steel-toed shoe working environment. There is a place for human autonomy. It is a right, and people need to respect it, but it simply doesn’t rule over the right to life. And in that case, “My Body, My Choice!” works fine for an individual, but not for an individual who is carrying another human life.
The Intolerance Of The Tolerant
The absurd reasoning coming from the radical left is disheartening for further conversation between the two groups. For instance, just this past weekend, the University of Michigan Medical School, in a white coat ceremony, invited a prestigious faculty member to give the installation talk. She happened to be pro-life, but her speech did not reference that. Invited by the university itself, that fact played no part in dozens of students and their families walking out of the auditorium before the speech began. Intolerance from those who insist on tolerance. In the heat of the moment, the radical left has recently made clear that if the fetus is another human life, the mother’s life is automatically superior to it, thus legitimizing abortion no matter what. The canard the radical left uses deteriorates into the exceptional cases (ectopic pregnancy, cancer, deformed fetus) being used to justify the most extreme procedures. From time immemorial, moral and ethical specialists have taught that the exception cannot be the basis for the moral principle.
The Pro-life Position Is Not Based On Religion
The radical left may fire back saying, “All well and good, but your Christian faith is what makes you say abortion is bad, and God knows the pro-life people make constant use of the Sacraments of the Church to justify their position.” Again, however, their lack of intellectual honesty is simply breathtaking. Catholics and other Christians, indeed, the whole pro-life movement, do not say that the pro-life position is a religious value. Abortion violates human rights. The pro-life position is not at its roots religious in any way. Atheists can be pro-life. Why? Because the pro-life position is a human rights position regardless of creed, race, or religion. That is an argument the radical left cannot destroy.
This Is Only The Beginning
A strange religion the radical left has become. But there have been many strange and false religions. It’s not very old, and time has a way of showing the rotten foundations such pseudo-faiths are based on. Christianity, particularly Catholicism uniquely qualified by it’s 2000-year intellectual tradition, refuses to wait till this edifice crumbles. The pro-life movement was well aware from the beginning that the overthrow of Roe v. Wade was only the first victory in a long war. The radical left never expected to lose this battle. Now that it has, it will become not only more vociferous but more violent. It cannot convince on an intellectual plane. Sadly, it will take the path of least resistance, namely violence, to try to force a mandate that human nature instinctively rejects. The radical left vs. the pro-life movement now enters a new phase in this terrible struggle.
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