Why is our society so dysfunctional? Why has our culture become so toxic? Why is unhappiness so pervasive? Perhaps because we have embraced abortion, the consequences of which have been reverberating throughout our nation. Perhaps because we are haunted by the ghosts of millions of aborted children.
So says Nathanael Blake in a powerful essay that you have to read: Roe v. Wade‘s Millions Of Ghosts In The Cradle Haunt Us All. Here are some excerpts:
The corruption of abortion goes far beyond unpalatable political choices, however; making abortion-on-demand part of the culture changes the culture. Its evil effects are systemic, as well as individual, and they do not end with the violent killing of the unborn.
Our nation is haunted by what abortion does to the living. Trying to solve our problems by killing developing human beings makes us worse, individually and socially. If elective abortion seems necessary, it is because our sexual appetites exceed our willingness to care for the children who are the natural result of sex. Elective abortion is a violent form of birth control, which is used either instead of, or as a backup to, the proliferating array of modern contraceptives.
Abortion thus damages the fundamental relationships of our humanity, shattering the primeval union of mother, father, and child. Instead of the family solidarity that is foundational to human society, the begetting and bearing of new human life become a battleground of competing interests.
Abortion, even as a possibility, separates mothers and fathers from their children, and each other. A regime of abortion on demand affirms a view of human sexuality as essentially selfish, and of relations between men, women, and children as fundamentally contentious. It replaces love and responsibility with selfishness and violence.
America’s abortion culture sets men and women against each other. Even the justification of abortion as a private matter of female freedom implicitly relieves men of their responsibilities: why should a woman’s choice be a man’s problem? He signed up for a good time, not diapers and a minivan.
Similarly, women’s workplace equality often advanced on the tacit assumption that female fertility would be suppressed to require little or no accommodation from employers. Children are considered to be a lifestyle choice, and those are not an employer’s responsibility. In each case, abortion provides a failsafe that allows men to get what they want from women with a minimum of commitment and responsibility.
The effects of abortion pervade our culture, from dating and marriage to business and education. Instead of building a better culture, that encourages us to be more virtuous, abortion enables us to be more vicious and exploitative of each other.
It should not surprise us, therefore, that after decades of abortion on demand, we live in a nation with cratering marriage and birth rates, and an epidemic of deadly loneliness. Abortion is not solely responsible for this, but the ghosts in the empty cradles undoubtedly haunt us. Many want to look away. But, if we are to understand the ills of our nation, then we must face them.
I would add that embracing abortion has taken away the moral authority of those who claim to advocate social justice. How can we take seriously the humane, compassionate rhetoric of our new president when we know what he wants to do to the most vulnerable and marginalized?
Having accepted abortion, no wonder we treat children as accessories, whose only value is insofar as we “want” them. No wonder marriage is reduced to little more than a sexual arrangement. No wonder fathers increasingly abandon their children. No wonder children are increasingly poorly educated, neglected, and abused. Abortion is child abuse. And having accepted that, why not accept other kinds?
Abortion dehumanizes babies, and so it also dehumanizes adults. How can people credibly oppose violence when they celebrate violence against children in the womb? How can we be caring towards each other, when we cannot even be caring to children?
Not only those who procure and perform abortions but the far greater number of those who advocate abortion have had their hearts hardened, which manifests itself on every level of life.
Abortion has made us a nation of hypocrites. It renders nearly all of our values false. So no wonder our culture is hollowed out and corrupt, with little to inspire us. No wonder so many people feel their lives are meaningless. If we can accept abortion, then life is meaningless.
National renewal, which so many people yearn for, will be impossible without spiritual renewal–repentance, redemption, and forgiveness–and without a renewal of the love of life.
Image by Nick Magwood from Pixabay
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