With all the cultural and political chaos happening these days, HERE is an article claiming that “legal abortion is the main evil that afflicts our country, and the others depend on it”.
It’s easy to mock a “one issue voter” as narrow-minded, but when a nation allows the legal killing of over 600,000 perfectly innocent human lives each year, it seems more than plausible that this kind of moral blindness would seep deeply into the very bones of a nation. In fact… it would be strange to think otherwise.
I’ll attempt to briefly summarize a few points in the article that discuss how an articulate pro-life majority would finally overturn legalized abortion and eventually deter or even eliminate many other evils.
Owning the Language:
The wrongness of abortion is easily expressed in much of the secular language used today; it doesn’t take a complex understanding of Natural Law. Certain terms tossed about are easily employed in the pro-life argument. These are common expressions such as rights, fairness, equality, non-discrimination, social justice, wokeness and even two new ones courtesy of Covid-19; “follow the science” & “we’re saving lives”.
The article refers to legal abortion as a wellspring of lies that fuel political correctness. Speech among the political left and the media designed to hide the truth about abortion allows for false reporting and a misrepresentation of reality. The same type of strategy is used to spread other falsehoods. After all, if you can be convinced that an unborn baby is not really a human life, you can be convinced of any fool thing. If legalized abortion is ended, much of the fuel for distorting reality is hindered.
Discrediting the Culture:
Our surrounding secular culture actively opposes many Catholic/Christian principles. Most of the opposition involves something to do with human sexuality. Abortion, homosexuality, contraception, gender identity, fornication, same-sex marriage, divorce and remarriage all have an aspect of sexuality to them. As the article puts it “Trying to figure out who and what is behind it, we grope and strain with the language of ‘elite culture’ and so on.”
Academia, big business, mainstream media and big tech all seem to have an almost religious obsession with endorsing sexual confusion, with the commitment to legal abortion as the source and summit of their faith; and this has been going on for many years.
If the nation swings more pro-life—owning the language and making abortion illegal—these institutions will be discredited, giving them less influence over any issue in the culture. As an analogy, imagine there were institutions that recently supported slavery and supported it for many years. Even if they apologized, they would still have a credibility problem.
Deterring Fornication
The article mentioned a conversation on abortion with an intellectually honest person who concluded, “If I reject abortion, I have to give up sex.”
Abortion is essential in our fornicating culture. We demand sex without babies. If unrestricted sex is something essential to a culture, then disposing of accidental babies is also essential. What other examples of killing is tolerated like this? For many, animals and even trees have more right to be alive.
To reject abortion compels one to reject fornication. Stop and think of all the societal problems solved (without government programs) if people stopped fornicating. Imagine the reduction in unwanted pregnancies and the resulting poverty and single parent homes? How about the reduction in broken homes due to divorce because of infidelity? Would there be any such thing as STD’s?
The amount of emotional pain due to fornication is probably not considered as something that will impact the rest of the culture in any significant way, but think of the huge number of people bonding and breaking up with different sexual partners over and over again and how this impacts their character? How then, does their character impact everyone else around them?
Fostering Patriotism
I found this to be a very novel concept. Patriotism can be called love for one’s country as the source of one’s life, sustenance, and education. Not as a replacement for God, but more like honoring one’s parents. The linked article put it quite simply “…how can you love deeply a country that can claim no interest in your being born at all?”
Excellent perspective. Regarding the cultural obsession with sex, a return to a sense of shame for extramarital pregnancies and a re-recognition that the real purpose of sex is procreation would at least substantially reduce the societal rot that the “sexual revolution” has caused. But the Church gave away that point when it abandoned the traditional dogma and added a “unitive” purpose for matrimony. The slippery slope started right there, in my view.
Hi Frank,
#2369 of the CCC says “By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man’s exalted vocation to parenthood.”
Are you saying the CCC is incorrect? Or that Church leadership has emphasized “unitive” too much since the sexual revolution? I would tend to agree with the later.
Frank:
Explain to this old bachelor how the kids are going to fare in a marriage where there is no unity between the spouses.
I would say that contraception is the main evil.
Ben, I’ve read articles that say “the CCC is incorrect” and has changed Church teaching. They were able to show where the “conjugal act” or “marital
Act” had always been for procreative purposes but then ALSO had a unitive aspect. The wording in the CCC reverses it. If I can, I’ll try to find them but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve read them.
I would also question the societal use of the word “sex” . There are a pandora box of things that are all called “sex”. I prefer the term “martial act”. It implies who can partake and it can only be done by one man and one woman.
Ben, sorry for the delayed reply. I don’t deny that the CCC reflects current teaching. I also agree with you that the emphasis on procreation has become much less than equal to the emphasis on the “unitive.” But back in the mists of history, (and I haven’t done my research to get citations for this as yet, I just recall it, I hope correctly), the Church taught that procreation was the primary purpose of marital relations. The unitive is a fairly recent development, I believe. And Tom, I am not saying spouses should not have unity. But the marital act is not essential for that purpose. That, too, is a modern development.
“Regarding the cultural obsession with sex, a return to a sense of shame for extramarital pregnancies and a re-recognition that the real purpose of sex is procreation would at least substantially reduce the societal rot that the “sexual revolution” has caused.”
Not purpose; end or telos.
That’s the difference between “let’s make a baby” and “I want to know you (in a biblical sense), and if a baby comes of it, so much the better.”
IF you deny or denigrate (even without meaning to) the unitive part of the marital act, then middle aged farts like myself might as well start sleeping on the couch. Neither my better half nor I are ready to be grandparents; but we’re agreed that we’re too old to be changing diapers and getting up for 3am feedings.
You’re primary point is right on the money, in my opinion.
If you’re not prepared to make a baby with him/her you shouldn’t be doing what the two of you are doing, or are contemplating doing. And if you are prepared, then stand up and declare it to the world by taking vows before God and witnesses.
As a man, I think that a good
rule of thumbgut check for young men is whether or not you’re prepared to put a baby in her womb, and assume ALL of the responsibilities that come with that; and if you’re not, then you’re wasting her time as well as yours.Apologies for getting crude (I would say “real” but…) There’s a handful of women in my life that I would have happily dumped a load into (sorry, that was really crude, but, like Patton said…), but there were only two with whom I would have wanted to make a baby. One was the proverbial girl who got away…which was a good thing, because she wasn’t for me, but the experience prepared me for the one who was. The other, of course, was the love of my life and the mother of my children.
Since we are being frank, I have a friend who is a 70, a “looker”, and a devout Catholic who’s been a window 9 years. Suddenly there are two men interested in her, 75 and 80,.and she’s dating. She has not slept with either. Mr. 80 proposed marriage but with the caveat no sexual relations because married couples shouldn’t have sex after menopause and he referred her to a book and a website. Titles and addresses she’s forgotten.
She looked at the reference and was horrified. She said according to the book she and her late husband must have committed grave sin because in the 50 years of marriage the sex wasn’t all for giving life to their four children. This long conversation was Thursday night until after midnight and I mentioned this blog. Mr 80 is no longer in the picture. .Now the relationship with Mr. 75 is serious. He’s relocated to be closer to her. They still haven’t slept together.
The problems: Mr 75 would need annulments and he was never baptized; doesn’t have a prayer life, but may be open to that. She would lose her medical care if she remarried.
Women talk just like men and I’ve draw the conclusion that a marriage is troubled if there’s no sex. Sex with no affection is troublesome also. Granted there are valid reasons like health or both parties have agreed to abstain feeling that affection is enough for them.