[published in Muddy River News 2/3/2023]
This is sad, because their moral instinct is right—every
abortion is a tragedy. It is not something that people cheer about. We do not make
jokes about it.
At a crucial moment, in 1973, after Roe v. Wade, defenders
of the unborn went on record in favor of the quintessential American solution
to all problems: pass laws. Punish evil and you will stamp out evil.
No. You will not stamp out evil because you will not stamp
out sin.
Sin is a bad word in our times. It calls to mind Puritan
divines preaching the wrath of God, and most of us Christians no longer see God
as wrathful. That is not because we have abandoned religion. We just started
realizing the message of Jesus Christ: God is not in favor of punishment.
The wrong turn that the pro-life people made in 1972 was to
go for the political solution to the tragedy of abortion. Roe said that states
could not use law to prevent abortion. The solution: overturn Roe.
The prolife cause succeeded. The dog caught the car.
What has happened is the exact opposite of what prolife
defenders want. It has made abortion something to be defended in public.
Democratic politicians go on record in favor of it. Protecting abortion has
become a virtue.
True, it took law to abolish slavery. But slavery and
abortion are very different issues. Slavery was a public practice, with immense
economic consequences. Abortion is very private, and while abortion provision
has economic consequences, as the prolife cause points out, it does not compete
with Microsoft.
What prolife defenders should have done is work to create a
moral consensus that abortion is tragic. Instead they have caused a major
political party to promote a moral consensus that abortion is to be defended.
It did not have to be this way. But our American flaw, where
there is sin, punish, captured the prolife cause.
