The Moral Slip N Slide

For any who foolishly claim that in the realm of morality the “slippery slope argument” is inherently fallacious, witness:

1859 - “[By] the existence of fœtal life…at the very beginning, at conception itself, we are compelled to believe unjustifiable abortion always a crime.” (Dr. Horatio Storer, “Contributions to Obstetric Jurisprudence”)

1973 - “A person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, [which] means the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception.“ (Justice Blackmun, Roe v. Wade decision)

1990s - “Abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.“ (President Bill Clinton)

Today - “#ShoutYourAbortion… Abortion is normal… This is not a debate." (Feminists)

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His Terrible Swift Sword

This is a story that could be true. God help us!

New York has legalized the killing of the unborn up to birth. As all wicked things done by an erstwhile Christian people, its passing is couched in euphemisms, wreathed by comforting platitudes: they say it’s about protecting women’s rights and access to reproductive healthcare in the face of an uncertain political future. Already there are rumblings in other states for similar legislation. Given the propensity of progressives to always push onward, with no limiting principle, and no destination in mind, but addicted to that narcotic feeling of forward velocity, it is a certainty that many states will pass similar laws.

In the twinkling of an eye, the distant and comforting hope that someday we would overturn Roe v Wade, and allow the States to once again enact anti-abortion laws to protect the unborn from slaughter is rendered irrelevant. By the time we have a Supreme Court honest enough to interpret the Constitution and Laws as written, and courageous enough to strike down that most poorly decided case, the States will have already decided that it is legal to kill the unborn up to birth. Thus, devolving abortion laws to the States will accomplish nothing for the unborn but to subject their lives to the accident of their mother’s address.

But not all States will be so callous. Not all will light the sacrificial fires for Moloch.

So, supposing we do someday overturn Roe v Wade, as surely must happen, just as Dredd Scott eventually was overturned, we will have a world where some states are abortionist, and some are abolitionist. Thus will geographic lines be drawn in the already, perhaps irretrievably, fractured culture we are living in. As the culture in each State is amplified and clarified, we could, in a few decades, arrive again at the precipice of civil war. And the trumpeters will sound a new clarion call to rally for the protection of the unborn, and the new abolitionists will answer the call to eradicate from the earth a barbaric and bloody institution.

And then in this culture war we have all been drafted into we will all of us at least—and at last—know in which direction to shoot.

Illiteracy and Indecency at CNN

This article featured on CNN is, in so many ways, a perfect example of our decline.

It hardly deserves mention that although it is a news site and not a Playboy magazine, it discusses in shameless detail the most intimate details of female sexual pleasure. Any mask of decency dissolved long ago in the acid bath of modern culture.

The article is adorned with a gallery-style listicle "10 Reasons to Have Sex Tonight" that features 3 gay couples (out of 10), a tenfold overrepresentation of the 3% of the population they comprise. And, the gallery has only one image with a baby, reminding us that "sex can also make a baby. And that can be good for you," a perfunctory if not grudging mention of the essential element of sex, i.e. procreation. The other 10 reasons are predictably selfish: better memory, lower stress, burning calories, et cetera. As if modern man is so encumbered by practicality and self restraint that he must be convinced by medical science to have sex. The propagandizing surrounding sex continues apace.

It is not just the moral decline on full display here, but also the linguistic decline. The author contrasts "intercourse", penetrative sex, with "outercourse", non penetrative sex. He appears to think that he is being cleaver by contrasting "inter-" and "outer-" as if they opposites. But of course, they are not. "Inter-" does not mean "inner" it means "between". It only accidentally resembles "inner" and is no more related to "inner" than the verb "inter", i.e. to bury, is to "intercourse". The opposite of "intercourse" would be "intracourse" which would have to be a neologism for masturbation, though obviously not for the mutual masturbation the author is so earnestly and graphically advocating. 

This man is older than I am by a decade or two, and he has a Ph.D. to my M.S., but did no one teach him basic Latin and Greek roots? Or basic decency? Apparently not.

 

 

 

The Lost Embryos

A fairly standard argument against the position that human life and personhood begin at conception, and therefore that the embryo is to be protected from the violence of abortion from conception onward, is to point out the great number of embryos that never implant in the womb and are simply flushed away by the woman's body. Estimates cited can be as high as 60%. I would like to suggest a response to that argument.

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