Where’s The ACLU On THIS Religious Liberty Violation?
From HotAir and Stop The ACLU. In short, a Catholic nurse was forced to help with an abortion despite her objections to it, and her job was threatened.
This happened back in July; I remember reading about it. Quite awful, I think.
Worldwide One-Child Law?
So this knucklehead up in Canada thinks a planet-wide one-child law is the cure to overpopulation concerns. The author, one Diane Francis, cites China as her example of a country with the right policy on population control to help save the planet and, as a result, humanity.
Before I rip into Francis, a brief history on population growth. In short, there are four stages of population. Stage 1 is pre-urban, Stage 2 is the beginning of industrialization, Stage 3 is modern industrialization and Stage 4 is post-industrialization. As a nation grows wealthier, more educated, more equal between the sexes etc. the population tends to slow. Europe and North America are at Stages 3 and 4, though The United States of America has not quite hit Stage 4 due to our large influx of immigrants. Of course, one of the negatives of this population growth pattern is the “graying” of many nations.
When I first read this piece, I knew I had to be misreading it. Francis couldn’t be saying the world should follow the ethical standards of China. Not the one that is run by a government?that has refused to apologize for the Tiananmen Square massacre 20 years ago. Not the same one that tried to cover up SARS, sterilizes women and forces them to have abortions as part of their one-child policy and arrested many citizens and tried to prevent freedom of speech before and during the 2008 Summer?Olympics. I was also sure she couldn’t have meant the same one that has crushed Tibetans for over half a century and did so again last year.
Alas, I was wrong- Francis was referring to that very China. Francis has ignored the giant elephant in the room, namely China’s atrocious human rights history involved with its “success” story on lowering the size of its population.There are a number of other things Francis missed in her thesis, and I will touch on a few of them below.
First, there are a number of more-ethical-than-China ways to encourage a birth rate that helps population control. One is to create opportunities for widespread wealth. A second is to “[ensure] women’s equality and improving their education, while providing cheap contraception.” (Note: as a practicing Catholic, I do not find contraceptive use ethical; however, it is more ethical than the Chinese approach of forced sterilizations and abortions. Too, I think the other three improvements provide far more opportunity for slowing birth rates.) These opportunities are largely responsible for nations at Stage 4 of population growth patterns.
Another point Francis missed was the utter immorality of forcing abortions worldwide. As Jonah Goldberg put it at The Corner: “But one point does cry out to be made. Imagine if someone wrote an op-ed saying that we need a planetary ban on abortion. Feminists would get their dresses over their heads in outrage about such a naked assault on “reproductive freedom.” But here is a woman in a very prestigious Canadian newspaper arguing, in effect, that every country in the world should force women everywhere to have an abortion if they already have a child. Put aside, for a moment, the pro-life objections to this. Even if you think the unborn are really just a bunch of cells, mere “uterine contents” with no more moral import than fingernail clippings, how on earth can anyone believe in “reproductive freedom” and not be absolutely horrified by the police-state evil of such proposals?”
Thirdly, Francis forgets that over a dozen countries, including Finland and France, have taken giant steps toward energy independence by building nuclear power plants. Combined with Congress allowing more nuclear power plants and domestic drilling in America- the world’s second-largest carbon dioxide emitter- this would be a huge step toward renewable and cleaner energy policy that would reverbrate around the world. It would also create less demand for oil, which is obviously good for the planet. Since Francis is rightfully concerned about the impact of overpopulation on the planet?s resources, perhaps she would agree that eliminating the need for non-renewable resources and lessening the overall impact of humanity on the planet is better than encouraging forced abortions and sterilizations?
A last point- Francis is entirely inefficient with her method of controlling the world’s population. The best way to attack population growth is to have every single one of these fruitcakes voluntarily jump off a bridge. Let’s say just one percent of the Earth’s population agrees with her; that means we’ll get rid of 60 million people with no added effort or government involvement. Next, atomize Tokyo and Beijing- throw in New York, the Yankees are there- and our population won’t have to take decades to see results. In minutes Earth will be a happier, healthier place to live!
The fact is that a planet-wide ban on multiple children would, by its very nature, lead to a worst-case scenario situation of forced abortions, sterilization, government intimidation, a plethora of jailed citizens etc. The world’s one example of this is China, but allow me to extrapolate: let’s say each government takes its responsibility to help the planet seriously. They hire people whose job it is to keep the birth rate at one per couple. Of course, some people won’t follow the law, which means those officials will have only a few choices to prevent multiple births by a mother. The first is to arrest her and her husband for breaking the law- after forcing her to have an abortion, of course, to prevent the extra child’s birth- thereby causing the government to adopt the couple’s first child or find it a new home. The second is to not jail the couple- but to prevent births another way. The solution would be to abort the extra child and sterilize the mother and/or father (though probably the mother, since sterilizing the father would still leave the mother the opportunity to get pregnant from another source). Of course, if all else fails, the government could simply kill the parents and thereby save both the planet’s and the government’s resources, and put the firstborn child up for adoption.
Obviously, Francis does not care for the human species- that is her prerogative. As of now, her opinion is not quite in the mainstream. It’s not even a Google option. Unfortunately, as Goldberg said, her piece was in a “very prestigious Canadian newspaper,” so it’s up to those of us who think this policy is heinous to stop it in its tracks so it does not reach the status of “mainstream.”
By the way, AllahPundit says it more concisely and better than I can.
Abortion Preferable to Single Motherhood?
Over the years, many crackpot arguments have been made in favor of abortion- however, this one takes the cake.
The argument is that single motherhood is the biggest threat to pro-family efforts, not abortion. This is a very defensible position, as abortion merely ends a life and single motherhood is likely to bring a life through a cycle of poverty that will lead generations after it through the same cycle. Of course, I disagree strongly with this position, as should all pro-life supporters. Murder is murder, after all.
What is not defensible, however, are the author’s presumptions as to why single motherhood is the biggest threat to pro-family supporters, including the following: “Virgins are now considered losers, and people who save themselves for marriage are considered weird or extreme religious nuts. ” There are a number of things wrong with these points, including the following:
1. Speaking as a male, female virgins are considered very attractive, classy and worthy of raising one’s standards to impress, as I see guys doing every day. It’s the free-living, one-night-standers who are considered losers, of bad morals, etc. even by those who partake in sexual activities with them. (To paraphrase the old adage, a guy is “cool” for sex, a woman is an R-rated word. Britney Spears, anyone? Lindsay Lohan, perhaps?) To clarify, no, I have no experiences with these matters, as I am a virgin. Perhaps my viewpoint is biased regarding abstinent women. If so, I would contend non-virgin viewpoints on the benefits of having sex are biased as well.
Related, there are many consequences to those who have pre-marital sex at a young age; The Heritage Foundation shows a number of them, and the Journal of Youth and Adolescence had this study in February, 2007. The consequences, detailed in the linked research, include high delinquency rates and lower educational success, among others.
2. People who save themselves for marriage are considered respectable religious followers, as Americans generally respect others’ spiritual and religious beliefs (or non-beliefs, as the case may be). As a conservative Catholic, I am told by many that they “wish they had done that [been a virgin]” until they met their current significant other, often a fiancee. Too, even those who don’t regret their past actions often say it’s respectable to have the kind of strength they believe it takes not to have pre-marital sex. There are, of course, those who are virgins due to social awkwardness, but there are also those who have sex because of peer pressure, so the “losers” argument holds no water. (One example of an abstinent non-loser, by the way, is retired NBA player A.C. Green.)
The fact is that abortion consists of the taking of a human life, and most pro-family advocates recognize this. They also recognize that not having sex, staying married, having a good education etc. are major keys to keeping single motherhood rates down. On the other hand, encouragement by those who are distinctly not pro-family for actions such as abortion, contraceptive use, “shacking up” and “The Pill” definitely keep single motherhood rates up. Want proof? Look at how out-of-wedlock birth rates have changed over the last half-century, when all of the liberal and not pro-family concepts listed above became more popular. Too, as The Heritage Foundation put it, “For decades long, this well intentioned program had the unfortunate consequence of encouraging single women to have more children out of wedlock and penalized them if they got married or found employment. Not surprisingly, the welfare caseloads exploded and the out of wedlock birth rate steadily rose.”
The fact is, however, that all arguments against the author’s points are weaker than the basic point that abortion is wrong. Supporting the killing of humanity’s weakest for the sake of single motherhood prevention is a flawed argument akin to saying we should shoot poor people for increasing our health care costs or execute people for the sake of decreasing global warming.
