Recently, in the wake of the Roe v. Wade controversy, my wife Janice Fiamengo published an article for PJ Media asserting that abortion-on-demand is by no means a question of male compulsion but involves the responsibility of the woman herself as a person who possesses individual agency, who can choose whether or not to abort her unborn. A woman is not the helpless victim of ostensive patriarchal domination but a free and responsible agent who can determine her own actions rather than malinger as a servile casualty of male oppression. To think otherwise is merely demeaning, a way of infantilizing and exculpating women for their own decisions.
I’ve received many comments from correspondents who, while agreeing with the tenor of Janice’s arguments, felt that — to cite just two responses — few people are concerned “about this issue with all the dysfunction around us in vastly more important and relevant areas of life,” and that the abortion discussion is “a complete distraction and waste of time [considering] the far more consequential issues of our time.” In my estimation, such reactions bespeak a basic misunderstanding of the matter.
The subject of abortion remains central to the “discussion” since it is the Left’s fundamental sacrament, the hill they don’t intend to die on but to successfully defend in any way they can, legally or illegally. The Bible has warned against this obscenity. The slaughter of the unborn or the newly born is a pagan rite celebrated by the ancient Canaanites who worshipped Moloch, a devouring god venerated by a people for whom life was not a Divine gift. One need not be a believer to take seriously the admonition of Leviticus 18:21: “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.” Similarly, the “hilled site” on which the Left is encamped is the contemporary version of the biblical Topheth, razed by King Josiah so that “no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Moloch” (2 Kings 23:10). The secular will scoff, and the “idolatrous priests” of the progressivist persuasion will dismiss the injunction as irrelevant, but history bears out the biblical exhortation. Such peoples and nations no longer exist, but Israel, the people of genesis (literally) and the bringers of the Decalogue, has survived.
As noted, the modern Canaanite in his hieratic depravity is still with us, in the guise of the political Left, which does not understand that a nation in the service of Moloch is doomed to extinction, in whatever way we wish to regard the abomination: as a violation of the sacred or as a failure to achieve the population replacement ratio of 2.1 births per woman. Either way, the die is cast. The sequel is irreversible. Moreover, there is another aspect to the crisis that we may fail to consider.
The pro-choice prepossession is merely a fractal representation or aspect of the larger picture, an expression of civilizational decay that follows upon the abrogation of the principle of responsibility, both practical and moral, betokening ignorance of the past, the rejection of the political and social obligation to preserve the culture we have inherited, and indifference to the future. The evils true conservatives deplore — the rise of the totalitarian state, the destruction of the economy, the powerful myth of gender fluidity, the war against the family, the evisceration of marriage, the suffocation of dissent, and the technocratic suppression of the free, self-reliant, bio-spiritual individual — are all related phenomena, of which the indiscriminate exercise of abortion is even perhaps the founding or primary one. As columnist Chris Queen writes, abortion for the Left remains “a moral crusade,” and “Those who fight for life have sacrificed the moral high ground in the calculus of the left.” It is, of course, a twisted calculus and the moral high ground is in this case the slough of moral decadence.
The life of the child and the life of culture, nation, and civilization are inherently one, are, indeed, coterminous. When you kill the unborn, you murder the future, in both the immediate and comprehensive sense. This is why abortion, practiced for selfish or non-medical purposes, or for reasons of mere convenience, remains a central issue. A culture that wilfully aborts its progeny is the same culture that aborts the fundamental principles that ensure its survival; it is a culture that hates its very tenure, that worships the lie, that renounces the axioms of civil decency, mutual respect, and ultimately of personal responsibility for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As emeritus law professor Gabriël Moens points out — and he is far from alone — the West has lost its moral compass. Engaged in “implementing a social engineering agenda: abortion on demand … same-sex marriage, euthanasia, shaming of the Western civilisation, denigrating the role of religion in society, compulsory critical race studies, and transgenderism, among others,” the Left is “undermining the rich civilisation of which the West is a beneficiary and keeper.” It has disavowed both the idea and practice of responsibility in the service of life and human flourishing.
The practice of indiscriminate abortion is thus profoundly implicated in “the consequential issues of our time,” a symbol and harbinger of national decline and civilizational collapse. To cite Psalm 106:38, the Left has, in effect, “sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.” Encouraged as a “right” and practiced as an act of personal empowerment, abortion is both a sign of fealty and an offering to the pagan god of self-destruction, signifying — pace my correspondent — a vastly important and relevant area of life.
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