mercatornet.com
2023-07-26
That anti-abortionists and pro-abortionists talk past each other is no secret. Conflicting anthropologies stemming from conflicting cosmologies ensure one dictionary but two languages. Less out in the open but becoming clearer by the day is that we can sort anti-abortionists themselves into two competing camps.
On gradualism, ending the mass murder of God's children revolves around a two-part commandment: "Thou shall not mention God or murder." Gradualism meekly toils away within a "secular" framework (a pluralistic public square is no place for theological facts) and hands recruits a starter pack containing science, a valuable future, a burning IVF clinic, and a famous violinist. The worldview is humanistic, abortion is bad, the mother is a victim, and "lethal violence" against "the fetus" is "unconstitutional" because it has no deep roots in US history and tradition. The master plan is to formalise a specific interpretation of a clause in an amendment to a legal document. Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.
On abolitionism, God and murder are indispensable terms in the anti-abortion vocabulary. America's legal environment welcomes religions; furthermore, "godless law" is oxymoronic. Abolitionism counters gradualism's anemia with confident blood-and-thunder preaching, unpacking abortion by unpacking identity and authority. The worldview is biblical, abortion is sinful, the mother is a criminal, and deliverance demands national repentance. The beast abolitionism tries to catch is no monkey and patience no virtue.