Culture,  Politics

A younger generation will rightly sit in judgment on ours

Your must-read piece on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade is from Frederica Mathewes-Greene. It is stunning, tragic, and wonderful. I give you just the conclusion here, but you must read the whole thing. She writes:

The pro-life cause is perennially unpopular, and pro-lifers get used to being misrepresented and wrongly accused. There are only a limited number of people who are going to be brave enough to stand up on the side of an unpopular cause. But sometimes a cause is so urgent, is so dramatically clear, that it’s worth it. What cause could be more outrageous than violence — fatal violence — against the most helpless members of our human community? If that doesn’t move us, how hard are our hearts? If that doesn’t move us, what will ever move us? 

In time, it’s going to be impossible to deny that abortion is violence against children. Future generations, as they look back, are not necessarily going to go easy on ours. Our bland acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. In fact, the kind of hatred that people now level at Nazis and slave-owners may well fall upon our era. Future generations can accurately say, “It’s not like they didn’t know.” They can say, “After all, they had sonograms.” They may consider this bloodshed to be a form of genocide. They might judge our generation to be monsters. 

One day, the tide is going to turn. With that Supreme Court decision 43 years ago, one of the sides in the abortion debate won the day. But sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. The time is coming when a younger generation will sit in judgment of ours. And they are not obligated to be kind.

6 Comments

  • Matthew Schultz

    That would be a good outcome, but given the philosophical reasons underpinning the fights against slavery, racism, and Nazism, I don’t have much confidence society will move toward a pro-life position. Perhaps if the argument were made strictly along terms of individual expression we would see more success down the line, but even then the difficulty with abortion is how an unwanted pregnancy threatens deep idols of American culture.

  • Andrew Alladin

    “One day, the tide is going to turn.”

    This could have been said 20, 30, 40 years ago and yet here we are. Americans seem to reached a sweet spot: They really feel bad about abortion but they won’t actually do anything to stop it. The Planned Parenthood videos haven’t made a dent in the public’s support for abortion rights. Abortion undergirds the sexual promiscuity that is now taken for granted by the majority of the American people – taking away abortion rights will actually have to mean changed behavior. How many 18-30 year olds will interrupt their careers or college education to raise an unplanned child? Job offers, graduate school, internships, promotions – these would all have to be put aside when a baby is on the way. And sometimes you just can’t pick up from where you left off. The careerism that has firmly taken root in American society cannot be overcome by videos of baby parts.

    Abortion is actually both a judgment and a consequence of American society today. It is going to be with us for a very long time.

  • Ezra Thomas

    It will take a great national revival to accomplish that vision. The problem is that the enemy is sin and abortion is simply another evil of the time, alongside sex trafficking, racism, polyamory, alternate lifestyles, high divorce rates, warmongering, etc. Jesus came to redeem all sinners no matter their type of sin. The greater the penetration of the Gospel into our society and the more people are made aware of a need to be saved the more likely that abortion rates will be reduced. That’s realistic thinking and not some feel-good fantasy that future generations will just decide to think differently about abortion as a singular issue similar to the way we now think about slavery, racism, eugenics, and so on.

    In the meantime, support efforts to change our laws on the state and national level and encourage the use of appropriate contraceptives so that abortion will never even be considered. It’s time promote rational policy that can accomplish a goal of reducing abortions rather than investing in moralistic demands that people remain abstinent. This is not working.

    • Christiane Smith

      Hi EZRA,
      I agree with you, this: ” It’s time promote rational policy that can accomplish a goal of reducing abortions . . . ”
      I am aware how frustrated people are about the number of tragic abortions in our country . . . and how that frustration is often expressed as passionate anger towards the women who would have an abortion rather than bring their child into this world safely. But I also believe that we need those policies you speak of in order to help these women make the better choice for live for their infants . . .

      It is my belief that when people express ‘anger’ against the darkness and yet do nothing to provide light and a way forward for troubled women, that these people have misplaced their passion . . . if they used their energy positively, the outcome would be reflected in less abortions. Christians speak of the light and then they also must acknowledge that light in ways of their living of the faith:

      “Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.”
      (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

    • pauldreed2

      “It will take a great national revival to accomplish that vision. ”

      I completely agree, Ezra Thomas. Without some *major* change in the fundamental way Americans think, expect for abortion policy to remain the same. And it’s not enough for people to say “abortion is bad”. A Planned Parenthood employee will even tell you that they don’t like abortion. It would take a counter-sexual and counter-feminist revolution to change abortion policy, and I don’t see that in the works.

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