5 Comments
May 6, 2022Liked by Virgil

Well written, and a good read (as always). I have had a lengthy conversation about this with a good friend who is a circuit court judge, and a pro choice female. I think she would agree almost word for word with your assessment. Her basic stance on R v. W, is that the court shouldn't have heard this case to begin with. I can't remember her well articulated reasoning for that opinion (I'm blaming old age & bourbon)...but it was a very interesting conversation.

Expand full comment
May 6, 2022Liked by Virgil

Excellent as always. It’s such an incredibly difficult problem in some ways, and also weirdly simple in others.

What I can’t get my head around are the avatars of absolute evil who *celebrate* actual abortions - not abortions from a theoretical or abstract perspective, but actual instances of abortion in their lives and in other peoples’ - as if they’re some miracle. I don’t know how many people are doing this in reality, really, but there are a fair number on the Twitter and appearing on TV and in print occasionally who are so damn loud and proud about it…and those people are monsters.

Demons.

As a parent, and really just as a thinking, feeling human being, I know that much. And every time I see one of those people shrieking out their lungs or wearing their “I’ve had 21 abortions” t-shirt or having a goddamn cake and a party on the anniversary of their own first abortion…it drives me further to the other side of the debate.

So maybe plastering the left’s reaction to this leak incident and SC opinion all over the media will be a boon to the GOP in November. I don’t know.

But thanks again for writing.

Expand full comment
author
May 6, 2022·edited May 6, 2022Author

I resisted the urge to go into the more extreme positions of the pro-life and pro-choice movement. Both sides tend to act in ways that I find... unChristian.

I am in full throated agreement that "shouting your abortion" or acting like it is some sort of sacrament is possibly the very essence of evil. Having said that, protesting outside a clinic in view of and earshot of a terrified young woman having the worst day of her life is also abhorrent behavior.

Even if I agree that the young lady should not have the abortion, something I do believe in many cases... I have no right to confront her as she navigates the process. It's not helpful, kind, or persuasive. IMHO

Expand full comment
May 6, 2022Liked by Virgil

I don’t believe in shaming people or calling them awful names or whatever. I mean, it’s gross. And 10 years ago, I think the picture of the crying, reluctant young pregnant woman, walking into the clinic with tears in her eyes as she was pelted throughout the gauntlet with verbal hate…that may have been accurate in almost every case.

And it’s a horrifying image. And I really have a lot of sympathy for young women in a tough situation who are desperately searching for a way through that minefield.

I just don’t think we’re there anymore, in terms of how abortions are used and who gets them. And balancing someone getting yelled at for a minute - however scarring that may be - against killing an innocent child…I mean, I don’t see those things as even remotely equivalent.

I watched what little coverage there was of Kermit Gosnell, and I’ve seen PP pull their garbage over the past 6-7 years. I think there’s a self-defense exception that has to be included when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. But they’re throwing out justifications for abortion now like “if having a child would negatively affect the mental health of the mother,” and lawmakers are offering draft legislation that would allow a doctor and the mother to murder a baby who is currently being born (yes, that happened in Virginia). Never mind Dr. Northam’s comments about making the baby comfortable while the mother and doctor went in the other room and hashed out how exactly to euthanize that little parasite…

The act of having an abortion moved way too far beyond a sad, somber, reluctant occasion toward a celebration, and even if most people only see it as something closer to a nonevent… that’s still too far, IMO.

Expand full comment
author

I agree

Expand full comment