I don't know whether to be aghast that the ACLU is changing the words of virulent right-winger Ruth Bader Ginsburg to meet the new linguistic standards or to be happy that my lack of a uterus is no longer an obstacle to my having an opinion on abortion.
In all seriousness, I agree completely. What we are dealing with truly is an absurdity at this point. Men cannot get pregnant. No man ever has been pregnant. For men to insist that we can become pregnant (or do or be any of the other things that are distinctly a province of the female sex) is, at this point, approaching the levels of offensiveness normally seen only in a minstrel show.
Of course, the other linguistic lies you describe are also absurd, and you do a good thing in calling them out. I hope that, as the abortion movement leaves behind "safe, legal, and rare" in favor of "blessed, life-saving, and liberating," people see more evidently the need to take a stand against this atrocity. But I fear that, instead, they will successfully shift the overton window such that the old "yes, abortion is bad but it is also necessary, so let's keep it around for that reason" becomes the other pole in the debate, and pro-lifers are recast as extremists not worthy of consideration. Either way, the answer to lies is always truth, and the answer to violence is acts of life-saving love, both in the crisis pregnancy center and in the legislature.
Bravo, Deion! I know there's a long tradition in Catholicism of "natural law". Seems to me that the leftist position on abortion is based on...the exact opposite of natural law, whatever that is. Do you Papists (said with love) have a word for that?
I suppose it might be called positivism, Hobbesianism, or utilitarianism. Basically, any worldview that's anti-teleological. I don't know that there's one view that's diametrically opposed to natural law, like Democrats are to Republicans, for example. How that's for a Papist? 😂
Ha ha. Fair enough. It's one thing to base one's actions on something other than the empirically obvious patterns of nature. It's another to note those patterns and then decide to spit in their face, if you see what I mean... I'm not sure there is a word for that kind of upside-down thinking. Maybe you could call it "Orwellian", but that doesn't seem quite right.
I don't know whether to be aghast that the ACLU is changing the words of virulent right-winger Ruth Bader Ginsburg to meet the new linguistic standards or to be happy that my lack of a uterus is no longer an obstacle to my having an opinion on abortion.
In all seriousness, I agree completely. What we are dealing with truly is an absurdity at this point. Men cannot get pregnant. No man ever has been pregnant. For men to insist that we can become pregnant (or do or be any of the other things that are distinctly a province of the female sex) is, at this point, approaching the levels of offensiveness normally seen only in a minstrel show.
Of course, the other linguistic lies you describe are also absurd, and you do a good thing in calling them out. I hope that, as the abortion movement leaves behind "safe, legal, and rare" in favor of "blessed, life-saving, and liberating," people see more evidently the need to take a stand against this atrocity. But I fear that, instead, they will successfully shift the overton window such that the old "yes, abortion is bad but it is also necessary, so let's keep it around for that reason" becomes the other pole in the debate, and pro-lifers are recast as extremists not worthy of consideration. Either way, the answer to lies is always truth, and the answer to violence is acts of life-saving love, both in the crisis pregnancy center and in the legislature.
On the "safe, legal, and rare" phrase, you might find this a fun read: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/the-brilliance-of-safe-legal-and-rare/603151/. I of course think it's a ghastly phrase, but Flanagan does a good job of meditating well on why it's so powerful.
An interesting read, thank you for sending it.
Bravo, Deion! I know there's a long tradition in Catholicism of "natural law". Seems to me that the leftist position on abortion is based on...the exact opposite of natural law, whatever that is. Do you Papists (said with love) have a word for that?
I suppose it might be called positivism, Hobbesianism, or utilitarianism. Basically, any worldview that's anti-teleological. I don't know that there's one view that's diametrically opposed to natural law, like Democrats are to Republicans, for example. How that's for a Papist? 😂
Ha ha. Fair enough. It's one thing to base one's actions on something other than the empirically obvious patterns of nature. It's another to note those patterns and then decide to spit in their face, if you see what I mean... I'm not sure there is a word for that kind of upside-down thinking. Maybe you could call it "Orwellian", but that doesn't seem quite right.