Millions of Americans born around the time of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision are about to turn 40. They don’t realize what it was like to live before the Supreme Court ruling. Back then, most liberals had an open-minded view of abortion due mostly to a lack of medical knowledge. Early-term fetuses were thought to be hardly more than cellular formations, which doctors called “products of conception” or “blobs of tissue.” Lacking any real science on early fetal development, the main arguments against abortion tended to be religious. Things have changed.
Now four decades later, anyone can own beautiful videos that show every stage of the gestation process. Thanks to state of the art 4D Ultrasound scans, scientifically accurate special effects and microscopy footage, we can witness the unborn child forming fingers and toes. We can learn how science knows its gender, when its heart starts to beat, when it smiles, when it feels pain and much, much more. Plus, we can watch it all happen from the comfort of our living rooms.
I don’t think the abortion debate has caught up with the moral significance of this cataclysmic shift. The science of the unborn child isn’t just settled – it’s on TV!
And yet, there is still a great deal of ignorance on the meaning of it all. Liberals say they’re personally against abortion but believe that once impregnated, women have the right to decide whether or not to keep the child. But here’s the logical problem: An unborn child cannot be two things at once. It cannot be something precious and at the same time something worthless. When the British Royals announce a pregnancy, people celebrate “the baby”; they don’t celebrate “the choice.”
Common sense and reason tell us that a mother’s decision can’t change her baby’s reality any more than she can change a chair into a table just by wishing it so. This presents another problem for liberals: They know an unborn child isn’t worthless, but if they call it precious, that compromises their “abortion rights” position.
Most people who are “pro-choice” don’t think about this reality. They are decent people but are understandably influenced by two other realities. First, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and there’s nothing they can do about it. Second, there is often tremendous social/cultural pressure surrounding the concept of “choice.” Good people want to respect the rights and choices of others. They don’t want to be seen as intolerant, even if they are uncomfortable with abortion. So they succumb to the pressure and agree that an unborn child is whatever its mother says it is.
This social acceptance of “choice” (in the name of being moderate) results in social, cultural and political chaos because it’s rooted in an irrational belief – that a woman’s “decision” is powerful enough to change a gestating human being into disposable human waste product.
You can’t blame voters for distrusting such beliefs – no matter how well-intentioned – because if our leaders can rationalize that, they are dangerously close to being able to rationalize anything. They are no longer burdened with logic.
Most Americans know that “rationality” is not something you turn on and off at your convenience. They fear that our country’s current decline stems from this kind of soft thinking that sees only what it wants to see – whatever the issue.
It’s been said that a modern-day Supreme Court could never make another Roe v. Wade decision because science knows too much about the fetus. That sounds hopeful, but do we actually listen to science anymore? Or do we instead demand that science submit to our political biases?
Sadly, more and more firmly held liberal beliefs have nothing to do with science. Ironically, this doesn’t stop them from smearing traditional conservatives as “anti-science,” pointing to our religious views. But religious arguments are no longer needed to debate most social issues. Science supports traditional warnings regarding, for example, the impact of divorce on children or the statistical disaster of fatherless families. In decades past Christian leaders tried to guide the nation away from destructive behavior. But their biblical admonitions were mocked as unscientific. Now the scientific evidence is in … and it’s ignored.
What’s happening in this country is not about science. It’s about willful rebellion from what President Ronald Reagan called “tried and time-tested values.” We are now reaping the bitter harvest of many decades of secular liberalism, which seeks to remake reality while accusing Christians of doing the same.
“No matter how well-intentioned,” said Reagan in 1983, “their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they’re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they’ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation.”
Yes, I am willing to listen to liberals argue against my social views but only if they’ll listen to reliable science on the subject – and only if they’re willing answer a simple question: Is a fetus something precious or is it something worthless?
If we want to revive this nation, we must liberate science to tell us the truth – and then respect its answers: Yes, divorce is hugely damaging to children well into their adult years. Yes, gender is significant, and no, sex isn’t casual. Yes, poverty is also a social problem. Yes, families with fathers and mothers are crucial to a nation’s future. And yes, unborn children are precious, and not worthless – and no, they can’t be both.
Believing liberalism over science has caused millions of Americans born after 1973 to live in a state of confusion. Imagine thinking you only have worth because you came at a convenient time for your mother. They must sense something is terribly wrong with that view.
How long will the secular media keep lying to us, and how long will liberals keep lying to themselves? It’s hard to tell. Right now, they are far too busy accusing conservatives of being anti-science, too busy to take a hard look at what science says about their own beliefs.