The Scarlet Letter "A"

Courtesy Wesley Fryer.

Let us be clear about how we got here. The culture wars probably began with the issue of abortion. It is hard to keep a civil veneer on public discourse when half the population believes the other half is guilty of mass murder. How polite can you afford to be?

Despite that, perhaps surprisingly, virtually all of the vitriol seems to come from the ones suspected of mass murder. As I've noted before in this space, the modern left seems to hate the modern right, but the modern right does not seem to hate the modern left.

These are the visible effects of human conscience. Conscience is real. You can run, but you can't hide.

In their hearts, the advocates of abortion know they are wrong. You don't use euphemisms like "women's health" or "reproductive health" or "pro-choice" if you are proud of what you are doing. So, to try to escape their guilt, like the ancient Hebrews, they scapegoat. Blame someone else for something, and it distracts, at least briefly, that persistent inner voice from its nagging. And of course, the ideal people to scapegoat are those suspected of harbouring, even secretly, condemnatory thoughts towards those advocating unrestricted abortion.

This aggression will get worse and worse, because nothing they can do will ever make their conscience clear. Except, of course, turning and facing the pursuing angel, accepting that abortion is wrong, and accepting their guilt about that.

Hence the growing hostility to religion, to Christianity in particular, and to Catholicism in particular particular. Catholicism is paying for its brave stance that abortion is wrong. Back in the seventies, it seemed the only voice holding firm on this. There was bound to be hell to pay.

Hence the current aggressive support for homosexuality. It makes little sense, except on these grounds. Apparently only about one to three percent of the population is homosexual in inclinations; how else could homosexual issues, and quite trivial homosexual issues like gay marriage, so dominate the social agenda? “Homosexuality” itself is quite probably a social construct, a modern invention: earlier times and other places have never heard of such a thing as a homosexual, as opposed to homosexual sex acts. The notion of “discrimination against homosexuals (transgenders, etc, etc.--the list of new sexual identities keeps growing year by year),” is clearly a social construct. It exists only as a club to beat up conventional morality and anyone who clings to it. They're the bad people, not me. All I want to do is not have children.

Hence the current hysteria about pedophilia, although it may be past its peak. It seemed useful, at first, as another club with which to beat the Catholic Church. But only so long as it seemed possible to associate pedophilia with the Catholic Church. Before this connection was made, pedophilia was well on its way to general public acceptance, like homosexuality. But being seen as Catholic killed it. And the concern with pedophiles has become awkward over time as it has become clearer that it is more common outside than inside the Catholic Church, more common among women than men, and more common among gays than straight men. Damned reality. It looked so good for a while. What better way to deflect guilt for killing your own children than by condemning others for abusing children? Of course I care about children. Look at how severely I want to punish pedophiles!

Feminism is certainly and most obviously about abortion. What are its favourite rallying cries? “A woman's right to choose!” “My body, my self!” “Reproductive freedom!” All just code words for abortion. This bit about equal pay for equal work is just political cover. The original meaning of “a liberated woman” was perfectly clear, to those whose memory is long enough. It means a woman freely available for sex.

Feeling a little queasy yet? Courtesy Elvert Barnes.

The bit about equality of the sexes in general was just cover. The last thing feminists ever wanted was equality. This became obvious by the Eighties, with so-called “difference feminism.” None of feminism's battles since has been about equal treatment. To move back to female privilege was so fast it caused whiplash.

What the feminists always wanted was sex. Lots of sex, Sex without children. Sex without guilt. And so, of course, did their male supporters. Making the whole transition terribly smooth for everyone. At least, everyone over the age of eighteen or twenty, who had no moral core.

Postmodernism is also based on abortion. As a matter of fact, the first time I ever heard a clearly postmodern argument, back in 1972, it was in defense of abortion. If your conscience is troubling you, it is an obvious reaction to claim that there is, after all, in the end no truth and no difference between good and evil. It is just like the kid caught with his hands in the cookie jar, insisting that “nobody did it.” There, now everything is okay. If there is no right and wrong, and there are no cookies, what possible difference, at this point, can it make?

What? It still makes a difference to you? My, aren't you being judgmental! Okay, there is no right and wrong, but it is still wrong to be judgmental. Somehow.

Islamism is based on abortion, too, in a different way. It is a predictable and actually rather reasonable defense against abortionism and the other anti-moral and anti-religious doctrines abortion has spawned, by a traditionalist, moralist, and religious culture that now feels directly threatened. I think it is right to say: no abortion would have meant no 9/11, no al Qaeda, no Taliban, no ISIS.

This pervasive Western sense of guilt over abortion will, in the end, if there is no u-turn coming up in the road, destroy Western civilization finally and utterly.

In the meantime, there will be no peace for anyone.

Because this is so, the best thing those of us who give a damn can do is to keep the focus on the issue of abortion. Anything else is likely to be a red herring, allowing the left to distract its and everyone's attention from the real issue. It is important, in the end, to their own spiritual well-being as well as to the general snowballing into hell to make them face those tiny dismembered bodies.