Conservative's Conscience

Abortion and the Moral Consensus

Most people would probably agree that order is the necessary precondition for liberty.  And if pressed for a quick, unthinking answer would say that civil law establishes that fundamental characteristic in our society. 

Wrong!

The fundamental, rock bottom, unavoidable characteristic of a civilized nation is moral consensus, the unspoken, unwritten agreement of citizens on what is right, and what is wrong.

Abortion, for almost two centuries in the United States was treated as a moral issue.  The moral consensus in 1973 labeled it wrong.  Stigma was attached to breaking it.

Then came, in the same year, Roe v. Wade.  The moral consensus was turned upside down by nine Supreme Court justices who ruled (7-2), in effect, that abortion, an action that violated it on the day before the ruling, was thereafter protected by the Constitution. 

This was accomplished by removing the issue from its previous home, the field of morality, to the hot-button political arena that was at the time causing nationwide disobedience -- civil rights.  The ruling gave great comfort to the political left, especially to the female activists of the day.

The decision violated a moral law that guides those who continue to believe that the protection of life is, and always will be, a moral issue subject primarily to moral law. 

The consequence of Roe v. Wade?  The number of abortions doubled in a decade; two-thirds of them now involve never-married women. 

The procedure has become the equivalent of a birth control device; the destruction of an embryo -- once forbidden -- is now an accepted aspect of modern culture, which treats it with the casualness given to the discomforts associated with a common cold, an irritant naturally associated with highly cherished sexual freedom. 

The nation's innards since Roe v. Wade have been ripped apart by a tug-of-war between those who establish sexual freedom and the right to associated abortions as primary goals and those who believe that life begins at conception, not be snuffed out by man for any reason short of saving a woman's life.

History and experience inform that intrinsically bad law has a powerful impact on the long-term future of a nation, for example:

• The accepted and uncorrected debauchery of Rome presaged its destiny -- it was destroyed because it raped the moral consensus that had made it civilized. 
• If slavery in the United States had not been outlawed, the nation would have disintegrated under the weight of civil disobedience.  By returning to the moral law that recognizes the dignity of all men, this nation avoided the fate of Rome. 

Abortion law and other rulings of the Court (that just as clearly -- if less importantly -- violate the moral law that once welded this nation together) have been ripping America apart for the best part of four decades.  And the trend is for more of the same.    

This can't continue.  The consequences of the breakdown in moral consensus are all around us.  As in Rome, order, the cornerstone of liberty, is disintegrating: Broken families; violence on the streets; dope addiction; uncontrolled sex; deteriorating education; runaway spending and debt at the government and the personal level ....  On and on it goes.    

President Obama is adding to the problem, which should come as no surprise to those who have followed his career.  As a member of the Illinois Senate, for example, he voted against a proposal that would have protected the life of those babies who survive an abortion.  And since becoming president he has legalized the funding of family planning clinics, national and international, that promote abortion. 

Now a new assault is underway that could soon be on his desk: The Freedom of Choice Act.  Under its terms abortion will, in effect, become an entitlement the government will fund, and must promote.  Will the President approve such a bill if it reaches his desk?  Given his record, who would expect him to do otherwise? 

Doctors who do not perform abortions as a matter of conscience will be put at risk under such a law, just as ministers, rabbis and imams of similar disposition are currently vulnerable if they preach from their pulpits the teachings of their faith on sexual and marital matters.

These issues are persistently underrated by media partly because they are reported segmentally, as if they bear no relationship to each other. 

Not so. 

Abortions, same-sex marriage, prayer in schools or sexual habits simply represent the cover, not the substance of the problem. Moral consensus that once kept us away from each other's throats is the root issue.  And the corruption of modern society has reached the state where the argument has been driven beyond agreement on what is right and what is wrong to something even more fundamental: Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

How did we ever get to this place?