sticking it to the nazis

In my previous post, I made some uncharitable comments about the pro-life movement.  In my defense, whenever you have a movement that claims that a new Holocaust is going on right under their noses and then backs away in collective horror whenever someone acts out the logical consequences of that belief, it becomes nearly impossible to speak truthfully of that movement without being uncharitable.


Prima: My God we're slaughtering millions just like Hitler!
Secunda: That's awful!  What should we do?
Prima: Well, you're going to need to vote Republican in November, and then again in 2012, after which we'll wait for all the liberal Supreme Court justices to age out and then replace them with our own people, then once we have a firm majority we'll launch a complicated legal challenge which after several years will then reach the Court, which will deliberate for several months before finally overturning the forty-year-old Roe v. Wade, removing the judicial obstacle.  Afterward, there will be long and complicated state by state battles creating a patchwork of senseless and conflicting laws across the country, some of which might ban abortion to one degree or another in certain states.
Secunda: Ummm ...
Prima: Well, if you don't like that, you can vote Republican in November and when we get a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress* we might be able to pass a constitutional amendment which would then need to be ratified by 3/4s of the states.  If enough states ratify it--which may or may not every happen and could take years of acrimonious legal struggles (during which millions more babies will have died) even if it does--then whatever forms of abortions banned by the as-yet-unwritten amendment would be ended forever!
Secunda: Ummm ...
Prima: Don't forget to vote Republican and send us money!  Gotta stop the carnage!

At least Petain had the balls to admit that he worked for the Nazis rather than soliciting donations on the premise that he did not. 

The movement has degenerated into an endless feedback-loop of ever more violent rhetoric; partially it is a cynical ploy for votes and money, partially it is a fear of female sexuality and desire to enforce sexual rules by punishing those who do not conform, partially it is a desperate need to feel morally superior.

Perhaps some people really believe that the practice of abortion is murder on the grand scale, but none of them act like it.  What should ordinary Germans have done while their government slaughtered millions?  I ask the question seriously: what actions should ordinary Germans have taken to avoid moral culpability in the crimes of their regime?  Stood up and been arrested?  Gone on strike?  Emigrated?  Engaged in resistance or terrorist activities?  Sheltered the intended victims?

Are you doing any of that?  Or are you just checking the box next to the 'R' every four years, showing up at an occasional potluck protest with your friends, and maybe even writing a check or two while congratulating yourself on your moral superiority to those nazi babykillers?

Their actions are woefully inconsistent with their stated premise; abortion will never be banned**, and on some level they know it.  So, to satisfy their need to get the next fix of moral superiority and to punish the evildoers they grow ever more petty.  Ban abortion?  Impossible.  Civil disobedience?  Inconvenient.  Pass a bill requiring rape victims to have an ultrasound probe shoved up their vagina before they can abort, or another one removing the legal obligation of doctors to inform parents*** that their child will be born with Down syndrome, Harlequin ichthyosis, or Treacher Collins?

That'll show those goddam nazis!

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*This has not happened for either party since 1964.

**Some might disagree with that assessment; I have my reasons for thinking so, and I might examine them in a future post.

***The bill says that doctors cannot be sued for withholding information or providing inaccurate information about a pregnancy, which does in fact remove the obligation.