Poster Child for the "dictatorship of relativism"

Or, more accurately, Poster Childless.

Some context: As you might know, abortion is a hot button topic in Britain at the moment. And it will likely only be hotter after an article in yesterday's edition of The Telegraph reported that thousands of British women have had four or more abortions:

Figures uncovered by the Telegraph show that almost 4,000 women have had at least four abortions. In a "grotesquely bleak" picture of British society, scores of women have had at least eight terminations.

The figures emerged as the row over controversial changes to fertility law erupted into a bitter war of words, with a minister accusing "anti-abortion" MPs of trying to "hijack" legislation.

On the eve of a crucial Commons vote, Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health Minister, accused Tory backbenchers of an underhand attempt to remove the right to abortion by tabling amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Honestly, I'm not up on all of the political ins-and-outs on the other side of the pond. But I'm fairly certain that the term "relativism" can be applied to this May 15, 2008, Spiked article, which offers 24 "reasons" why the time limit for abortion should remain at 24 weeks and not be lowered to 20 weeks. Here are some of the arguments given by Jennie Bristow, who is editor of the the pro-abortion journal Abortion Review:

2. There is no right number of abortions
Nadine Dorries’ campaign cautions that there are 200,000 abortions per year in Britain, and that it is ‘time to slow down’. But what is the right number of abortions for anti-abortion activists: 100,000, 100, one? For the anti-abortion movement to haggle over what might be a more acceptable number of abortions is as nonsensical a stance as it is unprincipled.

Okay, she has a point. Here's a number: Zero. Zilch. None. It is both sensible and principled.

3. There is no right time to have an abortion
Women never set out to have abortions – they are always the least bad option at a difficult time. While earlier abortions are easier, safer and less unpleasant than those in later gestations, there are a multitude of reasons why women may not have accessed abortion earlier on. None of these make that woman’s abortion any less necessary, or her any less deserving of it. Women need abortions when they need them, not when somebody else thinks is the right time to have them.

Of course, because this naturally follows from other truisms, such as, "I should be able to have sex whenever I feel the need to, regardless of the consequences," and, "My Mom didn't abort me, but I don't want to be like her."

5. There is no right reason to have an abortion
Among the many reasons cited by women as to why they had an abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy, a 2007 study found that ‘I was not sure about having the abortion, and it took me a while to make my mind up and ask for one’ was one of the most important (3). Women can be deeply ambivalent about their pregnancies, and think very carefully before seeking abortion. Research shows that women do not take their abortion decisions lightly, and that these are personal decisions based on complex circumstances that policy cannot even begin to prescribe.

Well, she has it half right: there is no right reason to have an abortion. What she really meant to say, however, was, "There is no wrong reason to have an abortion." Actually, it seems that "right" and "wrong" aren't really right or wrong, so they can't really be right or wrong. Right?

6 . Women often make their abortion decisions based on their desire to be good parents
It is a common misconception that women seeking abortion do not want children. Yet almost half (47 per cent) of women who had abortions in England and Wales in 2006 had had one or more previous pregnancies that resulted in a live or stillbirth (4). Research shows that an important factor in women’s decision-making about abortion is how well able they feel to be a good parent to a baby, or another baby, in the context of their particular family circumstances (5).In a social context where there is a great deal of pressure to take parenting very seriously, why should women be penalised for understanding that they cannot do that at a particular moment in time?

A fascinating but repulsive argument: Since a woman once had a child, she is somehow absolved from the guilt of having aborted a subsequent child. How is it exactly that Child A is more important than Child B? After all, reason #10 states:

Women know that they are carrying a human fetus well before there are photos to prove it
The last of Nadine Dorries’ ‘20 reasons for 20 weeks’ is a picture of a fetus looking like a baby. She might want to ask herself, what do pregnant women think they are carrying: an alien, a baby frog? Women seeking abortion are fully aware that if they continue the pregnancy, they will give birth to a human baby; and it is precisely because of the consequences of having and raising a child that they have reached the decision to have an abortion.

So, again, how come Child A is more important than Child B? Simply because Child A came along first? Yes, and because the worth of the child is dependent on one thing and one thing only: whether or not he is "wanted" by the mother:

11. Unwanted children carry a significant physical, emotional and financial cost
Women know that having a child is a life-changing event, and that pregnancy is a major physical undertaking. While women pregnant with wanted children often welcome this, those for whom a child is unwanted face far more than a minor inconvenience through being forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

How is this different from a totalitarian regime that treats people as though they are, at best, sources of economic productivity, and, at worst, faceless non-beings who stand in the way of the State, the cause, the movement? Which is why then-Cardinal Ratzinger's homily on April 18, 2005, should be read and re-read:

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true.

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Links, Articles, and Book Excerpts:

• "Where God is, there is the future" | On Benedict XVI in Austria | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• "No Weighing, No Disputing, No Such Thing": Ratzinger and Europe | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Faith in the Triune God, and Peace in the World | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger | An excerpt from Europe: Today and Tomorrow
• Pope Benedict XVI On Natural Law | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Secularity: On Benedict XVI and the Role of Religion in Society | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• The Temptation of the Earthly City: Tolkien's Augustinian Vision | Dr. Jose Yulo
• The State Which Would Provide Everything | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Relativism 101: A Brief, Objective Guide | Carl E. Olson
• What Is Catholic Social Teaching? | Mark Brumley

Comments

[Dan Deeny]

Thanks for printing Ms. Bristow's comments. No doubt about it, she's very serious. I don't know if using words like relativism and totalitarianism are going to work with someone like her. I think she'll just brush them off. Keep up the good fight though.People might smile at this, but I think you're fighting the Prince of Darkness. The RSB will help out.

[DJY]

A wonderful line-by-line response, Carl. When the pro-life community is called hypocrites for some perceived inconsistency in our views, statements like these are important to show the true hypocrisy and inconsistencies in this struggle. Works like these are what will ultimately change hearts, possibly more so than any political victory (not to discount those).

[Clare Krishan]

""My Mom didn't abort me, but I don't want to be like her.""

So right -- I made a similar point a couple weeks back on a thread at the NYTimes
http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/what-if-abortion-became-illegal/#comment-52334

"Re: #5. 'A woman’s body doesn’t belong to the state - it belongs to her. '
No, not since Roe V. Wade it doesn’t.
From the moment mamagamete lets papagamete inside her cell wall, baby-embryo is a slave inside her momma’s womb, right? If Momma takes offense at all those foreign bodies committing assault on her by stretching her abdomen into an unfahionable shape, there’s a certain arm of the profession of cosmetic surgery who accepts VISA and MASTERCARD to evict those immigrant cells… (or gas ‘em with a chemical concoction before the world gets to know about their concentration camp existence)

Human rights who needs, ‘em?
Well if you want to exert your right to an abortion, thank your lucky stars your mamma didn’t do it first!!!!"

P.S.
I don't have anyway of fact checking what you quote, only to caution if the numbers are result of a simple ratio of "total number procedures" divided by "total female Britons who report a procedure" a statistical error may arise. Growing up in Britain, I learned many women travelled to London from places where the procedure was outlawed to undergo this procedure. Some number of the poor unfortunate babies who lose their lives in abortuaries are not British but Irish, Portuguese, Maltese, Saudi Arabian, African and so on. I am sure the same applies here in the United States, where the procedure can easily be procured for less than the price of an air ticket during a long weekend away from home. And how many American daddies have left their babies in abortuaries in countries where they have been stationed oversees on business or with the military? I was acquainted with a young German lady who was severely in debt to her health care provider after bearing the baby of her American boyfriend to term without the benefit of his insurance coverage and none of her own. She fled her debts and the deadbeat dad and relocated back to her German family.