What Kind of Evil? | Thomas S. Hibbs | CWR
Planned Parenthood supporters are progressive, instrumentalist rationalists, intent on implementing enlightenment policies of science and freedom
"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered… in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.” — C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas once posed the following question concerning fetal tissue to a medical researcher: If it were a delicacy, could you eat it? Beyond the horrifying “medical” practices described in the Planned Parenthood videos, their most disgusting feature is not the nonchalant tone, for which Planned Parenthood issued an apology, but the fact that at least some conversations took place over a meal. Aside from calling to mind Hannibal Lecter’s predilection for liver, fava beans and a nice chianti, the setting of the videos makes clear that however refined may have been the upbringing of the Planned Parenthood employees, they apparently did not have parents who said of this or that topic, “Not at the dinner table!”
Disgusting? Disturbing? How about barbaric and evil? Even some who reject the pro-life cause describe the content of these videos in dark terms indeed. But what kind of barbarism?
A number of commentators have made analogies to the Nazis. Some of it is darkly humorous twitter commentary. Riffing on Molly Ivans’ comment about a Pat Buchanan speech, National Review’s Kevin Williamson tweeted: “I thought Planned Parenthood's explanation sounded a lot more convincing in the original German”. Some have noted the connection between Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s support of eugenics and that of the Nazis. Others have cited interesting historical facts such as Mengele's post-Holocaust employment as an abortionist. Perhaps the most telling similarity is a shared philosophy of what the Nazis called "life and unworthy of life."
And yet, I’m not sure the Nazis analogy is entirely apt. There are broadly two dominant strains to modernity. There is the original myth of modernity, which is that of an enlightenment liberation from the evils of tradition; this strain is progressive, universalist, technocratic, and rationalist. The Nazis come from the other side of modernity, the romantic-nationalist reaction against progressive, universalist enlightenment.
Whatever might have been the historical roots of the organization, contemporary Planned Parenthood supporters are not nationalists; they are not reacting against modernity; they are not asserting the superiority of one race over another. They are implementing enlightenment goals. They are progressive, instrumentalist rationalists, intent on implementing enlightenment policies of science and freedom.
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