Newly-elected New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant (who bears a passing resemblance to Aaron Ekhart, who played Two-Face in the second Batman movie, also an attorney who does evil thinking he is doing good) as one of his first acts of office, lifted certain restrictions on abortion in the province (having two doctors certify to the necessity of the abortion), to take effect, ironically and tragically, on the First of January, what is celebrated in the Catholic Church as the Solemnity of the Mother of God.  So much for motherhood.

 

So much for gallantry also.  Ironically, the Premier’s last name means ‘brave’ or, more to our point, ‘chivalrous’, derived from an old French word for ‘merry’.  I wonder if he’s much fun at parties?  Is it chivalrous to make abortion even easier to get?  I suppose if he really thinks abortions are good in some cases, the woman’s desires need not be vetted by two physicians.  But does he really think most women want abortions, and are not at some level coerced into it, either by men or by society’s expectations of them?  Should we not at the very least, even if one is ‘pro-abortion’, allow women some time to rethink such a tragic and irrevocable decision?

 

But then, need it be said, Mr. Gallant is a Liberal, a brand that seems to grow more despicable on a daily basis.  I will have more to say on them as they grow in power and popularity in this country.  Not least, as I am wont to point out, that they have usurped and distorted the word ‘liberal’, which has a glorious history (from the ‘liberal arts’ to ‘give me liberty, or give me death’).  Yet, they are anything but liberal:  Their Dear Leader on the federal level, Mr. Trudeau Jr., in a bout of, what was that again?, ‘liberty’, has recently decreed that no one in his Party can ever, under pain of excommunication from the otherwise all-inclusive Liberal Tent, question a woman’s ‘right to choose’.

 

Even if a Liberal member is all gung-ho on abortion rights, he should remonstrate vociferously against this violation of freedom to vote according to one’s conscience and one’s constituents (the first, first, of course).  Any man would demand as much.  But, then, where can we find men anymore?

 

I would appeal to the principles of democracy, but, as another post will point out soon, we don’t really live in a democracy in this country, except perhaps, to some degree, at the municipal level.  More on that later.

 

But back to the ‘right to choose’:  The vagueness of modern thought never ceases to amaze me.  Choose what, we ask?  Well, to have her unborn child put to death.  Is that really a ‘freedom’?  One may talk of ‘termination’ or ‘ending pregnancy’, but Saint John Paul II in his masterful encyclical Evangelium Vitae, has asked us to avoid euphemisms when speaking of something so grave as life and death.  Call a spade a spade, a baby a baby, and murder, murder.

 

But we hesitate in our society to do so, for we all want to get along, and, as Mr. Harper has asked, to ‘keep the peace’.  Why rock the boat?  Just repeat the mantra ‘Peace, peace…’, while sitting cross-legged in lotus position while staring a a maple leaf, and leave it at that.

 

Yet, and yet…What if they cry peace and there is no peace?  To paraphrase Mother Theresa, true peace is impossible in a society that kills its own children.  There are of course an untold number of moral problems in our society, and abortion is one amongst them.  But before we sweep it under the seamless-garment ‘what about the poor and unwanted children?’ rug, we should recall that, at a purely physical level, abortion is amongst the most grave of evils, for how can one get worse than killing a defenceless child?

 

I wonder why modern Man, typified by Monsieurs Gallant and Trudeau, encumbered as they are by their modern university miseducation and their steeping too long in ‘Canadian values’, cannot see this evil, one that was recognized by every society in history(even if tolerated in some).

 

Pope John Paul II provides the principal answer:  As he writes in Evangelium Vitae, abortion is motivated by what he calls the ‘trivialization of sexuality’ and the related ‘contraceptive mentality’.  In other words, abortion is a means to, and an effect of, illicit sexual relations.  It is the last, final form of contraception, when other forms go wrong (or are not used at all).

 

The modern Man, whether consciously or not, deep down perceives this, and is aware that any limits on abortion are really a limit to one’s sexual ‘freedom’.   Without abortion, one would, at least in some cases, be forced to face up to the consequences of sexual licence, as in what used to be called ‘illegitimate births’, with all that now-quaint term entailed.

 

That, of course, cannot be.  Complete, uninhibited sexual freedom is a shibboleth in our society, a sacred totem, untouchable.

 

This makes all the talk of ‘woman’s rights’, as well as Trudeau Sr.’s famous quip, ‘keeping the State out of the bedroom of the nation’ something of a red herring.  Abortion is about consequence-free sex, a rather sad and tawdry motivation, an attempt to reduce the sexual union to something inconsequential, like a handshake or a prolonged hug (the ethics of ‘hugging’ may come up later on also).

 

But, then, as a previous post pointed out, all evil is sad and tawdry at its root, when its mask is removed.

 

The modern world is not far off the mark in the emphasis upon, yes, its fascination with, sex, for the conjugal union is the closest we can get on this earth, in a physical way, to ultimate happiness, that search for complete self-realization.  Of course, there are many other higher and more fulfilling spiritual and intellectual means of happiness, but these require some degree of work and effort; anyone with minimal physiological functioning can ‘have sex’ and feel ‘fulfilled’, at least temporarily.

 

With many of our youth by and large unaware of any of these other higher means to fulfillment, our modern Man is loath to tolerate any restriction on his sexual escapades, whether real or imagined, present or hoped-for in the future.  So the State, in the guise of the glib politician, legislator and physician, obliges.

 

Ah, yes, but what of the ‘right of a woman over her own body’?   Another red herring, for we already have rights over our own bodies (but our society is slowly removing even these), and there is another body there, that is not the woman’s.  With the right to do what we want, we also have the duty to accept what happens when we use our bodies a certain way.  When we join together in sexual union, many things happen, physically, emotionally, psychologically, socially, and, sometimes, also new life.

 

We try to deny this, but the truth of hard reality always comes back to haunt us.  As I wrote on sexual consent, only monogamous marriage fulfills what is fully required (not just consent-wise) for conjugal union.  And the fact that babies come into being, even with the ‘best’ of contraceptives, is also a hard truth.  By some estimates, we have now killed 2 billion children by abortion in the past half-century, more than every other catastrophe in the history of the world, combined.

 

Men, and women, can decide whether or not to ‘have sex’, a fundamental and momentous choice, but that choice is now, sadly, trivialized.  Sex and abortion, however, are anything but trivial. We see the trauma of women both ‘post-non-marital sex’ and ‘post-abortion’.  The two are related, and both harm women and of course children, most.  Post-abortion mothers testify to the sad effects of abortion, not only by snuffing out the life of their child, but the long-term psychological damage it does.  I almost wrote ‘would-be’ mother, but, then, she is a mother already, and every woman ‘with child’, without exception, knows that.

 

A final point on the ‘hard case’ of rape:  Of course, here a woman’s fundamental choice is denied her, and such a violation is a grave evil.  I would quote Liam Neeson as Rob Roy, the Scottish highland hero, who declared in a brogue-ish growl after his own wife had been raped, and conceived a child, by his enemy, “It’s no’ the child that needs killin’”.

 

Now, I advocate here neither the movie nor capital punishment, which both have their limitations, but the point stands, that it is not the child who needs punishing.  Society should use the full force of law where the force of law is most needed, but, sadly,  our politicians, with their noses to the wind, realize where their bread and butter lies, and choose to cater to the darker  side of human nature, and all that implies.  We will suffer the consequences until we, and they, wake up.

 

December 10, 2014