Commentary
The clash between pro-life and pro-abortion Americans raises an important question: Is a legal green light for a mother to abort her fetus under certain circumstances the only exception to the principle that every innocent individual (i.e., every person who has not committed heinous crimes against others) has an inherent right to life that no other person may legally violate?
At the moment, that seems to be the case. Of growing concern, though, are vocal and increasingly aggressive elements within the progressive movement who seem ready to go beyond snuffing out babies to snuffing out adults whom they hate. I am not suggesting that a majority of those favoring unlimited abortion want to weaken the laws forbidding the murder of human beings outside the womb. I am saying, though, that the pro-choice position puts its adherents on a slippery slope: If society condones the destruction of the most innocent and helpless among us (babies in the womb) it should not be surprising if some of those holding that belief push the envelope and begin to devise rationalizations for terminating the lives of humans outside of the womb. And where are such “pro-death” ideas percolating today? Within the illiberal progressive movement.
The word “illiberal” is key. The United States was devised as a liberal political system—liberal in the traditional sense of individuals being free to enjoying their Biblically-derived rights of life, liberty, and property. Every illiberal ideology that has surfaced in the past two centuries—socialism, fascism, Nazism, pagan environmentalism, and increasingly, contemporary progressivism—is hostile to those rights. To the esteemed triad of life, liberty, and property, I would add a fourth pillar of a liberal society that illiberals seek to obliterate: truth.
Let’s look at how progressivism is attacking these four pillars.
Truth. From Twitter and YouTube banning dissent and debate, to universities blocking conservatives from speaking on college campuses, to the
Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board recently hatched in the Department of Homeland Security, to the spectacularly erroneous predictions and pronouncements—the
green propaganda—of environmentalist doomsters, illiberal progressives have been striving to impose their “official” version of “truth” on Americans. Propaganda and lies are their weapons. Trump-Russia collusion, anyone?
Property. What all today’s progressive socialists want is to weaken traditional property rights so they can direct the country’s economic production and oversee a major redistribution of wealth.
Liberty. An
ominous poll showing that 45 percent of Democrats “were in favor of the government forcing people who refuse the vaccine to live in designated facilities or locations”; almost half “think state and federal governments should be allowed to either fine or imprison those who publicly question COVID-19 vaccine efficacy”; 29 percent even favor “parents who are against getting vaccinated losing custody of their children.” There also have been cases of progressives—most infamously, a former PBS attorney—openly suggesting that Republican voters “should have
their children put in re-education camps.”
Life. This is “the big one.” There are people on the left (how many, I can’t begin to say, but more than a few) for whom targeting the liberty and property of their political foes is not enough. These fanatics are after life itself. Some of them remind me of Nazis, wanting to eliminate “undesirables.” For the original Nazis, the undesirables included Jews and cripples. For today’s neo-Nazis, the bullseyes are on the backs of “the rich” (alternatively, “billionaires”) and conservatives. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign sold bumper stickers bearing the not-so-subtle threat, “
Billionaires should not exist.” AOC slanders them as thieves who don’t earn their wealth, but take it from the rest of us. There are “friendly” online debates about which of the super-rich should be taken
first to the guillotine. In fact, you can take your pick of
dozens of stickers about guillotining or eating the rich. Today’s fanatical fantasy could easily be tomorrow’s revolutionary deed. And then there are the
pagan environmentalists, mentioned above, who view humans as a plague or cancer on the planet. This misanthropic gang would welcome—and some of them are trying to figure out how to accomplish—the disappearance of a few billion people.
Many of the more visible figures in today’s progressive left manifestly ooze hatred for their political opponents. They show that they literally want to make their opponents disappear every time they try to cancel a conservative or sabotage his or her career. They routinely whip themselves into a state of rage and resentment. They refuse to condemn not-so-veiled threats to the life and wellbeing of conservatives, such as the
terrorist graffiti on the wall of the pro-life group in Wisconsin, “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either,” or Chicago Mayor Lori
Lightfoot’s inflammatory declaration that the pending Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade is “a call to arms.”
The glaring disrespect for life on the left gives rise to the most violent undertones of the pro-choice movement. For every woman who seeks provisions for legal abortion because she is scared or hurt, there are more and more abortion proponents who are giving voice to murderous thoughts. Those who support a woman’s right to end the life of her baby because the baby is perceived as an inconvenience seem increasingly open to the idea of killing human beings outside the womb when they find someone’s presence inconvenient—an obstacle to personal goals. The left’s death cult is gathering energy, and the right to life—and, indeed, all our most precious rights—are on a slippery slope.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
