Comments on Culture Wars, Abortion

Comments on Culture Wars, Abortion

It has to be obvious to anyone that we have been engaged in a culture war for the last 30 years.  There has been a drift away from traditional and religious values toward more liberal mores concerning abortion, legalization of drugs, special privileges for identity groups, secularization and other societal issues.

The expression "culture war" entered the vocabulary of United States politics with the publication of Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by James Davison Hunter in 1991. Hunter perceived a dramatic realignment and polarization that had transformed United States politics and culture, including the issues of abortion, federal and state gun laws, global warming, immigration, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drug use, LGBT rights, and censorship.

Whilst this liberalization has proceeded apace, regardless of the country’s political leadership, it has mostly been within the framework of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Until Trump, that is.  Suddenly, the anger at Trump by the left, stemming from his “surprise” election, and fueled by his apolitical disregard of the niceties of Washington posturings, has turned much of the leftist opposition into mob-like anti-constitutionalist, anti-rights, near anarchists, using violence, rather than reason, to further their aims.  And unfortunately, most of the mainstream media in the country skews the news to make this “mob” and its actions “righteous”, and any opposition to it “villainous”.

Trump and his minions, and what few honest media outlets exist, continue to oppose and expose this inexorable and cynical and many times false, leftist drumbeat, and one can only hope that that unaligned middle of the electorate is astute enough to see the truth and act on it.

There are spirited disagreements about where our culture is going, but two particularly egregious effects of the leftist attacks on traditional values concern the anti-religious diatribes now popular amongst activist leftists like Kamela Harris, and the generic leftist praising of abortion as a woman’s “health right”.

Leftists have taken a belligerent and decidedly anti-religious (and particularly, anti-catholic) posture in congress, on the streets and in the media.  Recent examples are Harris’ anti K of C comments when questioning federal district court Nominee Brian Buescher, and the false smear by the media against Covington Catholic students in Washington, DC.  Religious leaders and people of religion should be aware of this insidious and sometimes violent movement against religion and religious beliefs.

The other concerns abortion, which is the law of the land, and which, according to Pew Research, “as of 2018, public support for legal abortion remains as high as it has been in two decades of polling. Currently, 58% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 37% say it should be illegal in all or most cases”.

Real science posits that life begins when the cell divides and a new DNA entity (the zygote) is formed.  Notwithstanding a raft of leftist, pseudo-scientific arguments, the zygote is the first form of a human being, and will develop into the full form of a human being if left alone.  Aborting it means killing life.  There is no other way to say it.

Ray Gruszecki

Jan 23, 2019