I’ve always believed it important for conservatives to have liberal friends, both because of the imperative to constantly challenge one’s own assumptions, and, as this past week reminded us, because liberals are great to have around for entertainment, especially when things do not go their way.
If only our friends on the Left knew of the elation, the sheer euphoria, and of course, the uproarious laughter, that we conservatives experience at their unhinged hysteria whenever they suffer a setback, they’d perhaps be more restrained. But then, if liberals were capable of self-restraint, they’d be conservatives.
Just as well.
With the overturn of Roe v. Wade coming on the heels of important decisions about religious liberty, and another Second Amendment victory, one struggles to think of a moment that we conservatives had more of such magnitude to celebrate in such a compressed amount of time. The collective Chernobyl-grade meltdown of the Left made the victories even more gratifying. It was beyond even the mass unhingement witnessed in 2016, when Mrs. Clinton lost and the entire Democratic Party was so distraught they actually overwhelmed our mental health resources in the subsequent weeks. The Left is passionate about many things, but only abortion — not school shootings, not homelessness, not inadequate healthcare, not even war — could elicit from them such an epic paroxysm of every bad behavior, and the only way to explain it is as some sort of Abortion Distortion Syndrome.
The science of ADS is still developing, but initial data suggests that symptoms include irrational panic, aggression, and large numbers of the afflicted simultaneously voiding their bowels onto themselves. And just as COVID-19 can diminish the sense of smell, ADS seems to cause a diminished sense of irony, perspective, and reason.
Anecdotes, though not dispositive, are nevertheless here instructive. One longtime liberal friend, normally quite an agreeable chap but now manifesting symptoms of ADS (one suspects it had been in remission), accused me of being “emotional” because I used the term “unborn child” in a Facebook post about the Supreme Court’s decision, and he demanded that my readers ignore me and my pro-life views. This, while he spent about twelve straight hours (liberals have too much spare time) breathlessly dumping onto my page every half-baked, nincompoop pro-abortion talking point he could regurgitate — long-form, short-form, half-formed, deformed — as quickly as he could type them as though the fate of civilization depended on it (this, by the way, is his idea of ignoring me), all the while lashing out in every which way, and hyperventilating like a Victorian spinster stood up at her own wedding. He even threatened to fight someone! And I was being emotional? This poor guy was so overwrought, I thought he’d require a spell on the ol’ fainting couch and some smelling salts. This is a grown man we’re talking about!
He was not alone.
Others threatened violence, after just two weeks ago demanding that Americans surrender their guns to stop the violence. Another argued, paradoxically, that we need abortions to prevent miscarriages. That’s right, we need to kill babies to prevent them from dying.
Another pro-abortionist spoke brilliantly about the importance of bodily autonomy, pointing out that “no other liberties survive without that one,” it not occurring to him that this is actually the entire basis of the pro-life argument. Another complained of my “privilege,” though to be alive and not be pro-life is the most perverse expression of privilege. It’s amazing how many non-aborted people are in favor of aborting other people.
Others complained, predictably, of Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court seat being “stolen,” (as though it was ever his), even though the Democrats had the opportunity to place Garland on the Supreme Court earlier this year, and rejected him because of his race and gender.
The arguments got more bizarre. Another friend demanded to know whether I had encountered any rape victims on the golf course. Actually no, I haven’t, come to think of it. And?
Another compared motherhood to slavery, complete with an image of a woman and child wrapped in chains. Another — I’m not misrepresenting this — was especially proud of her argument that “an unborn child is not a person because the tax code does not allow for a dependency deduction.” Yeah, we also can’t claim our adult children, or our parents as dependents either. Are they not people?
Others warned that contraception would soon become illegal, as though any of us on the Right want our friends on the Left not to use birth control. Others worried aloud about other women’s rights being attacked, such as the right to vote, the irony again lost on them, that the entire purpose of abortion is to terminate all rights for the aborted.
Another, a Republican believe it or not, queried how he’d explain the loss of Roe to his children. Here’s an idea: tell them to be glad their mother did not do to them what Roe gave her the right to do. And while you’re at it, teach them to be sexually responsible so we don’t keep having this problem.
Two others demanded — seriously, demanded! — in true Orwellian form, that I discontinue using the word “child” to describe an unborn child, and substitute instead “fetus.” Sorry, but if you’re at the point where you need to eliminate words because they hurt your argument, you have no argument, not even:
You can’t speak because you’re a man and men can never become pregnant! Well, I’m glad we finally agree on that, but understand that when I talk about abortion I do not purport to speak on behalf of women, I am giving voice to the voiceless.
We’ve turned back the clock fifty years! No, if anything, we moved the clock forward fifty years, if not more. It was Roe that brought us centuries backwards to barbarism, when life was cheap, short, and disposable. Overturning Roe returned us from the Dark Ages into an era that at least gives lip-service to respecting human life.
By the way, when I hear all these pro-abortionists now complaining about “overpopulation,” “unwanted babies,” “homelessness,” and “poverty,” it’s hard to think this has no connection to eugenics. This is the same stuff Margaret Sanger was saying 100 years ago. Let’s not turn back the clock 100 years.
You’re imposing your religion! No, we’re imposing good science, good morals, and human rights, which is what law should do. It’s the twenty-first century. We know where babies come from and how they are made. We know what is inside a womb. If anything, it’s the pro-abortionists who demand a deference akin to religion, insisting as they do that abortion should be subject to private convictions beyond scrutiny and public censure, and in the face of science, common sense, and decency. Abortion, after all, is “sacred,” to our friends on the Left, as Nancy Pelosi tells us.
A fetus is not a life! Science tells us that life begins at conception. But it’s not a human life! What other kind could it be? Well it’s not a person! A living human is not a person? That’s your position?
Uh… here’s a picture of a coat hanger! Here’s a picture of an unborn baby. Looks just like a real baby. Have you seen a picture of an aborted one, since that’s what you want? Maybe post that!
This is an offense to democracy! Actually, the entire point of Roe was to remove the abortion issue from the voters, because the voters wouldn’t do what the elites on the Supreme Court wanted. Overturning Roe restored the issue to our democracy.
But the polls show national support for abortion rights! And how many of those polled were at risk of being aborted?
Come to think of it, I saw a lot of hysterical defenses of Roe and abortion in general, and oddly, none of them even attempted to argue that there’s a right to abortion in the Constitution.
And the more they argued, the more they defeated their own argument, because to engage in a national polemic is to evidence a national polarization, thereby proving the Supreme Court right to decentralize the issue and return it to the voters, where every vote is equal and none greater than the other.
This equality, unfortunately, does not extend to our arguments, irrational, incoherent, and unintelligible as some are, the consequence of a widespread affliction that seems to manifest itself around issues that provoke, and in people who are acutely susceptible to an emotional response. If only there were some sort of vaccine.
