In Kansas, the opponents of abortion have gone through the democratic process to pursue their goals and continue to rely on that process; their opponents, in contrast, have consulted the esoteric scrolls and from them decocted a mandate, previously invisible to all readers of the 19th-century document, that just happens to align with their preferences. Abortion opponents make a straightforward human-rights argument: What is in question here is by any biological definition a human organism at its earliest stages of development; their opponents, in contrast, offer metaphysical speculation about “personhood” that is remarkably similar to the debates about “ensoulment” conducted in the Middle Ages.
Abortion opponents would amend the law to prohibit the dismemberment of unborn human beings in most circumstances; Governor Kelly, speaking for the abortion-rights party, argues that to do so would be . . . bad for the state’s business climate. Restrictions on abortion would “make companies think twice about coming here.” The stupidity of that claim is truly shocking, even in a politician. One need not agree with the anti-abortion position to understand the anti-abortion position, i.e., that abortion represents the immoral taking of innocent human lives by the thousands and millions. It takes a special kind of moral illiteracy to offer as a counterargument: “Well, if you say so, but it’s good for business.” When Kansas governor Samuel Medary vetoed the bill prohibiting slavery in Kansas, he, too, argued that it would be bad for business, that entrepreneurs might look askance at a regime under which “any particular species of property or ownership had been prohibited.” Kansas lawmakers, to their everlasting credit, overrode his veto.
The question before us — in Kansas, in the United States, and in much of the world — is whether and under what circumstances we should legally permit the violent taking of the lives of vulnerable human beings at the earliest stages of their human development. Governor Kelly et al. are willing to abuse the judicial power to undermine the rule of law so that such killing may continue to be permitted because, they say, prohibiting such killing might be, under some hypothetical circumstance, bad for business.
There is no reason to doubt Governor Kelly’s sincerity. Her allegiance to this brutality is authentic and absolute, as it is with millions of Americans. And so, in that sense, her concern is misplaced.
These are the Dark Ages.
Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
