MORAL AUTHORITY CHALLENGE TO ANTI-ABORTIONISTS

This morning on the +Steve Kornacki’s show Up on MSNBC the debate was about abortion. Like everyone else in this country have heard repeatedly right wing Republican rhetoric on this subject. I even blogged about that a long time ago in a post entitled, Abortion Debate Folly on this blog site. This morning +CharmaineYoest from “Americans United for Life” was the anti abortion spoke person. I remember debating the issue with a young woman years ago, who was unquestionable for women’s rights, to the point of being radical, but was prolife, again to the point of being radical. I foolishly, as it turned out, tried to convince her of the error in her ways; she held diametrically opposed positions. I also remember my daughter telling me that if you frame pregency as a fertilized egg, fetus, embryo, etc are babies then abortion at any stage in the pregency is murder, which ignores the concept of malicious intent as it applies in the laws dealing to taking of human life.

This morning I listened carefully to the debate but heard nothing new. What did change was my understanding of Ms. Yoest position. Her position, to her, was moral and the other three panel members were immoral. In the lights in my mind turned on by the George Lakoff book, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (Amazon Kindle.com), I felt a new understanding of what she meant by morality. The anti abortion stand is cast in conservative mindset, which is different from the liberal mindset, in a remarkable different way.  To the conservative, the world operates in an orderly fashion, in a “natural” or “moral” order. The father or husband is the head of the household. The obedient wife is next in the hierarchy with children last. In contrast, in the liberal mind, the family is a nurturing environment. In both family formats, the parents are in charge and the children are convinced to obey but in the conservative family, they obey out of fear of punishment, while in the liberal family they obey out of nurturing, a form of reward.

The liberal is driven by empathy and caring while the conservative is driven by selfishness, need for authority, and a fear of punishment for disobedience. The liberal social environment is caring for everyone and the conservative environment involves caring for only those who are obedient. All of this applies as two less than rigid forms in a sweeping cultural dogma; however, for the moment, focus on abortion. A man, the father, is in charge. An unintended pregency is disobedience: a product of sin or lust. Vaginal probe ultra sounds, for example, are punishments. Denial of abortion is punishment for bad behavior. An abortion is murder even if it is only a fertilized egg in a test tube. Murder is punishable by imprisonment or the electric chair.

In the liberal mind, there is something called empathy, sympathy, caring, and recognition of biological drives. Quality of life means something. It means more than male dominance or authority as it does in “moral order”. If you are a liberal, don’t turn to religion, the so-called wellspring of moral authority, for solace. Have you noticed that women have to cover their heads to enter a church, or that there are no women priests, or that ministers preach family values based on the conservative concept of the father model of moral order, and that we must be obedient to God, the FATHER.      

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