Candidly Speaking - 18/07/22
On Our Responsibility to Our Children (Part 1)
“Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:3, King James Version)
Around the same time as the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade came down, widening the Grand Canyon that is the country’s bitter division on abortion, I watched the Daily Wire documentary What is a Woman?, hosted by Matt Walsh. At times funny, and at times disturbing, the film is an exploration on the prevailing ideologies motivating transgender activism. It is hilarious when Matt asks the simple question to a succession of “Women and Gender Studies” professionals with kooky hairdos, only to receive mealy-mouthed, jargon-filled answers in return - in essence: “A woman is someone who believes themselves to be a woman.” In an effort not to offend the sliver of the population that is transgender, biological women with wombs are now called “birthing persons”, at least until the abortion debate brings back the familiar term “women’s rights”.
The topic of transgender ideology, I find, is very much connected to the way in which abortion is now co-opted as a “right”. They all share a common point of origin - the toxic ideology of anti-natalism. In a recent piece for The Spectator, Lionel Shriver, best-known for the novel We Need To Talk About Kevin, brings my attention to the growing aversion to having children that Western society is exhibiting:
When the first deluge of documentaries about transgenderism hit our televisions starting in about 2012, one of the concerns conspicuously unaddressed was fertility. The parents on these shows who were eager to encourage their children to embrace whatever he/she/it felt they were never raised the issue of whether pumping their progeny full of hormones might just possibly impede the kids’ capacity to reproduce. All that mattered was self-actualisation. As this baffling social infatuation has accelerated, the fact that the majority of this experimental population will be unable to bear children has continued to be dismissed as by the by.
I am no biologist, but it does not take a Doctorate in the subject to point out that the Frankenstein-like process of remaking one’s body and hormonal framework to pass as the other sex will damage one’s future chance of having children. Nevertheless, those who do have fancy degrees in various fields have continued to subject troubled teenagers, and even children, to bodily mutilation. This is child abuse, and should be treated as such. “We are sacrificing our children on the altar of a malicious, far-Left ideology,” proclaimed Dr. Jordan Peterson.
In a similar way, unborn babies (50% of them females) are being sacrificed on the altar of “women’s rights”. I am thankful that the US Supreme Court has taken an important step in rectifying this evil. Even before my conversation to Catholicism, I have never been comfortable with the idea of abortion, and I am baffled that many people (women included) have enlisted themselves into the “pro-choice” battalion, shouting out “My Body My Choice!” at the top of their lungs. What about the poor adolescents subjected to transgender reassignment surgery? Do they have a choice?
My home country, Vietnam, has one of the highest rates of abortion in the world and also the most permissive abortion laws in all of South East Asia. “A study conducted by the Hanoi Central Obstetrics Hospital found that 40% of all pregnancies in Vietnam are terminated each year.” If you believe, like I do, that abortion is murder, then that figure should appall you. Furthermore, those who like to dress up as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale and proclaim that women have become second-class citizens should take a look at China, where the practice of sex-selective abortion still exists. Otherwise, they should come clean about their motives, which is not about protecting women, but hating children.
As an aside, let’s play a fun game where we debunk the asinine claim made by that meme I have been seeing lately, which was shared widely by Alec Baldwin, among others:
How poor or wealthy the baby is depends on how poor or wealthy the family is. The pro-life movement, especially its Catholics, believes that poverty does not excuse aborting a baby, and is appalled at the way abortion providers like Planned Parenthood set up more of their “clinics” at poor neighborhoods than middle-income ones.
How in God’s name can a baby be born “transgender”? If anyone can explain that to me without confusing me, I’ll reconsider my position on abortion.
American Blacks and immigrants from Mexico are among the most pro-life population demographics, likely stemming from the high degree of religiosity in their respective communities.
The idea of aborting disabled and chronically ill children has been most prominently espoused by the pro-choice Left, not the pro-life cause. In fact, pro-life Catholics were the staunchest opponents of the eugenics project, which Margaret Sanger, the matriarch of the American abortion-rights movement, was inextricably linked to.
I must confess that I did not use to want to have children. I must confess also that I did not use to enjoy the company of children. My experience being ostracized as a kid, as well as my reading of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, did not endear me to society’s youngest. I, too, become irritated when a baby cries on the plane and I, too, do not enjoy seeing a kid making a mess out of himself. But whenever I do become annoyed at the sight of a child messing about, I remember the words of Christ about who being the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And I think further on the wisdom of Edmund Burke, who rejects the liberal social contract theory by proclaiming that society is “a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
Contemporary society, in its neglect of its children, has all but abandoned its Burkean duty. Many among us engage in improper behavior, claiming “It is my right to do so!”, all the while being silent as a clam when asked what their duties are - to themselves, to their family, to their nation. Anti-natalism, manifesting in the fevered rhetoric regarding abortion and transgenderism, is a malady that has infested the developed world, just when its population growth declines.