So one day recently, I got to drive behind an Operation Rescue truck for a few miles while going home from work. It was probably a fifteen foot truck, with graphic photos of abortions spread across both sides and the back. Three foot long embryos lying in twelve foot long palms. The truck was towing a trailer, which had a vertical panel at the rear with yet another image. And draped from the panel's two ends were still two more massive pictorials, stretching back to meet at the trailer hitch.
It got me to thinking about abortion. Or, more accurately, about the whole mentality of the anti-choice crowd. I mean, what's it all about?
And no, it's not just about saving the lives of the unborn. That's naďve. Anti-choicers don't really care about saving lives. If they did, they could. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if Operation Rescue and all the other groups put just ten percent of their time, energy, and money into something else. Maybe… oh, I dunno… feeding starving children who've already been born?
Just think of what a huge difference that kind of effort would make to millions of children… children who otherwise are condemned to a miserable life in which they will probably never be content. Many of them will die excruciating deaths. And few of these deaths will be quick.
The fact that anti-choicers focus all their energies on the unborn, while ignoring the plight of those already out of the womb, makes me think there's something else afoot.
And of course, these groups are all religious groups. All Christian groups, as far as I know. I'm not saying there aren't Jewish, Buddhist, or other anti-choice groups… just that all the groups I'm familiar with are blatantly Christian.
So what is it about Christianity… oh! I've got it. "Original Sin."
This idiotic doctrine basically holds that we are all born sinful. Babies are born with this black mark on their souls, which is only expunged by baptism. An unbaptized baby who dies will go straight to hell. Oh, you don't hear many people talking about this, since it's so offensive, but that's what the doctrine of Original Sin really says.
So basically, anti-choicers see themselves as saving the souls, not just the lives, of the unborn. And that's a much more powerful inducement for them to inflict their moralities on the rest of us.
Is that it? Maybe? But I don't think it's the whole "it." I think, and I hate to admit it, that there's still some good old-fashioned sexism at work here. While I realize there are many female anti-choicers, quite a huge number of them are male. Christian males. And we all know how Christianity regards women.
This is why I refer to this movement as "anti-choice" instead of "anti-abortion" or the outrageously misleading "pro-life." Because it really is about taking away personal choice from women. It's not just about opposing abortion or supporting life. It's about control. It's about manipulation. Just like the vast majority of religions out there.
