A Renewed Tyrannical Civil Rights Regime in the Making
In a recent interview with NBC’s Hallie Jackson, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris opined that perhaps there shouldn’t be religious exemptions for abortions any more. When Jackson asked, “What concessions would be on the table, religious exemptions for example, would that be something you would consider?” Harris answered: “I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.”
Many people online expressed outrage. Some called it crazy. Pro-life Catholic groups cited it as proof that Harris doesn’t believe in First Amendment religious protections. Undoubtedly, many conservatives have in mind the 2014 landmark Supreme Court Decision, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the Court granted that private for-profit corporations could legally claim a religious exemption from federal regulations requiring that businesses provide contraception (including abortifacients) in their health insurance packages. (The Hobby Lobby case was not, in fact, a First Amendment matter, but a ruling on the provisions of Congress’s 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).)
Harris is saying out-loud what the Democratic party truly believes and what conservatives have long suspected: that there is no neutral live-and-let-live ground on abortion, and that if they could have their way, the Left would force conservatives to fund, provide for, and celebrate abortions despite their conviction of its moral harm and social evil.
A Civil Rights Regime Long in the Making
We should not be surprised at Harris’ opinion, for two reasons. First, it is the logical conclusion of the assertion that abortion is a “fundamental right.” Rights, by their nature, describe appropriate and normative ranges of human decision-making and action. All rights are moral claims: that the choice or action under consideration is good and thus must be permitted; and that such choices place moral duties of non-inference upon external actors (such as other persons, businesses, or government officials). When those things that are objectively wrong and harmful are called “rights” long enough and with enough persistence and vigor, it should not surprise us that demands to conform and celebrate these “rights” as intrinsic goods soon follow. This is the inevitable result of a godless society that has displaced God’s will and Word (known through nature and revelation) and elevated man’s own deified will and right to command in its place.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, liberal academics long ago told us that this conflict would happen—and that their preferred outcome was that modern civil rights law would trump traditional religious privileges and constitutional liberties. In a seminal 2007 article, “Should Religious Groups Be Exempt from Civil Rights Laws?,” Harvard Law School Professor Martha Minow argued that religious exemptions (or the lack thereof) were inconsistent across issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation. Instead of an unprincipled and hodgepodge approach that was determined by historical accident and social activism (according to Minow), modern U.S. civil rights law should be consistent across the board.
To her credit, Minow was respectful toward traditional religious belief and the free exercise accorded to all by the First Amendment. The important point that Minow highlighted, however, was the intrinsic tension between modern civil rights law and the historic (and natural) rights of free association and religious liberty that often ran afoul of the moral and social goals of civil rights legislation. Although Minow ostensibly sought to balance (religious) freedom with the modern, democratic values of tolerance, equality, and justice for the oppressed (women, blacks, immigrants, gays and lesbians, etc.), it was clear from her article that religious diversity and free exercise were a problem to be overcome (ideally through a “popular constitutionalism” that relied upon incremental change and progressive activism to ‘move’ reluctant traditionalists toward more equitable and just outcomes).
Christopher Caldwell’s 2019 book, The Age of Enlightenment, did an excellent job of explaining how post-1960s civil rights legislation (Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Higher Education Act, etc.) and subsequent Supreme Court cases (Lawrence v. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges,and Bostock v. Clayton County) ended up creating a “civil rights regime” that was less of an extension of the American Constitution and much more of a rival political system. These two constitutions (the first de jure, the second de facto) have created two classes of citizens, two allegiances, two concepts of justice, and thus two entirely different policy prescriptions. Per Caldwell’s analysis, Minow is unknowingly highlighting the conflict between these two constitutions and ways of life.
While Minow vainly tried to frame her discussion as an historic American conflict between freedom and equality, no such dilemma originally existed. This was due to the fact that the American founders had a completely different conception of natural and civil rights that were derived from natural and divine law, not human will and the invention of “new” economic, gender, and sexual rights. While Minow does not focus on abortion, the legal justification for permitting abortion in Roe was based upon the so-called “right to privacy” that the Court had discovered in the Constitution (via infamous “penumbras, formed by emanations” that created “zones of privacy”) in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut. That case revolved around a married couple’s (re: a woman’s) right to contraception without state interference. In Roe, Justice Blackman argued that “this right to privacy [wherever it’s found in the Constitution] … is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” Such a choice is part of a woman’s fundamental right to her personal liberty, that, if denied her, might cause all sorts of physical, mental, and psychological harm.
The right to privacy, the right to abortion, and the entire discourse around so-called “reproductive” rights, healthcare, or justice were just one part of a multilayered civil rights package. From the beginning it was on a collision course with the older 1787 Constitution and its understanding and priority of the right to life and the regulation of the health, safety, morals, and religion of the people for the common good. That collision is ongoing, and only one constitution and one understanding of justice and right can prevail. Harris is being consistent with and loyal to the civil rights regime that raised and elevated her to VP and now Democratic presidential candidate. No conservative should be surprised; and every conservative has a duty to vote for Trump to prevent the civil rights regime from finally eviscerating and burying the U.S. Constitution and the people loyal to America.
Not Your Own, Not Her Body
In arguing for abortion, Harris parroted the most common talking point by abortion advocates: that since a woman has a right to her body, she can abort her own baby if she so desires. Let us grant for a moment that there is a “right to privacy” guaranteed to individuals in the U.S. Constitution. Even so, this does not give anyone the right to do with their body as they desire. Some actions, even the most private and personal, are simply wrong—such a suicide. If God owns us because he has created us and expects us to treat ourselves (our souls and bodies) with respect because it is good for us, it makes eminent sense to speak of duties to oneself that come from God. Yet this is also true socially, for very few personal or private decisions have little to no public impact. You might think killing yourself is a deeply personal decision that only impacts you; yet every person who has lost a loved one from suicide will tell you otherwise. Likewise, even if a woman has a right to her body, her body is not her own to do with however she wants. She has duties before God and toward her family and neighbors to treat her body in a way that does not harm herself or others.
Yet the entire premise of Harris’ remarks is clearly and undeniably false. The baby is not part of the woman’s body. The reason no woman has the right to abort her child is because the baby is a different human person, created by God with intrinsic worth and deserving of being nourished, loved, and cared for. Medical science can assure us of this fact. From the moment of conception, the baby fetus has an entirely different genetic code (DNA) than the mother (and father). Every cell of the baby’s body is encoded with its own unique genetic sequence. The mother and baby do not share the same circulation system, but have separate blood sources divided by the placental blood barrier. (If the mother and baby’s blood does mix, this can be dangerous to both, depending upon blood type.) The baby’s heart, which begins beating by 6-7 weeks (gestational age), beats independently of the mother’s. The baby has its own agency inside the womb, stretching, kicking, hiccupping, and even urinating independently of the mother’s own bodily functions and will (or even knowledge).[1]
The baby is not the mother’s body. It is not like an appendage (e.g., arm), or the gall bladder, or the appendix to be removed at will. It is, in every way, a separate and distinct human person with its own DNA, body, mind, and soul. The fact that the baby a pregnant woman carries is a separate person from her and yet completely dependent upon its mother for nourishment, growth, and protection, undoubtedly places upon the mother unique demands—both physically and morally. In a healthy and God-honor society, these demands would not be demonized as inconveniences toward a woman’s life goals (career or otherwise), but celebrated as a privilege that only women enjoy of being able to grow, and so uniquely love and bond with, their child. This is an incredible gift from God, not something to be chopped up and vacuumed out like a useless vestigial organ that the woman can discard because it is her body to do with as she pleases.
To vote for Kamala Harris is to vote for the decapitation and dismemberment of little babies, whose body parts are then sold for profit or burned for energy. To vote for Harris is to vote for the lies of feminism that corrupt our women and destroy marriages and families. To vote for Harris is to ensure the continuation and expansion of the civil rights regime that makes these evils possible, and for the steady decline of Christianity and religious freedom that once made America great.
[1] When confronted with these facts, feminists and abortion advocates almost unanimously fall back on the retort that despite these examples, the baby couldn’t survive without the mother’s support and nourishment, so the right to abortion still holds. But this is shifting the goal posts. Yes, fetuses cannot survive without the mother; but nor can preemies, full-term babies, or even small children. “But,” goes the response, “all of these babies are viable outside the womb, and can be cared for by medical professionals or others. Pre-viability babies place unique demands upon only the mother for their survival.” Yet the notion of “viability” is itself an artificial fabrication of our judicial system, and medical technology continues to push back the age of fetal viability outside the womb. If in the future we invention artificial wombs, it is possible that even first-trimester infants will be viable outside the mother’s womb and able to survive in an artificial womb. Regardless, this entire argument is different from the original one that the baby is part of the mother’s body, and so has nothing to do with it.
Image Credit: Unsplash
Neither Trump nor Harris, and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are consistently pro-life. Harris’s attitude is tragic. Gone are the days when Bill Bradley campaigned to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. Bradley was pro-choice. But he spoke respectfully of those who were pro-life.
But are the Republicans any better? After all, a large percentage of them, including Trump, deny the reality of climate change. And though that is not currently taking the same number of lives that abortion is, it has the potential to. And Trump’s cancelling Obama’s clean air and water regulations also prematurely ends life unnecessarily. And while Trump campaigns as the peace President, the US re-entered the nuclear arms race during his Presidency. Are we could question Trump’s lack of actions against poverty. Poverty prematurely ends life in a variety of ways. Or we could examine his policies toward immigrants who are trying to escape poverty and or violence some of which were significantly contributed to by US foreign policies. And what are Trump’s plans for Social Security and Medicare?
Harris’s approach to the abortion issue is reductionistic. She believes that the only issue involved in access to abortion is the woman’s rights. And I agree with her that the right to privacy is a legitimate issue in the abortion debate. At the same time, some pro-life Republicans are reductionistic too. They believe that the only issue involved in the abortion issue are the rights, including the right to life, of the infant. If we eliminate the reductionism from both sides, we see that abortion becomes a complex issue. But there are people on both sides who are opportunists in that they want to reduce abortion to a single issue in order to manipulate people.
It is easy to canonize one’s own side and demonize the other. It is not only easy, it is a way to gain control over people. And both sides do that. When discussing abortion with a pro-choice friend of mine, I simply said that we need a national dialogue on what is human life, when does it begin, and whether or not we will treat all human lives as being equal. My friend tried to quickly change the subject. The sensitivity over the human status of the unborn child indicates that that is where we need to move the public discussion on the topic of abortion. Abortion will continue to be a plague regardless of who wins the Presidency. We need to focus on winning people over. At the same time, we need to strive to be consistently pro-life in the other areas of life where premature death is a current and/or future reality.
James White:
Four, or eight, years of this imbecilic sock-puppetry, I must admit, would be a just judgment upon a wicked people. I don’t want it, I grieve for the world my grandchildren and great-grandchildren would face given the inevitable subjugation of the US to foreign enemies, but you have to admit, setting aside your emotions and simply thinking biblically, it would be a very just and fitting judgment for a people who think themselves so wise they can reject God’s ways. She is, at her best, a badly written, badly acted SNL skit mocking the Presidency. And yet “Evangelicals for Harris,” and Thabiti Anyabwile, are not only voting for this Marxist, but encouraging others to as well. Their judgment will be just as well.
J.S. Bach,
Did you also lament foreign nations submitting to US through coups and other interventions?
We have to realize something, the dems are not Marxists. I lean toward Marxism and the dems are nowhere close. Terms like ‘Marxism,’ ‘Communism,’ and ‘Socialism’ have long ago become pejoratives aimed at manipulating audiences into automatically or reflexively reject everything one side says and automatically or reflexively accepting what another side says. All of us will pay dearly for accepting authoritarian rule. And that rule is more likely to come from Trump than from the dems.
Actually, Marxism, Communism and Socialism are called “words”. You might have heard of them. They have definitions. They’re used to convey meaning, rather than control and manipulate others, contrary to what some Marxist leaners might say.
Jordan,
And words have different uses. Some use words as pejorative labels. You may have heard of that. The pejorative use of a word is not concerned with precise definitions. Rather, that use of words is more interested in persuading people to make automatic or reflexive decisions rather than to make well-thought out rational ones.
Marx had his own take on communism and socialism. And what was practiced in the Soviet Union was neither Marxist communist or nor socialist. But that is according to the definitions that come with Marxism. In fact, what was tried in the Soviet Union could hardly be thought of as Socialist.
Now if you want, I will provide the actual definitions that show that as well as testimony by Communists or Socialist leaders about what was tried in the Soviet Union.
Don’t argue with him. He only wants attention. He is not here to learn anything but to spread his false beliefs.
Exactly right, J S Bach. And his above claims about socialism, communism, and the Soviet Union are just a variation on the tired old leftist canard that “Real socialism has never been tried before.” It’s a refusal to see what socialism and communism inevitably produce and will always produce every time they’re put into practice. For more on this read some Solzhenitsyn or Lesek Kolakowski’s “The Marxist Roots of Stalinism.”