We heirs of Thrasymachus, revisited.

The Godblogs have been a-buzzin' for the last few days over an article published at Salon which asks the question: "So what if abortion ends life?"  Naturally, they are appalled.

The Pro-Life movement is based on preserving life.  The writer of this article undercuts that position by saying, simply "So what?" It is a rebuttal- I cannot call it an argument, for it is more like a denial of the possibility of argument- that is usually found in the mouth of a mouthy teenager.  "Yeah, I was late.  So what?"  "Yeah, I failed the test.  So what?"  The teenager shows that they do not care about any argument the parent or other authority figure may make, and are therefore immune to any logic or reason that can be presented.  They also are saying they don't care about the consequences, which is why the parent or other authority figure then tries and make the consequences seem real.  "I'll tell you so what..."

Back to the matter at hand.  It does not matter to this author that abortion ends life. The underpinnings of her question, and her philosophy, if it can be called that, is grounded in Nihilism, the abandonment of all first principles.  She has embraced nothing, and all that is left is her own will.

Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

It is, once again, the formula of Thrasymachus:  The strong will do what they will, and the weak will accept what they must.  More disturbingly, it is becoming a trend.  Camille Paglia has embraced this doctrine.  I have read other feminists who have argued the same point: abortion kills.  So what. 

I wrote these words when discussing Paglia's naked statement on abortion as murder: "Her ethics are the ethics of the tyrant: right is the appetite of the strong. Here is the question of abortion at its starkest, most visceral, most degrading to all, and the most dangerous. She makes no claims or no pretexts. There are no examples of "but what in the case of...?" and that ilk. There is no need to appeal to such exceptions. In an atheistic world, there are no first principles: only will and power, and those who have it, and those who don't. In this world, there is neither a reason to kill an infant or to not kill an infant, beyond desire. The only argument against such arguments are greater will, and greater might." 

About that greater will and greater might:  Beware it.  I humbly ask any prochoicers out there who may have, to their regret, stumbled upon this little blog: find a better argument.  You are not going down a slippery slope, you are stepping off a cliff.  Should you reduce the argument to the question of power you will be breaking open the last doors of civilization.

I would like to point out something that an earlier generation of feminists never understood about a philosophy that argued that the poor and the weak were to be protected, at all costs even with one's life if necessary.  It went by many names, Christianity was one, but chivalry was another popular name.  Women believed that it was designed to hold women down, but it wasn't.  It was designed to hold men back, to keep them from using their superior strength to harm the weaker, and to stigmatize those  who did.  It is now gone.  Think of the difference between the men of the Titanic, standing aside to allow women and children to go to the lifeboats, and the Costa Concordia, where men shoved women-young, old, pregnant- aside in their rush to get onto the boats first.

Chivalry is now gone.  There is nothing holding men back or stopping them from being animals.  And now someone wants to throw into that mix:  Murder.  So What?

Ladies, if you really, really, want to go the route of strong vs weak, you will do so to your own regret.  The Male capacity for violence and destruction, cut free from the bonds of chivalry, vastly outstrips your own.  If not all life is truly equal, and might and will are the only determinant,  then you will relearn to your pain that men are the stronger.  I am not making any threats, only observations. If people are to be cut free from all restraint,  neither you nor anyone else shall stand in the winds that blow across our world, and future generations, if there are any, shall curse you for it. Actions have consequences.  You should be aware of that.