Pro-Life: February 2006 Archives

In Foreign Policy, of all places, there's a long article by Phillip Longman called "The Return of Patriarchy." The thesis paragraph is near the end:

Advanced societies are growing more patriarchal, whether they like it or not. In addition to the greater fertility of conservative segments of society, the rollback of the welfare state forced by population aging and decline will give these elements an additional survival advantage, and therefore spur even higher fertility. As governments hand back functions they once appropriated from the family, notably support in old age, people will find that they need more children to insure their golden years, and they will seek to bind their children to them through inculcating traditional religious values akin to the Bible’s injunction to honor thy mother and father.

I find this encouraging, particularly since I've been more than a little frustrated by money lately. The Washington area is a tough place to raise kids for a variety of reasons, not least financially. But if my four children are going to promote a patriarchal way of life in America, it's worth it!

It's a question that rarely gets asked, since it's almost always framed in terms of "rights," either the baby's or the mothers. The wisest columnist in the world, Mark Steyn, takes on that question:

...So, whether or not her remarks were "outrageous" (the Democrats' Lyn Allison), "insensitive" (the Greens' Rachel Siewert), "offensively discriminatory" (Sydney's Daily Telegraph) and "bigoted" (this newspaper), I salute Danna Vale. You don't have to agree with her argument that Australia's aborting itself out of recognition and that therefore Islam will inherit by default to think it's worth asking a couple of questions:

* Is abortion in society's interest?

* Can a society become more Muslim in its demographic character without also becoming more Muslim in its political and civil character?

The first one's easy: One can understand that 17-year-old Glenys working the late shift at Burger King and knocked up by some bloke who scrammed 10 minutes after conception may believe it's in her interest to exercise "a woman's right to choose", but the state has absolutely no interest in encouraging women in general to exercise that choice.

Quite the opposite: given that today's wee bairns are tomorrow's funders of otherwise unsustainable social programs, all responsible governments should be seriously natalist. The reason Europe, Russia and Japan are doomed boils down to a big lack of babies. Abortion isn't solely responsible for that but it's certainly part of the problem.

Generally, I don't mind seeing some politician going hunting with his buddies. Not that I'm for it: I think hunting animals with firearms is a rather unequal contest, and really not in accord with a Gospel way of life. Still, I can't demand that everyone live to that standard. I'm willing to tolerate sport hunting.

However, I think it's a bad idea for Mr. Cheney for a couple of practical reasons.

First, I think it's bad politics: hunting has the image of being generally a rich men's sport. This isn't something that the Veep, with his WASP-businessman image, should seek out.

Second, it's not prudent: the risk, small as it is, of being injured oneself or, God forbid, injuring someone else is not acceptable for a sitting President or Vice-President. When you go into the top two jobs, you simply should put hunting on hold for eight years.

Now that Mr. Cheney's had an accident serious enough to put a friend in the hospital, he should admit his blunder and do an act of penance for it: take a stand for hunting safety by giving up the sport. For him to persist in hunting at his age, after having made this somewhat dangerous mistake, creates an argument for banning hunting generally: probably not something he wants.

From a Catholic point of view, of course, safety -- protecting human life -- is more important than sport.