EVEN SETTING ASIDE THE NOTORIOUS FACT...:

The Unbelievably Annoying Problem of Christian Moral High Ground : A seventh LOSER LETTER (Mary Eberstadt, 6/27/08, National Review)

Today’s subject concerns an idea that is absolutely critical to the success of Our godlessness: namely, how the believers’ capture of the moral high ground on certain issues — in particular, what they call the “life issues” — continues to deprive us atheists of the converts we deserve. I’ll start by discussing the particular leading “life” issue where they’ve left us Brights in the p.r. dust: i.e., abortion.

Now, let’s begin by noticing that there is such a thing as an atheist position on abortion — namely, that just about every Bright in history or currently in print is unanimously in favor of it. At first, I have admit, I didn’t quite get why Everybody should be so North-Korean-election lopsided about this. After all, we atheists are supposed to be Freethinkers. We do disagree about some important things, like — well, like nothing I can think of offhand, but I’m sure there’s something We don’t all think alike about, somewhere. This issue isn’t one of them, though. You can scour almost all contemporary works on Our side, and find not a Molecule of difference on the question of the morality of abortion.

It’s funny, isn’t it? Because even as recently as a few generations ago, at least a couple of people were apparently able to be atheists and anti-abortion at the same time. For example, two of the few influential Female atheists in history, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were exactly that. Even Our spiritual anti-mother Margaret Sanger was apparently conflicted about the morality of abortion — or at least about abortions committed by white people. (Don’t worry! I would not ordinarily bring Margaret Sanger’s name into anything, at least not around the Dulls aware of Her work. We all know what a liability her flamboyant racism can be. See the excruciating NRO book excerpt by public enemy Jonah Goldberg this very week reminding Everybody of what we’d just as soon forget). For whatever reason, though, it appears that this kind of dissent in atheist thought just quit Evolving. By now, being anti-Loser is pretty much a proxy for being pro-abortion, and usually vice versa too.

Now, there seem to be two arguments for abortion on which today’s Brights unanimously agree. The first, which is simple enough, goes like this: Religious people, and only religious people, are against abortion; religious people are misled, and usually stupid; therefore, being against abortion is not something a Bright should be.

...that there is no foundation for morality in the absence of God (the objective standard), Bright support for abortion is easy enough to explain: they think it's just Dulls being exterminated.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 27, 2008 12:14 PM