A nasty little conundrum for feminists...
Let me start this one out by saying that I certainly take no pleasure whatsoever in pointing out this particular conundrum since it refers to a particularly unpleasant and tragic reality. However, I am pointing it out – sincerely and purposefully – not to gloat in the slightest but simply to continue in my ongoing aim of exposing the glaring inconsistensies in the secular worldview in order to open up the door for an alternative for those who have never considered it... It is simply this.
• It is a widely reported phenomenon ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4785750.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1506469.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3601281.stm ) that women in both China and India are regularly and systematically aborting female foetuses, preferring to have male children. The reasons are largely cultural (it is seen as better to have a ‘strong’ male child to support the parents in their old age) and/or – as in the case of China – social (the infamous ‘one-child’ policy, which leads many women to ‘ditch’ the female child and hold out for a male child). For the purposes of this discussion, however, the reasons are largely immaterial.
• It is also a well-known fact (correct me if I’m wrong) that the overwhelming majority of feminists are also “pro choice”.
> The question I have for them (or their sympathisers) today is the following:
“Is it wrong to abort female foetuses in such a targeted and selective way?”
Now, some of you may be way ahead of me but if you’re not there yet, let me lay it out for you. People who are ‘pro-choice’ would defend to the death adamandtly and vehemently a woman’s right to choose. She is the master of her body and if she wants to have an abortion then it is nobody’s business but her own. This is the basic essence of the pro-choice movement (of which feminists are usually part of), perhaps with slight variations. HOWEVER, the practice of selectively aborting female babies brings this ‘principle’ into direct conflict with another sacred principle held by feminists - the equality of man and woman. Such a practice would therefore be absolute anaethema to them. So, the question that arises is: just which principle do they defend??
Their belief system brings them into direct conflict with reality and they are left in an impossible position.
Let me just stress that those on the outside looking in (ie. those of us are ‘not’ pro-choice feminists) have absolutely nothing to be smug about. We are talking about the systematic extermination of an entire gender! The Nazis would have been proud of this. Legal, quick and convenient.
The pro-choice feminist simply has nothing to say on this issue... and this is arguably the biggest demographic crisis ever to afflict the world, affecting over a third of its population!
The only conclusion that one can come to is that there is something wrong with the belief system. It may, theoretically, be feasible to be pro-choice and it may, theoretically, be feasible to be a feminist, but reality absolutely rules out the possibility of being both.
The question, once again, come down to a matter of worldview. When I exclude God from the picture then I am forced to come up with a moral system that caters for the ‘rights’ of those beings that I see fit to afford rights to. This conundrum simply exposes the self-centred manner with which a Godless-worldview prescribes such rights. If I am the centre of the universe - an ‘autonomous’ being not subject to any external moral or spiritual rule - then I will form my morality based on this premiss... Will a baby make my life more inconvenient or difficult? No worry - I simply affirm my rights and decide (choose) that that baby is not actually a human being until it is out of the womb (something that the recent ‘miracle’ baby http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6384621.stm shows to be utterly ridiculous). Or how about the gender problem? If I happen to be female then of course I will find it inconvenient that we live in what is still largely a patriarchal society. This is certainly not something that I have to put up with. I therefore assert my rights and declare that men and women must be equal in all things.
The problem, however clumsily laid-out, that I hope we have seen is not actually with the individual beliefs themselves. It is rather with the belief system that dogmatically bases everything on ME, MYSELF & I. Francis Schaeffer puts it well:
“Pressure is exerted by a world that does not want to say no to self – not just for a minor reason, but out of principle, because they are determined to be the centre of the universe.” (Francis Schaeffer)
THIS is the root of the problem that gives rise to our conundrum today. There is nothing wrong with men and women having similar rights or even with women being free to make decisions about their body. The problem is when you factor God out of the equation from the outset. This is what creates such a distorted picture that bears no relation to reality.
In closing, let’s just look briefly at the alternative. The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God - therefore life is sacred. The image of God does not refer to a moment in time when a foetus goes from being a collection of cells to being human; it refers to the very essence of what we are: dust with God-breathed life. That is why from the moment of conception we are precious in God’s sight - and only he has the right to take away life. Abortion is wrong. If you want an incredibly politically-incorrect parallelism, abortion is to ‘targeted female abortion’ what man/man intercourse is to paedophilia. We regard the second two as reprehensible but not the first two. What exactly is the difference?
How about the second thing? Feminism. Well, believe it or not, just as the Bible has a higher view of life than the pro-choice feminist, so it also has a higher view of women. Women are not portrayed as having to fight for their place in an endless battle of the sexes. Rather, from the outset, woman is given a most privileged place. Man is incomplete without woman and in a loving marital bond, his brief is to love her and give himself to her in complete sacrifice. So often people dwell on the ‘wives submit to husbands’ but then ignore what comes next – this awesome picture of man sacrificing himself for his wife just as Christ did for the church, giving his life to his woman. I know of no more privileged position or higher view of woman than this.
The outcome of this ‘alternative’ (I would say, original) view is the categorical rejection of this practice in India and China for the simple reason that it is wrong. No juggling about with this and that person’s (if they are a person!) rights. The irony is that the Biblical view comes out as actually the most liberal and progressive: a high view of woman and a high view of life. Seen in contrast to this, the pro-choice ideology (brought out into relief by this example) can only be described as fascist.
Ultimately, what is the difference between saying: ‘clean out the Jew to make room for the Aryan’ and ‘clean out the female foetus to make room for the male foetus’...?!
Now, obviously I am not saying that pro-choice campaigners say this or believe this. In fact my point at the beginning was that they are actually duty-bound to oppose this by virtue of their feminism. But the fact remains that they are also duty-bound, by their own principles, to defend this practice in India and China as failing to do so would violate ‘pro-choice’.
I don’t know if this has confused you, angered you or left you completely impassive (I hope not the latter) but I do also hope that you are realising, if what I have been describing is/was your position, that a secular worldview is both a) untenable and b) not the only option. And always remember, someone is evil because they are a sinner and disobedient to God, not – in the first instance – because of anything they do or believe. These things simply follow and reveal the true nature of our hearts. Any Christian who goes on a crusade against abortionists, practising homosexuals and even paedophiles simply hasn’t got the point. We ‘all’ need to (re)turn to our Creator and Redeemer through his Son, Jesus Christ.
• It is a widely reported phenomenon ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4785750.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1506469.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3601281.stm ) that women in both China and India are regularly and systematically aborting female foetuses, preferring to have male children. The reasons are largely cultural (it is seen as better to have a ‘strong’ male child to support the parents in their old age) and/or – as in the case of China – social (the infamous ‘one-child’ policy, which leads many women to ‘ditch’ the female child and hold out for a male child). For the purposes of this discussion, however, the reasons are largely immaterial.
• It is also a well-known fact (correct me if I’m wrong) that the overwhelming majority of feminists are also “pro choice”.
> The question I have for them (or their sympathisers) today is the following:
“Is it wrong to abort female foetuses in such a targeted and selective way?”
Now, some of you may be way ahead of me but if you’re not there yet, let me lay it out for you. People who are ‘pro-choice’ would defend to the death adamandtly and vehemently a woman’s right to choose. She is the master of her body and if she wants to have an abortion then it is nobody’s business but her own. This is the basic essence of the pro-choice movement (of which feminists are usually part of), perhaps with slight variations. HOWEVER, the practice of selectively aborting female babies brings this ‘principle’ into direct conflict with another sacred principle held by feminists - the equality of man and woman. Such a practice would therefore be absolute anaethema to them. So, the question that arises is: just which principle do they defend??
Their belief system brings them into direct conflict with reality and they are left in an impossible position.
Let me just stress that those on the outside looking in (ie. those of us are ‘not’ pro-choice feminists) have absolutely nothing to be smug about. We are talking about the systematic extermination of an entire gender! The Nazis would have been proud of this. Legal, quick and convenient.
The pro-choice feminist simply has nothing to say on this issue... and this is arguably the biggest demographic crisis ever to afflict the world, affecting over a third of its population!
The only conclusion that one can come to is that there is something wrong with the belief system. It may, theoretically, be feasible to be pro-choice and it may, theoretically, be feasible to be a feminist, but reality absolutely rules out the possibility of being both.
The question, once again, come down to a matter of worldview. When I exclude God from the picture then I am forced to come up with a moral system that caters for the ‘rights’ of those beings that I see fit to afford rights to. This conundrum simply exposes the self-centred manner with which a Godless-worldview prescribes such rights. If I am the centre of the universe - an ‘autonomous’ being not subject to any external moral or spiritual rule - then I will form my morality based on this premiss... Will a baby make my life more inconvenient or difficult? No worry - I simply affirm my rights and decide (choose) that that baby is not actually a human being until it is out of the womb (something that the recent ‘miracle’ baby http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6384621.stm shows to be utterly ridiculous). Or how about the gender problem? If I happen to be female then of course I will find it inconvenient that we live in what is still largely a patriarchal society. This is certainly not something that I have to put up with. I therefore assert my rights and declare that men and women must be equal in all things.
The problem, however clumsily laid-out, that I hope we have seen is not actually with the individual beliefs themselves. It is rather with the belief system that dogmatically bases everything on ME, MYSELF & I. Francis Schaeffer puts it well:
“Pressure is exerted by a world that does not want to say no to self – not just for a minor reason, but out of principle, because they are determined to be the centre of the universe.” (Francis Schaeffer)
THIS is the root of the problem that gives rise to our conundrum today. There is nothing wrong with men and women having similar rights or even with women being free to make decisions about their body. The problem is when you factor God out of the equation from the outset. This is what creates such a distorted picture that bears no relation to reality.
In closing, let’s just look briefly at the alternative. The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God - therefore life is sacred. The image of God does not refer to a moment in time when a foetus goes from being a collection of cells to being human; it refers to the very essence of what we are: dust with God-breathed life. That is why from the moment of conception we are precious in God’s sight - and only he has the right to take away life. Abortion is wrong. If you want an incredibly politically-incorrect parallelism, abortion is to ‘targeted female abortion’ what man/man intercourse is to paedophilia. We regard the second two as reprehensible but not the first two. What exactly is the difference?
How about the second thing? Feminism. Well, believe it or not, just as the Bible has a higher view of life than the pro-choice feminist, so it also has a higher view of women. Women are not portrayed as having to fight for their place in an endless battle of the sexes. Rather, from the outset, woman is given a most privileged place. Man is incomplete without woman and in a loving marital bond, his brief is to love her and give himself to her in complete sacrifice. So often people dwell on the ‘wives submit to husbands’ but then ignore what comes next – this awesome picture of man sacrificing himself for his wife just as Christ did for the church, giving his life to his woman. I know of no more privileged position or higher view of woman than this.
The outcome of this ‘alternative’ (I would say, original) view is the categorical rejection of this practice in India and China for the simple reason that it is wrong. No juggling about with this and that person’s (if they are a person!) rights. The irony is that the Biblical view comes out as actually the most liberal and progressive: a high view of woman and a high view of life. Seen in contrast to this, the pro-choice ideology (brought out into relief by this example) can only be described as fascist.
Ultimately, what is the difference between saying: ‘clean out the Jew to make room for the Aryan’ and ‘clean out the female foetus to make room for the male foetus’...?!
Now, obviously I am not saying that pro-choice campaigners say this or believe this. In fact my point at the beginning was that they are actually duty-bound to oppose this by virtue of their feminism. But the fact remains that they are also duty-bound, by their own principles, to defend this practice in India and China as failing to do so would violate ‘pro-choice’.
I don’t know if this has confused you, angered you or left you completely impassive (I hope not the latter) but I do also hope that you are realising, if what I have been describing is/was your position, that a secular worldview is both a) untenable and b) not the only option. And always remember, someone is evil because they are a sinner and disobedient to God, not – in the first instance – because of anything they do or believe. These things simply follow and reveal the true nature of our hearts. Any Christian who goes on a crusade against abortionists, practising homosexuals and even paedophiles simply hasn’t got the point. We ‘all’ need to (re)turn to our Creator and Redeemer through his Son, Jesus Christ.
posted by Achilles @ 2:32 pm
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