Let’s talk about the people who reject a woman’s right to choose.
First of all, it is incorrect to call them anti-abortion. Under current law they are anti-choice because you can be against abortion and also support choice. It’s a matter of who gets to choose, a woman or the state.
Anti-choice advocates believe there is only one choice…carry the pregnancy to term, and for many of them that means even in the case of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s life.
Conservative Christians make up the majority of those who are anti-choice, and they will never accept any compromise on this issue.
The reason is because of their legalistic beliefs about God that in turn are rooted in the way they read the Bible.
The believe the Bible lays out a plan of salvation marked by things to do and things not to do.
Do the right things and don’t do the wrong things and you’re in. Fail and you’re out.
Abortion, of course, is a “don’t” so choosing to have one risks bringing down the judgment of God. For them it is as simple as that.
But here’s the thing. Conservative Christians don’t believe that what they believe is a belief. Instead they believe that what they believe was given to them by God in the Bible.
From their perspective a righteous nation must follow God’s laws or face God’s judgment, which is why they want what they believe about choice to become the law of the land.
They sincerely believe they are trying to save our nation from itself, or at least from the Satanic influence of secularism.
Their strategy is to use their power as the religious base of the Republican Party to coerce Republican controlled state legislatures into passing anti-choice laws. They have been successful in many states.
But state laws are subject to judicial review to weigh whether or not they are consistent with the Constitution. So far many of the laws Republicans have enacted have been struck down.
That is why conservative Christians oppose the courts. They claim a “few” people are deciding for everyone.
They are exactly right in that view, but they don’t understand why.
The courts, or the “few,” must in fact decide cases for the rest of us in order to protect the Constitution for all of us.
A majority of voters can easily and in fact have many times voted for laws that were clearly unconstitutional. “Separate but equal” is one of them. Poll tax laws are another. And so on.
The reality is that our nation’s democracy does not depend solely on majority rule. It also depends on judges and Supreme Court Justices holding all laws to the highest constitutional standards.
Therein is the rub for conservative Christians.
They prefer a theocracy to a democracy because in a democracy views other than theirs have an influence because the Constitution says they do. That is why they want to turn America into a theocracy they control.
Republican politicians are doing all they can to help them, limited only by judges and justices who refuse to allow federal or state laws to subvert the Constitution.
So the way I see it the issue of a woman’s right to choose transcends abortion in that it was and is a flash point in regard to whether or not we continue to be a secular democracy or become a theocracy.
Because I know church history well I can say unequivocally that I am far more fearful of any theocracy conservative Christians want us to become than I am of the imperfect democracy we are.
linnposts.com 