'Abortion
rights' and the moral threat to freedom
From 'The Crisis of the Republic'
Alan Keyes
July 30, 2007
When I was working in the State Department, someone described one of my
superiors as the sort of person who would always be persuaded by the last
person who talked to him. This meant that if you wanted a favorable decision,
you had to be the last one through the door before it was made. Timing was
everything.
This turned out to be pretty good tactical advice, but it indicated that the
official in question suffered from a dangerous flaw when it came to the best
interests of the United States. He apparently lacked an overall understanding
that would have provided the basis for a sense of priority in his
decision-making.
The Foreign Service Officers who work at State are generally smart people.
Like expert lawyers, they are skilled at making almost any position sound
plausible and correct. Since their reasoning is unlikely to show obvious
gaps, its stated or implied premises have to be carefully searched out and
evaluated, in light of principles that correspond to the decision-maker's understanding of the overall values and best
interests of the American people. Absent such an understanding, an official's
decisions become a matter of time and happenstance, both of which can be
manipulated by shrewd players who understand his vulnerability, toward ends
that may have more to do with their personal or bureaucratic ambitions than
the Republic's good.
Yet, as we observed earlier, every public official in the United States is
sworn to preserve our republic, the form of government — of, by, and for the
people — established by our federal and state constitutions. How can public
officials fulfill this oath without an overall understanding of the
principles and prerequisites of constitutional self-government? How can their
decisions be consistent with this oath unless they reflect the priorities
such an understanding entails? But if it is essential for the faithful
execution of their offices (faithful, that is, to the oath they have sworn),
are any fit for office who cannot demonstrate that they possess this
understanding?
Moral principle and the tyranny of passion
These questions are obviously most salient when it comes to electing the most
important legislative and executive officials in our states and nation,
especially the members of the U.S. Congress and the president of the United
States. Yet the people of the country cannot make judgments about the
understanding of candidates for these offices if they themselves lack the
understanding they are to judge.
That's why for the past several weeks these essays have focused on
encouraging thought about the essential principles and prerequisites of our
liberty. Such matters are obviously not the only important issues in our
politics, but they are the most important, especially at a time when liberty
is, on every front, so much in danger. Moreover, the sense of priority that
arises from our understanding of these matters must affect our judgment about
the right policies and actions in every department of government, so that all
government action preserves and perpetuates our life as a free people.
The moral principles of the Declaration of Independence, and the moral
character required to sustain them, are the bedrock foundations of American
liberty. Politicians who disregard these essentials in order to win votes may
pose as the champion of this or that individual right, but as Hamilton
observes in the Federalist #1, they are likely to be among "those ...
who have overturned the liberties of republics ... commencing demagogues, and
ending tyrants."
Such demagogues enlist the passions and desires of licentious individuals as
the allies of their ambition. With such allies in individual hearts, they can
pose a grave threat to the liberty of the people as a whole. They promote
ideas and policies that break down individual self-discipline in order to
build a constituency for their own power and advancement. They encourage each
individual to think of his/her rights in terms that acknowledge no
discipline, no boundaries established in deference to principle, no
obligations that must be respected by the superior force of resources, zeal,
or numbers. They promote the tyranny of passion within individuals in order
ultimately to establish tyrannical government over them. They achieve the
decisive stage of this corruption by encouraging people to gratify their
personal passions at the expense of the God-given rights of those too weak to
resist them.
By accepting personal gratification on these terms, people implicate
themselves in practices that sanction the oppression and destruction of the
weak by the strong. They thereby discard the notion that there are principles
of justice to constrain superior power. What people discard in order to
gratify themselves when they have superior power, they cannot thereafter rely
upon in order to defend themselves when superior power is brought to bear
against them. If justice is the good of the stronger in the first case, how
can justice for all be the rallying cry against abuses of strength in the
second?
In our day, the issues connected with sexual gratification implement the
demagogues' strategy for establishing tyrannical power more clearly and
destructively than any others. The substitution of hedonism for procreation
as the aim of sexual activity unbridles physical lust. Impatient with any and
all constraints, this unbridled passion responds eagerly to rhetoric about
sexual freedom, and its attendant rights. This rhetoric arms passion with a
sense of self-righteousness that gradually corrupts or silences the voice of
conscience. Every rule and norm of sexual behavior is challenged and must
give way, including the rule that transcends sexual activity in order to
establish the rights and obligations that constitute respect for life itself.
But as life is the first unalienable right, disregard for the rights and
obligations that constitute respect for life involves abandoning the
principle of respect for unalienable rights. Once that is gone, the whole
idea that justice requires government based upon the consent of the people goes
with it. The foundational premise of republican self-government crumbles to
dust.
"Abortion rights"
On today's political scene, the chief representatives of the demagogues'
strategy and its consequences are the advocates of so-called "abortion
rights." Tragically, they have turned the just demand for an end to
discrimination against women into support for a practice that vitiates the
principle of equal rights for all.
Some arguments for the idea of "abortion rights" (those that focus
on the viability of the infant in the womb) sanction the destruction of the
most weak and helpless form of humanity precisely on account of the
dependency its weakness entails ("might makes right"). Others rely
on arguments that deny the humanity of the child in the womb, repeating the
logic the slaveholders of the nineteenth century used to justify their abuse
of black people ("inequality by birth"). Still others simply appeal
to the passionate selfishness of individuals impatient with any law or norm
that interferes with their pursuit of personal pleasure or satisfaction.
Though the people who advocate "abortion rights" pretend to be
"liberal" and "progressive," their arguments require that
we abandon the progress the United States has made for true liberty, and
against tyrannical control based on force, parentage, or the gang mentality
of selfish personal passion.
Though the "abortion rights" advocates have clothed their claim in
the form and language of constitutional decision, their position not only
abandons the Declaration principles on which the Constitution is based, it
defeats the ultimate goal of the Constitution's existence. The people of the
United States set forth the Constitution's goals in the Preamble. Though
itself containing no provisions of law, the Preamble has been accepted
throughout our history as a guide for the interpretation of the Supreme Law
of the Land, so that where two interpretations conflict, the one consistent
with the Preamble's stated goals is to be preferred. At various times, goals from
the Preamble have been used to establish federal police powers ("insure
domestic tranquility"), support the federal military establishment
("provide for the common defense"), and expand, wisely or not,
federal involvement in education and in other social welfare activities
("promote the general welfare").
But the ultimate stated goal of the U.S. Constitution is "to secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." When it comes to
the blessings of liberty, the Constitution places our posterity on an equal
level with ourselves. Now, human life is the prerequisite for the enjoyment
of all liberty, which makes the protection of human life a prerequisite for
achieving the ultimate goal of the Constitution. Since it places our
posterity on an equal level with ourselves, this implies an equal obligation
on our part to respect the life of our posterity.
This means that we cannot simply disregard the effects that our present
decisions and actions will have on our descendants, even those we will not
see and can barely imagine. This has implications for every area of policy,
requiring at the constitutional level that every exercise of liberty or
government power be mindful of its impact upon future generations.
Conservatives tempted simply to reject the idea of conservation or
environmental responsibility should take heed. But the "abortion
rights" advocates are especially admonished by this consideration, since
we obviously and directly contradict the equal claims of our posterity when we
destroy the life of our offspring in the womb in order to serve our own
desires, our own convenience, our own ambitions.
The advocates of "abortion rights" thus assault the Constitution in
fact, as well as principle. How can it make sense to hand constitutional power
to people who have adopted a position that openly assaults the Constitution
in this fashion, setting them at odds with the sworn duty of every official
who serves under it? I realized many years ago that no pro-lifer who really
understood the constitutional basis for the pro-life position on abortion
could rationally support or vote for anyone who accepts the idea of
"abortion rights." Even if it were just a matter of weighing the
rights of one individual against another, the Constitution demands that the
infant be treated equally. This means that only a direct and immediate threat
to the mother's physical life would justify risking the unborn infant's life.
But since the issue also involves our allegiance to the fundamental principle
of constitutional self-government, it is a test of any candidate's loyalty to
our republican form of government, the one required by the Constitution. With
that in mind, a vote for any abortion rights advocate is a vote for the
destruction of the Republic.
Giuliani and abortion
I've had to revisit this thinking more than once in recent months. Not long
ago, I received an email from someone I have known and worked with since the
Reagan years. He cordially invited me to attend a fundraiser for Rudy
Giuliani. I've been regaled with arguments from various such associates
touting Giuliani's supposed accomplishments as mayor of New York: his stands
for law and order, his effectiveness as an administrator, his courage and
firmness during the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. They actually seem
surprised when I tell them that I cannot and will not vote for any advocate
of so-called "abortion rights." They then dutifully repeat
absurdities about the irrationality of being a one-issue voter when faced
with someone who has so many other good positions and accomplishments.
Unfortunately for them, I cherish the advice of someone I consider far wiser
than myself, who once warned against being like the man who gains the whole
world, but loses his own soul. According to the historical record, Mussolini
was an efficient administrator famous, among other things, for making Italy's
trains run on time. Hitler shrewdly rebuilt German military power, restored
the morale of the German people, and helped to organize Germany's economic
recovery, despite the burdensome effects of onerous reparations from WWI and
the Depression era collapse of the German economy. The list of conquerors,
emperors, and dictators with great leadership qualities and impressive
administrative achievements is as long as human history. The list of free
peoples who remained free for any length of time is far shorter. An efficient
administrator who has abandoned the principles of self-government may prove
most efficient in its destruction.
Line of demarcation
This is the reason I never give a moment's thought to the possibility of
voting for most of the Democrats who run for office these days. They
slavishly adhere to the party's "abortion rights" position, as well
as other stands that unbridle the selfish passions of individuals, no matter
what the cost to our moral principles.
In some ways, though, the push to nominate Republicans who mimic the
Democrats' disregard for principle is more disturbing than the candidacy of
any Democrat. Since its inception, the Republican Party has been the party
that most explicitly promoted Declaration principles in American political
life. As Lincoln made clear in his famous Gettysburg address, the party stood
for a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal." Moreover, in recent decades the party
has offered itself as the political home for voters concerned to preserve the
nation's allegiance to its moral premises, beginning with the acknowledgement
of God's authority as the basis for representative government and our claim
to unalienable rights. Republican politicians who advocate "abortion
rights," therefore, not only abandon the party's foundational commitment
to the Declaration, they cynically betray the support and hopes of moral
conservatives who have rallied in support of the Republican Party precisely
because it championed the cause of life and other unalienable rights as the
God-given heritage of our people.
If they nominate "abortion rights" advocates like Rudy Giuliani,
Republicans erase the moral difference that otherwise establishes a clear
line of demarcation between the two major parties. They expose the party's
supposed allegiance to America's moral principles as a cynical play for
power. But most importantly, they deprive the nation of true defenders
against the assault that is crumbling its moral foundations.
Because the brand name promises moral relief, people who vote Republican may
think they have done something to restore the Republic's moral hope. Yet
"abortion rights" candidates and officeholders do nothing that
effectively turns back the tide of moral dissolution. In this regard,
Republicans who have abandoned Declaration principles are to the body politic
what the AIDS virus is to the physical body. They masquerade as defenders
against disease, but actually leave the body vulnerable to opportunistic
infection. Its immune system undone, it eventually succumbs to the ravages of
multiple infections.
Romney's duplicity
This suggests, though, that active advocates of moral corruption are not the
only ones who become more dangerous when flying Republican colors. The
cynical opportunists who switch on the rhetoric of moral concern, but have no
real understanding or commitment to moral principle, pose a perhaps more insidious
threat.
Mitt Romney, for example, spouted "abortion rights" rhetoric as
long as it served his political ambitions in Massachusetts. Having decided to
run for the Republican presidential nomination, he suddenly changed his tune,
feebly claiming some personal revelation as the basis for his abrupt
abandonment of long-held views. Given the self-serving context of his
supposed conversion, I marvel that any reasonably intelligent people are
willing to accept the change at face value.
When considered along with his rank duplicity on the issue of marriage for
homosexuals, such acceptance is incomprehensible. Though he now claims to be
a champion of the God-ordained, procreational form
of family life, Romney used his power as Governor of Massachusetts to force
officials there to perform marriages for homosexual couples. He did so
despite the State Supreme Court's pronouncement that no change could take
place in Massachusetts laws about marriage without action by the legislature.
Rather than champion efforts to assure that the state's marriage laws would
be preserved, and the state courts rebuked for their effort to usurp
legislative power, he used the power of the Governor's office to force
officials in the state to perform illegal acts. What he now opposes in
theory, he arbitrarily established in fact, assuring that Massachusetts could
become a staging ground for the nationwide offensive for gay marriage that
has already begun. (Consider, for example, the recent move to allow
homosexuals from New Mexico to marry in Massachusetts on the grounds that New
Mexico has no law explicitly invalidating such marriages. This sets the stage
for an assault against the natural family in the New Mexico courts.)
Fred Thompson to the rescue??
Rudy Giuliani is an advocate for moral corruption who truthfully proclaims
his views. Mitt Romney is a self-proclaimed advocate of moral principle who
is lying about it. To nominate either would confirm growing doubts about the
current integrity of the Republican Party's long-held commitment to American
moral principles. But just when it looks as if all hope for principle is
lost, out of the blue of the Tennessee sky comes a new Ronald Reagan to the
rescue (or so we are being told). The grassroots sways in the fresh breeze of
principled hope that is ... Fred Thompson??
True, both Fred Thompson and Ronald Reagan had careers as actors. However,
there's a major difference. By the time he ran for president of the United
States, Reagan's acting career was long over. He was a principled conservative
who paid a heavy price in terms of ridicule and exile from the party
establishment for the sake of his convictions. He spent many years in the
trenches, developing his character rather than playing one. Fred Thompson is
still acting. The best we can expect from him is that he learn his lines for
electoral purposes. For the cynical clique that hopes once more to exploit
grassroots conservatives as their ticket to power, this may be good enough.
It is far from good enough for a republic deep in the throes of the life or
death crisis of its survival.
This is painfully obvious when it comes to the foundational moral issues we
have been discussing. Fred Thompson's position on abortion, at first the
subject of extensive ignorance, has become the subject of equally extensive
apologetics. Even the arguments of staunch supporters (like those which
Warner Huston presented in his recent renewamerica.us
article about Fred Thompson's position on abortion), prove that Thompson is
at best an advocate of "abortion rights" with some limitations. He
has been willing to accept some restrictions on abortion, and goes so far as
to suggest that the Supreme Court should have left the matter in the hands of
state governments.
In this respect, his stand is reminiscent of the one that Lincoln's nemesis,
Stephen Douglas, took on the issue of slavery — a states' rights position
that ignores the issue of constitutional principle at stake every time the
Declaration's premise of equal unalienable rights is violated. Thompson appears
to favor an end to Roe v. Wade, but without acknowledging the nascent child's
moral and constitutional right to life, accepting the notion that it would be
enough to return the issue to the discretion of the states. This ignores the
enormous moral damage that has resulted from the Roe v. Wade decision.
Prior to the era in which Roe v. Wade came before the Supreme Court, every
state in the Union prohibited abortion. During that era, a small minority
agitated for the right to kill children in the womb, but with few exceptions,
state after state reaffirmed the illegality of abortion. When their
state-based efforts failed, the agitating minority took action through the
federal courts. At that point, the issue of right was joined at the national
level, and wrongly decided by the Supreme Court. This unleashed a regime of
enforced abortion rights that has resulted in the deaths of scores of
millions, in violation of the Constitution's principles and stated goal.
This purposefully-established national regime of injustice, which subverts
the fundamental principle of constitutional self-government, has corrupted
the moral understanding and expectations of many of our citizens. The notion
that we can simply turn the clock back without addressing the corruption of
national principle and conscience that it has produced is either naïvely
irresponsible or shrewdly malicious. Having poisoned the soil in which it is
planted, can we leave the roots of our national liberty to shrivel and die?
When we get past posturing and politically-contrived "pro-life"
indicators, the simple fact is that Fred Thompson does not defend the moral
and constitutional right to life of the child in the womb. He speaks from no
moral conviction. He will therefore have no effective argument against
"abortion rights" advocates who will surely decry his willingness
to risk forcing women at the state level to endure labor against their will
and at great emotional cost, in order to satisfy an arguable procedural
objection to the Supreme Court's authority on matters of human rights.
If the only objection to abortion involved this jurisdictional dispute, I too
might question the wisdom of usurping a choice fraught with such deep
personal consequences. In fact, however, the issue involved goes to the very
heart and soul of our claim to liberty. Asking people to accept a difficult
personal discipline out of respect for the child's right to life is no less
justifiable than asking them to accept the discipline of military life —
risking limb, and life and all — to preserve the liberty of the people. The
sovereignty of the people cannot survive unless in their exercise of personal
sovereignty, every individual maintains the integrity of society's moral and
political foundations.
We must ask women to respect the right to life of the helpless child in the
womb, so that all of us together can demand that superior ability, or wealth,
or military might respect the rights of the people, who might otherwise sink
back to the level of the human masses throughout history, who cowered
submissively when faced with such proofs of power. As patriots had to give
their lives to build our freedom, women and men must live their lives so as
to keep it.
What Fred Thompson and all Republicans like him fail to appreciate is that
the issue of abortion is just one cutting edge of the assault on personal
sovereignty, an assault that aims ultimately to destroy the sovereignty of
the people. The aim of statesmanship, therefore, is not just to deal with the
issue, but to restore the moral basis of our sovereignty as we do so. Sadly,
it is clear that Fred Thompson's script for the presidency includes nothing
of the kind.
None of the above
From this discussion of their treatment of the unalienable right to life,
none of the candidates being promoted for the Republican presidential
nomination by the media touts and unprincipled party money bags represents a
commitment to constitutional moral principle consistent with the party's
heritage, or the party platforms adopted by the assembled grassroots
delegates at every National Convention since 1980. Other Republican
candidates, though more emphatic in their declarations of support for the
pro-life position, have shown little ability to articulate the principles
involved so that Americans clearly understand the threat "abortion
rights" advocates pose to the perpetuation of our free institutions.
On this issue of life or death for the moral and political sovereignty of the
American people, we are left with the tragic possibility that the issue of
principle on which liberty depends will never be properly framed and debated
for the people's decision. The further tragedy is, however, that without this
debate, other life and death issues for the Republic cannot be seen and
addressed as such. For in other vital areas — national security, immigration,
taxation, education — the moral possibility of democratic self-government is
at stake, as the general assault on the foundations of liberty takes its toll
in every critical area of political decision.
© 2007 Alan Keyes