While the Christians were busy celebrating the Annunciation, when, according to the story, the angel Gabriel announced the Incarnation to Mary, the liberal-progressives showed up at our collective door unannounced, and unleashed the abortion debate on an unsuspecting nation.
With the same fervour displayed by religious sects, they knocked on our collective door to convince us they’re the harbingers of the Good News that will liberate women from the yoke of patriarchy.
The general debate unleashed on us (when, before the elections, we were promised “No Abortion”) is accompanied by two minor ones: (1) abortion is a human right and (2) some Catholics accept abortion.
Is abortion a human right?
One characteristic of human rights is their inherently universal nature.
Inherent universality means that they apply to everybody, irrespective of ancestry, gender, colour, status and creed. Each human right applies to men, women, and (unless they’re a figment of some people’s imagination or ideology) to anyone in-between. The Preamble of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks of “the equal rights of men and women”.
Human rights by definition apply to all humans. Now, since men cannot abort, it necessarily follows that abortion is not a human right. If abortion were a human right – and therefore universal, i.e. applicable to all humans – it would also be a right men can claim. Since men cannot abort, it necessarily follows that abortion is not a human right.
Furthermore, since human rights are inherently universal, they have to apply everywhere, to all humans on earth. (The UN Declaration speaks of “all members of the human family”.)
This means that human rights apply even in countries and situations bereft of technological artefacts.
Go through the different human rights, and you’ll find that not a single human right depends on technology, chemicals, equipment, etc.
All rights can be exercised by the Bare Human, just by virtue of being human and not because she or he has access to artefacts. Human Rights can be exercised equally in the Amazon Forest and the Sahel as in New York, London, Berlin, Moscow, Delhi, and Tokyo.
If human rights were dependent on artefacts, they wouldn’t be inherently universal, because artefacts aren’t available everywhere. Since human rights are inherently universal and therefore independent of human technical progress, and abortion depends on human technical ingenuity, it necessarily follows that abortion is not a human right.
Certain legal philosophers have argued that Human Rights exist only in affluent States that afford them. But this is patently unacceptable as it goes against the UN’s pledge to promote the “development of friendly relations between nations” (Preamble).
So, the liberal-progressives who preach such falsehoods should desist.
Catholics for Choice
Christianity is also based on its founder’s self-definition: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). No adherent to Christianity can logically be pro-abortion.
But even certain strains of philosophy that aren’t Christian yet inspire liberal-progressive bio-political positions are based on the idea of “Life”. All philosophies that ultimately derive from Spinoza are essentially based on the Kabala, which understands the name of God (Y-H-W-H) as the masculine third person singular conjugation of the verb “Life” (the same verb from which “Eve” gets her name in Hebrew).
That the liberal-progressives might be ignorant of this is their problem, and certainly not to their credit.
Either you are a believer in the God of Life (Y-H-W-H) or you’re not.
That the top man at the White House thinks otherwise is neither here nor there. If he’s confused, it’s his problem. He’s – for the moment – the world’s most powerful man not the world’s moral compass.
The Religious v. the Liberal-Progressives
The media are awash with loads of extremism, expressed in vitriolic anti-religious writings from the liberal-progressive camp and, at times, saccharine (albeit well-meaning) articles from the religious.
The liberal-progressives preach that the life of unborn humans is not worthy of legal protection.
The religious preach that human life has supernatural attributes.
Frankly, I think that virtue lies in the middle way. Human life – from conception until its natural end – is a natural phenomenon. Human life deserves the law’s protection because it is human. Not a human resource – as the neoliberals and Big Business want us to believe – but Human.
Here lies the big problem: the definition of what is human and, therefore, worthy of the law’s protection.
Referring to God in these post-Christian times can be counterproductive. Reducing human beings to mere human resources is abominable.
The silent majority wants something in-between, something that is neither transcendental nor business-related, neither spiritual nor nihilist-materialist.
The silent majority wants dignity. Abortion eliminates human dignity, because it reduces women to mere cogwheels in the big machinery of production, mere human resources enabling economic growth.
Dirty Søren
An Inspector Søren Farrugia Story
“Our grandparents, in their simplicity...”
Thus began the priest’s homily.
Inspector Søren Farrugia, who, unlike the philosopher he was christened after, was a weary traveller on the bumpy road to Christianity, glanced at Sergeant Laus, hinting they should exit the church, and fast.
They had been tasked with tailing two suspects, plain-clothes, but the whole exercise spiralled out of control. The two suspects were either fiendishly cunning or else not the right targets.
“Let’s get out of here,” whispered the inspector and the sergeant nodded. The two cops exited discretely, trying not to draw too much attention to themselves.
* * * * *
The village piazza was awash in sunlight.
“What happened, Inspector?” asked Sergeant Laus.
“I can’t stand silliness…”
“Silliness, Sir?”
“That our ancestors were simpletons! And that therefore tradition’s wrong! And that therefore novelties, just because they’re novelties, are right! And all this coming from a priest!”
The sergeant said nothing.
“Forgive them for they know not what they do!”
Again the sergeant listened without uttering a word. This is what happens when you read too many books in your free time and spend too much time in the sun during your working hours, he thought to himself.
“It’s all because of cinema, Laus, you know?”
“Cinema, Inspector?”
“Cinema. People believe that cinema is a faithful reflection of society. So they think that because in the past cinema was, so to speak, simple and now it’s, again so to speak, more complex, then society too must have evolved… from simple unicellular organisms to complex multi-cellular animals. Morons!”
Sergeant Laus couldn’t follow Farrugia’s rant, and decided it was wiser just to humour the man and nod at every other word. After all, who gave a flying duck about these things? When he went home, he’d find his wife nagging… he’s neglecting her… there were ten million things that needed fixing around the house… he’s never home… she has to do everything by herself and take care of the kids… he’s nothing but a selfish boor… all his mother’s fault… Those were the things that mattered. Not how society viewed itself.
“Yes, Inspector!”
The villagers had filled the piazza with restaurants and bars, all looking at the church’s admirable façade. A bit like Milan’s Piazza del Duomo: smaller scale but same idea.
The two cops spotted a table that would afford them the best view of the church’s doors, and sat down to drink a couple of beers while they waited.
When the mass was over and the two suspects came out of the church, the two cops followed them from a distance.
But this was Gozo, where everybody literally knows everybody else. The villagers must have intuited the two undercover cops’ real identity and some good soul must have alerted the two suspects, who suddenly veered into a lane and vanished.
The inspector and the sergeant understood their mission was over. So much for the delusion they could imitate big-screen cops. In the real world there are no heroes, no protagonists, no scriptwriter... just luck and quick reaction times.
They returned to the car and drove back to Mġarr Harbour, having informed HQ they had botched the mission.
* * * * *
As the ferryboat negotiated the waves, Farrugia stayed on the upper deck to savour the views of Comino before the islet gets built up.
“Søren? Is it really you?”
He turned round and saw the most beautiful face smiling at him.
It was his cousin Sondra, whom he hadn’t seen in ages.
“My favourite cousin!” she greeted him loudly. “The Dirty Harry of the family!”
The other passengers turned their heads to look at them, particularly at the inspector.
“Sondra!” he exclaimed. “What a surprise!”
“Søren, this is an extraordinary coincidence. I needed to talk to you.”
Farrugia took in a deep breath. Everybody seemed to need to talk to him these days, to compare him to movie heroes, as if he had the power to topple the gods of this earth. Whereas he knew what makes the world go round, and couldn’t but feel helpless, overwhelmed by the brutality of the traffic between politics and the police.
“Tell me, Sondra.”
“I don’t know where to begin from.”
“The beginning…?”
“Well, there’s this colleague of mine who’s been filming three female colleagues in… well, you know what I mean… he seduced them, filmed them as he had his way with them, and now he’s asking them for monthly payments… or else.”
“All married, correct?”
“Correct. The problem is that a formal report would mean Game Over.”
“Yeah, divorce and all that... names splashed all over the newspapers… not somewhere anyone’d want to be.”
“I needed to talk to you. Somebody should talk to this guy. Somebody who acts like Dirty Harry... who cares more for justice than the rules.”
“I’m not Clint Eastwood, Sondra.”
“Oh, Søren…”
“OK. Give me this guy’s address. I’ll put a stop to this nonsense.”
“Thank you, Søren, ever so much!”
“One question, Sondra.”
“Yes.”
“Is this punk some Minister’s Chief of Staff or person of trust or aunt or canvasser, or Joseph Muscat’s transvestite manservant… or in any way whatsoever involved in politics?”
“No. He’s just a colleague, as I told you.”
“Pity.”
“Why?”
“He would have made my day.”
Both laughed, even though Søren less heartily than Sondra.
* * * * *
A few days later, a man was admitted to the Casualties Department, his face badly swollen, his rib caged badly wrecked, and, generally speaking, in very bad shape. When asked what happened, he answered he slipped and fell down the stairs.* * * * *
The following morning, the postman rang the inspector’s doorbell and handed him a small, delicately-wrapped package.
Farrugia unwrapped it and found a handsome wrist-watch and a thank-you card.
“To our very own Dirty Harry, from Sondra, Frances, and Christina. Heartfelt thanks and three big kisses!”
Farrugia smiled, and went to have a shower.