Civil Society: The Darker Side
Ah, civil society. The fabric that holds our republic together. The glue that binds us to our fellow citizens and to our country at large.
As Tocqueville discovered during his trip to the New World, Americans are an industrious, social, and practical people. Always coming together to solve the problems facing their lives. Turning not to Uncle Sam, but to their neighbor, in times of trouble.
Today, we conservatives pine for the days of an active citizenry that helps produce a smaller government. After all, if we all take care of our selves, the government doesn't need to.
Thus, we greet news of private action with great applause and acclaim, news like:
- A local parish organizes to reopen a Catholic school that helps children--Hooray!
- A school bake-sale raises money for a homeless shelter--good for them!
- The college baseball team spends a weekend rebuilding homes that were destroyed in a fire--what nice boys they are!
- A local Bowl-a-Thon raised money so a 14 year old girl could finally afford that abortion she desperately needed--Horra....wait.. what the &*(#!?
That's right, Ricochet. The Bowl-a-Thon raised money so a 14 year old girl could get an abortion. How's that for civil society, eh?
The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), who last month raised over $400,000 for abortions through its Bowl-a-Thon, touted that it provided money for a 14-year-old’s abortion as part of the group's “real stories of abortion access.”
I suppose that this is a better alternative than tax money going to fund abortion mills like Planned Parenthood, but for some reason this just makes me feel sick and depressed.
This group is actually called the National Network of Abortion Funds.
Their call to action is "Fund Abortions Now!" If you can stomach a stroll around the website--I was only able to do so briefly--you're confronted with pictures of smiling teens with happy faces, clearly enjoying their post-abortion life.
Clearly, this isn't the sort of private action and civil society that Tocqueville wrote about. This can't be what the founders envisioned we would do with our freedom of association and assembly.
Is this what the "American Can-Do Spirit" is reduced to?
From the article:
“Getting an abortion means getting a second chance,” NNAF highlights the story of Darcy, a 14-year-old who terminated her pregnancy with the help of the group’s “George Tiller Memorial Fund.”
“I'm pretty smart for 14, I think,” Darcy writes. “I love biology, especially the stuff on animals. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be a vet -- I definitely want to start my own practice so that I make enough money and when I have kids I can be home with them,” she said.
After finding out she was pregnant, the girl writes she did not want to tell her mother, “But in the state where I live, minors can't get an abortion without permission from a parent or a judge,” she said. “So I did end up telling her.”
Darcy said a clinic put her in touch with NNAF because the “abortion was going to cost more than our rent.”
“There’s no way that me and my mom could have come up with that much,” she said.
“Getting my abortion means I'm going to get a second chance. And I want to make it count.”
NNAF draws attention to Darcy as one of “the real stories of abortion access,” and how the group is fulfilling its mission “to make sure that all women and girls can get the abortions they seek.”
The above passage saddens me for many reasons, but what struck me is the fact that this group openly celebrates and proclaims its pro-abortion agenda.
Even Planned Parenthood has the decency to pretend that they are more than just an abortion factory. As anyone who has taken an objective look at Planned Parenthood knows, this is rubbish, but the fact that they don't brazenly shout "yes, we love abortions and want to help every girl have one!" reflects something about our culture.
John Kerry and George Bush Jr., when asked about abortion in the 2004 election, both replied with a statement along the lines of "I would like to see fewer abortions". Obviously, Bush Jr. was staunchly pro-life and Kerry was pro-choice, but they both understood that you just can't be openly "pro-abortion".
Until I saw this story, I was under the impression that most pro-choice groups and supporters publicly held some version of this sentiment: "Abortions, while tragic, are necessary at times to help young women avoid a situation that would alter their lives." The actual line would be more articulate than the one I'm able to muster, but you get the point.
On at least some level, pro-choice advocates used to pretend that abortions, while sometimes necessary (in their minds) were at least still unfortunate. What the article above reveals, is an open, unabashed, unapologetic promotion of abortions. As if there were no downsides to a 14 year old girl having an abortion.
I have no remarkable insights or conclusions to draw from this story. In fact, all that I'm left with is a distinct sense of sadness as well as a feeling that somewhere along the line, our civil society has been perverted and that the mores that once made the Republic great, have been turned against her.
Edited for grammar:
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Sep '11
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
To understand the abortion industry, all you have to do is look at this web sites soul-rending stories--and look at the pictures.
The abortion industry is simply the commercial arm of--let's call it what it really is--the eugenics movement. Destroy the institution of the family in the ghetto--then get the single mothers to destroy their children. Destroy the "defectives" (90% of Down syndrome babies are now aborted).
Dec '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
John, John, don't you know that it's us conservatives who are behind the eugenics movement? At least that's what I've been told!
In all seriousness, you're completely right.
I have to, I just have to, believe that the people who promote the pro-choice agenda honestly think that they are doing good, but the fact is that the liberal agenda is destroying the black family. Regardless of intentions, the outcome is terrible.
I guess I was just shocked about how brazenly open that group is about abortions. It's almost like they feel it's a good thing. Not in the sense of "it's unseemly but necessary" either. It seems like they treat abortions as part of growing up.
Apr '12
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Hey, abortion's a right of passage - just like STDs.... it's the price "adventurous" women pay for their adventuresome ways. Adventure. Used to be a word lined with fir trees and camping and s'mores -- now you get the clap and fresh start for you and no start for your baby! And pop culture will wink and nod and give those young victims of ... their own "adventurousness" a heartfelt grin that says, "we've come a long way, baby," from the days when we were under the thumb of "the man."
Aug '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
I had to stop at the "George Tiller Memorial Fund".
A memorial fund ...
... to finance abortions.
Wut?
Jun '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Do they paint the bowling pins to look like little babies?
Jun '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Well written Michael, but utterly ghastly.
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Ghastly, indeed, but they are losing ground -- which explains why Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius, and Barack Obama are as aggressive as they are. The HHS mandate is a function of desperation. So is this particular element within civil society.
Dec '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Thank you. I agree, quite ghastly.
I think/hope you're right. As a whole, the left is acting as if they are backed in a corner. The fight--such that it is--seems increasingly frantic and desperate.
Jul '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Michael Horn:
What a despicably innocuous way of putting it. Like "finding out" you're lactose intolerant or "finding out" your grandma had webbed feet. As though she stumbled on the fact of her pregnancy without any idea how she ended up in such a predicament.
When we anti-abortion types accuse those on the other side of being "pro-abortion", this whole depressing story is pretty much what we have in mind. Michael, thanks for posting this. Now please tell me how I can un-read and un-remember it.
May '12
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
I feel a great sadness when tragedy is celebrated. It's like two conversations about the same topic that can never inform each other. When some celebrated 911 around the globe, I immediately knew they were my enemies a priori. But in my own neighborhood are those who honor a person's decision to kill their own baby as a Constitutionally protected right. They are my neighbors--my friends. How can that be?
The values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that provided our country's social structure, a structure of mutual respect in which all have inherent value, have been utterly perverted by the culture of personalized anarchy inspired by Roe v. Wade.
This, in all its ugliness, is a perfect example.
Aug '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
It's more ghastly that all of us are forced to pay some of the cost of Planned Parenthood. As sick and as evil as this is, no one is being forced to participate.
Edited on May 9, 2012 at 4:57amSep '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
and Mr. Romney said he wants us not to have to give them money. enough reason to vote for him.
Aug '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Re : comment # 12
Edited on May 9, 2012 at 2:53pmI agree. Ghoulish and demoralizing as this "volunteerism" is, the root of the plant right now is the forced participation in human sacrifice. However, this does remind me that I need to do more---a lot more--- to support the fight for freedom of conscience. My husband and I ran out of state to be with a niece who had been in a car accident right before a rally we would have attended on May 3 in Goshen N. Y. . ( Rally was held by O C Right to Life and Citizens 4 Freedom.) We got home the night before yesterday. I'm now wondering how that rally went. This is a great post, Michael Horn.
Oct '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Safe, legal, and...and...what was that other one?
Apr '12
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Things like this are why they're losing ground. Sunlight disinfects. Not fast enough.
Great example of what's wrong with democracy-- "a bunch of people like it" means nothing.
I'm sad to see such a thing, and a lot of less kind emotions, but try to think of it like this-- there are networks of Nazis, child molesters, snuff film enthusiasts, all sorts of horror. Why would this be any different other than it being legal and low risk to support?
Dec '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Foxfier
...there are networks of Nazis, child molesters, snuff film enthusiasts, all sorts of horror. Why would this be any different other than it being legal and low risk to support? · 15 minutes ago
You're absolutely right. There are associations of any and all sorts. To use a great Star Wars line, "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy", than the sort of group associations you can find online.
There are some corners of the internet where the light of decency does not shine, and in these places, groups like the ones you mentioned above find a safe haven and common cause.
The important thing to note, is the manner in which these groups "meet", and where they choose to do so. I think it is telling that they have to meet in a dark, secluded area of the internet.
Furthermore, to the average Joe, these groups are objectively filthy.
The difference between these groups, and the pro-abortion group, to answer your question, is the very public and happy vibe that the latter displays.
Unless I've been hiding under a rock, this sort of display is new to the pro-abortion camp.
Edited on May 9, 2012 at 4:43pmFeb '11
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Their situation becomes more untenable as medical science improves.
When my son was born at 35 weeks and 3#7oz, it was so routine that no medical professional ever looked concerned. As we learn more about, and are able to do more for, younger and younger babies, it becomes more and more difficult to argue that as long as they are located behind a cervix that they are simply a lump of tissue. Simply knowing that everyone has their own unique DNA makes the idea that a child is "part of a woman's body" immediately disprovable.
Of course, a villain is never more dangerous than when they know they have been defeated.
Aug '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Re comment # 16You're right. The change to a cheery, enthusiastic tone (as if an abortion is some kind of brilliant, new but expensive surgery for removing, say, tonsils or malignant tumors ) is a shock. We need to be spurred instead of paralyzed.There are Stand Up For Religious Freedom rallies nationwide at noon on Friday, June 8. Just google "Stand Up For Religious Freedom". I hope we all recognize the importance of showing up to be counted.
Apr '12
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
Oh, it's mean to pick on a 14-year-old, but here goes:
Aug '10
Re: Civil Society: The Darker Side
RetroGeek, I don't think what you're saying sounds mean at all. Part of why 14 year olds in our society shouldn't be having sex is that they're not yet ready to do much of the kind of thinking adults need to do.
Edited on May 10, 2012 at 12:09amIt's a tragedy her child wasn't allowed to live and be adopted.