Not too long ago, pro-choice activists wished for abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.” Their argument was that no one was really pro-abortion but that the procedure was a morally complicated but regrettable necessity. In fact, they would have been insulted by the label “pro-abortion.”
The reaction to the leak of a Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade shows those days are long past.
Take, for example, a tweet from a rabbi scolding those who claim that “nobody is PRO-abortion!” Comparing abortion to an appendectomy, she answers her imagined interlocutor: “Both are life saving medical procedures Why wouldn’t I be ‘pro’ a life-saving medical procedure?”
The fact that a rabbi, even a pro-choice rabbi, lacks the moral imagination to understand why abortion deserves more nuanced consideration than an appendectomy is eyebrow-raising. And such thinking is tame compared to much of what else is out there.
Bob Chipmann, a relatively well-known commentator on the film business who goes by the name “Moviebob,” treated his 29,000 Twitter followers to what sure sounds like an argument for either eugenics or a wholesale extermination of his political opponents. “This sh– should’ve been settled and no one ignorant enough to be on the ‘pro-life’ side of it (or any of the other dumbf— stuff these submental superstitionists ‘believe’) should meaningfully exist in this Century. This should all be a bad memory of worthless trash-humanity,” Moviebob tweeted. (The brave censorship is his own.)
Moviebob elaborated, in a tweet that seems to have been deleted, that “evolution is imperfect” and since “we decided ‘too stupid to exist’ shouldn’t be a thing,” we are now surrounded by “simpletons.” A fan pointed out that Moviebob’s arguments seemed to fly in the face of an apparent past denunciation of eugenics, but he waved away his words as a mere expression of anger.
Simon Gwynn, a journalist from the United Kingdom, similarly decided to disavow his words. “I’ve removed my recent two tweets about the US Supreme Court, as on reflection they’re obviously pretty irresponsible,” he tweeted, adding that “I don’t think there is anything wrong with thought experiments.” The deleted “thought experiment” in question? A “real life trolley problem,” which imagined assassinating Supreme Court Justices Alito and Thomas for the good of women. He’s just asking questions, you guys.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, meanwhile, refused to condemn the publishing of Supreme Court justices’ addresses on behalf of President Biden, dismissing it as an act driven by “passion” and “fear” over the leaked document.
Words are one thing, but one needn’t have looked far for actual violence in response to the leak. In Los Angeles, pro-abortion protesters tussled with police, throwing rocks and bottles and breaking windows. A Catholic Church in Boulder, Colorado, was desecrated with spray-painted pro-abortion slogans, its windows broken and statues vandalized, while a group named “Ruth Sent Us,” after the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, threatened to disrupt church services. “Whether you’re a ‘Catholic for Choice’, ex-Catholic, of other or no faith, recognize that six extremist Catholics set out to overturn Roe,” they exhorted. “Stand at or in a local Catholic Church Sun May 8.” Their tweet was accompanied by video in which costumed protesters chant during a mass.
As if violent civil unrest and religious desecration wasn’t enough, abortion boosters also worked to inflict emotional cruelty. Comedian Alex Falcone, in a flurry of insensitive tweets, covered the topic of miscarriage. “I don’t think anybody actually believes fetuses are people. I think they’re lying,” he said. “There are almost 1,000,000 miscarriages each year in America, it happens to almost everybody. But we’re not constantly getting invited to the funerals.”
Falcone added that “nobody who says ‘abortion is murder’ is out carrying signs that [say] ‘and miscarriages are suicide.” (The point is as ponderous as it is cruel. Is dying of the flu or some other natural cause a form of suicide?) He noted that “we rarely talk about miscarriages,” even though they happen to many expectant parents, and then mocked the idea that someone would believe in being reunited with the soul of their unborn child. He offered no thoughts on whether attitudes like his own might contribute to the lack of discussion around miscarriages.
Other liberals suggested the Court overturning Roe should be met with mandatory vasectomies for boys, which they crowed were “reversible.” Apparently, they are not aware — or do not care — that while attempts can be made to reverse a vasectomy, it’s considered a permanent form of sterilization. Others suggested making men pay child support for children they father, something that already exists and is widely supported by pro-lifers.
One Twitter user declared, “I PROMISE YOU THIS, we are coming for your GUNS, your tax free CHURCHES & your VIAGRA.” Now there’s a winning election slogan.
Perhaps most telling of all were tweets in response to Cameron Arcand, a PJ Media columnist, who tweeted out a list of organizations that support mothers and children in need. Replies scoffed at the idea that such matters could be addressed through charity, with one person telling Arcand to “GFY.”
So there you have it. You must submit to either the wholesale slaughter of the unborn or to the exact slate of social programs that the left desires administered in exactly the way they prefer, or you must GFY. In little more than a generation, abortion supporters have gone from not wanting to be called abortion supporters out of at least slight acknowledgement that an unborn child could be considered a life to seemingly preferring abortion over other viable alternatives like adoption.
There will always be disputes as to just what constitutes a life. But the brutality of the left has become perfectly plain.
Bill Zeiser is editor of RealClearPolicy.
