Where Do You Draw the Line?

Something I heard in the Seventies all the time was, Where do you draw the line? You have to be old enough to remember when the subject of no-fault divorce was new and dangerous. That would be 1969-70. Then came “legalized abortion”: 1971. Alongside that, the topic of euthanasia. The conservatives I knew in Forks, WA kept asking, Where do you draw the line? Of course, the progressives thought them silly, and stuffy, but wouldn’t answer the fookin’ question.

Two fairly good recitations of the debate: How Eugenics and Population Control Led to Abortion and Major Players in Population Control.

Roll ahead to the summer of 2001. I was tracking the news buzz on bio-engineering topics which, at that time, were the rage. Two names came up all the time: Leon Kass and Peter Singer. Something Rush Limbaugh talked about has been rattling around in my head for a decade, I think. He once mentioned this book by a woman who spent time at a convent in New York City — can’t tell you which one, but it was a convent founded at the turn of the century, dedicated to prayers for peace. The woman who wrote the book had apparently been a lefty or feminist activist back in the old days and, as Rush pointed out as only he can, had reached that period of post-middle age when the truth starts to become plain. Now she was spending time with nuns. Rush was relishing the irony.

I had been thinking the same thoughts since the summer of 2001: if corporations and governments seized control of human reproduction — as they had everything else — where would lefty feminism be then? The same place they are with Islam, i.e., a completely illogical place? At some point everyone — left, right or Kansas — has to choose: is Life sacred, or isn’t it? Because at the point you declare your basic moral character. If Life is sacred, you can no longer justify killing Jews per Mohammad (who was demonstrably insane); and your positions on abortion may require fresh thinking, along with all your other views, including war. In other words, genuine moral thinking requires genuine courage — as in, you have to be willing to question everything your parents taught you about anything. No one said it would be easy. Sitting on the sidelines isn’t an option.

This question of Where Do You Draw the Line played a personal role in my life when I was prosecuting. I might go on patrol with cop friends on a Friday night just to view the Homestead on its own terms. Few people realize how bad things have gotten in the U.S. What would have been documentary-worthy in 1962 was now commonplace: dozens of restless young men in gang garb huddled in places that lacked street lamps. These same young men are getting bitches and hos pregnant, which you and I are paying for; they need medical care, which you and I are paying for, as employment is too much to ask; they’re trashing the schools, trashing the streets, and filling jails and hospitals with war casualties. Meanwhile. “good” Americans would tell me, “You just see the world that way because of the work you do.”