OPINION:
At his famous Templeton address in 1983 in London, the great writer and Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted that as a child he remembered a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
After 50 years of his own scholarship and suffering in the gulags, he concluded that this forgetfulness was why Russia had been plunged into the darkness of communism and its attendant pathologies, including the concentration camps in which he and his fellow travelers found themselves.
I have been thinking about that quote from Solzhenitsyn, especially with respect to the mobile abortion clinic parked outside the Democratic National Convention, which handed out a handful of abortion pills.
It seems like an odd totem to have at the convention of what used to be the party of the Roman Catholics in the United States, or as James G. Blaine put it, “the party of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.” He didn’t mean any of those in a good way.
It was also a weird gimmick for a party whose two senior elected officials (President Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) are nominally Catholic and make a point of letting people know that they carry rosary beads. It is not clear whether they routinely say the rosary, or what the intended recipient of those prayers — St. Mary — might think about their not merely countenancing but celebrating abortion.
It is also beyond strange that a prince of the Catholic Church — Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago — managed to offer a prayer on the convention’s first night without ever referring to the celebration of abortion that was occurring right outside the convention hall. Some men — even (or perhaps especially) churchmen — have indeed forgotten God.
The Republican nominee is not much better with respect to the underlying issue, but at least he seems to understand, like most of us, that abortion is not something to celebrate.
The good news, to the extent there is any, is that Douglas Emhoff, the second gentleman, and his wife, Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, both understand, whatever their campaign rhetoric, that abortion is not really to be celebrated. They have studiously avoided mentioning an affair he had during his first marriage, the child that the Daily Mail reported resulted from it and the outcome of that pregnancy — with good reason, I suppose. Still, Mr. Emhoff is sufficiently obtuse about appearances that he takes time to advise men to support abortion.
The second couple’s lack of enthusiasm about the reported pregnancy and its terminal point tells us that even at this late date, there is enough residual sense of morality among the populace that there is political risk in taking credit for undoing a pregnancy. At least in some pockets of America, man has not yet forgotten God.
Abortion has unfortunately become a political issue. Like many other political issues, however, at its core it is about people trying to do what they perceive to be the right thing under some of the most difficult circumstances of their lives. Keeping that in mind, both parties should embrace an approach toward pregnancy that makes it easier — much easier — for a pregnant woman and, hopefully, her spouse to say yes to the promise of new life. The legal status of abortion is one thing. Changing hearts and minds — and reminding people of God’s providential love — is an entirely different thing.
• Michael McKenna is a columnist at The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.