My eyes widened in disbelief as I began to realize just what Linda Hirshman was arguing in this Slate article. I’m a bit of a late-comer in Internet time: I had saved it for a few days in order to include it in the newsletter I write.
Hirshman calls evil good and good evil. Her argument is astounding… horrific. She has suppressed the truth and is now worshiping and serving the creature—woman, in this case—rather than the Creator.
Just read Romans 1:28-32. I see Linda Hirshman’s arguments predicted throughout:
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
Now match Hirshman’s arguments to a few of the words of Paul:
“give approval to those who practice them”
The AIDS epidemic motivated and enabled gay people to tell the world why their behavior was moral.
“Ruthless”
… barely more than half of the moderate centrists would allow [women] to decide whether to abort—even in face of a physical or mental defect in the prospective child.
“Insolent”
The Democratic platform of 2008 offers an opportunity to put an end to this self-destructive cycle of Safe, Legal, and Rare, otherwise known as regret, depression, and self-denigration. In its place, it can finally argue for the value of women’s lives. Above rubies sounds about right to me.
Hirshman argues that not only is abortion not wrong; it is a positive good. She appeals to science and to a (merely this-world) eudaemonism for her main support:
There is no serious scientific evidence . . . that a remotely cognizable percentage of the 18 million to 30 million living American abortion recipients have suffered regret, severe depression, and loss of esteem.
I am truly taken aback. May God have mercy on me and on Linda Hirshman.
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