Thoughts in the wake of the Texas anti-abortion law

[A blogpost version of a Twitter thread from earlier this morning.]

I grew up as a conservative evangelical and understand why the appeal to the life of the fetus has proven such a powerful argument. But forced childbirth is ghoulish and dystopian and it concerns a 100% definite human being we can see and talk to right now.

At some point, the sentimental “save the babies!”-type pro-lifers are going to have to face up to the fact that their cause is being advanced by bad men who get off on making women feel trapped and afraid. Or they can continue to be willfully ignorant like always.

The fetus is undoubtedly a life. But it’s a potential life that requires taking over someone else’s body to come to fruition, and if you don’t let that person have a say, you are enslaving them to a “person” who doesn’t fully exist yet.

Again, at some point the sentimental pro-lifers are going to have to deal with the fact that the people legislating on their behalf clearly want to punish women for having sex and are using the most underhanded possible means to do it. They are the bad guys.

Abortion is not murder. Abortion is not genocide. You don’t actually believe it, because if you did, you wouldn’t patiently work your way through the courts. Those stupid slogans aren’t about humanizing the fetus, they’re about dehumanizing women and liberals.

I mean, if you are a single-issue sentimental pro-life voter, maybe you should sit and think about the fact that your position required you to vote, twice, for a gleeful sexual abuser who boasted about his abuse, on tape, to a stranger, stone-cold sober. People with the moral high ground usually don’t find themselves allying with the worst and most selfish person on earth, just sayin’.

Yesterday in class we were discussing Exodus and the hardening of Pharoah’s heart. I despair even as I write this thread because so many evangelicals’ hearts are so hard — they have walled themselves off from any counterargument or empathy. Evangelicals are so prone to take criticism or counterargument as a personal attack, which they read as the persecution all their leaders are telling them to expect, which confirms they’re among the righteous. It’s a brilliant strategy, if you’re trying to run a cult.