Fighting abortion – state intervention is not the answer

In my homeland, Romania, before 1989 abortion was outlawed by the communist state in order to burst population growth. State officials considered a large population as a sign of strength for the country. After the demise of communism abortion was made legal, again by unilateral state intervention and since then, according to estimations, each year nearly a million abortions are performed. The schools were the first to feel the impact of this dramatic decrease in birth rates that caused a crisis in the education system. By 2008 this wave will hit the Universities. Yet, what is strange and alarming for me is the lack of any coherent and organized pro-life movement. Apart from occasional statements from church officials or anemic initiatives on the part of some faithful we have nothing to oppose abortion.
Also, the social engineering of the communist state, that destroyed local traditional communities in its relentless march to build a collectivist and classless society of equalized workers, has created a very strange society indeed. A state, like the communist one, that strives to remain the only authority in society, has successfully weakened other sources of authority like the churches, the family and generally all organizations that are by their nature voluntary. The result is that now almost the entire society has become a disorganized, atomized and cynical mass of people with no values and improvised sources of social control. The outlawing of abortion was, for the Romanian communists, an element in the great social engineering program, much in the same way as forced abortion is, even now, for the Chinese communists.
After all this you can imagine my pleasant surprise and joy to see that there are places on Earth with a vibrant and determined anti-abortion movement, fighting the good fight and standing up to the leftist and secularist Establishment. I have followed closely in recent years the pro-life scene in the U. S. on Ave Maria Radio and EWTN through the Internet. My admiration and love goes to these contemporary crusaders. For an armchair pro-lifer like myself their struggle to bring to light the dirty side of modern day secular societies is more then inspirational. It is compelling. It is, therefore, with great reluctance that I say now a few words against something that, I think, may turn out to be a deathtrap for the this noble cause: the expectation of state intervention on behalf of the Movement. May that be state intervention, on a federal or local level, like making abortion illegal, or various regulations of it.
Currently the state is far from being neutral. In various degrees it subsidizes abortions, out of taxpayer money, for a variety of causes. This leads to the unjust situation of funding abortions with the money of people who are completely against it, making them (us) partakers in the crime. This odd situation fits the logic of state intervention in every field, may that be economic, social or moral. The state, by its nature, has the tendency to level differences and force to live together people and communities that do not have the desire to do so. This is what makes the state, as the holder of monopoly on power in a society, extremely dangerous. If you have a set of values that does not mach that of your neighbor, you and your neighbor have both every incentive to use the state’s power to uphold one set of values against another, if not for other reasons simply to prevent the other to do the same. The state is by its nature a monopolistic institution, being the holder of monopoly over political power, and tends, therefore, to eliminate competition over it. Society, in its diversity, contains a variety of sources of authority, but a monopolistic center of power, like the state, will have both the motives and the means to eliminate competition. I’ve seen it happening, and I see it happening right now in my own country, as well as in others.
Consider this: liberals have attempted to reshape the American society according to their vision. The result was the creation of a strong and intrusive central government and the current media establishment. Conservatives have taken over the state and they have found some very effective tools for implementing their agenda, much to the dismay of the liberals. The media remained liberal because it is in private hands and it falls under the laws of the free market that protect it against sudden and decisive revolutions, unlike the political institutions of the state. Conservatives, through their “compassionate conservative” agenda, have expanded even further the power of the state, which will be inherited sooner or later by the liberals once again. This vicious circle will strengthen the influence of politics over society, i. e. of a non-voluntary institution over the voluntary associations of the civil society. Both conservatives and liberals know, or will find out sooner or later, that what has been obtained can be lost when the other side gains power, so as time goes on the struggle will be more and more bitter and the polarization more evident. Just consider the last two presidential elections and the whole “red states vs. blue states” buzz.
Where does the question of abortion fit in this picture? Abortion is without question, one of the most divisive issues in American public life right now. Despite all the liberal media propaganda the ordinary American is not so one sided. On the contrary, it can be said that the media establishment is in great measure out of touch with the stance of the ordinary Americans. This creates an opportunity for conservative politicians to run on a pro-life platform successfully. This embitters the liberal side that sees its achievements jeopardized. If the conservatives manage to push trough their agenda of enforcing conservative values through state power what will happen is that the state will gain in its power to interfere even more with the life of civil society, and the same power will be ready for the liberals later on.
For those out there who make a stand in the frontline, at abortion clinics and other places, a law banning abortion may seem like a victory. It would even seem like a vindication of the good cause. But we should not forget that under the sun there is no such thing as complete or lasting victory. Every victory is partial and temporary. Only the struggle is perpetual. Therefore the best strategy is exactly the one that seems to be, at first glance, the most difficult one: saving babies one at a time through personal persuasion and not through state coercion. Delegitimizing the coercive power of the state in social issues such as these paves the way to a greater influence of the voice of traditional authorities such as that of the churches and of families. We should keep in mind: a state strong enough to uphold traditional family values is strong enough to subvert them. Social problems can only be met effectively by social means, not political ones. The liberal subversion of a few decades ago had as its battle cry “the personal is political”. This was nothing more then an empowerment of the politics over the social in order to shatter the traditional ways. The result was an exponential growth in the intrusiveness of the politics into the personal and social life of individuals. The liberals, who unleashed this monster yesterday, see today horrified how conservative forces turn it against them. In the same way tomorrow the same monster will turn once more in the hand of its former masters, the liberals, by every turn gaining power over our private lives.
Contrary to the liberal slogan the private is private and the social is social. Private problems request solution on a personal level, while social problems must be engaged by social means, not political ones. I know that this means the prolongation of the present direct approach to the abortion issue, saving one baby at a time, with all the hardship that this entails for pro-lifers. But, as Christians, we know that there are no shortcuts to Heaven. We have to fight the good fight, not the easy one.
(to be continued)

Save the family! Divorce it from the state!

Conservatives like to think that the current dissolution of the family should be prevented by state intervention. The state, according to these people, should make sure that homosexual couples are discriminated against when it comes to public financial help, adoptions are restricted to heterosexual couples, abortion is made illegal and so on. As a social conservative myself I agree completely with the moral assumptions underlining these requests. But is it the modern bureaucratic state the instrument to uphold Christian values?
If we are to seek the help of the modern bureaucratic state in safeguarding the traditional (Christian) family it would be helpful to take a look to the record of their troubled relationship. Though they both came out of the medieval European milieu they are the result of two very different trends. The family is fundamentally a libertarian institution, in the sense that it has at its core the concept of freedom of association. Individuals, as sole possessors of rights and liberties, come together in associations on a purely voluntary basis renouncing through an explicit contract or covenant to some freedoms previously held, and take up specific responsibilities. Does that sound like the contractarian justification of the state? No. Individual responsibility means that a “social contract” that is spreading like Original Sin from generation to generation, without the explicit acceptance of those that find themselves under its yoke, is out of the questions. A free association is one that groups only those willing to take up the responsibilities that come from a given contract or covenant. The libertarian Voluntary Society knows only such associations and institutions and the family, as envisioned by the Christian tradition, fits in it perfectly being the first civil institution of the western world that has known a reform along libertarian lines, announcing the semivoluntary society that we know today in our semicapitalist countries.
Not so with the modern bureaucratic state. This is as far from a voluntary association as you can get. You are a subject of a given state by birth, as some kind of genetic disease. You can sometimes run away and then you simply change a variation of the disease with another. If that is enough to make you happier, there you go. Social Contract guaranties that there is an institution above you that decides unilaterally what you owe it and what it owes you. You may live in a democratic state that has an electoral system that makes you share the guilt for the deeds of that state and silences your dissent by pointing to your supposed – and purely fictitious – capacity to influence those deeds through the said electoral system. „You don’t agree? – they say – Stop lamenting and vote, or run for office.”
Now, since the modern state and the Christian marriage are the expression of two very different forms of organizing society it is no surprise that the most tenacious and vicious enemy of the liberties and responsibilities associated with the traditional family is … you guessed it: the modern state. And its strategy to undermine slowly but surely its opponent was to take over more and more of the responsibilities associated with the traditional Christian family, such as caring for the physical welfare of the members of the family, as well as for their education, healthcare, and the like. Nothing did so much for the atomization of society and disintegration of any kind of sense of Christian morality then the intrusive modern state with its tyrannical pretence to reorganize whatever a government or other saw fit.
Of course, this went hand in hand with the hostile takeover of responsibilities from the Church by militantly secularist states. The family being the child of the Christian Church(es) its rejection on the part of modern left wing political movements was assured. The contemporary liberal brouhaha against the traditional Christian family and the promotion of various alternative lifestyles is rooted precisely in this bitter hatred on the part of the secular religion for the old religion. Conservatives know this well, but they have fallen in temptation to use the weapon of the enemy. Can a weapon designed to radically remodel society as o whole and smash any opposition be used to uphold what is dear to the other side? Can we use the One Ring against the Dark Lord to whom it rightly belongs? Record seems to show so far that such an option is counterproductive at best and fatal at worst, yet conservatives are more and more keen to take the easy way instead of the right one.
There is no question in my mind, therefore, that the best solution to conserve Christian family values – values that have become “traditional” in our societies – is to leave them to the voluntary associations of the civil society. It is the job of the churches and other free associations of any kind to create communities that live by those principles through their free choice. Which, of course, means that other communities, upholding other sets of values, should be left free to pursue happiness their way. The bureaucratic state is capable only to impose the values of a particular group, may that be conservative or liberal, on all the others through coercion.
And one more thing. If conservatives do manage to employ the coercive power of the state for the cause of Christian values, what this will bring is only a growth in the intrusiveness of the state in the intimate lives of private citizens. And guess what? The same political power will be ready to be used by liberals against the traditional family later on, when the electoral tide turns.

Solutions? Divorce the family from the state. Divorce childcare from the state. Divorce education from the state. Divorce healthcare from the state. Divorce anything under the sun from the state and put a “wall of separation” between them and the state. Give back the responsibilities to the voluntary forms of association like families and churches. Leave those who do not want to live by a determined set of values to form other kind of communities and associations in order to meet their (perceived) needs.

In short: let the Voluntary Society emerge naturally and spontaneously, and to hell with the artificial/coercive power of the state – from where it came and where it belongs.

Marriage is the first libertarian civil institution

An interesting concept that is making headway for quite some time now is the concept of “traditional family”. What exactly is traditional about the family as known in the west is beyond me. Its origins are as recent as the Middle Ages when it was instrumental in undermining the traditional (i. e. feudal) order. This is one of the aspects of the modern “traditional” family that is lost in the contemporary debate, because the liberal side has every interest to keep the “traditional” label for institutions that it considers antiquated, while the conservatives are so hooked on an artificial ideological construct that they would not see beyond it even hit between the eyes with some historical facts. Facts like the following: the western concept of family, after the advent of Christianity – and because of it – is a fundamentally libertarian institution.
The traditional family, as known to mankind all over the world in various premodern cultures, has been washed away during the course of the Middle Ages in an effort of the Church to integrate it into its area of responsibilities. The main idea promoted by the ecclesiastical authorities was that marriage is a voluntary union between a man and a woman, both conscious about their responsibilities and explicitly willing to accept and follow them. The family seems to be the first institution that was redefined along the libertarian lines of individual responsibility and free association. And when the idea of individual responsibility (/freedom) began its march through the western world there was no going back and classical liberalism harvested the results with its ideal of putting the free/responsible individual in the center of its preoccupation to clear the way for capitalism.
Such an idea of marriage and family blows directly in the face of everything traditional. Conservatives who want to invoke the coercive power of the modern state in favor of the traditional family are doing a lousy job defending the Christian idea of marriage. An institution that is based on the free consent of two adults of opposite sex can only give way to new forms of free associations between consenting adults. Once free consent (in front of the priest and the congregation) has been successfully introduced to put an end to the traditional concept of marriage as a clan event decided by the families of the bride and the groom, the trend has been set.
Moreover, there is something about the western theology of sacramental marriage that is alien to eastern (Greek-Orthodox) Christianity and is relevant to our topic: and that is the issue of the minister of the sacrament. For western Christianity the one who marries the young couple is not the priest as in the Eastern Church but the two marries each other. Much less is the head of either family clan. The decision pertains to those who are marrying and no relative, priest or state official is to do a damn thing about that. The priest’s presence is requested by canon law for the simple reason that he represents the community and as such will witness the event. But, according to the theology of the sacrament of marriage it is not through him that God bestows His grace upon the newly wed (a sacrament being nothing else than a visible sign of an invisible grace – as the textbooks teach). On the contrary, as ministers of the sacrament to each other, it is through each other that they receive the necessary grace to validate the marriage. The only thing that binds them is their free will. If this is not libertarianism at its best, I don’t know what is.
Such a novelty in the history of humanity could not avoid having a revolutionary effect that spread slowly to other institutions of the traditional society disintegrating them only to have them recomposed along the lines given by the request of free individual choice. Almost every civil institution, from parliaments to presidency and local governments of every shape and color are offshoots of some medieval civil institution, reformed relatively recently to suit modern political needs or ideologies.
The great change that “subverted” marriage was the introduction of free individual decision at the base of the whole enterprise, and nothing is going to change that. Some may lament this (I certainly do not, though I may or may not like the way some will make use of their freedom to choose), but there is nothing to be done about it anymore. What is interesting to see in this debate is the Christian groups taking up the role of defenders of traditional family. One has to wander: which traditional family? Which tradition? The Christian one? Well, it was Christianity, in the first place, that threw away the (really) traditional family ties. And rightly so, I might add.