Suffer Little Children

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness. —That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government … The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World. 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, most wholesome and necessary for the public Good. … He has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither … He has obstructed the Administration of Justice …

—Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence of the United States

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The Trump administration is separating the children of illegal immigrants from their parents and keeping said children in detention centers. Some of these children are less than two years old.

This is a gross abuse of human and familial rights—I don't care what your general perspective on politics is. Two things, and two things only, justify ripping a child away from its parents: abuse or neglect that endanger the child's life or health, and incapacity (financial or otherwise) to care for the child. 'Being an immigrant,' documented or not, isn't either of those things.

Also, let's be a little more clear what we mean when we talk about 'detention centers.' They're fucking cages. Like animals. As President Trump said they were. This is no civilized enforcement of federal law, this is ethnic goddamned cleansing.

Oh, but it's not really an ethnic cleansing because it's only of people who came here illegally? Sure. And Hitler protected his old friend and chauffeur Emil Maurice from Himmler, even though Maurice was an eighth Jewish. Racists, it turns out, are not always very consistent. And sure, maybe, maybe, Trump isn't a racist, even though he referred to Latino nations as shitholes and Latino people as animals and neo-Nazis as having good people among them. In all seriousness, a person could do those things and not believe that other races are inferior to theirs—though they would still be doing and saying horrible things. Meanwhile, tearing families apart is still fucking monstrous.

Also, let's park for a moment on the whole concept of legality and illegality. The point of having laws is to enforce justice. Strictly speaking, and following St Augustine and many other doctors of the Church, an unjust law has no force. So it is quite pertinent to ask whether the immigration policies of the United States are in fact just.

They sure don't make sense in the context of the Founding Fathers' writings on the subject, as cited above. Inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (i.e. well-being, both physical and otherwise) don't support the idea of a closed border on the face of it—I mean, insofar as a closed border is literally a bar to liberty and, for the overwhelming majority of the immigrants in question here, also a bar to the pursuit of happiness. The fact that immigrating legally can easily take a few years, several thousand dollars, and a flawless attention to Kafkaesque details is just icing; though this is one of those storebought cakes where the icing is about eight feet thick. And, much like those storebought cakes, a lot of the people who need and want to immigrate the most, due to violence and destitution and a lot of other things, can't afford to spend two years and five thousand dollars on doing so. Which, in practice, makes American immigration law not a ban on immigrants, but a ban on poor ones.

It might be argued that our health care system is overburdened and we can't afford these new people, and so on. I am not convinced of that. To begin with, as of 2017, the IMF rated the United States as one of the twenty wealthiest countries, per capita, in the world. We're ranked with places like Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Hong Kong, and the UAE (home of the cartoonishly affluent Dubai). I can easily believe that we as a people aren't willing to allocate enough of our money to the public good to support an influx of new people; or, more briefly, I can believe that we'd refuse to afford these new people. But I do not believe we can't. And I don't see why our selfishness should be their problem.

Further, there's the fact that our birthrate in the US has declined. In the long run, fewer babies means an aging population; and an aging population does mean a serious strain in our health care system—one that only new workers, both as producers of goods and services, and as sources of tax revenue, could relieve. But neither the prudential nor the legal aspects of this ghastly situation are, to me, primary.

Pilgrim praying in front of icon of Saint Mary, photo by Petar Milosevic

Are you a family values conservative? Keeping kids with their parents is pretty central to family values, and the Trump administration has betrayed that ideal. They are trying to manipulate you. Don't fall for it.

Do you reverence Scripture? Leviticus 19 says, If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the strangeth that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God; and in the same style, Deuteronomy 10 says, The LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and the widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger. The apostles repeat the same principle in the New Testament: the author of Hebrews commands us, Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares; and our Lord himself relates the following, in a frightening parable:

When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you; for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, unto everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. —Matt. 25

Christ's teaching was directed to individuals, not to societies? The Torah wasn't. The Torah was delivered only to Israel? Christ's teaching wasn't. And Christ's teaching both presupposed and at times expressly stated the validity of the Torah; and the Torah was made more toweringly perfect and unfathomably pure, not less so, by Christ's own teaching.

Christian, you must oppose this barbaric treatment of immigrants. It's not optional. It's not the difference between being a Christian and not being one; that difference is defined by the creeds. But it is the difference between honoring the Lord whose name you bear by putting his word before everything, and taking that name in vain to protect a President who doesn't deserve even your respect, let alone your worship.

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Why I Am Pro-Life

‘I drowned a boy,’ Tarwater said.

‘Just one?’ the driver asked.

‘Yes.’ He reached over and caught hold of the sleeve of the man’s shirt. His lips worked a few seconds. They stopped and then started again as if the force of a thought were behind them but no words. He shut his mouth, then tried again but no sound came. Then all at once the sentence rushed out and was gone. ‘I baptized him.’

‘Huh?’ the man said.

‘It was an accident. … I only meant to drown him,’ the boy said.

—Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away, p. 209

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Trigger Warning: this post deals with abortion and rape, among other pleasant subjects. Read with caution.

HEY LOOK A DISTRACTION

Being pro-life in this country has come to mean something very weird and arbitrary under the capitalist influence of the GOP, especially since the War on Terror began. I’d like to explain not only why, but how, I am pro-life: partly because the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade case just passed on the 23rd and the March for Life is tomorrow1; partly because I haven’t written about it before, out of timidity, and I felt it was time to fix that; and partly because I’d like to clearly articulate what I believe as distinct from what the Trump administration seems poised to enact.

The simplest part is why. I believe that everyone, from the moment they start being alive, has the right to life. If this isn’t granted, I don’t understand how any concept of human rights can hold together—what could we possibly have a right to if even our lives, when we are most innocent and most defenseless, are entirely negotiable?

Now, sometimes lives are in danger and can’t be saved, as in the case of ectopic pregnancies2; sometimes the only way to defend yourself from an aggressor is by killing him; there are such things as hard cases. But the basic premise, the one that has to lie beneath the complexity, is that human life is sacred.

One point that may need clearing up is that fœtuses are indeed alive. This is not a religious dogma, but an observation of medical science. So the ‘lump of tissue’ argument I’ve run across now and then isn’t a good one. A related argument I’ve occasionally heard is that the baby is part of the mother, but since it has its own DNA from the moment of conception, I don’t think that holds water either. Nor does saying ‘It’s not a baby, it’s a fœtus,’ because fœtus is just the name of a stage of development: it isn’t a different kind of thing, any more than an adult is a different kind of thing from a human.

There are a number of other pro-choice arguments in favor of the legality and morality of abortion. I won’t deal with the ones that seem transparently awful—as that babies are parasites that the mother has a right to divest herself of, which would seem to justify infanticide as well. I do not for one moment believe that a majority of pro-choice people, of either sex, believe that. And there is something cowardly in dealing only or primarily with an opponent’s weakest arguments.

LOOK AT THE CUTE PUPPY

The best argument I’ve heard so far came from a friend of mine, who posed me this thought experiment (I forget where he got it). Imagine that you’re knocked on the head, and when you wake up, you’re in a hospital bed with an IV that runs from your arm through a curtain to the next bed over. You ask a nurse what’s going on, and she explains that you’ve been hooked up to a man who needs to share your blood for the next nine months, or he will die.3 All of this has taken place without your consent, and, you know, you have a life which you’d like to live, for the next nine months as well as afterward. Do you have the right to pull that IV out and leave?

The analogy, of course, is to cases of rape. And rape and the mother’s life are certainly the two instances in which the argument for legal abortion is strongest.4 I touched on the latter above, and will repeat here that there are cases where the life of the fœtus can’t be saved, though this doesn’t entitle a person to take it away: you can do things to save the mother’s life, including extracting the baby, even knowing with near certainty that you won’t be able to save the baby’s life (which will hopefully become less true as medical technology advances). What you can’t do is deliberately kill the baby.

DUCKLINGS MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER

And I’m afraid I believe that holds in cases of rape, too. Even in the thought experiment, while I’m not certain, I don’t think you do have the right to pull out that IV and leave. And in the reality the thought experiment is about, we’re not talking about a stranger. We’re talking about a child, in the womb—the most intimate relationship in the world. Yes, the way in which that child was conceived was completely horrible; but that isn’t the baby’s fault. And I don’t believe that violating a woman’s motherhood will actually help her recover from having her personhood violated.

AAAAA

But I don’t just care about getting babies born. When I say I believe in the right to life, I mean life, not birth. And that means a lot of things that the Republican party, for nearly a century now, has been hostile to: in particular, it means making healthcare, food aid, and financial assistance readily available to expectant and new mothers (especially single mothers) and guaranteeing maternity leave,5 as well as making sure that giving a child up for adoption is feasible for women who aren’t ready to raise a baby, or who conceived due to rape. Crisis pregnancy centers provide some assistance, but they only have so much to work with resource-wise, and some of these things have to be enshrined in law if they’re going to happen at all.

In addition to all this, I think it’s important not to criminalize getting an abortion. I think performing abortions should absolutely be criminalized, because it’s taking a human life, i.e. murder. But the woman who gets an abortion for fun does not exist. Everything I’ve come across, whether in person or through reading, says that having an abortion is deeply traumatizing, and that women who get one mostly resort to it because they feel they have no other options. They don’t need a trial thrown on top of that.6 There are two victims in an abortion: the child and the mother. And the latter, in my opinion, has suffered enough from her experience.

And now, commence the river of flame that my social media will become. It was very nice knowing you all.

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1I will not be going to the March for Life; I’ve been in the past, and judging from those experiences, the point is to stand in the freezing cold on the National Mall for a couple of hours listening to a fury of self-congratulation, and then do the actual marching. The appeal of this is, to me, opaque.

2An ectopic pregnancy is the implanting and development of the fœtus outside the mother’s uterus, usually in the fallopian tube. The fœtus has to be removed, or the mother will die; unfortunately, the baby usually cannot be saved (though there are rare cases of survival).

3Hey shut up, it’s a thought experiment, it doesn’t have to be plausible.

4Incest is traditionally a third, but I’ve never quite understood why rape and incest are distinguished in this context. If the incest wasn’t consensual, then it’s rape, by definition. And if it was, then it may be gross but it’s still consensual sex, so I don’t see why it should get special treatment (or, if you prefer, why the baby should lack special treatment).

5I’d also be in favor of guaranteed paternity leave, though I consider it a slightly lower priority.

6I have similar thoughts about prostitution: I’d be hesitant about legalizing soliciting or purchasing the services of a prostitute, but I think I’d be in favor of decriminalizing being a prostitute. The way it’s done now, where (so far as I can tell) the johns usually get away with it while the hookers are treated as the scum of the earth, seems completely backwards to me.