Bad Faith

Here's a lengthy discussion of the recent corporate media debacle concerning the ten year old girl who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion. You probably know the gist of it already. The physician who performed the abortion discussed the case with reporters from the Indianapolis Star and the story made headlines around the world. Then right wing politicians and media started claiming it was false, and the Washington Post's "fact checker" Glenn Kessler gave them aid and comfort. (Kessler's "fact checks" are frequently non-factual.) 

The story was true, police have arrested the rapist and he has confessed. It's obvious what's going on here. The movement to ban abortion was based on faith, the definition of which is to believe without evidence or reflection. Having faith means not allowing yourself to think critically or to reason about the implications of your beliefs. As long as banning abortion was an abstraction, that was possible, but when it became reality, it was no longer. The first reaction of denial was forced because the reality was incompatible with the faith.

I have to believe that most people who wanted Roe v. Wade repealed so their state could ban abortion, when confronted with the reality of a ten year old girl forced to bear her rapist's child - or quite possibly die in the attempt -- would think that should not happen. They're having the same problem with ectopic pregnancy, other circumstances that threaten the lives of pregnant women, treatment of miscarriage -- problems and issues they didn't think about before they became real.

Of course, as a matter of faith this is all manufactured anyway. As I've discussed here many times, the Bible does not condemn abortion, in fact it promotes it. The idea that Christianity considers it a sin, or holds that human life begins at conception, is entirely of modern origin. People believe because they are indoctrinated. When I was a child I watched a TV show called Ranger Andy. He pretended to be a park ranger and he had an audience of kids in a phony "ranger station." He'd show cartoons and what not.. Every show, he'd pick up a guitar and have the kids sing along: "You read it in the Bible, you read it in the Bible, you read it in the Bible so you know it's true." Then they'd tell a Bible story. Of course none of the stories we've been reading lately were included.

 

If you read it in the Bible, you can be pretty sure that it's not true. But the vast majority of believers have not read it.