Tea at Trianon: Slavery vs Abortion

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Slavery vs Abortion

From John Zmirak at The Stream:

Now I know what some of you are saying: “Abortion is not exactly like slavery.” And you’re right, because in some ways abortion is worse. Slavery blighted the lives of millions of people, but at least they got to live. Their lives were not worthless to them. Enslaved African-Americans fell in love, had children, accepted the Gospel, prayed, created extraordinary music, and left behind a heritage that enriches our country. They didn’t just get snuffed out, bagged, and dumped in medical waste containers.

But there were aspects of slavery which were more obviously hideous: humiliation, oppression, torture, flogging, casual rape, grueling unpaid work, and families shattered when slaves got “sold down the river.” Slavery in America could be a kind of earthly Hell, and no effective laws prevented that from happening.

What nobody can deny, once you point it out, are the bizarre, parallel attitudes that free Americans had toward enslaved Americans before 1860, and born Americans have about preborn children today.

White Americans saw black slaves as dangerous potential menaces to civilized society should they be set free. Born Americans today see preborn babies as threats to their sexual freedom and lifestyles.

Slaveowners warned of the massacres that rebellious slaves committed against their former masters in Haiti. Feminists today keep making and remaking The Handmaid’s Tale, which Margaret Atwood wrote to warn against the pro-life policies of Ronald Reagan. In each case, the privileged class warned that any effort to help the people they victimized would end in some dystopian nightmare.
Slavery advocates warned that freed blacks would starve to death or turn to crime, unable to support themselves in a free economy. Pro-choicers today insist that “unwanted” children will get abused, languish in poverty, and likely end up in prison. The bestselling, widely lauded book Freakonomics even falsely credited legal abortion with bringing down crime in America. So much for eugenics having been hanged after the Nuremburg Trials. For the ways in which the eugenics movement directly contributed to the ongoing oppression of freed blacks after 1865, don’t miss the powerful film by black pro-lifers, Maafa 21...(Read more.)