Restating basic truths in a time of moral decline and mental fatigue becomes a high priority. As the ancient Hebrews well knew, people perish for lack of knowledge. People are indeed perishing, and in large measure it is due to the absence of truth and of basic knowledge.
So in light of nearly a half century of the sexual revolution, let me lay it out straight for you. Even though most young people may find this hard to believe, let me say it anyway: sex has something to do with reproduction. In fact, the two are intimately connected. To engage in sexual activity is to engage in the creation of new human life – or at least the possibility thereof.
That is why in most cultures for most of human history sexuality was taken very seriously. Indeed, it was seen as sacred, because of what it results in. But today we can barely make the connection between the two. Sure, sex is also about pleasure, but nature made sex pleasurable so that we could reproduce.
Today we think of sex only in terms of the pleasure it provides. But that is like thinking about eating without reflecting on why we eat. Eating is pleasurable, but it is essential for staying alive. The main purpose of eating is to exist, although it is nice that it is also an enjoyable activity along the way. And the main purpose of sex is procreation.
Those who know little if anything about history, morality, biology, philosophy and theology (in other words, perhaps most young people today!) will by now be convinced that I am raving mad. But that simply shows how far we moderns have removed ourselves from rationality, common sense, and elementary truths. Thus the need to keep restating the obvious.
Several writers have recently touched on these same themes, and are worth drawing in to the conversation. Jennifer Hartline argues that it is time for a sexual ‘counter-revolution’. Just as the sexual revolution of the 60s turned our world upside down, the time has come to turn it back right-side up. She too pulls no punches here:
“It might not be politically correct, but it must be said! We all know exactly how babies are made so if you are unwilling to lovingly accept a child into your life, then don’t have sex! Period. Sex isn’t a right; it’s a profound gift that serves a profound purpose. It isn’t just a healthy, human activity; it’s also the ultimate expression of love and selflessness. It’s not a recreational pastime with no strings attached. Sex comes with some huge responsibilities, and if we’re not willing to accept ALL those responsibilities, we have no business having sex. It’s that simple.”
Exactly so. She continues, “The tragedy isn’t that women are unexpectedly pregnant; it’s that people are selfishly indulging in sex and then refusing to accept the natural outcome. Women do not simply ‘find themselves’ pregnant, as though they had nothing to do with it. It isn’t magic that happens without their involvement. (In no way am I speaking here to women who are victims of violent assault. No woman chooses to be raped.)
“Our real freedom and power lies in that very first choice: to have sex or not. Why are women only free and empowered if they have the ‘right’ to kill their babies? Are we not capable of using our brains and connecting the dots? ‘If I choose to do this, here’s what will probably happen. It’s my life and my choice, so I’d better make the wise choice.’ It seems to me that a woman who’s truly interested in preserving her choices will be smart and not put herself in a vulnerable position in the first place. I never said it was easy – only that it was simple. Our choices need to be made while we still have our clothes on.”
Dinesh D’Souza has also commented on this topic recently. He too connects the sexual revolution with our abortion holocaust. “The pro-choice slogan offers no explanation, because the legitimacy of ‘choice’ depends on what is being chosen. Abraham Lincoln exposed this argument a century and a half ago. He argued that if Negroes are hogs, then there can be no question that people have the choice to buy and sell them. On the other hand, Lincoln said, if Negroes are human beings, then how can slave owners invoke ‘choice’ – thus denying choice to other humans? In sum, choice cannot be defended without regard to the content of what’s being chosen.
“Why then, in the face of its bad arguments, does the pro-choice movement continue to prevail legally and politically? I think it’s because abortion is the debris of the sexual revolution. We have seen a great shift in the sexual mores of Americans in the past half-century. Today a widespread social understanding persists that if there is going to be sex outside marriage, there will be a considerable number of unwanted pregnancies. Abortion is viewed as a necessary clean-up solution to this social reality.
“In order to have a sexual revolution, women must have the same sexual autonomy as men. But the laws of biology contradict this ideology, so feminists who have championed the sexual revolution – Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem, Shulamith Firestone, among others – have found it necessary to denounce pregnancy as an invasion of the female body. The fetus becomes, in Firestone’s phrase, an ‘uninvited guest.’ As long as the fetus occupies the mother’s womb, these activists argue, the mother should be able to keep it or get rid of it at her discretion.”
But there is a heavy price to be paid for all this: “If you’re going to make an omelet, the Marxist revolutionaries used to say, you have to be ready to break some eggs. And if you’re going to have a sexual revolution, you have to be ready to clean up the debris. After 35 years, the debris has become a mountain, and as a society, we are still adding bodies to the heap.”
Indeed, that mountain of destruction is reaching horrific proportions. As John Smeaton has recently reminded us, abortion killings worldwide have overtaken the slaughter of the Second World War: “The death-toll of World War II was a tragic prelude to the far greater slaughter by abortion and euthanasia that has happened since, I told this past weekend’s SPUC annual national conference. Deaths of unborn children worldwide through abortion vastly outnumber the total of military and civilian war deaths.”
Here are the numbers: “About 55 million people were killed during the 1939-45 conflict, but 57 million unborn children have been killed since 1967 in Britain and the United States of America alone. This is not to mention the deaths of human embryos through in vitro fertilisation procedures and the countless deaths of human embryos through abortifacient birth control.”
And those are just two nations. All up, some 45 to 50 million unborn babies every year are slaughtered in the name of a woman’s right to choose. This demonstrates clearly that ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have devastating consequences. The sexual revolution was one such bad idea.
It promised liberation and freedom, but it has led to slavery, misery and death. Mention could also be made of other costs of the sexual revolution: busted relationships, broken hearts, STDs by the truckful, and so on. But surely the death of multiple millions of babies has to be the greatest of the tragic effects of this failed revolution.
It certainly is time to turn this revolution of death around. As Hartline puts it, “It’s time for a radical revolution of responsibility; a revolution of reverence for sex and reverence for life. It is time for a sexual counter-revolution which liberates men and women, honors marriage and reaffirms the beauty and dignity of human love in the Divine Plan.”
Quite right. May it soon begin.
http://www.catholic.org/hf/family/story.php?id=34431
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/september/17.78.html?start=1
http://spuc-director.blogspot.com/2009/09/abortion-killings-worldwide-overtake.html
[1320 words]