Tyranny, Superstition and Lindsey Graham

Senator Lindsey Graham exposed the grotesque, irrational and offensive core of religious conservatism today when questioning--or rather lecturing us during--Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's confirmation. Graham read an excerpt from the confirmation comments of Justice Ginsberg, wherein she discussed and defended the right to an abortion relative to the Constitution. Her words were sensible, reasoned and entirely rational, and only a deluded, unsympathetic monster would have disagreed with them. But Lindsey Graham did.

Graham seems to believe that an “unborn child” should have exactly the same rights as an adult woman. This belief could only come from a religious--that is, superstitious--conviction that a two-celled zygote is a full and complete human person. And of course, it's not. Not even close. Unless you believe, like some fundamentalist fanatics, in magic, in the notion that tiny embryos are instantly granted perfect personhood, including a mature soul that makes them, say, more valuable to the Universe than the animating spirits of other creatures, imbuing embryos with some special status equal to conscious people who breath the air of life.

While it often makes sense to harbor a special, primal concern for our own species, and particularly our children, the magical notions held by the anti-abortion crew are nonsensical gibberish, and appeal to the minds of people who have decided to relinquish their reason in favor of blind belief in fables that would provide tremendous certainty if they were true--but are almost certainly false or grossly imbellished. Some human beings want to believe that the Bible is the true word of God against which all else is false. But the Bible is filled with contradiction, superstition, ambiguity and outright hocus pocus. The Old Testament sanctions slavery, for example, and the lunatic Book of Revelations makes Harry Potter look boring and tame.

I would never prohibit people from believing and advertising ludicrous notions like “I will get seventy virgins in paradise if I am martyred,” or “anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus as their personal savior will go to fiery hell and damnation for the rest of eternity.” But these same people want to prohibit the actions of others based on superstition. Which is reprehensible, intellectually indefensible and dangerous to the modern notion of liberty.

When Justice Ginsberg says that a living, breathing human woman has a fundamental right to control her body, she isn’t trying to force anyone to have an abortion. And her adherence to this principle is only abhorrent to tyrants. When Alito gets to implement his opinion that abortion is not protected by the Constitution, he destroys the liberties of all women. This is a huge difference, one that Senator Graham and others don’t care to acknowledge. “Pro-life” isn’t about protecting living humans. It is about restricting living humans to benefit embryos. And while embryos are essential to our survival and extremely important, to put them on a par with living, breathing humans is stupid and, well, just plain crazy.

But then again, so is believing that any book is “The True Word of God”. I’m sorry to be rude, but I have lost patience. Too many people in this country are on the verge of having their liberties curtailed because of the magic and superstition contained in an ancient book, and it’s time we stopped glossing over the seriousness of this fact. Go ahead, believe that when the world ends we will behold "a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and ten crowns upon his heads." But don’t try to convince me that there is anything rational or reasonable about such a faith. And don’t try to restrict the rights of living, breathing humans because of these superstitions.

Anyone who objects to abortion shouldn't have one. And they should restrict the tyranny of their superstitions to their own minds.