Moral Health

On the one hand, it strikes me as patently obvious that no 13 year old should be forced to bear a child.  On the other hand, it strikes me as utterly absurd to suppose that this is because 13 year-old females are entitled to choose.  The reference here is to L.G.—the 13 year-old in Florida who won the right to have an abortion.

It is ridiculous to suggest, as some feminists did, that allowing L.G. to have an abortion stands as another victory for women.  Not every abortion that a woman might legally have constitutes a victory for women.  Indeed, some abortions that women have are an indication of a depraved moral character; and there is nothing in behavior stemming from moral depravity that warrants rejoicing.  Abortion is a significant medical operation; and any society that treats it as if it were the equivalent of getting a manicure or changing one’s hairstyle does what is wrong.  One can hold that women should have the right to abort without trivializing the moral significance of exercising this right.  After all, we all hold that people have the right to marry; yet, only a fool thinks that participating in the institution of marriage is trivial.  And counsel with regard to the significance of getting marriage is appropriate.

No 13 year-old should be forced to bear a child.  But the reason for this cannot because when it comes to making choices, a 13 year old has the maturity of an adult.  Anyone who thinks was never a 13 year-old, which is impossible, or is woefully deluded.  Why any 21 year-old will tell you that, when it comes to the maturity of adulthood, the difference between the ages of 16 and 21 is absolutely dramatic.  And everyone concedes that the difference between the ages of 13 and 16 are dramatic.  A 13 year old has no more of a claim to being an adult than a single engine plane has to being a jet.

Accordingly, insofar as a 13 year-old should be allowed to have an abortion the argument cannot possibly be that this is because all women should have the right to choose an abortion.  For that argument is supposed to be about adult women having the right to choose, the idea being that an adult woman can do with her body as she pleases.  Not only does such freedom not belong to 13 year-olds, their having it is incompatible with the demands of good parenting.  If it were true that 13 year-olds were already adults, then parents could not be imprisoned for child abandonment should they decide to no longer provide for their 13 year old children.  And I have met no one who thinks that.

So it is disingenuous for feminists to characterize the legal victory of L.G. to have an abortion as a victory for women.  Why?  Because the reason why 13 year-old L.G. should have been allowed to have an abortion is not at all about adult women having the freedom to do as they please with their bodies.  In general, we hold that adults have freedoms that 13 year-olds are not entitled to have.  As I have already indicated, we cannot make sense of the obligations of parenting if we think otherwise.

Depraved feminism wants abortion rights at all costs, and will twist and bend any argument to that end.  I am surprised that they are not advocating outright sexual intercourse for 13 year-olds, as that would surely increase the number of abortions that had to be performed.  It would seem that nothing is inappropriate just so long as it provides an opportunity to affirm the right to have abortion.

L.G. won the right to have an abortion.  In fairness, I must acknowledge that she had to fight against those who wrongly think that a pregnancy should be brought to term no matter what.  But this was a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one.  The opportunity to teach a profound moral lesson to L.G. was put to one side in the name women’s rights.  She was having sex at 13 because she had not been taught proper respect for her body.  Abortion and proper moral training would have been the desired approach.  For depraved feminists, however, the problem with talk of proper moral training is that it is incompatible with the ideology of abortion at all costs.

So a 13 year-old has now been told the lie that when it comes to making so significant a decision as having an abortion, she has no less maturity than an adult woman might have regarding the matter.  Is this moral progress?  Only if you believe in the tooth fairy!

A 13 year-old.  Not mature enough to be fully responsible for her own well-being, but mature enough to choose an abortion.  One does not have to be anti-abortion in order to see that something is drastically wrong with this picture.  A little honesty, though, would go a very long way.  Both sides of the abortion debate do what is utterly abhorrent when they advance their ideological views at the expense of the well-being of children.

G u e s t  A u t h o r

Laurent Rougemont

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Are French Jews in danger in France?  The initial and spontaneous response is “No”.  For quite some time, Jews have played an active role in nearly every facet of French life: medical, social, scientific, administrative, and even the very highest levels of politics itself.  For many centuries, Jews have occupied a place in the history of France, having been one of its pillars.  Jews have integrated themselves in French life; and have unequivocally embraced the principle of laicité—that is, the separation of church and state] as defined by the French Republic.

Recently, though, the standing of French Jews has been seriously eroded.  Starting with the antifada in 2000, ties between Jews and Muslim have greatly deteriorated.  Televised debates often involve slander and hostilities against Jews, and end in a denunciation of the politics of Prime Minister Sharon.

To some extent, it is understandable that the Muslims of France make much of the Middle East conflict.  However, the French media never misses an opportunity to fan the flames.  Objectivity has been lost.  Israelis, now, are always wrong; Palestinians are always right.

The Muslim population of France numbers more than 6 million out of a total of 70 million people; whereas there are only 500 thousand Jews in the country.  Owing to its size, the opinion of the Muslim population counts enormously, and often enough this opinion of Jews is gratuitously negative.

According to the compilation of racist acts in France during the 2001-2002 period, 60% of these acts were designated anti-semitic.  For the entire year of 2002, the Israeli consistory compiled more than 500 acts of anti-semitism.  It was even necessary to establish an office, open around the clock, for the purpose of aiding victims of such violence.

But has France itself become anti-semitic?  Not quite.  Still, the things that are occurring in the streets of Paris and the other major cities of France are cause for grave concern: cemeteries desecrated, Jewish shops marred by graffiti, or rabbis attacked and insulted.  And this is to say nothing of young Jewish students who upon leaving school must be escorted because far too often they have become the target of bullying, punches, and other forms of aggression.

What is the government doing?  Initially, the administration denied that these acts of aggression were anti-semitic—insisting, instead, that they were only acts of unruliness.  Owing to the growing number of such acts, however, the government had to acknowledge the anti-semitism in the streets.  Indeed, even the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, solemnly declared that it was utterly unacceptable that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be allowed to sully the soil of France.

Although France is fortunate enough to have a law, named Lellouch (after its author), which has increased the prison penalty for acts of anti-semitism, it is not clear whether this law will serve its purpose.  The four youngsters who were arrested for having attacked two young Jews (just for being Jewish) during a demonstration were released because their acts were deemed to be merely unruly rather than anti-semitic, and so warranted a less severe punishment.

Are Jews fearful of France?  The “No” has become less spontaneous and more nuanced.  Jews have become afraid of going out in the streets without covering the yarmulke because doing so would make them an easy target.  And owing to numerous insults, it is now with great caution that they depart from synagogues.  For its part, the government has intensified and reinforced security measures, including stationing police, around Jews establishments.  But there has been no need for police officers in front of any of the mosques in France.

The French Jewish community is faced with some painful choices. They can place their children in private Jewish schools thus sheltering them from injury and other acts of aggression.  But for how long?  And this will be at the risk of excluding them from society.  Or, Jews can choose to forgo entirely one of the most defining features of what it means to be a Jew, namely their love for Israel, because this feeling has become the object of such vicious criticism and because it is too readily confused with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Or, perhaps Jews can close their eyes and accept the only reality left to them, namely to criticize Israeli politics for not being sufficiently pro-Palestinian.

Or, Jews can make the ultimate choice.  They can leave France.  The France where Léon Blum and Pierre Mendès were born—Jews who fought for and helped to build this Republic.

In 2002, more than 2500 Jews left France.  As for we who remain?  We find ourselves haunted by a question that was once unthinkable: For how long shall we still able to say that the France of “liberté, égalité, et fraternité” is indeed our country?

Laurent Rougemont
Director Commercial
Paris, France
laurentrougemont733@hotmail.com

*Translated from French, “Les Juifs ont-ils peur en France,” to English by Laurence Mordekhai Thomas.  This essay is but one of the efforts on the part of L’Institut du Monde Israel to have Jews in France speak with their own voice to Jews in North America regarding the plight of French Jews.

The Fulsome Website Award

“GodHatesFags.com”

There is much on the internet that is utterly fulsome.  For many, the prevalence of pornographic sites readily springs to mind.  For me, though, nothing is more fulsome than preaching hate in the name of God..  At the very least, it can be said that pornographic sites have the virtue of not pretending to be driven by a profoundly virtuous and holy consideration.  But a site that preaches hate in the name of God is entirely disarming precisely because hate is claimed to be justified in the name of He who is said to be completely righteous and holy.

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One of the most ominous claims ever to have been made in history was made by Adolph Hitler in Mien Kemp: “And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.”  The parallel between Hitler (and many Christians of that era) and the Westboro Baptist Church, which sponsors the website “Godhatesfags.com“, is frighteningly uncanny.

There are lots and lots of passages in the New Testament that imply or suggest, perhaps even claim outright, that Jews are despicable people owing to their outright rejection of Christ; and until the latter half of the 20th Century it was common enough for people to think of Jews in this light.  Whether Hitler actually held any religious convictions or not, he very conveniently availed himself of the very vivid anti-Jewish sentiment that was an ever-present feature of Europe during that era.

As is well known, in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible there are roughly four passages in all that are taken to condemn homosexuality quite vehemently.  And in the name of doing the work of the Lord, the folks of Westboro Baptist Church have seized upon these passages with a vengeance.  Shamelessly, they have a website entitled “Godhatesfags.com”.  In fact, a Google search for the church’s name will often turn up a link to this website.  Of course, the internet was non-existent during Hitler’s lifetime, but if it had been around there can be little doubt that he would just as shamelessly have had a website entitled “Godhatesjews.com”.

Now, if there is any name on the face of this earth that is associated with unbridled evil, the name of Hitler is; accordingly, I have always supposed that no well-meaning individuals would want anything they might do to resemble in the least anything that specifically calls to mind the deeds of none other than Hitler.  He used to the Bible to justify and fuel relentless hatred of the Jew.  The Westboro Baptist Church is using the Bible to justify a relentless hatred of homosexuals.

It is a fact that the New Testament makes a number claims that, on the face of things, appear to be quite critical of Jews.  It is a fact that together the Old and New Testaments make a number of claims that, on face of things, appear to be quite critical of homosexuality.  There is no gainsaying these points.  The problem, however, lies in holding that these critical claims constitute a justification for hating either Jews or gays.

The Wesboro Church takes much comfort in the biblical assertion that homosexuality is an abomination.  This supposedly supports their assertion that God hates homosexuals.  The problem is that the word “abomination” literally occurs hundreds of times in the Bible, most occurrences of which have nothing at all to do with homosexuality.  In Proverbs (6:16-19), for instance, we find the following passage:

These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: (1) A proud look, (2) a lying tongue, and (3) hands which shed innocent blood, (4) An heart that deviseth weaked imaginations, (5) feet that be swift in running to mischief; (6) A false witness that speaketh lies, and (7) he that soweth discord among brethren.

Strikingly, homosexuality is not mentioned in this passage, either explicitly or implicitly.

But let us suppose merely for the sake of argument that God does hate homosexuals in some way or the other, it is not at all obvious that this would be a license to provoke mere mortals to behave in a hostile manner towards homosexuals.  For all that the folks at the Westboro Baptist Church know, God’s hate could be a righteous hate that has no analogue in the sentiment of hate that human beings experience.  Thus, provoking human beings to be hostile towards one another, far from doing God’s bidding, could in effect amount to inducing human beings to act sinfully, which is never God’s bidding.

This is why the analogy to Hitler is so very striking.  Nothing but arrogance of a most abominable and fulsome kind could have inclined anyone to think that he was doing God’s will in setting out to annihilate Jews off the face of the earth.  As a rejoinder, the folks at Wesboro Baptist Church will no doubt point out that they have never advocating killing homosexuals.  True, but nothing facilitates the will to annihilate a people like the sentiment hate.  And there is no mistake about it, Westboro Baptist Church has unrelentingly, unrepentantly, and shamelessly advocated the hatred of homosexuals.

It will no doubt seem blasphemous to many to talk about a litmus test for God.  So I shall refrain from doing so.  But there is surely a litmus test for the whether or not our religious convictions have a claim to being righteous.  Whether the religion be Judaism, or Christianity, or Islam: It is surely blasphemous to have as a religious conviction the view that God has licensed—nay, ordained—the unbridled hatred of other human beings.  Insofar as it is possible to defile God or His name, then preaching hatred in His name has got to be first among such acts of defilement.