Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-27-22

Certain events in my life have caused me to dread headlines – not every day; and for years as a newspaperman it was my business to write headlines – but we all have been conditioned to expect surprises. Weather, wars, assassinations, disasters. I was just beginning a new job in San Diego, living amidst boxes in my new home, when the TV showed the breaking news of what we now call 9-11.

That I knew that Manhattan neighborhood well, and had been to the top of the Towers, added but little to the shock. Even today, almost every time I turn on the TV news in the morning, I wonder whether a similar headline will confront me.

In a similar way, and not only as a student of history, there are events that I would happily anticipate as headlines – hopes and dreams that might be fulfilled some day. Usually these thoughts are futile. But sometimes they happen: dreams do come true.

I was astonished, for instance, that “the Wall fell,” and Communist governments not only collapsed across Europe – one after the other, like dominoes – but that hardly a drop of blood was shed! Oh, maybe someone hurt themselves as the Berlin Wall was razed; and excepting the Romanian thug Nicolae Ceauşescu and his immediate family there were no fatalities, either by regimes’ defenses or by freedom fighters. (Strangely, in college I briefly had dated the daughter of the government minister who fleetingly tried to assume power in the dictator’s wake.)

My point is that a headline, “Communist Governments Overthrown, Bloodlessly; Democracy and Capitalism Come to Europe,” was one I never expected.

A similar headline – “Roe vs Wade Overturned and Invalidated by Supreme Court” – is one I dreamed of for half a century, and simply never believed would happen. Indeed as with the subsequent “Casey” ruling, I was certain that America would continue down (!) the path of disrespecting and dismantling our cultural heritage. Declining. What I have called “The Culture of Death.”

My friends know that in the days of “Roe,” those almost nihilistic times, I was untroubled by the idea of abortion… unpersuaded by opposing arguments… and approving of its legalization. Those views and actions are never merely abstract in debates and events; when you choose sides in such matters you become a complicit enabler. There are few things from which I have reformed that have caused such bitter tears and prayers for forgiveness. So I became an activist on the “pro-life” side.

… and therefore I was, frankly, astonished to learn that Roe vs Wade has been overturned. And without violence or bloodshed (except, that is, for the 63-million babies that have been killed since the Court decided it).

Growing from my concern and activism, in 2005 I managed to secure a magazine interview with Norma McCorvey, the “anonymous” Jane Roe (a female “John Doe”) of the landmark case. She was famously reclusive and granted few interviews. Her own baby (of the case’s focus) in fact never was aborted, but was given for adoption. After her “win,” she worked in abortion clinics… was disgusted by what she witnessed… became a Christian… and then worked to counsel other women.

That interview will soon appear in a national magazine, and I will share it here, too, in coming weeks.

But let us not celebrate too soon or too enthusiastically. Just as Communist governments fell, but Communism lives on – in other governments; in academia; in the media; in “progressive” politics – so abortion will continue. Sobering facts to realize and remember:

• Overturning Roe and Casey does not end abortion in the United States. It merely lets states accept or reject the practice. Some do, some don’t; more will, more won’t. Just as drug laws are local, so will legal abortions be available here and there. I have been to “dry” counties and towns in Kansas and even California – where alcohol is outlawed – but people drive a little bit; and they will for abortions too. Vacation packages might be designed around abortions.
• Abortifacients will abound; “morning after” drugs probably will become more common than weed; and even in proscribed locales, “procedures” likely will become as common as Botox treatments. They always were, of course: what has really changed in our lifetimes is this: what people once whispered about, many people these days brag about. Savage, but true.
• Is the Court’s decision, therefore, futile? No. Societies define themselves by laws, art, and literature. So the “overturn” might in a larger sense be a codification of our nation’s essential standards. IF it stands, or holds. No sure thing.
• So the “fights” will continue, but in state capitals, in town councils, in local elections. That is the point of the Court’s reversal: the Framers meant that some matters (not only concepts and technologies they could not anticipate) are best decided in communities. Of, by, and for communities. We might not be perfectly united, but we are states.

There is another point that might not be appreciated going forward… but it is a lesson in democracy. For all the tumult and shouting about guns and abortions, and about election frauds and discredited stories about Russian collusion, “impossible” dreams do come true. Communist dictatorships did collapse. The guarantee of self-defense according to the Second Amendment finally seems secure. And contrary to social drift in America, and standards in other countries (our abortion policies are generally more permissive than dozens of other countries’ around the world)… we are in fact reading headlines that bring hope on the issue of infanticide.

Other battles remain to confront us: crime; abuse; drugs; the breakdown of the family; education reform… but we can sense redemption from pessimism!

And perhaps the most unlikely surprise among startling news is the “vessel” who successfully carried water on these issues. The Bible has many examples of unlikely or unknown or untested people who God used to exercise His will. In a future generation, Americans will read in history books, not only newspapers, the headline: “Orange Man Good.”

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Music Video Click: Unplanned