I avoid reading editorials. Invariably they tempt me to visit my favorite right-wing anarchist commentators, which leads me to blog about war or something, which leads to all sorts of strife. Or else I stick to establishment types and then want to make negative comments about foxnews, etc, with similar results.

But I’m glad I finally broke down and read this column on abortion by Al Mohler. He has done a great job showing that we are headed for a much more oppressive version of Gattaca. Between informal social pressure and insurance pressure added to other economic incentives we are going to be increasingly an abortion-managed society.

Mohler’s blog led me to this Washington Post column. Patricia Bauer, the mother of a Down’s Syndrome child, begins, “If it’s unacceptable for William Bennett to link abortion even conversationally with a whole class of people (and, of course, it is), why then do we as a society view abortion as justified and unremarkable in the case of another class of people: children with disabilities?”

So far this is probably old news to most bloggers and surfers. We are liquidating a class of people. Of course, this is no worse than killing individual babies apart from class considerations, but it does show the societal hypocrisy involved. We pass laws protecting the rights of the handicapped (at the very least) and yet we kill them when we can get away with it. There lives are valuable as long as they are not forcing us to make any sacrifice.

Many young women, upon meeting us, have asked whether I had “the test.” I interpret the question as a get-home-free card. If I say no, they figure, that means I’m a victim of circumstance, and therefore not implicitly repudiating the decision they may make to abort if they think there are disabilities involved. If yes, then it means I’m a right-wing antiabortion nut whose choices aren’t relevant to their lives.

Either way, they win.

Yes, and their children lose.

But as much as I love Bauer’s beautiful plea for inclusion of the other, to my mind her column avoids the reality of the situation (perhaps strategically to get a hearing):

What I don’t understand is how we as a society can tacitly write off a whole group of people as having no value. I’d like to think that it’s time to put that particular piece of baggage on the table and talk about it, but I’m not optimistic. People want what they want: a perfect baby, a perfect life. To which I say: Good luck. Or maybe, dream on.

But societies exist precisely by means of writing off whole groups of people! That is what makes them societies.

Not always. No, but more often and in more ways than anyone wants to admit. To quote a NT scholar,

We may consider, first of all, the insights of sociology and social anthropology into the nature of groups and their self-definition. Once we realize that the social identity of a group depends to a large extent on the distinctiveness of its practices and beliefs, it also becomes evident that the corollary of “identity” is “boundary,” that self-definition involves self-differentiation. In all this, ritual as a visible expression of social relationships usually plays a particularly important role.

In order to be a wise, beautiful, successful, and powerful people, we must have a class that is foolish, ugly, failing, and impotent. Abortion is the perfect ritual for the age of wifi and stock portfolios. It demonstrates, as all tribes have needed to maintain throughout human history, that we are the true human beings and others are the humanlike animals.

So while it is worth pointing out that people don’t get the perfect life they are pursuing, it isn’t directly applicable. The point is, even if I don’t attain my goals, at least I have affirmed my worth as a (real) human being. I was not put on this planet to serve some deformed kid who will suck out my savings and eat up my time and not allow me to live vicariously through him or her when I get older. I may not control everything, or even much of anything, but I am still a god and I deserve to live on Olympus where we gods exercise these powers.

What I wonder is if there is not some connection between the books of Moses and Jesus’ warning in the Gospels about not being like the nations. In the books of Moses it means, don’t put your children through the fire like the nations do. For Jesus it was, don’t lord it over people like the nations do but be the servant. Tribal (or ruling class) self-definition over against outsiders seems to be involved in both cases.

If abortion is simply an extension of tribalism and the pursuit of power (perceived as deity), then how we stand against it may need to be carefully considered. Lots of these abortion advocating people are more than happy to do something self-righteous to reinforce their identity against the other. We need to make sure that isn’t evident as our own motivation. And we need to really watch ourselves. How are we manifesting tribalism? Do we show by our lives that we truly serve and believe in the cruciform servant God? Or are we simply another group asserting itself for the sake of identity over against needed inferiors?

I realize this seems to be a stretch. I’m linking high school insider/outsider dynamics to abortion. I’m linking ecclesiastical politics (not often that different than high school) to abortion. Well, maybe it is a stretch, but it is standard theology to place these concerns under the Sixth Commandment. We either love our neighbors or we eat them.