I would amend the first clause of the last sentence of the first paragraph to read:  Usually the extent to the connection is his appeals to morality and natural law to fight FOR civil rights . . . .

Mr Marcus, in his otherwise fine article, makes quite a statement surprising statement when he claims that abortion in some form was mostly “legal” in Christendom until the 19th century.  I trust he will supply us with chapter and verse to support such a claim.

I would also like to respectfully suggest that any writer who uses the term “Christendom” try to learn precisely what the word means before throwing it about so cavalierly.  What you see around you now, and have been seeing for well nigh on two hundred years, is certainly not Christendom.

By Christendom, I meant “the part of the world in which Christianity prevails.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Christendom i.e. Europe after it was converted to Christianity.

Please calm down.

Marcus, and the chapter and verse on the legality of abortion that Dan asked for?

Or did you miss that bit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion_law#Legal:_History_of_abortion_law

Wikipedia. That’s it? Next to nothing about the early Church’s opposition to abortion and how it would lead to her tremendous growth within pagan Rome?

Pretty shallow analysis.

The sentence I said which you all are having a hissy fit over, was “abortion which remained legal in most of Christendom until the 19th century.

When did I ever say the early church supported abortion?  All I said was that at least some form of abortion was legal in Europe after it converted to Christianity--a a definition that Merriam Webster accepts. 

Given that infanticide was outlawed, and abortion wasn’t.  When King praised the Church for ending infanticide, he was clearly not discussing abortion.

“Chapter and verse” is completely irrelevant, because I never said that the Church or the bible ever sanctioned abortion.”

Are the hyper sensitive Catholics satisfied yet? 

It seems that you need to explain every word single word of that sentence for them in order to shut them up.

While the crime of abortion was committed from time to time in secret and in shame, against all the norms established by Church and State, that is a far cry from saying it was “legal” in some form until the 19th century (I won’t use the word “legal” to describe the abortion practices of native pagan tribes that were unconverted).  If Mr Epstein has some actual facts to support his statement I will read them.

On the secondary point about the term “Christendom”, a beautiful word, I would highly recommend Mr Belloc’s “Europe and the Faith” as the best explanation of what Christendom was.  One cannot come away from that book without seeing how totally our modern age is disconnected from that noble idea.

“Are the hyper sensitive Catholics satisfied yet?”

I didn’t know a penchant for historical accuracy was exclusive to Catholics. I mean if we’re going to split hairs over Margaret Sanger’s contributions to the human project, or read MLK out of the anti-abortion cause, shouldn’t we pay heed to sweeping comments covering 2000 years of civilization? Or, is there a Paleo Correctness memo, I didn’t get?

As far as the pro-life cause is concerned, I’m not willing to administer an entrance exam to determine who can join it, nor spend a lot of time monitoring the veracity of every argument issued from those belonging to such a diverse and eclectic movement. I guess next week we can read why “stiff-necked, atheist Jews”, like Nat Hentoff pose such a problem, as we look forward to the day when the perfect coalition is finally put together, by folks that frankly don’t seem that devoted to the cause.

Good column as always by Marcus. I didn’t know that MLK never wrote about abortion or accepted an award from Sanger.

Is this something unique to pro-lifers? I recall about a year ago some were saying that Sam Francis was pro-life. Anyone who knew Sam probably had quite a laugh at that one.

The problem is whether nineteenth century Europe can accurately be called Christendom. The prophets of nineteenth century Europe were Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx, Darwin etc

To Stan: Last I checked, the 19th century was the Victorian Age, whose code of manners was far more influential than the writings of Marx and Voltaire. Or perhaps you think Victorianism wasn’t Christian enough??

Miss Claire,

History does not seem to be your strongsuit.  And trends do not encompass every place on earth.  Victorianism was particularly English and WASP.  The Continent may have been affected, but by no means can one speak of ‘Victorian France’ or ‘Victorian Spain.’

I think the biggest weakness of Americans is their inability draw on the wisdom of the Continent unless it confirms the Enlightenment ideologies and pathologies.  They read Rousseau and Voltaire because they were considered ‘classics’ by Whiggish professors at Ivy League schools.  Otherwise they read Luther and Calvin, who happen to confirm the radical Protestant spirit that typifies anti-intellectual American idealism, prejudices against hierarchalism, and hatred of monarchical forms even in religion.  The First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, Feminism, and the reverence that many Americans harbour for scoundrels like Franklin and Paine and the blasphemous Jefferson are all evidence of this.  Any man who claims that America was founded as a Christian nation is either a Protestant or a peculiar sort of Catholic who, because of flagrant liberalism, does not care for most people and institutions Catholics have historically cherished.

Now Chuck I never claimed that Victorianism was the only influence of its age, but it was far more powerful than Marxism or Voltaireanism (see your other blog).  Marxism had its greatest success in the 20th c.  And speaking of generalizations, who are you to claim that all Catholics always supported (or should support) the ancien regime??  You don’t speak for me or His Holiness, who praised church-state separation in his recent visit to the US of A!

@Chuck (tee hee, thanks Marie Claire!)

I’m a Catholic too (but perhaps not as holy or correct as you) - but do we really hold the Monopoly on what’s considered “Christian”?  I think I hear the echo of the 30 Years War in the distance…

Marie Claire,

The authoritative statements from the Sovereign Pontiffs, when they use the prescriptive capacity of their teaching authority, have forbidden Catholics to believe in separation of the Church from the State and in classless societies.  The formulative private opinions of a given Pope that His Holiness presents in a non-binding and non-authoritative manner are not equal in canonical force.  The pastoral experiment failed.  Pius VI has been vindicated, in his claim that Louis XVI was a martyr, by the bad fruits of the modern order and the lying novelties that buttress it.

Theresa,

Yes, the Catholic Church is the One True Faith and has a monopoly on what is to be considered Christian.  Objectively, Protestants are not Christians, but heretics.

To Charles:
Guess you don’t dig what the current Pope claimed about church/state separation, then, non?
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/197841?eng=y
So, where is the papal encyclical that insists that we Catholics must travel back in time to the Bourbon dynasty and stay there?

Once again,

Thank God for Wikipedia…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabus_of_Errors

I would be more than happy to concede a monopoly to the Catholic Church over what is to be called Christian (they can appropriate, malign, torture, exile, or otherwise abuse whatever still bears that label for all I care), but none of that has anything to do with Marcus’ article (the nominal topic of this discussion).

We seem to have wandered off into another tiresome debate about nothing, perpetrated by the sort of people who spend their time typing insults at each other (with the anonymous impunity that is the great gift of the Internet to cowards) while striking poses of moral superiority. 

Posing: what Marcus was talking about.

Some of the pro-lifers or Republicans now waddling their way into the light they think is reflecting off the left’s holy objects of the moment really believe, what?  That somebody will become pro-life or vote Republican because pro-lifers and Republicans are the true heirs of Martin Luther King, Nelsen Mandela, or Rosa Parks?!?  Neither camp is lacking for morons, it’s true, but I still suspect most of them are affecting this rhetoric to play the moral status game, like Prius owners, or white people with Obama stickers on their cars. 

They can photoshop themselves next to Martin Luther King and their enemies next to Hitler all they’d like, and puff up and dance around, but like the RNC pandering to the Mexicans, the other side can always pander better, and always will. 

These arguments tell everyone that the other side is right while convincing nobody that you’re on it.  Generally it takes about fifteen years for American conservatives to do that, at which point they really are on the other side.

“Colorado began to liberalize their abortion laws in 1963 and Planned Parenthood supported it.”

Colorado passed permissive abortion laws in 1967.  Is there an earlier event to which you are referring?

Ah, more MLK revisionism. As one who was educated in state schools, I had the cult of personality of MLK rammed down my throat - I never bothered to look into whether or not the things he supported were just or moral.

Now I believe that MLK ought to be considered on the same level as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  Although MLK was mostly right about warfare, he advocated socialism and an odd sort of pseudo-Maoism. He supported reparations, racial quotas, and all the usual garbage we are used to hearing from many ‘black leaders’.  And of course, as you wonderfully show - would probably have been a pro-death advocate.

Good article. I am glad that Mr. King’s Sanger Award is getting more “airtime.”

BTW, I am the one who edited Mr. King’s Wikipedia entry and added the Sanger Award.

I did not know that Sanger “explicitly came out against” abortion! Can I be directed to a source?