A recent editorial from Christine Flowers concludes, “Sentencing a man to life for killing his
pregnant girlfriend isn’t enough, especially when you don’t find premeditation.
Defunding Planned Parenthood isn’t enough. Sending abortion back to the states isn’t enough,
especially in a state like ours with a governor who is giddy over his love and support for
abortion.
She seems to arrive at the conclusion that she is the sole arbiter of law, and the only acceptable
conclusions are those with which she agrees. This is a disturbing trend recently of partisans of
all stripes. There are so many “news” networks, blogs, podcasts, new media websites, etc., that
one can easily tailor their intake to fit their world view. Doing so is egotistically gratifying, but it
disconnects us from a search for broader communal truths.
Quite frankly, Ms. Flowers’ approach is jejune. It is self-serving. It is shallow.
When I was in college, if we were locked in a debate with a person we disagreed with, but had
little factual basis upon which to rebut their argument, we used to say, “I reject your reality,
and substitute my own.” It was a de-facto concession of defeat, while not ceding the point
despite lack of foundation. Ms. Flowers does that here. She has no substantive argument
against the right to choose, which she fervently characterizes as a right to abortion. She
flagrantly attempts to enflame the issue by raising a literal murder of a woman who is pregnant,
as though that were coequal to a pregnant woman getting an abortion. She is a magnificent
propagandist. She isn’t a particularly deep thinker.
There is plenty of room for nuance, but Ms. Flowers makes no room for that. It is either her
dogmatic Catholic “my way,” or the highway. Ironically, under the surface this raises issues of
religious persecution of those who hold differing beliefs from her. It also seems to fly in the face
of the first amendment right to religious self-determination.
Her words are utterly offensive, and counter the very concept of self-determination. If Ms.
Flowers doesn’t believe in, or want, an abortion, then she shouldn’t get one. What anyone else
decides to do is none of her business.
Brian Barnett
Glendale, Mass.
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