TVP WEEKLY: At the end of June 2022 the American women lost their constitutional right to abortion. The US Supreme Court overturned 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. How could that happen?

ANDRZEJ BRYK:The abortion law was extremely liberal in that country. In practice it allowed the foetus to be aborted on every stage of pregnancy which was explained by the necessity to protect the women’s mental health. The judge Maryanne Trump Barry, justifying a ruling in one appellate court regarding an abortion carried out during childbirth in 2000, said that the child wasn’t being born because the woman seeking an abortion did not want to give birth to it. In other words, the Supreme Court, by giving the American women the constitutional right to abortion in 1973, made it an absolute right of the woman.

Were there no restrictions as towards the first trimester of pregnancy or no obligation to assess the woman and her child’s interest?

They turned out to be fictitious. In reality only the will and autonomous decision of the pregnant woman defined the status of the foetus. Even during childbirth it was the woman to decide whether her child inside the birth canal already is a human or not, hence the particularly barbarian practice I’ve already mentioned. I am referring to the so-called “partial birth abortions”, meaning abortions during childbirth. There were also situation where due to medical error the abortion ended up in giving birth to a live baby.

What happens next?

The applicable law allowed for a situation where a foetus that had survived the abortion in theory didn’t have the right to life, because the woman didn’t want to give birth to it. After 1973, for the first time in US history, the protection of the foetus ceased to be of overriding importance. Never before was a woman’s decision the only criterion determining the right to life of a conceived child. Therefore, contrary to what propagandists say, granting women the constitutional right to abortion in the Roe v. Wade trial in 1973 was not a widely recognized or socially supported decision, but was subject to mass criticism for many different reasons.

“Roe v. Wade” – a film by Beckerman and Loeb from 2021 is a story about women who at that time fought for the right to abortion and the backstory of this trial

Two groups of women were delighted with the right to abortion. The first were well-educated young people enchanted with the gains of the sexual revolution which began in 1962 with the invention of the contraceptive pill. Intoxicated also with the attractiveness of liberal-left anthropology and absolute decision-making on “birth control”.

And what about the other group of women satisfied with legal abortion?

The other was made up of a large group of women understanding that moral freedom resulting from the sexual revolution did not apply to women, but actually to ... men. Yes, it is men who for thousands years have dreamt of free and uninhibited sex without commitment and consequence, while constitutional right to terminate pregnancy was meeting those expectations. The sexual revolution did not turn out to be equal for both sexes. The institution of marriage was then dismantled, introducing a no-fault divorce. Thus, each of the spouses could leave the family at any time in their lives. In practice, however, it deprived mainly women and children of their livelihood security. SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE

Abandoned without an adjudication of guilt, were women deprived of child support?

At that time it was still so. The quickly created benefit program turned out to be ill-structured. The welfare state was in its infancy. And an unplanned child was a threat of losing paid job in the case of less educated women, as pregnant women were usually fired. Sometimes an abortion was the only solution. Moreover, by making the woman the only decision-maker over the bilateral, in fact, issue of the life of the unborn child, the man was mentally relieved of the consequences of common actions.

Initially, however, it seemed that both these groups of women (and men) bombarded with feminist messages about self-realization would root the right to abortion as a permanent part of culture. However, this didn’t happen. This decision resulted in a deep fracture in American society.

Did it split into “pro-lifers” and “abortion supporters”?

Not only that. Part of the society protested, endorsing the principle that the termination of pregnancy is evil for moral or religious reasons.

Another group was terrified of the brutalization of abortion which had become one of the accessible forms of contraception. Also in drastic cases of “termination” during birth.

Yet another group was opposed not so much to abortion as to such an arbitrary way of legislating by a panel of several judges. They were outraged that these judges, having such enormous power, could turn the constitution into a tool for creating their vision of the social order and a system of binding values. In the opinion of this group, the right to abortion could be recognized, but only by classic legal regulations. At that time, there was a huge democratic discussion in the American public space on the liberalization of the right to abortion.

The Roe vs. Wade ruling was then a radical halt in a heated social debate?

Of course. Certain milieus were even shocked by the usurpation of the Supreme Court to arbitrarily derive any right from the constitution. It was, in fact, absolute power. One of the judges opposed to this decision noted that the court had usurped the absolute right to overrule all decisions of democratic bodies regarding the protection of the child in the womb. He also added that no interpretation of the constitution could be linked with the prohibition of moral judgments. If it turns out that the community has no possibility of debating moral judgments, and that they are decided by several judges guided by their beliefs, the community loses control over the fundamental principles of community life.

Why?

Because the consequences of the governing law are extremely wide. After all, the law is followed by an appropriate cultural, moral, educational message or political correctness that guarantees the hegemony of a given doctrine in the public space. It also applies to the emphasis on appropriate parental upbringing. Please think of a child of religious parents brought up in respect for life as holiness. In a brutal confrontation with the official message, his view will be considered reactionary and unacceptable. And even – illegal under the law.

This is what is happening today, for example, with people who believe that the proper form of marriage is only the union of a man and a woman. And people supporting family protection organizations are ridiculed, bullied, fired or brutally punished through destructive lawsuits.

Do you reckon that marriage exists only between a man and a woman?

From my point of view, also as a historian of ideas, in all cultures and religions, marriage has a complementary structure and a social goal. Meanwhile, the definition of marriage as the basic social structure has been radically changed today. It is no longer an institution that guarantees indissolubility and durability. It is merely a two-person contract to meet emotional and sexual needs. It can be dissolved at any time.

Marriage has thus become an institution that is meaningless, apart from individual fulfillment. It gave numerous social privileges, which made certain circles seek to demand marriage of the same sex. It is a drama with multiple consequences. French political scientist Pierre Manent speaks of imitating institutions in a new arrangement that impossible to follow. It is based on a completely different structure.

Sure, only that people are looking for happiness and satisfaction in life, rather than achieving “social goals” that they don’t consider their own.

So please replace “social goals” with the idea of sacrificing your “me, myself and I” for a value or good greater than your own satisfaction, so sharply promoted today in the culture of radical individualism and narcissism. After all, having a home or children instead of unrestricted freedom and a disorderly sex life can also be a source of personal satisfaction.

Here we come to the ideology which underpinned the judges’ decision on the right to abortion in 1973. One of its premises is the belief that there cannot be any community law restricting individual privileges. Therefore, if an individual renounces something personal, e.g. for the greater good incarnated in marriage, then this individual should be quickly freed from such an oppressive institution, i.e. emancipated. In fact, this idea of liberation from all kinds of relationships is today's liberal-leftist definition of freedom.

The notion of freedom has changed?

Yes. Freedom is no longer the realization of a greater truth, put above our egoism, but the definition of truth through the filter of the will (and caprices) of our “very important self”. Perhaps you have read dr. Bernard Nathanson's autobiography, “The Hand of God”?

Dr. Bernard Nathanson had been an abortion activist who converted after the invention of the ultrasound machine. Later, he made two shocking documentaries showing the course of abortion: “Silent Scream” and “Eclipse of Reason”. In the latter, a five-month-old foetus was being killed.

Alas, the social resistance movement against such drastic cases proved ineffective. The activities of pro-life organizations in this area were immediately blocked as an attempt to diminish the constitutional law. The supporters of abortion were supported by the Democratic Party, which already in 1972 included the demand for abortion in its program, while losing some of its voters. The pro-life camp, and with it the pro-choice movements, therefore expanded their activities to the international field. However, powerful international corporations, mainstream media and universities turned out to be pro-choice…

Pharmaceutical concerns?

By all means; this is a powerful financial and political force. Pro-choice activists also then began to include abortion rights in international documents. Thanks to their narrative, abortion out of “saddening necessity” has become “rare, safe and available” (according to the slogans), a natural good of a woman, pillar of “reproductive rights” that is not negotiable because it belongs to the field of human rights.

This attitude was adopted by Amnesty International, UN organizations or WHO staffed with anti-abortion activists. After the ruling in 1973, Planned Parenthood, the main pro-abortion organization in the United States, also grew in power.

Planned Parenthood has established a large network of abortion clinics.

Yes, but the construction of these clinics also had an additional, discriminatory and racist aspect. The progressive American elite noticed how quickly poverty and social pathology among the black minority was growing. So someone came up with the idea to promote abortion among the groups that “litter” the good American society. Not accidentally have abortion clinics been set up on the outskirts of Negro ghettos.

Let's get back to the present. Thanks to three conservative judges nominated by Donald Trump, the constitutional right to abortion has been revoked. Does that mean it will be illegal?

No. The sentence overturning the 1973 judgment is not an assessment of the legality of such treatments. Nor is it an indication to forbid or allow them. It is merely a statement that abortion has nothing to do with the text of the American Constitution of 1787. This means that decisions on the permissibility of abortion are delegated to the “people(s)”, thus returning to the level of public debate in individual states.

It is therefore a return to the situation before 1973, not a victory of the pro-life movement.

One cannot speak of a full victory, but only of a comeback to a broader discussion on abortion in a legal, social, moral and political sense as well. After all, in American school textbooks, abortion is still an elementary law beyond any discussion. The new ruling also creates greater opportunities to restrict abortion in individual states, or to prohibit it, which we can already see.

And pro-life, pro-choice movements as well as… the authors of school textbooks are now in a completely different position. The rhetoric and the political struggle will now be very fierce. And gigantic funds behind the abortion business will be mobilized to block politicians working in the legislative process to restrict or prohibit abortion in a given state.

In the face of a certain “trajectory change”, may there be a renaissance of Christianity that would reach Europe like the sexual revolution of 1968?

First of all, you don’t need to be profess any religion to consider abortion a bad thing. Nonetheless, the fact remains that its strongest opponents in the US are religious communities. Their strength is enormous, rooted in estates and institutions. It’s just that they are treated as an anomaly in terms of progress, and the religiousness of American society is weakening, so it’s really hard to predict what will happen next.

As for Europe, I have no illusions. The European conflict with Christianity is a clash of mutually exclusive visions of the world. Christianity will be a relic here, doomed to vegetate in ghettos. Possibly a charitable addition to the welfare state or an institution of psychotherapy for individual types of spirituality.

You are now ironic.

No, by no means, Western Europe is culturally more and more liberal-leftist. And the EU has become not only an economic project, but also an ideological one. Importantly, the left-liberal doctrine recognizes political power as a tool to carry out a program to break down all traditional structures such as family or nation-state, and to achieve emancipation, that is, “total liberation” for the sake of absolute equality and non-discrimination.

The free, public debate on values expected in the United States may, after all, change something in this regard.

Indeed, according to the rules of democracy, when an opponent comes to power, they are accorded the right to rule. On condition though that this happens when the alternative political camps operate within the same anthropological framework. The differences then relate to political or economic strategies, not to the fundamental questions of human existence, for example the question ”who is man?”, as is the case here.

We are talking here about a war of cultures in which no prisoners are taken. The opponent is not a competitor. Well, he’s not even an enemy. The enemy is only a heretic here. Both sides operate within irrelevant, completely incompatible concepts. At present, the liberal-left camp is dominant.

What will be the course of events in this “war”?

I shall quote the words of Harvard professor, constitutionalist Mark Tushnett. Just before Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, he said that if there was a threat of a victory for the opponent, they take off your white gloves and start a total war against those who did not recognize the gains of progress. They must be told, “Lay down your arms! You have lost the war of cultures and you will either surrender or we will imprison you in ghettos”. And this is the liberal-leftist elite’s view of half of American society. These milieus even deny the other party the right to be within the common citizenship.

Just like in the European Union. One should be conscious that the discussion about Polish matters in the European Union forum also takes place in the language of the liberal left. Hence, conservative governments are “heretical” and illegitimate. Such an approach in the sphere of fundamental values has, however, grim consequences for the freedoms that are the pillar of Western civilization. I mean, religious or parental freedom to raise children. After all, religious freedom is not the freedom to believe what you want in the individual sphere.

What is religious freedom then?

It is the freedom of any institution that can establish and root a religious message in a community. Starting off with the family, through religious associations, ending with the freedom of churches. It is about the freedom to act fully public. For if the language of religion, translated into the language of theology, individual or social practice, has to convey to us a fundamental truth about human existence, its existence is an element of the fullness of humanity.

All the more s, if this truth cannot be conveyed to us by any language of science or ideology, such as environmentalism or any other. Thus, getting rid of this dimension of human life or pushing it into the ghetto sphere means a radical limitation of both human freedom and the potential of human action.

– Interviewed by Ewelina Pietryga
– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists