Chris Hedges has an astonishingly evidence-free article at Alternet purporting to demonstrate that “The battle against abortion is a battle to build a society where pleasure and freedom, where the capacity of the individual and especially women to make choices, and indeed even love itself[!!], are banished.” The “argument” rests almost entirely on armchair psychologizing of vast swaths of people in the pro-life movement whose commitment to that cause can, according to Hedges, only be understood as a bid to contain the “brokenness, desperation and emotional turmoil” these people feel because all the good manufacturing jobs have left the country. In Hedges’ universe it’s impossible for anyone to have sincere moral objections to abortion. They can only be masks for some deeper cause – economic disfranchisement in this case.

The supposed knock-down argument that “demonstrates” that it’s “really” fear and hatred of sex and pleasure, not a desire to protect life, that motivates the pro-life cause is that some pro-lifers also oppose birth control. Now, in the real world there are two reasons this might be the case. One is that many pro-lifers are also committed Catholics. The other is that some pro-lifers have become convinced that certain forms of birth control, including the Pill, are abortifacient because they can act to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum. My understanding of this is extremely imperfect, but the impression I have is that it remains uncertain whether various kinds of birth control Pill ever do in fact act to prevent implantation in cases where fertilization occurs, but I don’t think it’s crazy for someone of scrupulous conscience to worry about them for that reason. None of this comes anywhere close to showing that pro-lifers are opposed to sex or pleasure or happiness. In fact, you might think that given the pro-natalist stance of many pro-lifers that they are in fact quite in favor of sex.

All this aside, what’s so annoying about Hedges’ article is that he’s not willing to see pro-lifers as people who might have moral convictions just as sincere and, dare I say, well-informed as his own. They aren’t fellow citizens with whom to enter into respectful dialogue, but crazed hordes who want to banish love itself!This is the mirror image of the manichean worldview held by some on the Right who see liberals as godless baby killers.