A Little Late to the Party

A musician I have always liked said not too long ago that he didn't like the band Coldplay for a long time. The reason? He just could not believe that a band that popular could make good music...then he listened to them.

I've admittedly jumped onto the very crowded bandwagon late, but I really like this band. I downloaded their free live album about a month ago, and after that decided I should try and get more of their music. My good friend George (who has sadly closed down his blog) has been nuts about Coldplay for a while. He hooked me up with X&Y, which I enjoyed, but it didn't quite pull me in on its own. But after purchasing A Rush of Blood to the Head and then the Viva la Vida/Prospekt's March set recently, I can't help myself...I love this band.

If you were like me and never really listened to Coldplay, give them a try...you'll be surprised. I haven't turned an album up that loud in my car in a long time as I have Viva. It's one of the most musically enjoyable albums I have ever heard. It's official: I have become a fan of Coldplay.

The System is No Longer Down!

Just in time for the second week of the semester, our laptop is finally operational again. A Master Boot Record Error left us without the ability to load, so after removing and backing up data, a hard reformat and a long reinstallation process, we're back on the internet. Does this mean you'll see more blogging from me? Hopefully, although with the semester starting, we'll just have to see.

I realize that I promised months ago to get this blog in order, and that it is still a mess. Not sure at this point what to do about that...I may just go with another template. Stay tuned for more posting!

Women, Men and Abortion

Below is an article I read a few weeks ago in First Things magazine. Don't be put off by its length...it's worth a full read. It offers a unique analysis of the implications of abortion on-demand on the cultural view of pregnancy and the responsibility (or lack thereof) that males have in such circumstances. Regardless of your view on abortion, Stith makes some interesting points that are worth considering.

Her Choice, Her Problem
How Abortion Empowers Men
Richard Stith

This summer, President Obama proclaimed again that we “need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t end at conception.” In a sense, of course, he is absolutely right. But the problem is that, in another sense, he is completely wrong: Male responsibility really does end at conception. Men these days can choose only sex, not fatherhood; mothers alone determine whether children shall be allowed to exist. Legalized abortion was supposed to grant enormous freedom to women, but it has had the perverse result of freeing men and trapping women.

The likelihood of this cultural development was foreseen by the radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon, one of the critical voices responding to Roe v. Wade’s extension of the right of privacy to cover abortion. In an essay called “Privacy vs. Equality,” MacKinnon argued that “abortion’s proponents and opponents share a tacit assumption that women do significantly control sex. Feminist investigations suggest otherwise. Sexual intercourse . . . cannot simply be presumed coequally determined.” Indeed, she added, “men control sexuality,” and “ Roe does not contradict this.”

“Abortion facilitates women’s heterosexual availability,” MacKinnon pointed out: “In other words, under conditions of gender inequality [abortion] does not liberate women; it frees male sexual aggression. The availability of abortion removes the one remaining legitimized reason that women have had for refusing sex besides the headache.” Perhaps that is why, she observed, “the Playboy Foundation has supported abortion rights from day one.” In the end, MacKinnon pronounced, Roe’s “right to privacy looks like an injury got up as a gift,” for “virtually every ounce of control that women won” from legalized abortion “has gone directly into the hands of men.”

At the time, MacKinnon’s work may have seemed little more than a curiosity on the left, but, as the years have passed, some of the essay’s claims have proved prescient. I recall a law student who would admit when pressed, “I’m in favor of keeping abortion legal because I don’t like using condoms.” Since abortion could now come between conception and birth, he saw no benefit to missing any portion of sexual pleasure, even though it imposed a risk of surgery on his partner. He may have assumed a rational partner would choose abortion either freely or under pressure. With less deliberate callousness, under the influence of passion almost any male may think quite simply: “At least there’s a way out if the unlikely happens and pregnancy occurs.”

I’ve also met a clever female undergraduate student living with her boyfriend, who thought she had solved this problem. When I asked whether she was for or against abortion, she answered: “I’m pro-choice, but you can bet I tell him I’m pro-life!” She reasoned that, in light of her warning, he would be careful not to fool around in ways that could lead to pregnancy.

Such a lie may not provide protection for every young woman in her situation, however. If she says she is pro-life so that he thinks abortion is not an option for her, he might decide to keep her from getting pregnant by leaving her for someone more open to abortion, a woman who doesn’t insist on his using a condom. That is, the presence in the sexual marketplace of women willing to have an abortion reduces an individual woman’s bargaining power. As a result, in order not to lose her guy, she may be pressured into doing precisely what she doesn’t want to do: have unprotected sex, then an unwanted pregnancy, then the abortion she had all along been trying to avoid. Even though her abortion in this case is not literally forced, it would be, in an important sense, imposed on her. And, far from alleviating her overall situation, it would merely return her to the same sexual pressures, made worse by a new assurance to her boyfriend that she is willing to take care of a ­pregnancy.

Perhaps it was difficult to foresee such cultural trends back in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court. But they simply track the inner logic of choice and the market. Economists have shown that such scenarios have in fact become common since abortion was legalized in the United States. Easy access to abortion has increased the expectation and frequency of sexual intercourse (including unprotected intercourse) among young people, making it more difficult for a woman to deny ­herself to a man without losing him, thus increasing pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. (See, for instance, Jonathan Klick and Thomas Stratmann’s 2003 study, “The Effect of Abortion Legalization on Sexual Behavior,” in the Journal of Legal ­Studies.)

Furthermore, if a woman attempts to choose birth instead of abortion, she may well find the child’s father pushing the other way. Her boyfriend’s fear of fatherhood would once have been focused on intercourse itself and could have led him either to be careful to avoid conception or else (overcoming that fear) to commit himself beforehand to equal responsibility for the child. His fear now will turn to getting her to choose abortion. One investigator, Vincent M. Rue, reported in the Medical Science Monitor, that 64 percent of American women who abort feel pressed to do so by others. Another, Frederica Mathewes-Green in her book Real Choices, discovered that American women almost always abort to satisfy the desires of people who do not want to care for their children.

Catherine MacKinnon seemed to suggest that abortion leads to greater male sexual aggression only “under conditions of gender inequality,” which implies more equality for women could reduce the male exploitation caused by Roe v. Wade. That makes sense in theory. To the degree that individual women are economically, educationally, and in other ways empowered, they should be more able to stand up to male pressures to have unwanted sex (and to have unwanted abortions in order to give the guys still more unwanted sex).

But counteracting the negative forces of sexual competition is difficult. Even if women were universally to agree to refuse sex without condoms, for example, enforcement of this agreement in such an intimate sphere would be nearly impossible. Women would always be tempted to increase their individual sexual competitiveness by consenting to sex without a condom, while relying on abortion as a backup, thus causing female solidarity and power to collapse. Only women strong enough to forgo boyfriends altogether might be likely in the end to resist.

Furthermore, if MacKinnon is right, wherever women have not yet overcome gender inequality, involuntary sex and involuntary abortion will tend to be more frequent, precisely as a result of abortion’s availability. To the degree that a culture is built on machismo, for example, the legalization of abortion will make women relatively worse off by giving men another tool to manipulate women as sex objects. Again, to the degree that an economy employs mainly men, leaving women dependent on economic handouts, women will be much less likely to resist male pressures to make use of abortion. Wherever men make women’s decisions for them, the option of abortion will be a man’s choice, regardless of how the law may label it.

Human-rights activists in developing nations must learn to consider this fact. In those countries, only a thin, elite layer of truly independent and powerful women may be relatively unharmed by the availability of abortion, because only for them is the abortion option more nearly their own. Proclaiming a right to abortion in developing countries may mean just adopting the viewpoint of these well-to-do professionals—which ought to be no surprise. Those elites are often the only voices for women heard in the transnational political arenas where abortion is debated.

Moreover, the availability of abortion may make all societies less open to empowering women in other ways. MacKinnon may well be right that stronger women would more often resist male pressures to risk pregnancies and have abortions. But, perhaps paradoxically, the option of abortion actually makes sympathy and solidarity—and thus women’s empowerment—less likely.

When birth was the result of passion and bad luck, some people could sympathize with a young woman who was going to need help with her baby, though the stigma of bastardry was genuine. If money or a larger place to live were going to be necessary for her to stay in school, a sense of solidarity would likely lead friends and family to offer assistance. The father would feel strong pressure as well, for he was as responsible as she for the child. He might offer to get a second job or otherwise shoulder some of the burdens of parenting.

But once continuing a pregnancy to birth is the result neither of passion nor of luck but only of her deliberate choice, sympathy weakens. After all, the pregnant woman can avoid all her problems by choosing abortion. So if she decides to take those difficulties on, she must think she can handle them.

Birth itself may be followed by blame rather than support. Since only the mother has the right to decide whether to let the child be born, the father may easily conclude that she bears sole responsibility for caring for the child. The baby is her fault.

It may also seem unfair to him that she could escape motherhood (by being legally allowed to prevent birth), while he is denied any way to escape fatherhood (by still being legally required to pay child support). If consenting to sex does not entail consenting to act as a mother, why should it entail consenting to act as a father? Paternity support in this context appears unjust, and he may resist compliance with his legal duties.

Prior to the legalization of abortion in the United States, it was commonly understood that a man should offer a woman marriage in case of pregnancy, and many did so. But with the legalization of abortion, men started to feel that they were not responsible for the birth of children and consequently not under any obligation to marry. In gaining the option of abortion, many women have lost the option of marriage. Liberal abortion laws have thus considerably increased the number of families headed by a single mother, resulting in what some economists call the “feminization of poverty.”

The mother is even worse off if, during pregnancy, tests show that the child will have a disability: Doctors often press for abortion, in order to be sure that she does not later blame and sue them for the costs of raising her child. Some have suggested that health-care plans should provide no postbirth coverage for a handicapped child whose mother refuses a paid abortion. If she does not abort, after all, she will be causally responsible for the costs and the alleged burdens that the child brings. Even her friends and neighbors may make her feel ashamed for not choosing to abort her child.

Employers may likewise react negatively to maternal needs where abortion has been available. If they (or the state) pay for abortions, they may feel less obligated to shape labor practices to the needs of mothers. If maternity causes problems with work routines or job schedules, the employer may well consider these to be private or personal problems that female employees brought on themselves. The availability of abortion makes women’s claims for better working conditions lose a measure of legitimacy.

Throughout human history, children have been the consequence of natural sexual relations between men and women. Both sexes knew they were equally responsible for their children, and society had somehow to facilitate their upbringing. Even the advent of birth control did not fundamentally change this dynamic, for all forms of contraception are fallible.

Elective abortion changes everything. Abortion absolutely prevents the birth of a child. A woman’s choice for or against abortion breaks the causal link between conception and birth. It matters little what or who caused conception or whether the male insisted on having unprotected intercourse. It is she alone who finally decides whether the child comes into the world. She is the responsible one. For the first time in history, the father and the doctor and the health-insurance actuary can point a finger at her as the person who allowed an inconvenient human being to come into the world.

The deepest tragedy may be that there is no way out. By granting to the pregnant woman an unrestrained choice over who will be born, we make her alone to blame for how she exercises her power. Nothing can alter the solidarity-shattering impact of the abortion option.

Richard Stith teaches at Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana.

Article reposted from firstthings.com.

Recommended Listening

My brother Andrew just completed his first EP entitled Summer Musings. In a folk-acoustic style similar to Andy Gullahorn and Andrew Peterson, he ruminates (sometimes humorously) on life and Summers past. It's a great first effort from someone who is very talented, and I highly recommend the album.

You can listen to previews for free below, and download it through NoiseTrade. The website has a unique approach to music...you can download the full album it for free if you email 5 friends about it through their website (it doesn't put anyone on a mailing list) or you can pay what you like ($1-$25) and get the full download.

Check out Summer Musings by Andrew Groves!

Hudson Taylor

Upon Kristen's urging, I read a chapter from a biography of the missionary to China, Hudson Taylor. Below are some words of his that impact me deeply even as I read them now. Read them carefully and ponder the meaning of identification with Christ in your life.

I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. There was nothing I so much desired as holiness, nothing I so much needed; but far from in any measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp, until hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that- perhaps to make heaven the sweeter- God would not give it down here. I do not think that I was striving to attain it in my own strength. I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength...

I strove for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Saviour, my guilt and helplessness seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was I felt the damning sin of the world; yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. What was I to do?...

But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting in the Faithful One. As I read, I saw it all! "If we believe not, he abideth faithful." I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, "I will never leave thee."...I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me- never to leave me, never to fail me?...

The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient.

40 years later

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong first set foot on the surface of the Moon. It was a spectacular technological achievement, and a victory for America in the Space Race against the Soviet Union. Not before or perhaps even since, has such a triumph inspired as the Moon landing did in 1969.

But there are some that continue to insist that this amazing feat did not actually occur, and the footage that so many hail as authentic was really shot in a desert or on some soundstage rather than the Lunar surface. A government conspiracy of nearly unimaginable magnitude is necessitated to cover the tracks of this colossal hoax.

So, on the 40th anniversary of the landing of man on the Moon, I thought it would be appropriate to look at a few of the most common hoax arguments regarding the Moon landing and evaluate them in accordance with the facts.

There are no stars in any of the Moon photographs. This is because the pictures were taken in a studio rather than the Lunar surface, where stars would have been visible.

Cameras, set for daylight exposure, did not detect the relatively faint points of light from the surrounding star field. Additionally, it was "day" on the Moon (the astronauts were on the light side) and the light of the Sun would most likely overpower the faint light of stars, just as it does during day on the Earth.

The flag planted by the astronauts in the Lunar environment waves as if being blown in the wind, despite the lack of atmospheric wind. This is most likely caused by the massive air-conditioners needed to keep the astronauts cool in their bulky suits while in the studio.

Numerous tests (including one by the Mythbusters) prove that the "flag waving" is easily explained by free swinging of the corner of the flag in a low-gravity environment, as a pendulum would. The waving only occurs after the astronauts move the flag, casting further doubt that the flag was fluttering in the air currents of a studio air conditioner. Additionally, analysis of over 30 minutes of Moon footage shows no further movement of the flag whatsoever.

The Moon rocks match exactly rock samples taken from Antarctica.

While there is a ring of truth to this argument, it still doesn't support any moon hoax theory. Lunar meteorites are not an unheard of phenomenon- Lunar impacts eject rocks from the surface of the Moon, and some of these rocks survive entry into the atmosphere and crash to Earth. Furthermore, some of these rocks have been found in places like Antarctica. However, there are only about 66 lbs. of Lunar meteorites known to exist since the first was identified in 1982. The largest robotic Moon rock/soil return thus far is 326 grams by 3 Soviet Luna missions. The total weight of recovered Moon rocks from the Apollo missions is 840 lbs. Under a hoax scenario, either more than 12X the official number of Lunar meteorites exist as hoax Moon rocks, or at least 300 robotic rock return missions (based on the most modern plans for robotic rock collection) must have been flown to account for all the rocks collected.

The hoax proponents allege that the Moon landing was staged. There are, however, a myriad of problems with this suggestion. Just one example: low gravity and the vacuum of space causes dust to settle differently than it would in the Earth's atmosphere, and the footage from the Moon landings shows physical behavior of dust inconsistent with the Earth's gravity and atmosphere. Implicit in this suggestion is that there are at least a sizeable number of people who hatched and continue to hide the most massive government conspiracy in the history of the United States at a time when it is no longer critical we maintain the illusion of having gone to the Moon. The argument for faking the Moon landing made some sense during the time of the Soviet Union- it makes no sense now.

Allegations of missing telemetry data tapes and original video recordings abound, and sadly, a great deal of the original data from the Apollo 11 landing has been lost, though copies remain. But this is not proof of anything substantial, just that someone wasn't smart enough to preserve the tapes or observant enough to check what was being erased. Even if this argument did disprove the Apollo 11 landing, it doesn't hold water with regard to later missions for which all or almost all original data and video is accounted for.

Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke states: "We've been to the Moon nine times. Why would we fake it nine times, if we faked it?" Perhaps to throw us all off the scent of the massive government conspiracy? In the end, I find that allegations of a Moon landing hoax are probably some of the least logically consistent and most poorly-supported ideas I have ever come across. Suspicion of the government is often cited as a presuppositional motive for the 6% of Americans that still hold to some Moon hoax view. I can sympathize with this idea, but not in this case- there's just too little evidence, and I can't believe that so many people have kept quiet, lying about one of the greatest events in human history, for so long with no exception.

My approach has been to rationally and scientifically evaluate the arguments...Buzz Aldrin took another approach when he was accused of lying about landing on the Moon by Bart Sibrel, maker of the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon. Here's Aldrin's response:

40 years ago today we took one small step for man...how much longer before the next giant leap for mankind?

***Check out my brother Andrew's Apollo 11 blog here. He includes an excellent video clip also.

The Most Beautiful Place on Earth

I've been fortunate in my life to have traveled many places. I've seen the Grand Canyon, driven the Pacific Coast Highway, sailed beautiful Lake Michigan and watch the ocean smash against the rocks off the coast of Newcastle, Australia. I've even been to Fiji. But of all the places I've been and the things that I have seen, nothing compares to a slice of wilderness in Northwest Wyoming. Yellowstone National Park is, at least for me, the most beautiful place on earth.

My family took a trip there when I was in my teens, and I still remember the vast expanse of beautiful wilderness. Bison dotted the plains and waterfalls carved into the yellow rock from which the park gets its name. The sulfur springs and geysers like Old Faithful are some of the most prominent reminders of the massive geological activity in the Yellowstone Caldera upon which the park sits. Yellowstone has it all- mountains, plains, geysers, lakes, forests and massive rock formations, the combination of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Yellowstone is America's first national park, but it is only one of 54 featured in Ken Burns' upcoming 6-part PBS documentary entitled The National Parks: America's Best Idea. The fruit of 5 years of production, this promises to be both a historic and visual feast. My brother Matthew first brought this documentary to my attention on his blog, and I join with him in anticipation of the September premiere. You can (and should!) watch an amazing 25 minute preview, with finished footage from the film as well as the crew at work, here.

Too often our tunnel vision prevents us from seeing the wonders of the world around us. We can recite the details of our work day but cannot name the species of tree in our back yard. Getting outside, both literally and figuratively, does us great good as individuals and collectively. If you've never been to a national park just to be there, then I would encourage you to consider going. The experience is both perspective-altering and awe-inspiring, and should be on the must-do list for every family and individual. And if you haven't been, go to Yellowstone- you won't regret it.

*Black and White Photos by Ansel Adams