Dmitry Kosyrev
It is known that the meaning of existence in our world of America is to have something to point the finger at and say: “Look, children, you can’t live like that.” And here is a new example of this.
What do you think is the main topic there now, from which everyone is shaking: Ukraine, the wild rise in prices, the fall in the rating of President Biden? No, abortion.
For example, the day before yesterday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, during the annual report to Congress of the Financial Stability Oversight Board, said that “abolishing the right of women to decide when and whether to have children at all will have a devastating impact on the economy and set women back decades”.
The story began last week when a draft of the court’s decision on the right to abortion lawsuit leaked from the country’s Supreme Court. The court has already recognized that the document is genuine, although it is only a draft; and then you think: what would happen if we were talking about a ready-made solution? The draft — and perhaps the future decision itself — does not exactly prohibit abortion, but significantly limits the right to abortion.
By the way, for those who want to delve into hundreds of thousands of publications on this topic: it is known by the names of those who filed a lawsuit, that is, in the Roe & Wade case.
To understand what is happening with the people (and the country), just look at the headlines in The New York Times: almost half of the volume of the publication has been filled with such materials for many days now.
So: “Draft raises concerns about politicization of the Supreme Court”, “Biden has become an unexpected champion of the right to abortion”, “A woman in a Texas clinic describes her path between the requirements of religion, culture and law”, “Rumors about how the leak happened are circulating in Washington “, “Leaked documents challenge decades of research on abortion and the law”, “In a divided America, corporations don’t want to talk about abortion. But they might have to”, “The next battleground is a micro-abortion pill”, “Four reasons to be horrified “…
Here it should be noted that the translation of the titles is slightly simplified and abbreviated and the list is far from complete.
What does all this mean? Well, for example, that in the midterm elections to the US Congress next fall, not a single candidate will be able to take a neutral position: either he is “for life” or “for choice.” That is, either a Republican or a Democrat. True, it has happened before. But, as we can see, the intensity on this topic is such that corporations, and, possibly, media personalities, and then all Americans in general, will simply have to indicate their position on any occasion and fiercely – in the Western style – hate those who are on the other side.. This is how their societies now live.
The leak was, of course, a planned action, as it gives the Democrats a chance to go on the offensive against their opponents. Their train of thought is this: Republican-appointed judges opposed abortion, and here’s the result. Go ahead and vote.
You have to be a very neutral person, for example, a Chinese from the Global Times resource, in order to clearly indicate your attitude to this situation. Something like this: the incident sparked a debate about whether Washington would actually take this startling step back on women’s rights and spark mounting protests across the country. American political forces are not worried that this could push for even deeper and sharper divisions in the country. Liberals and conservatives take their differences to extremes, which can further distort society. As a result, the “soft power” of the United States, and the “hard” power, too, is declining.
Well, you can describe this situation in this way. The mention of liberals and conservatives is interesting here: the American squabble over abortion makes us take a fresh look at a very important question, especially for Russian society: who are these liberals and conservatives?
British scientists claim that we are talking about two genetically different types of mammals, which proves their scientific experience, when volunteers from both sides were forced to smell each other. It turns out that conservatives and liberals very clearly recognize their opponents by smell, much like cats and dogs.
If, however, we approach the issue from an ideological standpoint and avoid the tedious quoting of the classics of both schools of thought, then everything is simple. Firstly, words are always deceptive, sometimes turned inside out, for example, “democrat” and “liberal” today are wildly intolerant and aggressive, illiberal and undemocratic creatures. It believes that societies and states not only can, but are almost obliged to improve the human race with all sorts of soft or hard campaigns, to educate everyone all the time for the sake of a bright and near future. And conservatives are those who believe that human societies take shape gradually, over centuries, develop their own culture (what it is), and any elites, including the state, should proceed from what is (as we can see, this is very liberal). The job of the elites is not to improve people at will,
So, in the story of the Supreme Court – and in general – American conservatives suddenly act as rather radical liberals, imposing their beliefs on people who have completely different views. Well, let them figure it out: this is America, these are their problems.
And not that these were new problems for mankind. Here is a question that rests solely on the worldview of a person: what is life? When does it begin: from the moment of conception or birth? Science will not help here – only philosophy, and it still needs to be accepted with all one’s heart.
And philosophy is really capable of splitting entire societies. Something similar happened in the first centuries of Christianity, in that Roman Empire with its capital in Constantinople. Then the question of the Holy Trinity, that is, of the essence of God, was not only the subject of discussion between bishops (with mutual excommunication), but was also decided by storming cities in the same state. In other words, people, as in the United States today, simply did not want to live next to those whose beliefs were radically different.
And this is something to be avoided. America teaches us in this case that it is simply impossible to allow matters to be taken to extremes, when two approximately equal parts of society clash, finding out not only “what is an American” (and these disputes are also going on there), but also what life is. Although “you can’t bring it up” is also from a series of personal beliefs and nothing more.
