Stanislaus State professor emeritus rebuts former colleague’s pro-life view

I was a colleague of Richard Weikart’s and helped to hire him at Stanislaus State University. I have never regretted that. Richard was the most scholarly person in the department, writing some important historical books on Nazism and German-Hitler thought. It was with interest and respect, then, that I read his pro-life op-ed in The Modesto Bee (Oct. 2, 2022).

Richard has my sympathy. People can disagree as to when life begins. But it seems to me that once an egg is fertilized, there is some form of life inside the womb, whether one believes that this is life then or whether it begins when the baby emerges from the womb and can breathe on its own.

My wife and I found out that birth control is not 100% effective when our youngest child, 40 next month, was conceived 10 years after the youngest of our three other children.

We didn’t particularly think abortion was appropriate, and we are grateful that we stayed the course.

Believing as Richard does is both fine and moral. But if society refuses to let women have an abortion of a child she (and the father, perhaps) don’t want, or can’t afford to raise, or are too young (or too old) to want a child, the baby is more likely to be born into a world unwanted and perhaps poorly provided for and more likely not as well loved or brought up.

Very frankly, those opposed to abortion must present a viable alternative. People — whether Supreme Court Justices, members of Congress, pro-life religious leaders or ordinary people — need to put action alongside their words. They need, in short, to come up with a plan, spread the word far and wide, and actually demonstrate they will do something about it.

People who wish to force women to have babies should themselves be willing to take and adopt them and to raise them in a good environment. It seems that these mainline religious organizations — whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever — should make it known that their members are willing to take such action. Spread the gospel, so to speak, to abortion clinics, on TV, in the media and so forth.

This may seem impractical. Richard and Lisa are no spring chickens. But what about their children, who have been raised by their parents with “the right stuff.” Would Chief Justice Roberts and his associate justices who ruled against women in the last Supreme Court session adopt some children? They certainly could afford it and could give those children a fine environment.

When there are millions of people who are willing and have taken a pledge to raise the children of pregnant women who, for one reason or another, do not wish to have a baby, I would feel much better about this sad situation and would look more favorably upon their goal to prevent women from having abortions. That, to me, is the challenge of the right-to-life people.