We are no better than the Ancients

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

In ancient times, unwanted babies were often abandoned in a process called “exposure.”  

Exposure is exactly what it sounds like, the babies were simply left out somewhere to die of hypothermia, dehydration, starvation or attack by wild animals. One of the most famous babies to be subject to exposure was Moses, but there are many other children in ancient literature, both real and mythological, who received the same treatment. In mythology, Romulus and Remus come to mind.

According to “The Journal of Roman Studies” (Cambridge Press, 2012), “…it [exposure] was widely accepted as unavoidable. Some, especially Stoics, disagreed, as did contemporary Judaism, insisting that all infants, or at least all viable and legitimate infants, should be kept alive.”

Wikipedia reports “Infanticide became forbidden in Europe and the Near East during the 1st millennium. Christianity forbade infanticide from its earliest times, which led Constantine the Great and Valentinian I to ban infanticide across the Roman Empire in the 4th century. Yet, infanticide was not unacceptable in some wars, and infanticide in Europe reached its peak during World War II (1939–45), during the Holocaust and the T4 Program.* The practice ceased in Arabia in the 7th century after the founding of Islam, since the Quran prohibits infanticide.”

So, congratulations, the current U.S. trend regarding the practice of abortion seems to fit right in with the human cultures of old. It is only in modern times, with the introduction of Christianity and Islam, has the practice of shedding ourselves of unwanted children been addressed.  

Until now.

At least I have found something on which Christians and Muslims agree – no infanticide.

Of course, it has been said we live in post-Christian America, and I couldn’t agree more. The deconstruction of the Christianity of my youth, both inside and outside churches, has been shocking and swift.

Yet, there is more. Unsatisfied with mere abortion, modern culture has embraced the other side of the same coin…transgenderism.
 
In the September 2023 issue of Imprimis, published by Hillsdale College, Christopher F. Rufo’s transcribed talk is titled, “Inside the Transgender Empire.” It is free online, and I suggest you read it in its entirety at https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/inside-the-transgender-empire/

Rufo reports “…In the late 1980s, a group of academics, including Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin, Sandy Stone and Susan Stryker, established the disciplines of “queer theory” and “transgender studies.” 

These academics believed gender to be a “social construct” used to oppress racial and sexual minorities, and they denounced the traditional categories of man and woman as a false binary that was conceived to support the system of “heteronormativity” – i.e., the white, male, heterosexual power structure.  

This system, they argued, had to be ruthlessly deconstructed. And the best way to achieve this, they argued further, was to promote transgenderism. If men can become women, and women men, they believed, the natural structure of Creation could be toppled.

As a white male who barely escaped abortion (I have reported on this here before), I keep looking for this alleged great advantage I have over others. In 73 years, I have not found it nor has anyone cited me for it.

Susan Stryker, mentioned above and who identifies as male, offers these tidbits cited by Rufo: “…a secular sermon that unabashedly advocates embracing a disruptive and refigurative (sic) genderqueer or transgender power as a spiritual resource for social and environmental transformation; [who] is destined to channel its ‘rage and revenge’ against the ‘naturalized heterosexual order’; against ‘traditional family values’; and against the ‘hegemonic oppression’ of nature itself.”

When I think of “nature itself,” I think of all the animals I have observed down through the years, both domesticated and wild. I have never seen any other being except human beings get so worked up over their gender and the gender of others.  

Reflecting on this, going forward I think I will identify as a kangaroo, they are kind of built like me – skinny at the top and flaring out as one gets closer to the ground.

Note: *T4 Program was a euthanasia procedure set up by Nazi Germany.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.