They understand that a world without reproductive choice is a world of grief and pain. And they believe that reflects a reality with which we all must come to terms
Unfortunately, "true believers" will never recognize the logical errors in their dangerous counterfactual fallacies exactly because we are not dealing with logic, but rather with religious blind belief. While looking backward from a position of a positive outcome, it is easy for Barnett to map that onto the religious belief that God uses bad people and bad experiences for "his" good. I understand that religious fundamentalism is a force that refuses to acknowledge the religious liberty they already possess in the freedom to live their lives according to their faith and conscience is not an edict applicable to everyone. The struggle for women's freedom has against it the most formidable foe worldwide: religious fundamentalism. I believe the sacrifice required of all who wish to fully face that foe within our families and communities remains elusive because of its size and personal consequences, and not for lack of understanding.
Walther's piece was startling. I'm not quite sure I'd say it is honest in the sense that it makes some really odd pseudo-eugenicist claims both about the consequences and causes of abortion. E.g., he takes the way that economists and economistic thinkers have thought about population, reproduction, contraception and abortion and assumes them to be the way that everyone who advocates a right to abortion is thinking--as if we're all motivated by an instrumental desire to reduce the number of births for the social good, that abortion's justifications were about a kind of totalitarian demographic social policy. This is certainly factually wrong about its history; I think it's even a shockingly simplistic way of thinking about birth rates, population growth and social policy (with a hint of 'replacement theory' swimming around in there). But as you say, it may be 'honest' in that it reflects his real thinking--and most importantly, his thinking that if banning abortion has cruel consequences for individuals and for society as a whole it is a transcendently good thing in and of itself and that this cruelty is of no real concern (and cannot be ameliorated by some other sort of social policy).
Unfortunately, "true believers" will never recognize the logical errors in their dangerous counterfactual fallacies exactly because we are not dealing with logic, but rather with religious blind belief. While looking backward from a position of a positive outcome, it is easy for Barnett to map that onto the religious belief that God uses bad people and bad experiences for "his" good. I understand that religious fundamentalism is a force that refuses to acknowledge the religious liberty they already possess in the freedom to live their lives according to their faith and conscience is not an edict applicable to everyone. The struggle for women's freedom has against it the most formidable foe worldwide: religious fundamentalism. I believe the sacrifice required of all who wish to fully face that foe within our families and communities remains elusive because of its size and personal consequences, and not for lack of understanding.
Walther's piece was startling. I'm not quite sure I'd say it is honest in the sense that it makes some really odd pseudo-eugenicist claims both about the consequences and causes of abortion. E.g., he takes the way that economists and economistic thinkers have thought about population, reproduction, contraception and abortion and assumes them to be the way that everyone who advocates a right to abortion is thinking--as if we're all motivated by an instrumental desire to reduce the number of births for the social good, that abortion's justifications were about a kind of totalitarian demographic social policy. This is certainly factually wrong about its history; I think it's even a shockingly simplistic way of thinking about birth rates, population growth and social policy (with a hint of 'replacement theory' swimming around in there). But as you say, it may be 'honest' in that it reflects his real thinking--and most importantly, his thinking that if banning abortion has cruel consequences for individuals and for society as a whole it is a transcendently good thing in and of itself and that this cruelty is of no real concern (and cannot be ameliorated by some other sort of social policy).