It happens infrequently, perhaps not as infrequently as the arrival of Halley’s Comet, but infrequently enough to arouse attention: a celebrated media personality proclaiming his allegiance with the lives of the unborn. Kelsey Grammer, famous for his roles on the TV hits, Cheers and Frasier, posted a view of himself wearing a pro-life shirt that read: “Would it bother us more if we used guns?” His t-shirt was designed by the pro-life advocacy group Abort73.
Grammer’s shirt provoked outrage from the panelists on ABC’s The View. The program’s title raises the question, “When is a view a view?” Apparently, the answer is only when it is politically correct. That is to say, there is only one view. The pro-life view is not a “view”. So much for diversity, pluralism, liberalism, tolerance, and rainbows.
Katie Yoder carried the story, “Whoopi slams Kelsey Grammer’s pro-life t-shirt: men can’t talk about abortion,” for Newsbusters (October 12, 2015). Whoopi Goldberg introduced a segment of The View by expressing her outrage over the view that Grammer’s t-shirt conveyed. She held firmly to the pro-abortion view of choice, not mindful of the fact that her narrow conception of this value did not extend to a choice for life. Nor was she willing to allow Grammer the right to smile, a gesture that she emphatically denounced. Rather, she held to the contradictory view that gun violence and violence via the abortionist’s knife, though they both end the lives of their victims, should not be equated. It is the instrumentality that she opposes, not the end result. Not only does the end justify the means, in her view, but the means justifies the end. Concerning “choice”, one should never view the end; concerning abortion one should never view the means.
For Ms. Goldberg, Grammer disqualifies himself from saying anything about abortion since he is a male. On the face of things, that remark might be called “sexist” since most abortions are performed by males. Moreover, statistically, males are more likely to be pro-abortion than females. Men are allowed to express their views on abortion, according to Goldberg, as long as they support it. Apparently, at least on the issue of abortion, only men are eligible for being branded as sexist.
The issue of sexism aside, Whoopi then ventured into the area of religion in order to buttress her position. This appears to be disingenuous because pro-abortionists have fought hard to keep religion out of the abortion discussion. Nonetheless, Ms. Goldberg established a woman’s right to abort on a religions premise. “But if you’re a woman who has found that she needs to get an abortion,” she argued, “isn’t that her choice between her and her God?” A man, therefore, has no right to interpose himself between a woman and her God. Such an interposition would, for Whoopi, be sacrilegious.
It is not without significance that Goldberg’s theology identifies the Divinity as “her” God rather than “God”. But what kind of God has she invented for herself? The God who speaks through Genesis is a Creator who is concerned about the people He has created. “Where is your brother?” he asks Cain. Had Cain conferred with God about whether or not he should kill his brother, it seems clear enough that God would have said, “No,” in accordance with His command, “Thou shall not kill.” If God is the Creator, does man have the right to be the de-creator? Can man veto God’s work and then abolish it? Does God’s creation flow from his wisdom or from his tentativeness? It is not good theology to believe that God creates a human being and then approves its rejection. God commands us, He does not submit to us. Whoopi’s theology is inverted. She presumes to be the one in charge, not God. Her “God” is really a puppet on a string. It is this kind of poorly thought out religion that should be kept out of the abortion discussion. No one will ever encounter Whoopi’s God, not even Whoopi herself.
By contrast, Kelsey Grammer is on firm ground when he calls attention to the end (the millions of unborn babies who are aborted), exhibits the courage to present a politically incorrect view (though one that is eminently humane), and challenges the establishment to examine its own hypocrisy (the belief that, in spite of its approval of wholesale killing, it claims to have attained the higher ground). He is trying to get the establishment to say, “Woops, we made a mistake.” May his tribe increase.