Arguing for Slavery

It must be providence. I was thinking about the abortion issue early this morning and the bad arguments that are usually employed in favor of abortion. During that process of thought I began to wonder if the people who favored slavery in America employed the same kind of arguments we hear for abortion today. Well, it was not too long after that that I came across an article written by Father Thomas D. Williams.

He writes,

“It is fascinating to read over texts circulated in the middle of the 19th century in defense of the practice of slavery. When we look back at how revered politicians, intellectuals, and churchmen could seriously defend a practice that now seems so patently barbaric, we cannot help feeling a twinge of moral superiority. Yet their arguments bear an uncanny resemblance to those now used to defend abortion, almost as if pro-choicers had been using these tracts as fodder for their own rhetoric. From Nancy Pelosi’s “historical argument” (“Slavery was practiced in the greatest civilizations”) to Joe Biden’s “personally opposed” argument (“No one is forcing you to own slaves, just to respect those who do”), all the way to the feminists’ “woman has a right to her own body” argument (“Slaves have been bought and paid for and no one has the right to touch another’s property”) to Obama’s “We don’t know when life begins” argument (“We’re not sure whether black people have souls”), it is truly déjà vu all over again.”

That’s amazing.