Anti-abortion news and opinion websites have taken to calling Chinese dissident Guangcheng Chen “pro-life,” which is fundamentally misleading. Chen is not opposed to abortion, per se, he’s opposed to forced abortion.
This spring, workers at Planned Parenthood began to notice a flurry of visits from women asking very pointedly if they could use the women’s health organization’s services to abort a child based on gender. What’s the aim of these hoax visits? Support for PRENDA, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, a bill currently making its way through Congress.
The fact is, there is a significant and sustained tradition within Catholic (and not only Catholic) religious thought, which stands in sharp opposition to much liberal political reasoning. Yet it’s that very liberal reasoning which would give religions a designated space where they can be faithful, without imposing such faithfulness on others—provided those groups implicitly agree to the underlying liberal presuppositions.
The reason we talk about Egypt’s Salafis isn’t because we’re debating theology, at least not primarily—I don’t think we’re actually concerned with the specifics of Islamic thought. We’re more worried about what Salafism and Islamism generally means for our interests, values, and the Muslim world. At bottom, our concerns over Salafis are concerns over what they’ll do when they’re in power.