What Does "Forced Birth Can Be the Greatest Healing Agent" Mean?
A drill down into this Christo-fascist language for PAID SUBSCRIBERS. Thank you for paying for my work. Your support makes this project possible.
Every time a Christian Nationalist Republican says something like forced birth can be the greatest healing agent, liberals lose their minds. How can they be so cruel? Why do they hate women?
While these reactions are understandable, even justified, they fail to call out the Christo-fascist underpinnings of such statements. When Christian Nationalists say forced birth can be the greatest healing agent, here’s what they mean.
God Is Punishing the Woman for Overt or Hidden Sin
Whatever Christian Nationalists say about fealty to Jesus, they worship the vengeful Old Testament God. That God kept score. He destroyed armies, rained hellfire on entire cities, and demanded that adulterers be stoned to death.
One meaning of this Christo-fascist phrase? God is punishing the woman for overt or hidden sin. If she heeds God’s call and rises to the challenge of motherhood, it will be the greatest healing agent between her and God.
Christian Nationalists don’t see this attitude as cruel or misogynistic. They believe the woman should be grateful, because God cares for her enough to punish her. (I’m not kidding.)
God Is Trying to Get the Woman’s Attention
Christian Nationalists also believe God sends trials to people who have deviated from his divine path for their lives. I don’t often use personal examples, but since this is a post for paid subscribers, I will.
I have an incurable parasitic disease. It has caused partial blindness in one eye. When I was diagnosed with this illness, my Christian Nationalist parents told me God was trying to get my attention. He didn’t approve of my life, my career, or other choices.
Instead of offering me empathy, they did as they have been indoctrinated: They reminded me to focus on eternity and turn back to God, because they believe that is the ultimate message of love. They don’t see this behavior as cold or cruel or uncaring. They believe it will heal my relationship with God.
(I don’t need supportive comments. I’m strong and powerful and well-adjusted. I merely share this anecdote as a good example of this thinking.)
God Doesn’t Make Mistakes
Christian Nationalists assign this phrase to many things. Trans people don’t exist, because God created Adam and Eve. Ditto all other LGBTQIA+ markers. God gave a woman her pregnancy, and he didn’t make a mistake.
They don’t care whether a woman meant to be pregnant. If God gave her a pregnancy, God meant for her to have the baby. Maybe because he believes she is ready to be a mom. Or because he has a plan for her child. Or because the child will help her grow closer to God.
They also see this as a message of love and healing, not cruelty.
God Means for the Woman to Bear the Consequences for her Actions
Christian Nationalists do not believe a married woman can be raped. It is her duty to provide sexual succor to her husband whenever he wants it.
And if an unmarried woman is raped? She was in the wrong place. She was engaging in sinful activities like drinking or dancing. She wore tempting clothes. She was a tease.
It is almost impossible to find a Christian Nationalist who will blame the man for raping a woman. It is always the woman’s responsibility to control herself because the man cannot control himself.
Rape and pregnancy are consequences for women who don’t control themselves. They also don’t believe this viewpoint is cruel or misogynistic. It is God’s will.
It is time for anyone who is appalled by such phrases to start calling them what they are: Christo-fascists forcing their religious beliefs on everyone.
They are forcing everyone to accept their narrow Biblical interpretation of when life begins. Forcing people to live by their prudish notions of proper sexual conduct. Forcing women to be pregnant and have babies to honor a religious code many of them don’t even follow. Forcing people into broken lives so they will be ripe for forced religious indoctrination.
Yes, they are cruel. Yes, they are misogynists. BECAUSE THEY ARE RELIGIOUS FASCISTS. WE MUST CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE.
I too have seen this kind of thing in operation. You present it in a far more nuanced fashion than simply saying 'the cruelty is the point.' It is their right to believe in a cruel God, but all the more reason that religious beliefs have no place in governance and law.
It strikes me that this also explains why they oppose all practical governmental solutions to poverty and other social ills and why they seem to lack compassion for people who are suffering. They can rationalize the existence of human suffering with the concept of an all powerful god by claiming that god is testing or punishing the sufferer. And they can rationalize their selfishness and refusal to help others as a virtue by claiming such help would pose a moral hazard to the recipient.