The real thought police. . .

Oddly enough, it is those who claim to be tolerant who are the most invasive when it comes to controlling the mind and the heart.  The persistent charge against those who hold to the sacredness of life (whether as a religious tenet or simply as a moral truth) are the ones trying to get into a woman's body in order to exert control over her body -- stealing from her the autonomy of her very person.  I suppose that if you have no view of life that holds it special or worth preserving in any significant way, that might seem to be the case.  After all, those who oppose any restrictions on the prevention of the death of the child in the womb are the same people who insist upon every individual having the full right and means to end their life painlessly when they so choose.  So it is pretty obvious that there is no real moral principle at work except radical autonomy that includes the right to take a life (in the womb or your own) as inviolate.  In reality those who are prolife do not want to control the woman but they also do not want the woman to have control over the life in her womb either.  That is the key difference.  They want the life to be allowed to live (or die) without that choice being made for the child and the same privilege to be extended to all living.  Natural beginning to its natural end.  That is the slogan.  The prolife do not want to be in the womb or anywhere else in the woman.  They want the life in the womb to be respected as life -- with its own DNA, body, organs, mind, and life!

That is not how it is for those on the other side.  They do not want anyone to be allowed to think differently about this life or to even pray silently anywhere near where the life in the womb will be taken.  Evidence that in the strange case in Great Britain of a man being arrested for having the nerve to pray privately and quietly within range of an abortion clinic.  The man was arrested in November of 2022 and the conversation with the arresting officer was captured on film and went like this:

Police: “We just wanted to come over and say hello, but also just to inquire as to your activities for today.”

Adam: “Well, I’m praying.”

Police: “In terms of that, can I ask what is the nature of your prayer today?”

In other words, the government has passed laws and sent out police to enforce those laws not to prevent some sort of loud protest movement or some obvious stance that opposed the law but to prevent the simple act of praying privately.  The government wants to control the mind.  Tell me that is not more extreme than anything proposed by those who support life?  The government as much as admitted it:

We know legal restrictions on Christian beliefs exist in other countries around the world in order to protect the dominant religion, for example, through blasphemy, apostasy, and anti-conversion laws. But in recent years the West has adopted its own secular versions of these laws, protecting the dominant secular ideologies of our day.

While everyone admits that the government has certain rights to interfere with the public expression of the individual, the lines of that limitation have moved increasingly away from the public nature to the private thoughts of the individual.  These, too, it would seem are within reach of the government's right to restrict and punish.  Those who are worried about the extent of the government's ability to control the individual should look no further than this case to see what happens when nothing is private and everything is subject to the government for control, restriction, and punishment.