There is no shortage of voices on either side of the human rights debate over abortion that fearfully acknowledge a civil war may be in our civilizational offing.  If they’re right, if our civilization crumbles as a result of this issue, no one should deny the influence social media had on exacerbating the explosive rancor that provoked it.  To say Twitter has become a divisive tool of Satan for misinformation and manipulation would be an understatement of epic proportions.

As but one example, here’s Rose Eveleth, a reporter and writer from Berkeley who was so incensed by those who believe aborting children should be illegal she publicly lamented: 

So let's recap:
→ sex ed is discouraged
→ birth control is impossible to access
→ abortion and miscarriage are considered felonies
→ felons can't vote

— Rose Eveleth ▷▷ (@roseveleth) May 15, 2019

Rose has been Twitter-verified.  Rose is an intelligent woman.  And yet Rose’s emotion runs so wild on this issue that she fumed about things that are patently and demonstrably false.

Sex ed is discouraged?  There’s no time in history where sex ed has been more encouraged, promoted, or mandated as it is now.  Children are bombarded with sexual topics and information in the earliest grades of elementary school.  Anecdotally, I learned about the birds and the bees on the bus when I was in the 5^th grade.  Now, schools are adopting sex ed curriculum for as early as Kindergarten and 1^st graders. 

As but one example, California’s Healthy Youth Act provides a new comprehensive sex ed curriculum for all children Kindergarten through 12^th grade that includes instruction about highly controversial topics like sexual orientation and gender identity.  Whatever any of us feel about the content, the argument that “sex ed is discouraged” in 2019 America is flatly absurd.

It’s almost as absurd as the notion that birth control is impossible to access.  At any drug store in any town, in any state, birth control is more plentiful and cheaper than it has ever been.  Perhaps Rose is frustrated over businesses not wanting to pay for birth control drugs in various insurance policies?  But saying that birth control is “impossible to access” defies what is plainly apparent to anyone who has ever walked in a Walmart.

But Rose still isn’t finished.  She asserts that “miscarriages are considered felonies,” referencing newly passed laws in Alabama and Georgia.  Again, that is intentionally misleading for the purpose of being provocative and inflammatory.  Miscarriages, as commonly understood, are certainly not felonies in even the most pro-life of states.  Micaiah Bilger explains,

This (claim that miscarriages will be prosecuted) is simply not true. While the law does allow for the prosecution of abortionists who abort unborn babies in violation of the measure, it does not allow prosecution of mothers who have abortions or miscarriages.

The law even specifically notes that procedures to treat a “spontaneous abortion,” meaning a miscarriage or stillbirth, are not punishable under the law. The same is true of removing an ectopic pregnancy, a condition that can threaten the mother’s life, according to the law.

Just as important, the pro-life movement has no interest whatsoever in punishing mothers for abortions – and especially not for miscarriages – both of which are tragic losses. Many pro-life leaders are post-abortive women and men themselves who understood only too late the lies of the abortion industry.

This is exactly right.  Outside their perpetual outrage machine, most pro-abortion folks recognize that what motivates the life movement is largely a desire to protect children, but also a desire to eliminate what is a very useful tool of those who use, abuse, and exploit women.

I simply refuse to believe that Rose Eveleth is too unintelligent to understand the falsity of what she is writing and publishing.  She knows the words she tweets are incorrect and that they are inciting anger and rage amongst her followers and supporters.  Yet she continues willfully and without remorse.  And she’s not alone.  Thousands of others do the exact same thing.

Last time our country was split equally over the dignity and rights of our fellow man, it exploded into a gruesome civil war.  I pray regularly we aren’t forced to endure anything like that in our modern era.  If God delivers us from that fate, it will be in spite of too many people’s best efforts on social media.