Imagine if a hundred years from now our nation considers abortions to be murder. Imagine that all those who spoke for "choice" are then dishonored or cancelled. Abortion rights marchers considered like a lynch mob. Roe v. Wade seen as worse than the Dred Scott decision. Nancy Pelosi's portrait removed from the capitol, names of schools honoring Obama and Clinton changed, History books rewritten to describe this as a vastly immoral time, because in their pro-life era, it is.
My point is that judging one era by the values of a later era is essentially unfair. FDR fought World War II with segregated regiments and air units. Should we now cancel him? Dwight Eisenhower, JFK and Harry Truman served in our segregated military without obvious resistance, should we now cancel them?
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I used to ask my students if they thought theirs was the most stressful time to be alive, most thought exactly that. Then I'd tell them of my wife's great grandmother who had something like 9 children, lost four of them in one week to diphtheria, and couldn't just lie down and quit because she still had several who needed her. Did that make her callous? I'm sure she remembered the departed's dear little faces for the rest of her life.
My question to my students was, "Do you think you'll ever experience anything that awful in your life?" None thought so. My point was and is, the past is a different time, with different values and expectations, different challenges.
They lived their lives by their values, with their trials and hurdles. Judge them by what they accomplished and the barriers they overcame, not be today's values. And remember, tomorrow's values may cause our descendants to view us with something far less than approval. Shall they cancel us for our by-their-lights shortcomings?
