Health care?

 

Oh, how enlightened we’ve become, haven’t we? In this dazzling age of progress, where every word is twisted to suit the whims of the moment, we’re told with straight faces and solemn nods that abortion is “healthcare.” Healthcare! The term rolls off the tongue so smoothly, doesn’t it? It’s got that clinical sheen, that antiseptic glow, as if it’s been scrubbed clean of all meaning by the high priests of modernity. You can almost hear the stethoscope clinking against the clipboard: “Step right up, ladies, for your dose of wellness—nothing says ‘self-care’ like a procedure that ends a heartbeat!”

It’s a marvel, really, how we’ve managed to dress up the termination of a life in the crisp white coat of medicine. Once upon a time, healthcare meant healing—binding wounds, curing fevers, coaxing the sick back to strength. But no, we’re far too sophisticated for such quaint notions now. Today, it’s about empowerment, they say, about choice—never mind that the choice always seems to end in the same quiet, irreversible silence. The irony is thick enough to choke on: a doctor, trained to preserve life, now doubles as a gatekeeper to its end, all under the banner of compassion. G.K. Chesterton, that old curmudgeon of common sense, would’ve had a field day with this—he’d probably say we’ve turned the hospital into a temple where the sacrificial altar just happens to look like an operating table.

And while we’re at it, let’s not overlook the latest gem in this crown of enlightened care: “sex affirming care.” What a phrase! It’s got all the trappings of nobility—affirmation, care, a whiff of liberation—as if slicing away at perfectly healthy flesh or pumping bodies full of hormones is the pinnacle of medical virtue. Once, we called it mutilation or experimentation, but now it’s a sacred rite, a ticket to authenticity, presided over by surgeons wielding scalpels like wands. Healthcare, you see, no longer bothers with the mundane task of aligning with nature—it’s too busy rewriting it, one incision at a time, all to applause from the choir of progress. Truly, a triumph of the human spirit—or at least of human hubris.

The faithful flock to this new religion, don’t they? The prophets of “reproductive health” and “gender affirmation” preach from their pulpits—be it the sleek studios of cable news or the hallowed halls of academia—assuring us that this is progress, that we’re shedding the shackles of superstition. They clutch their pearls at the thought of anyone questioning the sanctity of this “care,” as if the mere suggestion that a fetus might be more than a clump of cells, or that biology might have a say in who we are, is an affront to science itself. Never mind that science, pesky as it is, keeps showing us heartbeats at six weeks, fingerprints at twelve, tiny toes wiggling in the womb—or chromosomes that don’t bend to our feelings. No, no, facts are no match for the dogma of convenience—why let biology spoil a good narrative?

What’s most delicious, though, is the sanctimony of it all. These champions of “healthcare” wrap themselves in the mantle of justice, painting anyone who disagrees as a backward brute, a relic of some dark age where people actually believed in things like innocence or the sanctity of life. They’ll tell you it’s about women’s bodies, women’s rights—fair enough, until you notice they’re awfully quiet about the little body that doesn’t get a say. Or they’ll insist it’s about identity, about living one’s truth—conveniently ignoring the truth of the body left scarred or sterile in the name of affirmation. It’s a sleight of hand worthy of a carnival magician: focus on the autonomy of one, and presto, the other vanishes from the conversation entirely. C.S. Lewis might’ve called it a triumph of the “abolition of man”—or, in this case, the abolition of the yet-to-be-born and the very nature we’re born with, all for the greater good, of course.

Let’s not kid ourselves: this isn’t healthcare, it’s a transaction. A cold, calculated exchange where one life is traded for another’s ease, or one reality is swapped for a mirage, and we’re all supposed to clap and call it liberation. The clinics hum along, the rhetoric flows like honey, and the culture nods approvingly, patting itself on the back for being so terribly humane. Meanwhile, the irony festers—healthcare that kills, compassion that discards, freedom that binds us to a lie. And yet, here we are, expected to swallow it whole, lest we be branded as the unenlightened ones. Well, forgive me if I’d rather choke on the truth than sip this particular brew of progress. Salud, indeed.

by Alfonso Beccar Varela and Grok. Illustrated by Grok.