Ahlquist & GKC - 'Splendid Dupes'

THE NORMAL PERSON has always known that preventing the birth of a baby is a highly unnatural act, no matter how it is done. But it is made to sound harmless and even sensible when it is called "eugenic" or when it is called birth control or when it is called reproductive freedom. But anyone who cannot see the real evil behind such terms is what Chesterton calls a "splendid dupe."

Evil always takes advantage of ambiguity ... Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.

The only way to explain what happened in Nazi Germany (which took its lessons directly from Margaret Sanger and her Birth Control Review) is that evil won through the strength of its splendid dupes: too many people thought they were doing a good thing because they believed a lie. A lie that sounded good because it was called patriotic and was supported by the scientific officialism of the regime. It is also the only way to explain what has happened in this country for the last three decades. Millions of people have believed an incredibly evil lie. A lie that sounds good because it is called "choice". A lie that sounds even better when it has scientific officialism behind it.

- G. K. Chesterton - Apostle of Common Sense, p. 155