In their zeal to defend abortion at all costs, governments are beginning to criminalise silent thought. Their efforts must be resisted.
Since its earliest versions surfaced sometime in the Middle Ages, the venerable German folk song “Die Gedanken sind frei” (Thoughts are free) has been an anthem to a keystone of human dignity: freedom of thought. This song gives voice to the fact that, while oppressive authorities can forbid speech, assembly, worship, or anything else that happens outside the realm of a person’s consciousness, what goes on inside the brain cannot be stopped by anyone. In Germany, the song’s contemporary version took shape in the first half of the 19th century, expressing popular opposition to censorship and authoritarianism. Forbidden after the failed German revolution of 1848, it resurfaced in 1898 when the composer Gustav Mahler included it in his song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn). In the 1930s and ’40s, the song played a role in the resistance against Nazism. In 1989, demonstrators sang it to express their demand for a peaceful transition to democracy in the German Democratic Republic.
