Jay, Scott, and Rich are back to take on the most recent news in the bioethics community. This week we address the Obama administration's mandate for religious organizations to include contraceptive and abortifacient coverage in their health insurance. Is this just a "Catholic Issue", or is there significant ramifications for those of all faiths.
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I just listened to the audio of the Mefferd show:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.janetmefferdpremium.com/2012/02/17/janet-mefferd-radio-show-20120217-hr-1/?popup=true
I see a divided pro-life movement where the “personhood now” folks won’t support and even bad mouth regulatory measures while the “personhood later” folks won’t support and even bad mouth immediate bans on abortion.
The problem is that both sides sincerely believe that the other side is “setting the movement back”. The “now” folks see regulatory laws as actually implementing baby killing (“and then you can kill the baby”) in the law and thus setting the movement back. The “later” folks see an immediate ban as a set back because of the possible addition of pro-abortion precedent. Both of these positions are plausible.
It’s too much to ask that the sides set aside their sincerely held beliefs and their desire to speak out against what appear to them to be the detrimental impact of the other side’s tactics. It’s not too much to ask though that pro-lifers refrain from attacking the motives of those with whom they disagree. Many “personhood now” folks are very good at reading negative motives onto their fellow pro-lifers. Scott, on the other hand, doesn’t make this mistake.
I certainly agree with Scott that "and then you can kill the baby" is an unfair characterization of pro-life regulatory efforts. Scott defends his position well.
Scott is wrong though to call certain legislation "incremental". Most of these types of bills might save babies – and therefore are worthy of support – but they don't get us any closer to the final goal of banning abortion. Seriously, how does an ultra-sound bill get us closer to banning abortion? "Regulation" would be a more accurate description than "incremental".
Scott is also incorrect that a failure in the courts for personhood would be setting the movement back. Such a failure would not remove any of the current pro-life regulatory measures. Such a failure would only add a worthless precedent. I say the precedent is worthless because good Supreme Court judges ignore precedents that are unconstitutional. Bad judges, as we have seen, don’t care about precedent when they want to institute their own ideology as the law. In addition, bad judges already have all the precedent they need to hide behind in order to keep baby killing legal. Another precedent does nothing.
If Scott’s best objection to “personhood now” is bad precedent, he should change his position to support these efforts.