Robert Gibbs: "We can have a discussion in our democracy about where we want to go and why or why not we want to take certain steps. The president strongly believes we can do so without yelling at each other, without pushing each other, without degrading each other, and do so in a way that respects the difference in all our opinions."
As Gibbs said that, I couldn't help but feel like a fly on the wall while Obama officiates a dispute between his daughters.
It's like Obama's our dad and we, the citizens of the United States of America, are all his children. Dad knows what's best for us even if we don't. And if we'll just let him take care of us, everything will be alright.
I just wonder if that's how Obama, his staff, and the Democrats in congress really see things.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
A Holistic Solution
They say that 46 million people are uninsured in America. I wonder if that means there are 46 million people who wouldn’t have any access to healthcare if they needed it. Or does that simply mean that there are 46 million people who don’t have any visible means of paying for healthcare should they need it.
I had a long talk with Ania yesterday about the rise of anti-depressant use in this country. There was an article out and we had both read it. 75 million people, I think, was the number.
I wonder if the current “cost per capita” of the US health care system takes the cost of prescription medication into account and if among prescriptions medications anti-depressants are included. I’ve suspected for years that we over-medicate here in America. I wonder if we’re over-medicating—and over-diagnosing.
Maybe a healthcare overhaul means something completely different than how it’s paid for. Maybe the focus should be on defining healthcare and reforming some of our basic assumptions. Maybe holistic medicine shouldn’t be synonymous with new age quackery and should be a legitimate medical approach whereby the whole person is considered in his or her totality—mind, body, and spirit. And lifestyle would be inseparable from that.
The other day I was driving with my dad and I stepped hard on the gas in an effort to get ahead of somebody. My engine whined as my little Corolla sped up by about 20 miles per hour in a few seconds. My dad commented how bad that was for my engine. Same with slamming on the brakes or driving a stick-shift in the wrong gear. My point is, I think we as a nation actually have the right attitude towards preventative care and thinking about the harmful long-term harmful effects of bad behavior, but all too often, that attitude is directed towards our cars. Maybe if auto insurance covered maintenance and repairs and if our auto insurance premiums came out of our salary at work before we ever saw the money, we’d be a lot less concerned about oil changes and tune ups. We’d drive however we felt like, ignore regular maintenance, and then bring the car in for invasive surgery while we got to drive a snazzy loaner car—all paid for by insurance.
As it is, most of us set money aside for our regular auto maintenance so we can avoid the hefty repair costs that neglect would bring down upon us. But be that as it may, when our transmission finally DOES go out, if we have the money and if a new car isn’t cheaper, we reluctantly but willingly pony up the cash.
How different that seems to be from our attitude towards our own bodies. It reminds me of the Simpsons where Homer has his bypass operation. He pulls into a filling station because he hears a loud thumping noise. The attendant tells Homer it’s his heart. Relieved, Homer said he was afraid it was his transmission and drives away.
It’s comedy but I think it illustrates a point very well. He was worried when he was afraid his car was on its last leg but relieved when it was only his heart.
My point is, we as Americans KNOW how to take care of things but many of us don’t take very good care of our bodies. We eat the wrong things and we eat too much of it. We eat too often. We drive when we could walk. We don’t take enough time to relax in healthy ways. And even when we take time to focus on our physical and mental health, all too often our spiritual health is neglected entirely.
I’d say that the majority of the people in this country consider spiritual reality a reality. I’ll bet that nine out of ten people would agree with the assertion that man is a composite creature consisting of mind, body, and spirit. Medical science (and medical techniques and training) seem to recognize the first two (otherwise there wouldn’t be a distinction between mental health and physical health—all thing being physical) but not the third.
If spiritual reality is a reality in an objective sense, than it remains so whether medical science recognizes its importance or not. I suspect that much that is mistaken for and treated as mental and physical illness is, in reality, spiritual illness. Perhaps as many as half the cases of depression start out as a spiritual illness that spread out and infect the mind and then even the body. The body and mind are treated with medication while the root cause is left along to just get worse and worse.
I recognize that I’m starting to sound like a Christian Scientist or (gulp) a Scientologist here. But just because those two groups go too far doesn’t mean that they’re completely wrong. Jesus and his disciples DID drive out demons (or so the stories go). I don’t think they were JUST curing mental illness in each and every case.
And we can disbelieve in the possibility of demonic possession but if we still believe that man has a spirit—that man has a soul—than we have also to account for the ways in which the spirit or soul may interact with the body and the mind. And when we treat the whole person, we have to consider his spirit as well.
But this is getting to long. I only meant to propose that REAL healthcare reform may have a good deal less to with the costs and great deal more to do with how patients are treated.
I had a long talk with Ania yesterday about the rise of anti-depressant use in this country. There was an article out and we had both read it. 75 million people, I think, was the number.
I wonder if the current “cost per capita” of the US health care system takes the cost of prescription medication into account and if among prescriptions medications anti-depressants are included. I’ve suspected for years that we over-medicate here in America. I wonder if we’re over-medicating—and over-diagnosing.
Maybe a healthcare overhaul means something completely different than how it’s paid for. Maybe the focus should be on defining healthcare and reforming some of our basic assumptions. Maybe holistic medicine shouldn’t be synonymous with new age quackery and should be a legitimate medical approach whereby the whole person is considered in his or her totality—mind, body, and spirit. And lifestyle would be inseparable from that.
The other day I was driving with my dad and I stepped hard on the gas in an effort to get ahead of somebody. My engine whined as my little Corolla sped up by about 20 miles per hour in a few seconds. My dad commented how bad that was for my engine. Same with slamming on the brakes or driving a stick-shift in the wrong gear. My point is, I think we as a nation actually have the right attitude towards preventative care and thinking about the harmful long-term harmful effects of bad behavior, but all too often, that attitude is directed towards our cars. Maybe if auto insurance covered maintenance and repairs and if our auto insurance premiums came out of our salary at work before we ever saw the money, we’d be a lot less concerned about oil changes and tune ups. We’d drive however we felt like, ignore regular maintenance, and then bring the car in for invasive surgery while we got to drive a snazzy loaner car—all paid for by insurance.
As it is, most of us set money aside for our regular auto maintenance so we can avoid the hefty repair costs that neglect would bring down upon us. But be that as it may, when our transmission finally DOES go out, if we have the money and if a new car isn’t cheaper, we reluctantly but willingly pony up the cash.
How different that seems to be from our attitude towards our own bodies. It reminds me of the Simpsons where Homer has his bypass operation. He pulls into a filling station because he hears a loud thumping noise. The attendant tells Homer it’s his heart. Relieved, Homer said he was afraid it was his transmission and drives away.
It’s comedy but I think it illustrates a point very well. He was worried when he was afraid his car was on its last leg but relieved when it was only his heart.
My point is, we as Americans KNOW how to take care of things but many of us don’t take very good care of our bodies. We eat the wrong things and we eat too much of it. We eat too often. We drive when we could walk. We don’t take enough time to relax in healthy ways. And even when we take time to focus on our physical and mental health, all too often our spiritual health is neglected entirely.
I’d say that the majority of the people in this country consider spiritual reality a reality. I’ll bet that nine out of ten people would agree with the assertion that man is a composite creature consisting of mind, body, and spirit. Medical science (and medical techniques and training) seem to recognize the first two (otherwise there wouldn’t be a distinction between mental health and physical health—all thing being physical) but not the third.
If spiritual reality is a reality in an objective sense, than it remains so whether medical science recognizes its importance or not. I suspect that much that is mistaken for and treated as mental and physical illness is, in reality, spiritual illness. Perhaps as many as half the cases of depression start out as a spiritual illness that spread out and infect the mind and then even the body. The body and mind are treated with medication while the root cause is left along to just get worse and worse.
I recognize that I’m starting to sound like a Christian Scientist or (gulp) a Scientologist here. But just because those two groups go too far doesn’t mean that they’re completely wrong. Jesus and his disciples DID drive out demons (or so the stories go). I don’t think they were JUST curing mental illness in each and every case.
And we can disbelieve in the possibility of demonic possession but if we still believe that man has a spirit—that man has a soul—than we have also to account for the ways in which the spirit or soul may interact with the body and the mind. And when we treat the whole person, we have to consider his spirit as well.
But this is getting to long. I only meant to propose that REAL healthcare reform may have a good deal less to with the costs and great deal more to do with how patients are treated.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
What ABOUT Single Payer
Without demonizing anyone or any party, I’d like to look at Single Payer rationally. Can Single Payer possibly provide me and my family with the same care we’re used to and at a lower cost? Will potentially reduced administrative costs (that’s the theory) translate into lower out of pocket expenses? In short, can we achieve better care at less cost and, in the process, provide healthcare to people who couldn’t otherwise afford it through a federally run “Single Payer” healthcare finance system?
There are questions I must, for the moment, ignore. They are:
Is providing the financial means by which our citizens can obtain health care our governments responsibility?
and
By what reasonable interpretation of what existing clause or article of our constitution can we possibly infer that responsibility?
If we ignore those questions and assume, as an intellectual exercise, that it IS our federal government’s responsibility, than we are left trying to decide what is the best way, the most efficient way, the most humane way, the most moral way, the most ethical way, and the most complete way to fulfill the obligations that responsibility entails.
First of all and most primary, the POINT of healthcare needs to be decided upon. I submit that the first, the primary, and the ONLY point of healthcare is to maintain and restore health and to prolong life. It is NOT the point of healthcare to hasten death. No medical professional or facility, paid for in whole or in part out of the public fund, should ever be engaged in any process or technique by which any life is forcibly and willfully terminated.
Abortion and euthanasia, in particular, should not be paid for by any public plan or under any public option. So long as both remain legal, they could be provided by the supporters of the same to those who need and they can provide them to those who can’t afford them as a “charitable” service. And they can define charity however they please behind closed doors and out of the public square.
But charity in the context of healthcare is most readily defined as that which aims to promote good health and long life, indifferent to subjective concerns. And age, race, size, class, etc. are, as far as health care should be concerned, subjective. The objective reality that should be recognized is that all human beings, from the first to the last beat of their heart, are absolutely equal in value and in measure. No positive steps should ever be taken in a medical context to permanently stop a beating human heart.
Now, as an aside, I personally believe—and I believe it objectively true—that human life begins at conception. A humans heart beats for the first time, on average, three weeks from conception. As a matter of public policy, I believe that humanity should be recognized and protected in its totality but I also recognize that we, as a nation, are a long way from that ideal. And I don’t think we’ll be able to end THAT debate before we are pressured to end the health care debate. A public option will be on the table and will have to be decided upon with certain decisions as to what gets covered needing to be made immediately. So rather than accept a solution that, by default, may provide pregnancy termination services at ANY stage in a woman’s pregnancy, I’d like to get some parameters defined.
I think that a heart beat is a good, solid, empirically verifiable indicator of a human life that is worthy of and deserving of our protection. Promoting this distinction, rather than a more scientific or philosophical one, will put the onus on those who contend that having a heart that beats on its own is not a sufficient indicator that human life is present. They’ll have to defend their own distinction. And I content—unequivocally—that birth is not a proper distinction. It is, rather, a nonsensical distinction in the age of c-sections on demand. And neither is fetal viability a reasonable distinction since viability has become a sliding scale. How will such a distinction be maintained once the scale has slid all the way down to conception?
So, getting past that messy part of the business, we can focus on that which actually promotes health.
Is Single Payer the best option? Is it a POOR option? Will heath care be rationed? Will people have to wait in long lines for routine care? For emergency care?
Is Single Payer really something we need to be afraid of or is it merely the unknown that is causing us fear.
I admit I don’t know.
There are questions I must, for the moment, ignore. They are:
Is providing the financial means by which our citizens can obtain health care our governments responsibility?
and
By what reasonable interpretation of what existing clause or article of our constitution can we possibly infer that responsibility?
If we ignore those questions and assume, as an intellectual exercise, that it IS our federal government’s responsibility, than we are left trying to decide what is the best way, the most efficient way, the most humane way, the most moral way, the most ethical way, and the most complete way to fulfill the obligations that responsibility entails.
First of all and most primary, the POINT of healthcare needs to be decided upon. I submit that the first, the primary, and the ONLY point of healthcare is to maintain and restore health and to prolong life. It is NOT the point of healthcare to hasten death. No medical professional or facility, paid for in whole or in part out of the public fund, should ever be engaged in any process or technique by which any life is forcibly and willfully terminated.
Abortion and euthanasia, in particular, should not be paid for by any public plan or under any public option. So long as both remain legal, they could be provided by the supporters of the same to those who need and they can provide them to those who can’t afford them as a “charitable” service. And they can define charity however they please behind closed doors and out of the public square.
But charity in the context of healthcare is most readily defined as that which aims to promote good health and long life, indifferent to subjective concerns. And age, race, size, class, etc. are, as far as health care should be concerned, subjective. The objective reality that should be recognized is that all human beings, from the first to the last beat of their heart, are absolutely equal in value and in measure. No positive steps should ever be taken in a medical context to permanently stop a beating human heart.
Now, as an aside, I personally believe—and I believe it objectively true—that human life begins at conception. A humans heart beats for the first time, on average, three weeks from conception. As a matter of public policy, I believe that humanity should be recognized and protected in its totality but I also recognize that we, as a nation, are a long way from that ideal. And I don’t think we’ll be able to end THAT debate before we are pressured to end the health care debate. A public option will be on the table and will have to be decided upon with certain decisions as to what gets covered needing to be made immediately. So rather than accept a solution that, by default, may provide pregnancy termination services at ANY stage in a woman’s pregnancy, I’d like to get some parameters defined.
I think that a heart beat is a good, solid, empirically verifiable indicator of a human life that is worthy of and deserving of our protection. Promoting this distinction, rather than a more scientific or philosophical one, will put the onus on those who contend that having a heart that beats on its own is not a sufficient indicator that human life is present. They’ll have to defend their own distinction. And I content—unequivocally—that birth is not a proper distinction. It is, rather, a nonsensical distinction in the age of c-sections on demand. And neither is fetal viability a reasonable distinction since viability has become a sliding scale. How will such a distinction be maintained once the scale has slid all the way down to conception?
So, getting past that messy part of the business, we can focus on that which actually promotes health.
Is Single Payer the best option? Is it a POOR option? Will heath care be rationed? Will people have to wait in long lines for routine care? For emergency care?
Is Single Payer really something we need to be afraid of or is it merely the unknown that is causing us fear.
I admit I don’t know.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Slave Trade Is Alive and Well
And when will a nation on the face of the earth have the moral courage to do something radical about it?
http://www.itemp.org/humantraffickingfacts.html
One of the most powerful scenes, I think, in the movie Amistad (and there were several vying for the top notch) was when the British Admiral is decimating the African Slave Fortress and he orders to send word that the Slave Fortress, whose existence was questioned during the court proceedings, no longer exists.
I realize it was a movie which may have played light and loose with historical facts, but if human trafficking (“slavery”) is really the problem that was alluded to on several occasions by Bush and which the Vatican is renewing efforts to stamp out, where’s the moral outrage? Where's the outcry?
And why do I associate celebrity activism in Africa with hunger and AIDS and NOT human trafficking? Why is that? Is it just me? I’m trying to be fair, here, but do a few Google searches for “human trafficking and Bono” and see what you get. Use the advance search qualifier –pro so you don’t get a lot of “pro bono” in your results. On the other hand, just Google “Bono Africa” and a wealth of stories comes up leading with a Time Magazine article, “Can Bono Save the World?”
Now, I don’t want to be unfair so if someone out there can find out what Bono’s been doing to fight human trafficking in Africa using different search terms please let me know. Or maybe Bono himself can contact me and tell me what he’s been doing draw attention to social causes that actually need attention drawn to them.
I think a lot of the problem is that the average citizen may not really believe there's a problem. The media hardly talks about it and, besides, it just seems so “otherworldly”. School taught us that slavery was abolished in this country because of the Civil War. We all learn to recite the creed that “Lincoln freed the slaves”. That knowledge and that mantra is internalized into “slavery doesn’t exist anymore”. But there IS still slavery--even in this country. Illegalization has just driven it underground.
So what’s the solution? Legalize it? Empower our police to raid houses and places of business door-to-door to uncover illegal activity that wouldn’t otherwise be brought to light? Make penalities a real deterrent? Or just live with it pick away at it the same way we’ve done with drug trafficking for the last 90 or so years?
Last I heard we’re not winning that war either.
But here's a question I'd like to have debate on? What SHOULD the penalty be for forcibly enslaving someone? Life? Death? Or just the temporary loss of one's OWN freedom? What if the forcible enslavement that someone was responsible for leads to the death of the slave? Are we talking "eye for eye" here? C'mon! What's fair? What's just? What's reasonable?
http://www.abolishhumantrafficking.com/2008/12/bush-signs-anti-trafficking-bill.html
At least the government’s doing something—though I understand that Joe Biden was one of two senators making it difficult to get this legislation passed. (The other was Sam Brownback.)
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=4441
(I got on this tangent listing to Morning Air on Relevant Radio this morning. I urge Catholics, Christians, and Curious to check it out: http://www.relevantradio.com/Page.aspx?pid=469
http://www.itemp.org/humantraffickingfacts.html
One of the most powerful scenes, I think, in the movie Amistad (and there were several vying for the top notch) was when the British Admiral is decimating the African Slave Fortress and he orders to send word that the Slave Fortress, whose existence was questioned during the court proceedings, no longer exists.
I realize it was a movie which may have played light and loose with historical facts, but if human trafficking (“slavery”) is really the problem that was alluded to on several occasions by Bush and which the Vatican is renewing efforts to stamp out, where’s the moral outrage? Where's the outcry?
And why do I associate celebrity activism in Africa with hunger and AIDS and NOT human trafficking? Why is that? Is it just me? I’m trying to be fair, here, but do a few Google searches for “human trafficking and Bono” and see what you get. Use the advance search qualifier –pro so you don’t get a lot of “pro bono” in your results. On the other hand, just Google “Bono Africa” and a wealth of stories comes up leading with a Time Magazine article, “Can Bono Save the World?”
Now, I don’t want to be unfair so if someone out there can find out what Bono’s been doing to fight human trafficking in Africa using different search terms please let me know. Or maybe Bono himself can contact me and tell me what he’s been doing draw attention to social causes that actually need attention drawn to them.
I think a lot of the problem is that the average citizen may not really believe there's a problem. The media hardly talks about it and, besides, it just seems so “otherworldly”. School taught us that slavery was abolished in this country because of the Civil War. We all learn to recite the creed that “Lincoln freed the slaves”. That knowledge and that mantra is internalized into “slavery doesn’t exist anymore”. But there IS still slavery--even in this country. Illegalization has just driven it underground.
So what’s the solution? Legalize it? Empower our police to raid houses and places of business door-to-door to uncover illegal activity that wouldn’t otherwise be brought to light? Make penalities a real deterrent? Or just live with it pick away at it the same way we’ve done with drug trafficking for the last 90 or so years?
Last I heard we’re not winning that war either.
But here's a question I'd like to have debate on? What SHOULD the penalty be for forcibly enslaving someone? Life? Death? Or just the temporary loss of one's OWN freedom? What if the forcible enslavement that someone was responsible for leads to the death of the slave? Are we talking "eye for eye" here? C'mon! What's fair? What's just? What's reasonable?
http://www.abolishhumantrafficking.com/2008/12/bush-signs-anti-trafficking-bill.html
At least the government’s doing something—though I understand that Joe Biden was one of two senators making it difficult to get this legislation passed. (The other was Sam Brownback.)
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=4441
(I got on this tangent listing to Morning Air on Relevant Radio this morning. I urge Catholics, Christians, and Curious to check it out: http://www.relevantradio.com/Page.aspx?pid=469
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Means and Ends
Ryan and I had a slight discussion yesterday about what faith the founders did or didn’t have to risk so much with so little chance of success.
Anyway, it was speculation and it was just part of a larger discussion which started as a question about whether a government could or should force fecundity in the event of a population collapse. I said it would depend upon the world-views of the individual men and women who made up that government. I said that if the survival of the species were believed by a controlling interest in that government to be a concrete good that needed to be achieved at any cost—even at the cost of acting against other moral principles—than, yes, a government made up of such individuals would probably utilize any means within their power to encourage the survival of the species including the use of force. That is, they could and probably would resort to forced copulation and/or forced impregnation.
If, on the other hand, a controlling interest in that government believed that the survival of the species should NOT be achieved at any cost and if that same controlling interest believed it a grave moral evil to force a person to copulate or to forcibly impregnate a woman, that government probably WOULDN’T—and would believe they SHOULDN’T—resort to any means to ensure the survival of the species. In particular, they wouldn’t resort to the use of force EVEN IF IT MEANT THE TERMINATION OF THE SPECIES.
I said, in making my point, that in either case, what a government would or what a government should do would depend on the world-view—the beliefs about life, the universe, and everything—that the individuals who made up that government held to.
That spawned a conversation about the beliefs of the founders. I submitted that our founders, almost to a man, had a certain faith in the guiding hand of Providence in the affairs of men.
I did a little research in order to determine what that faith was and what they meant by the word Providence.
Doing a little more research this morning I came across this quote from Alexander Hamilton that I wanted to share:
"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."
Anyway, it was speculation and it was just part of a larger discussion which started as a question about whether a government could or should force fecundity in the event of a population collapse. I said it would depend upon the world-views of the individual men and women who made up that government. I said that if the survival of the species were believed by a controlling interest in that government to be a concrete good that needed to be achieved at any cost—even at the cost of acting against other moral principles—than, yes, a government made up of such individuals would probably utilize any means within their power to encourage the survival of the species including the use of force. That is, they could and probably would resort to forced copulation and/or forced impregnation.
If, on the other hand, a controlling interest in that government believed that the survival of the species should NOT be achieved at any cost and if that same controlling interest believed it a grave moral evil to force a person to copulate or to forcibly impregnate a woman, that government probably WOULDN’T—and would believe they SHOULDN’T—resort to any means to ensure the survival of the species. In particular, they wouldn’t resort to the use of force EVEN IF IT MEANT THE TERMINATION OF THE SPECIES.
I said, in making my point, that in either case, what a government would or what a government should do would depend on the world-view—the beliefs about life, the universe, and everything—that the individuals who made up that government held to.
That spawned a conversation about the beliefs of the founders. I submitted that our founders, almost to a man, had a certain faith in the guiding hand of Providence in the affairs of men.
I did a little research in order to determine what that faith was and what they meant by the word Providence.
Doing a little more research this morning I came across this quote from Alexander Hamilton that I wanted to share:
"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Murder and Selective Births
First, I feel I need to make my own position clear with regard to this issue.
I'm not pro-abortion. I'm anti-abortion. I am pro-life. I can’t think of, nor have I heard of, any circumstance or any set of circumstances which could possibly converge to make the deliberate abortion of a pre-term pregnancy licit in my opinion.
Notice I use the term abortion with regard to pregnancy. A pregnancy, like any process, can be aborted. I believe that pregnancy is one particular process that ought not to be deliberately aborted for any reason at all. People aren’t aborted. People are killed. Sometimes, people are murdered. And murder is the deliberate killing of one person by another person in contradistinction to moral and natural law.
It is absolutely true that one person may kill another person—may take another person’s life—in such circumstances that such killing isn’t murder. Legitimate self-defense is one such circumstance. Defending the life of another from a clear and present danger is another. There are more possible circumstances but the purpose of this blog isn’t really to get into too much of that. I just wanted it to be clear that I believe that THERE IS a distinction between killing and murder and that the former may not necessarily be the latter in each and every case.
However, I believe that the deliberate killing of an innocent non-aggressor is always murder in each and every circumstance. Examples would be non-combatants in war-time as well as the unborn in the womb.
If I may quickly touch on the recent murder of infamous abortion doctor George Tiller…
The killing of George Tiller was a murder in the same way as the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald was a murder. Assuming absolutely certain the fact that Oswald murdered Kennedy and, for the sake of argument, that abortion is murder, the guilt or, if you’d rather, the non-innocence of both parties may be firmly established.
So if Scott Roeder and Jack Ruby were merely exercising justice against two guilty men, why call it murder? First of all, because at the time of their murder they weren’t aggressors—they weren’t posing a clear or present danger to anyone. Secondly, neither Roeder nor Jack Ruby had any authority to exercise justice against Tiller or Oswald regardless of their guilt. Neither one had any more authority to execute someone than to lock them up. The one, absent the proper authority, is murder while the other, absent the proper authority, is kidnapping.
Finally, just to be clear about this distinction, I believe a strong argument could be made in Roeder’s or Ruby’s defense if the circumstance had been different. For example, if Ruby had happened to come across Oswald by accident in the book depository a second or two before Oswald shot Kennedy and if the only way that Ruby could stop Oswald from pulling the trigger was to deal him a lethal blow, than that would have been within Ruby’s limited authority as a private citizen to save the life of another human being. Though such an act in defense of the President himself adds a certain additional emotional weight to the argument, I think the personage of the one being defended from attack is irrelevant. For these purposes, we could substitute George Tiller for Kennedy and the argument remains the same. Ruby, acting in the defense of a person in immediate mortal danger, would not be guilty of murder if he had to use lethal force to effect that defense. The relative guilt or innocence of the one being defended is as irrelevant as that person’s social status or position within society.
That having been said, I believe that unborn children are people with, at the minimum, the right to life. They are innocent. And regardless of any danger they may pose to their mother by virtue of their mere existence within her they are non-aggressors since any danger they may pose cannot possibly be deliberate. (Of course it were possibly deliberate that would be an argument against abortion rights since only people are capable of deliberate action.)
Now the reason I began writing this post is because I read something on Slate.com by William Saletan. He’s adamantly pro-choice but he tends to write intelligently on the abortion and stem cell debates. His article today, “Sex Selection: Nobody's Business?” had this nugget:
[L]et's turn the tables on those of us who oppose abortion regulation. How far should we go? Would you oppose regulation even of abortions aimed at preventing the births of girls? Because there's increasing evidence that such abortions, which take place by the millions in Asia, are now being done by the thousands in the United States as well.
Saletan concludes his article with the questions, “If you're pro-life, how far are you willing to go in regulating abortion? If you're pro-choice, how far are you willing to go in leaving it unregulated?”
It’s possible that many or even most pro-lifers accept the “merciful exceptions” argument to abortion regulation—that abortion should or could be permitted in cases of incest or rape or to save the life of the mother.
Whether or not that’s the case, I imagine that pro-lifers generally distinguish what those limits, if any, should be.
I’m not so sure that’s the case with most pro-abortion people, however. Any limit and any distinction can be made to seem arbitrary. Either a woman can licitly terminate her pregnancy at any stage and for any reason she chooses or she cannot. If she cannot terminate her pregnancy at any stage or for any reason than there are presumably some stages but not others that she may licitly terminate her pregnancy and presumably there are some reasons but not others which can be accepted for terminating her pregnancy.
What reasons and stages those are (or aren’t) is the matter of intense debate.
Leaving aside the question of stages and focusing only on reasons, could gender selection ever be an acceptable reason. If not, what logically compelling reason could be given for limiting a woman’s freedom of choice in that regard but not others?
Good article anyway. Check it out.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humannature/archive/2009/06/15/sex-selection-nobody-s-business.aspx
Friday, June 12, 2009
Obama's Moral Equivocation
From a commentary this morning by Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post:
Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about women's rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country -- balanced, of course, with this: "Issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam." Example? "The struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."
Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women's softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds -- while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays, as well -- but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who's to judge?
That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061103129.html
Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about women's rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country -- balanced, of course, with this: "Issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam." Example? "The struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."
Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women's softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds -- while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays, as well -- but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who's to judge?
That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061103129.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)