Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Dana Gioia wins Laetare Medal

By Rick Garnett

I have to admit that, for me, Notre Dame's Laetare Medal won't shine quite as brighly as it should until Mary Ann Glendon accepts it.  That said, I am pleased to report that Fr. John Jenkins has announced that "Dana Gioia, poet and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will receive the University of Notre Dame’s 2010 Laetare Medal."

“In his vocation as poet and avocation as arts administrator, Dana Gioia has given vivid witness to the mutual flourishing of faith and culture,” said Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “By awarding him our University’s highest honor we hope both to celebrate and participate in that witness.”

A native of Hawthorne, Calif., Michael Dana Gioia was educated in Catholic elementary and secondary schools before, as he has joked, he “traded down” for Stanford University, from which he was graduated in 1973, and Harvard University, from which he earned a master’s degree in comparative literature in 1975, studying with the classical translator Robert Fitzgerald and the poet Elizabeth Bishop. He returned to Stanford to earn a master’s of business administration degree in 1977.

Even while pursuing a business career from 1977 to 1992 with the General Foods Corp. in New York, where he served as vice president of marketing, Gioia wrote and published widely. He also served as poetry and literary editor for numerous magazines and won recognition for his own poems, including the Frederick Bock Award for Poetry in 1986 and the 1992 Poet’s Prize. He left General Foods in 1992 to begin writing full time.

Gioia has published three full collections of poetry, including “Interrogations at Noon,” which won the 2002 American Book Award. He also has published eight smaller collections of poems, two opera libretti and numerous translations of Latin, Italian and German poetry. In addition to editing more than 20 literary anthologies, he also writes essays and reviews in such magazines as The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Washington Post Book World, the New York Times Book Review and Slate. His 1992 volume “Can Poetry Matter?” – which was widely discussed in both the United States and abroad – often is credited with helping revitalize the place of poetry in American public life.

From 2003 to 2009, Gioia served for two terms as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He is credited with revitalizing an agency through which he sought to strengthen bipartisan support for public funding of arts and arts education, to champion jazz as a uniquely American art form, to promote Shakespeare readings and performances nationwide, and to distribute NEA grants more widely.

In a lecture in 2000, Gioia argued that art and Catholicism mutually flourish because “the Catholic, literally from birth, when he or she is baptized, is raised in a culture that understands symbols and signs. And it also trains you in understanding the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Consequently, allegory finds its greatest realization in Catholic artists like Dante.”

A (late) response to Bob

By Rick Garnett

In the ongoing conversation about the health-insurance-reform debate and abortion, Bob responds here to my post (here).  Bob writes:

[T]he phrase 'abortion subsidies' that occurs therein is ambiguous as between intended financing of abortion on the one hand, and collateral effects on the disposable income of people who might seek abortion on the other -- precisely the distinction that step one of a double effect inquiry aims to keep clear.  (That is in view of the decisiveness, for purposes of moral evaluation, of intentions in individuating morally evaluable actions -- including those actions which are votes on legislation.) . . .

I had intended (but failed, obviously) to make it clear that I was not addressing the "intended financing of abortion."  I have said -- enough times to bore regular MOJ readers to death, I fear -- that I am not particularly interested in the double-effect analysis of legislators votes.  I assume that some legislators *want* to fund abortions, others don't care if they fund abortions or not, others are willing to fund them for the sake of achieving what they regard as another good, others really, really hope they are not indirectly funding them, etc., etc.  Like Rob, I am "thinking about collateral effects."  Like Rob, I think it makes sense to ask "how a legislator ought to factor intervening choices into the inherently probablistic 'cost benefit analysis' that is a double effect stage 2 inquiry."  I would say, though, that this "inherently probabilistic 'cost benefit analysis'" must include, not only considerations relating to the number of abortions that are committed, but also the effect on the current legal / constitutional regime -- and on the public's support for such a regime -- of including, in an alleged health-care-reform measure, even indirect financial support for abortion, and even implicit endorsement of the notion that (elective) abortion is health care.

A bit more on Marty, Glen Beck, and Social Justice

By Rick Garnett

So, I'm not a fan of Glen Beck, and I am a fan (most of the time) of Martin Marty.  I would hope that all those who are outraged by Beck's recent (silly) statements regarding churches that preach "social justice" would also be outraged by the (much more common, in my experience) suggestions that Christians should abandon traditions, denominations, and churches whose commitment to an authentically Christian moral anthropology leads them to hold "traditional" views on matters of religious liberty, the role of the state, human sexuality, and the equal dignity of unborn children?  After all -- for Catholics, anyway -- it all comes from the same place.  No?  

Others respond to T.R. Reid: "Why Universal Health Care Will Not Reduce Abortion Rates"

By Rick Garnett

Michael New (here) writes:

[S]upporters of Obama’s health-care reform are now changing their approach and going on the offensive. In an editorial that ran in the Washington Post on Friday, author and journalist T. R. Reid argued that universal health care will lower the abortion rate in the United States. Using data from the United Nations, his argument relies on the fact that several European countries with universal health care also have lower abortion rates than the United States does.

However, Reid’s analysis is superficial and unconvincing. First, abortion rates in the United States are lower than what the UN statistics indicate. In 2005, the most recent year for which data is available, the U.S. abortion rates reported by the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the Centers for Disease Control are 19.4 and 15, respectively. As such, the incidence of abortion in the United States is comparable to that of many European countries with universal health care, including Great Britain, France, and Sweden. Furthermore, even though Australia and New Zealand offer more generous public health benefits than the United States does, their rates of abortion are similar to ours.

More importantly, simply comparing the U.S. abortion rate to abortion rates in countries with universal health care is misleading. The United States has a far more racially diverse population than many of these European countries, and statistics show that a number of minority groups have higher-than-average abortion rates.

Furthermore, the experience of states that have offered more generous provision of public health benefits is instructive. For instance in 1974, Hawaii passed legislation requiring all employers to provide relatively generous health care benefits to any employee who works 20 hours a week or more. Since that time, Hawaii has consistently had one of the lowest rates of uninsured adults in the country. However, according to data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Hawaii’s abortion rate consistently exceeds the national average

An even better example comes from Tennessee. In 1994, Tennessee launched an ambitious public insurance program to cover its uninsured. TennCare, as it is called, expanded Medicaid to cover people who couldn’t afford insurance or who had been denied coverage by an insurance company. With an initial budget of $2.6 billion, TennCare quickly extended coverage to an additional 500,000 people by making access to its plans easy and affordable. The program, however, became so expensive that Tennessee was forced to scale it back in 2005.

Despite the fact that Tennessee invested heavily in more generous public health benefits, their abortion rate has not changed much since the mid 1990s. In fact, the decline in Tennessee’s abortion rate is actually well below the national average. Between 1995 and 2005, the Guttmacher Institute reports that the national abortion rate fell by 13.8 percent. However, in Tennessee the abortion rate fell by only 3.3 percent. Overall, it seems clear that more generous health benefits in Tennessee did little to reduce the incidence of abortion.

More importantly, there exist many reasons current health-care reform proposals would actually increase abortion rates. For instance, the legislation which passed the Senate and which Democrats are trying to push though the House includes public funding for abortion. This should concern pro-lifers for several reasons. First there is plenty of evidence that government subsidies for abortion increase abortion rates. Second, if abortion becomes a federally mandated benefit, that could jeopardize a number of state-level pro-life laws — including parental-involvement and informed-consent laws. Finally, one reason why the abortion rate in the United States has fallen is the substantial decline in the number of abortion providers. A steady flow of federal funds to abortion providers could stem or even reverse this trend.

More on Citizens United: A reponse to Michael

By Rick Garnett

I do not think my views about the Citizens United decision should divide Michael and me, because it seems to me that the theory of judicial review (and constitutional interpretation) that Michael defends in his recent books point in the same direction as the Court majority.  But -- and this is awkward, I admit, for me! -- Michael (the author of those books) disagrees.  Oh well.  That said, I want to echo Michael again:  Facts matter.  And, as my colleague, election-law-expert Lloyd Mayer wrote:

There are several reasons why the[] worst case scenarios are unlikely. First, the decision does not threaten the longstanding prohibitions on corporate contributions to candidates or probably even the more recent prohibition on such contributions to political parties. . . .

Second, corporations were able to engage in a significant amount of election-related spending even before this decision. . . .

The decision therefore does not mean we will suddenly see a flood of election spending by big corporations such as GE or Microsoft. A more likely scenario is that smaller corporations, without the resources needed to legally avoid the prohibitions that Citizens United overturned, may now enter the election arena. . . .

At the end of the day, the key question will be whether we the voters, who are the targets of all this spending, will be able to rise to the challenge of filtering this increased volume of messages. Regardless of how much corporations can and do spend, it is up to us as individual citizens, not any corporation or union, to decide which candidates we elect.

Indeed.

T.R. Reid responds to Rick Garnett

By Michael Perry

[Whether he responds effectively or not, you decide.]

Washington Post, 3/14/10

Universal health care tends to cut the abortion rate
T.R. Reid

Countless arguments have been advanced for and against the pending bills to increase health-care coverage. Both sides have valid concerns, which makes the battle tight. But one prominent argument is illogical. The contention that opponents of abortion should oppose the current proposals to expand coverage simply doesn't make sense.

Increasing health-care coverage is one of the most powerful tools for reducing the number of abortions -- a fact proved by years of experience in other industrialized nations. All the other advanced, free-market democracies provide health-care coverage for everybody. And all of them have lower rates of abortion than does the United States.

This is not a coincidence. There's a direct connection between greater health coverage and lower abortion rates. To oppose expanded coverage in the name of restricting abortion gets things exactly backward. It's like saying you won't fix the broken furnace in a schoolhouse because you're against pneumonia. Nonsense! Fixing the furnace will reduce the rate of pneumonia. In the same way, expanding health-care coverage will reduce the rate of abortion.

At least, that's the lesson from every other rich democracy.

The latest United Nations comparative statistics, available at http://data.un.org, demonstrate the point clearly. The U.N. data measure the number of abortions for women ages 15 to 44. They show that Canada, for example, has 15.2 abortions per 1,000 women; Denmark, 14.3; Germany, 7.8; Japan, 12.3; Britain, 17.0; and the United States, 20.8. When it comes to abortion rates in the developed world, we're No. 1.

No one could argue that Germans, Japanese, Brits or Canadians have more respect for life or deeper religious convictions than Americans do. So why do they have fewer abortions?

One key reason seems to be that all those countries provide health care for everybody at a reasonable cost. That has a profound effect on women contemplating what to do about an unwanted pregnancy.

The connection was explained to me by a wise and holy man, Cardinal Basil Hume. He was the senior Roman Catholic prelate of England and Wales when I lived in London; as a reporter and a Catholic, I got to know him.

In Britain, only 8 percent of the population is Catholic (compared with 25 percent in the United States). Abortion there is legal. Abortion is free. And yet British women have fewer abortions than Americans do. I asked Cardinal Hume why that is.

The cardinal said that there were several reasons but that one important explanation was Britain's universal health-care system. "If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it's needed," Hume explained, "she's more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn't it obvious?"

A young woman I knew in Britain added another explanation. "If you're [sexually] active," she said, "the way to avoid abortion is to avoid pregnancy. Most of us do that with an IUD or a diaphragm. It means going to the doctor. But that's easy here, because anybody can go to the doctor free."

For various reasons, then, expanding health-care coverage reduces the rate of abortion. All the other industrialized democracies figured that out years ago. The failure to recognize this plain statistical truth may explain why American churches have played such a small role in our national debate on health care. Searching for ways to limit abortions, our faith leaders have managed to overlook a proven approach that's on offer now: expanding health-care coverage.

When I studied health-care systems overseas in research for a book, I asked health ministers, doctors, economists and others in all the rich countries why their nations decided to provide health care for everybody. The answers were medical (universal care saves lives), economic (universal care is cheaper), political (the voters like it), religious (it's what Christ commanded) and moral (it's the right thing to do). And in every country, people told me that universal health-care coverage is desirable because it reduces the rate of abortion.

It's only in the United States that opponents of abortion are fighting against expanded health-care coverage -- a policy step that has been proved around the world to limit abortions.

T.R. Reid, a longtime correspondent for The Post, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care."

Establishment and State Action

By Michael Perry

Many MOJ readers may want to read pages 1278-1290 of the March issue of the Harvard Law Review:  "The State Action Doctrine and the Establishment Clause" ... which is part of a long Developments Note:  "Developments in the Law--State Action and the Public/Private Distinction," 123 HLR 1248 (2010).

"Obvious"?

By Rick Garnett

Michael agrees (I gather) with the following statement of Cardinal Hume:

“If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it’s needed, she’s more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn’t it obvious?”

Is the suggestion that, because this observation is "obvious", that the current health-insurance-reform proposal(s) will / might / could reduce abortions and -- putting aside non-abortion-related doubts about the wisdom / efficiency / costs of these proposal(s) -- should / may / must therefore be supported s about the wisdom of the bill?

I agree with Michael that "the facts matter" -- in this and all other debates -- and so I would love to know the answers to questions like, for example, "How does the marginal increase in the number of 'frightened, unemployed 19-year-old(s)' who do not at present have "access to medical care", who know that (several years from now, under the current proposals) '[they] and [their] child[ren] will have access to medical care', and who therefore might choose not to abort their children compare to the marginal increase in the number of women who will abort their children -- and who otherwise might not -- if those abortions are (directly or indirectly) subsidized?"  I do not know the answer to this question.

What would Jesus do?

By Michael Perry

Not, I think, what Archbishop Chaput is doing.  But decide for yourself:  read this article.

It seems worth mentioning here that Steve Shiffrin's daughter ...

By Michael Perry

... Seana Valentine Shiffrin, who is a distinguished philosopher at UCLA and also the Pete Kameron Professor of Law and Social Justice at UCLA Law, has a masterful essay in the March issue of the Harvard Law Review:  "Inducing Moral Deliberation:  On the Occasional Virtues of Fog," 123 HLR 1214.

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