The Problem with 'Abortion Subsidies' & Other Intention-Suggestive Terms: And a 'Thank You' to Rick Garnett

Hello, All,

And many thanks to Rick for the clarification in his response to my earlier post yesterday.  I had not realized that Rick is uninterested in double effect analysis of legislators' votes -- perhaps because I've only recently begun following and contributing to this weblog -- so apologies for any implication that Rick might be interested in something that he's not.  I do nevertheless have three quick comments, while I am at it here, to add in response to Rick's helpful post yesterday:

1)  I certainly agree with Rick that the factors he adduces are relevant to the second, 'proportionality' step of a double effect analysis.  I also, however, think it quite 'speculative' and indeed indeterminate, pending careful empirical investigation or, failing that, consideration of widely observed causal relations of the sort implicit in Rick's suggestions here, to suppose that a health insurance reform bill that simply enables some 20 to 30 million more people than presently are able to purchase insurance from private insurers all of which seem to have been independently offering abortion coverage (even to most if not all of us here at MoJ, I suspect, as noted yesterday) for decades with no calls from conservatives that they be required also to offer non-abortion-covering policies, would somehow further solidify 'the current legal/constitutional regime' on abortion.  Why would we ever think that assisting the poor in the purchase of what the non-poor already purchase -- comprehensive health insurance policies -- would entrench the constitutionally permissive abortion regime?  If we're actually concerned with the entrenching effects that private-market-offered health insurance policies, most all of which cover abortion, have on the legal regime concerning abortion, why don't we call for regulation of those insurance companies, all of which currently enjoy statutory exemption from federal regulation, requiring them to offer policies that do not cover abortions in addition to what ever policies they offer that do cover abortions?   

2)  Insofar as any of us is uninterested in the motives of legislators, I do think it behooves us to avoid locutions like 'abortion subsidies' in our posts, which latter phrase strikes me as strongly suggesting, on at least one quite natural reading, the deliberate targeting of abortion itself as something to be subsidized.  Much better to say something like 'abortion-affecting,' or 'possibly abortion-affecting' legislation, which keeps clear that we're speaking of collateral effects rather than intended effects.  (That is of course why I keep using such phrases.)  I think similar remarks hold for such phrases as 'implicit endorsement of the notion that (elective) abortion is health care,' which figures in the last line of Rick's post, and perhaps even of the phrase 'alleged health-care-reform measure,' which figures in the last two lines of that post.  If it really is solely collateral effects that concern us, our descriptive lingo, it seems to me, ought scrupulously to reflect that fact.  (I see no endorsement of abortion at all here, incidentally, any more than I see vouchers as implicit federal endorsements of 'Popery.')

3)  Finally, a brief word on why I myself am interested in the first -- intention-concerned -- step of double effect analysis along with the second such step in this context:  My aim is to think through the moral and legal significance of the proposed health insurance reform legislation now before Congress, from the point of view of the conscientious legislator.  Were I such a legislator, and were I a Catholic one who took both the Church's social justice teachings and its abortion teachings seriously, could I vote in favor of the legislation now before Congress?  It seems to me that in order to reach 'yes' here, I must first assure myself that I would not in thus voiting be intending to aid or abet abortion.  Only after reaching confidence on that question could I then proceed to step two and conduct the inherently probablistic 'proportionality' sort of analysis.  Why am I concerned with these questions?  Easy:  First, in hopes of contributing to a sort of public brainstorming together, as it were, with some legislators of conscience who might be reading MoJ and deliberating internally even now about how to vote.  (Bart Stupak, are you out there?)  And second, in hopes of doing the same with all other participants in our community, many of whom might themselves be wondering whether to support, oppose, or remain on the fence in respect of the current proposed legislation.   

Thanks again to Rick and to all of you who are reading,

Bob