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, June 15, 2015

Do Pro-lifers have a "logic problem"?

Dana Milbank says "yes," in this WaPo piece.  Commenting on proposed legislation in the Senate that would closely regulate all late-term abortions, Milbank -- following Slate's Will Saletan -- charges Sen. Lindsey Graham and others with illogic (and worse):  "Opposing late-term abortions does next to nothing to reduce abortions, but it works well with Republican presidential primary voters. Broadening the use of contraceptives would seriously reduce abortions, but it would be poisonous to the GOP primary electorate."  He adds:

Yet pro-life groups refuse to take up the cause of birth control, because so many of their supporters have problems with that, too. “They’ve betrayed the one thing they stand for, which is reducing abortions,” Saletan said.

Put aside, for now, what strikes me as the very implausible claim that the declining numbers of abortions has little to do with the increased regulation of abortion facilities and providers.  (Put aside also the intriguing possibility that baby pictures on Facebook and higher-tech sonograms are contributing.)  And, let's concede for the sake of argument that increased access to contraception does not only correlate with, but also contribute to, a reduction in the number of abortions.

It is not "illogical," it seems to me, for someone to say (a) "X is unjust and harmful -- in fact, X involves a seriously immoral act of violence on an innocent person.   Accordingly, the public authority should prohibit, to the extent possible, X, just as it would prohibit other seriously unjust and harmful acts" while at the same time not saying (b) "we will pursue and enact all regulatory and policy measures that might contribute, through incentives, etc., to a reduction in X."  Some some measures will and should be enacted, for sure.  But some might have downsides, some might be too expensive, some might themselves be unjust.  In such cases, a decision to not pursue and enact such measures does not mean that the claim in (a) about the immorality of X is hypocritical or undermined.

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2015/06/do-pro-lifers-have-a-logic-problem.html

Garnett, Rick | Permalink