Dahlia Lithwick is not pleased with the Bush Administration's new rules protecting the conscience-rights -- or, as our leading news outlets insist on putting it, "conscience"-rights -- of health-care workers. In her view, this solicitude is inconsistent with a South Dakota law that requires law requires abortion-providers to tell women, before performing an abortion, that they are about to "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being" with whom she has an "existing relationship." (I've blogged about the South Dakota law here.) She says, "[r]eading the new HHS regulations together with the mandatory South Dakota 'script,' one can only conclude that those same health providers who cannot be compelled to perform an abortion may nevertheless be compelled to deliver misinformation about it."
I agree that no one ought to be required to "deliver misinformation". The question, I suppose, is whether there is a truth to the matter whether an unborn child is a "whole, separate, unique, living human being".
Emily Bazelon, who has also written often about this and similar disputes, contends, at slate.com, that we should "refrain from calling this 'the conscience rule,' as the administration urges. It's really a rule about why your conscience is better than my conscience." This is not convincing. The conscience of a person seeking an abortion, or Plan B, or some other procedure or product is not burdened by the refusal of a particular person to provide it. (This is not to say that such a refusal might not cause inconvenience and even hardship. But, that is not the same thing.)
My own impression is that many in the press -- specifically, those who insist on putting "scare quotes" around "conscience" (when they surely would not do so in a story involving, say, a placard-making company that did not want to provide anti-gay hate-signs to Fred Phelps) -- simply do not concede that conscience could ever lead one to conclude that one ought not to cooperate in the provision of a particular product or that, if it ever does, it is, to that extent, not worthy of protection.
There are, of course, arguments that can be made, and that should be taken seriously, against regulations like the ones promulgated by the Administration. (See the many posts by Rob Vischer on this and similar issues.) But the constant "scare quotes" are a cheap shot, and Bazelon's "more important than" argument strikes me as weak.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
It might be helpful, when evaluating the claims pressed by William Neaves in the piece to which Michael P. linked (here), to also read this, by Robby George and Patrick Lee, and this, by Wesley Smith. Neaves is a longtime proponent of human cloning and embryo-destroying research, and was a prominent financial backer of Missouri's 2006 pro-cloning campaign. I would have thought that the National Catholic Reporter could have found a not-so-obviously-in-the-tank-for-embryo-destructive-research thinker to suggest a critique of Dignitatis personae''s premises. That said, obviously, as Neaves points out, there are different views out there about "personhood" and, just as obviously, one's views about "personhood" will shape one's claims and conclusions with respect to the matters and acts treated in Dignitatis personae. And, obviously, some understandings will be less convenient for Big Biotech and those who serve (and profit from) it.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Those who are interested, as we all should be, in the state and future of Catholic education in the United States, might want to check out this new report, "Faith, Finances, and the Future: The Notre Dame Study of U.S. Pastors", just put out by my colleagues with Notre Dame's Institute for Educational Initiatives.
In (somewhat) related news, I was delighted to learn that the founder and energy behind Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education program, Fr. Tim Scully, was awarded the Presidential Citizenship Medal by President Bush, for “committing his life to strengthening communities through faith-based education that prepares individuals for a lifetime of achievement, service and compassion."
The Irish are stinking up the football field, but moving the ball pretty well (sorry!) when it comes to Catholic schools.
Monday, December 8, 2008
. . . is to contribute our concept of God to the debate about man."
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
Today is the last meeting of my seminar in Catholic Social Thought. We are reading and discussing (then) Cardinal Ratzinger's "Values in a Time of Upheaval". Early in the book, he observes that Jewish (and then the Christian) understanding of history represented a break with the more static, or cyclical models of the past (or of some other traditions). This observation makes me wonder, "what is the significance of the Christian understanding of 'history' for the legal enterprise, and / or for 'Catholic Legal Theory?'" To ask this is not to say, "what has been the actual history of Christian legal institutions, or Christian thinking about law?" Nor is to suggest simply that laws and legal institutions should be (and inevitably will be) shaped by, and will reflect, history context. It is to ask, given what Christians believe history *is*, are there implications for the law-thing?
Friday, December 5, 2008
I couldn't help thinking, when I read the America op-ed that Michael reproduced in his post, that perhaps it should have been called "The Art of the little that is now, given the elections of the candidates we at America supported, possible". (But, in keeping with my sunny disposition and certified-snark-free blog-persona, I suppressed that thought.)
Still, the way the op-ed put it -- i.e., "there are several strategies the new president could employ that would reduce the number of abortions" -- provides an irresistible occasion (sorry) for me to insist, yet again, that, as I see it, "the issue" with respect to abortion is not merely "reducing the number of abortions". It is repudiating our current, deeply unjust legal regime with respect to abortion. The America piece concludes with a quote from John Paul II, "It is not enough to remove unjust laws.... For this reason there need to be set in place social and political initiatives capable of guaranteeing conditions of true freedom of choice in matters of parenthood.” Yes. But these initiatives (like any decline in the number of abortions they might bring about) will not render our unjust laws just (or excuse support for these laws). Certainly, the Pope was not suggesting otherwise. In politics -- and this side of Heaven -- it is always wise, it seems to me, to focus on what's possible. At the same time, when it comes to matters of basic justice, and fundamental human rights, I would think it a mistake to ever be complacent about, or resigned to, those forces, laws, theories, or candidates who unjustly shrink the zone of the possible.
I'm delighted to report that my former student, Julie Baworowsky, has won the Pew Religious Freedom Scholarship competition for her paper, "From Public Square to Market Square: Theoretical Foundations of First and Fourteenth Amendment Protection of Corporate Religious Speech." (Available here.) Among its virtues is the fact that the paper engages closely some of the work of our own Rob Vischer.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Some interesting thoughts, and data, here, from Ross Douthat.
