Mirror of Justice

Responding to Tom Berg's recent post, Ryan Anderson sends in the following:

Thanks to Prof. Garnett for posting my Weekly Standard article and this quick note, and [thanks also] to Prof. Berg for his thoughtful response to my article.

Prof. Berg’s comments perfectly illustrate the point I was trying to make; namely that, as I wrote, “there are legitimate arguments on both sides of the debate over this bill.” I outlined some considerations against the bill—and why I thought a faithful Catholic could legitimately oppose it—in my article. Prof. Berg offered some arguments for the bill in his post. I don’t find his case convincing, but we’re not going to settle the American health-care debate here and now. (For a careful reflection on solutions to our health care problems to which I’m generally sympathetic see Eric Cohen and Yuval Levin’s Commentary essay “Health Care in Three Acts.”)

But the point of my article wasn’t the merits of the S-chip debate; I was primarily addressing the parameters of legitimate “Catholic” positions. In particular, I focused on whether a group that purports to “take seriously all our Church’s social and political teachings, and refuses to water down our faith in service of partisan politics” should claim that its favored policy conclusion is the only acceptable one and then run attack ads questioning the pro-life commitments of those who disagree. It seems to me that the Church’s teaching on the legitimate autonomy and liberty of Catholics in the political sphere—within certain moral parameters—is flouted here. I take it that Prof. Berg agrees with me on this point.

Prof. Berg challenged some of my characterizations of the bill. Points similar to mine were made in the New York Times by David Brooks, in the Washington Post by George Will, and in the Weekly Standard by Fred Barnes. Perhaps they have gotten it wrong, and Prof. Berg got it right. Clearly, there is debate—in my opinion, reasonable debate—on this question . Which is, of course, all the more reason for a non-partisan Catholic group not to run the radio ads.

And there is good reason to think that the Democrats’ legislation to expand S-chip is no pro-life bill: When Sen. Wayne Allard motioned to have unborn children covered by S-chip in law (and not by the discretion of administrators, the “unborn child rule”), his motion was defeated 49-50—and you can guess how the vote split.

What I found most curious, though, was Prof. Berg’s calling into question the intentions of those who oppose the proposed legislation to extend and expand S-chip: “I'm not so confident as Mr. Anderson that everyone in the debate is focused on helping the poor.” It is clear in context that he was questioning President Bush’s intentions. This doesn’t quite square with those who know Bush personally and have spent time working with him. Even pro-life, pro-poor Democrat John DiIulio, who has had a rather rocky relationship with the White House, has repeatedly stressed (most recently in his just-released book Godly Republic) that President Bush has very real and serious commitments to the poor. I don’t know if Prof. Berg also questions my intentions, or those of Brooks, Will, and Barnes, or, for that matter, Senator Sam Brownback, who voted against the S-chip expansion and is well known for his big heart for the poor.

It is tiresome—not to mention unhelpful—to insinuate that liberals care for the poor while conservatives do not. This charge also has the vice of being untrue (as Arthur Brooks persuasively argued in his book Who Really Cares?). Rather than assume ill will on the part of those with whom we disagree, we ought to consider that there simply are different ways of being pro-poor. Many conservatives believe and argue that their preferred policy solutions best help the poor. For a taste of this, see Yuval Levin and Peter Wehner’s recent NY Sun op/ed. At the end of the day, we have to realize that there are many competing and conflicting considerations about how to turn our moral and religious convictions into public policy.

To characterize those opposed to S-chip expansion as not really pro-life or not “focused on helping the poor” is simply unhelpful. Some may be. But many are not. (And, if we’re going to take this route, there’s equal room to question the true intentions of those in favor of S-chip expansion.) But the merits and demerits of the bill stand or fall on their own. People acting on equally serious commitments to the poor and with the same basic moral principles can disagree on the technical questions of which policy is most effective. The S-chip debate is not fundamentally a moral or religious one, but a practical one. It falls within the order of being that Aristotle described as techne; it stands in relation to the natural law as what Aquinas termed determinatio. On these questions, reasonable people of good will—including pro-life citizens—can disagree, which is one reason to pause before broadening the pro-life label to include contested legislation of this sort.

Using religion (and charging irreligion) to push through a legitimately disputed piece of legislation truly is partisan in the worst sense of the word—the type of abuse that anyone concerned with religion in the public square should reject. While our faith and moral commitments can tell us that we have real obligations to the poor, they can’t alone tell us how best to meet them.