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.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Money, Power, the Financial Crisis and Disability Rights

By Elizabeth Schiltz

Reacting to my post about President Obama's special olympics joke, a reader reflected that he "could not help being struck by the contrast between this comment and Sarah Palin's promise that parents of children with special needs will have an advoate in the White House."  He continued with a line of questioning that I struggle with myself:

. . . the broader--and more important-- issue of why people with disabilities do not have a stronger political voice.  I realize that many such individuals--and of course children--are not in a position to wield political power.  Nevertheless, with rates of autism and other special needs increasing so dramatically, I am frustrated that parents of children with disabilities (let alone the children themselves) are not viewed with more respect in the political process.  . . . I imagine part of the problem is lack of organization, and I had hoped Sarah Palin's statement would energize an effort to empower parents to advocate for their children in the political arena.  Unfortunately, if the remark about the Special Olympics is any indication, I am no longer optimistic about this.

One of the things that's becoming increasingly clear to me about our current financial crisis is the nonpartisan nature of portion of the blame attributable to politicians who buried their heads in the sand as the mortgage bubble expanded and then began to explode.  Members of both parties were equally influenced by the substantial amount of campaign money flowing from the financial services industry. 

Conversely, it seems to me that both parties are equally influenced by the lack of money likely to flow from the coffers of the disability community.  The sad reality is that people with (at least the cognitive) disabilities are not in a position to wield political power.  Since people with cognitive disabilities might not vote, often can't speak for themselves, don't tend to be in a position to donate much money to candidates, and -- if we continue to perfect our technical ability to identify them before they are born -- will continue to shrink in number, politicians really don't spend much time (or political capital) on their needs.

This is what discourages me so much about politicians who take casual swipes at people with disabilities.  I think it reveals an (unconscious, I hope) assessment about the lack of any real political cost.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Obama's Special Olympics Remark

By Elizabeth Schiltz

Let me begin by saying that I really do have a sense of humor about the truly funny aspects of my son's disabilities.  He has a wicked sense of humor himself, and some of his attempts to navigate the world on his own terms are unintentionally hilarious.  We often find ourselves doubled over with laughter at the things he does in situations that people outside of our family might find puzzling or even offensive.  I thought The Ringer was hilarious, and I thought there was so much brilliant comedy in Tropic Thunder that I was willing to overlook the fact that Ben Stiller's (to me) mildly offensive portrayal of cognitive disability simply wasn't funny.

But President Obama's comment that his less-than-stellar bowling skills are appropriate for Special Olympics really troubles me. I've commented before about the compelling lesson about true dignity with respect to body image that Special Olympics athletes could teach us all.  I think President Obama might be well-served to consider what he might learn from these athletes about true dignity with respect to athletic prowess.  President Obama is clearly a man who takes great pride in his athletic ability.   He must have been embarrassed during last year's campaign at being shown to be less than accomplished at bowling.  But to think it appropriate to attempt to address that personal humiliation with an insensitive "joke" like this, as President of the United States, on a late-night talk show, suggests a fundamental lack of respect for people with disabilities.

I realize that people with disabilities do not represent a large segment of the voting public.  Among all of the protected classes in our large panoply of civil rights laws, they are the most vulnerable, along dozens of fronts -- in the battle for resources, for the right to be born, and for the acceptance of their equal dignity as human beings.  Remarks like Obama's (and Al Gore's "extra-chromosome crowd" joke) would never be tolerated if they were made at the expense of women or racial minorities.  An apology and the inevitable photo-ops that I'm sure are going to follow of Obama bowling at the White House with a group of Special Olympians would not be enough to address the suspicions raised by the remark if it had been made about any other protected class.  The fact that these sorts of remarks are publicly voiced by presidents and presidential candidates demonstrates the shallowness of the commitment our liberal society really has to the equal dignity of people with disabilities.

Ironically, my son went on a field trip yesterday that he had been looking forward to for a long time.  He went bowling with his entire special education class.  He had a wonderful time.  Though I wasn't there, I'm certain he, his classmates, and all his teachers laughed almost the whole time.

(By the way, tomorrow is World Down Syndrome Day.  Celebrate!!!)

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Subsidiarity and TARP Money

By Elizabeth Schiltz

I posted a few months ago about what I see as a subsidarity angle to the banking crisis -- the relative soundness of many local, community banks as compared to the larger institutions getting most of the bail-out money.  Here are two more examples of this.  Locally, a fine regional bank, TCF Bank, is planning on returning $361 million in TARP money that it feels it doesn't need.  Indeed, Bill Cooper, the Chairman of TCF, argues accepting the money has put it at a "competitive disadvantage."  Not so locally (but perhaps of more interest to Rick), Alaska's local banks seem to be doing quite well, thank you. (HT James Hood, an Opinionated Catholic blogger.)

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Newman again

By Elizabeth Schiltz

As I've suggested before, I think Newman most accurately capture the "messiness" of the Church that Michael discusses in his post, in this quote from Apologia pro Vita Sua.  It's a "large reformatory", a "training school", a "moral factory" -- none of which are tidy images of unity.  But, as Michael points out, the do represent miracles of unity, despite the messy, hard work that is going on inside of them, thanks to "beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power."

Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism but presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide; -- it is a vast assemblage of human beings with wilful intellects and wild passions, brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power, -- into what may be called a large reformatory or training-school, not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in order to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral factory, for the melting, refining, and molding, by an incessant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature, so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purpose.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Another Minnesota First -- State-sponsored Murabaha Financing

By Elizabeth Schiltz

I'm teaching my favorite subject -- usury -- in my consumer law class right now, so this local news item struck me as particularly timely.   Minnesota's state housing agency has apparently become the very first state agency to offer a form of financing that allows Muslims, who are forbidden from charging or paying interest, to buy homes.  It sure sounds a lot like the old time-price doctrine to me.  As explained in the article:

Here's how the mortgage, known as Murabaha financing or "cost plus sale," works:

The state buys a home and resells it to the buyer at a higher price. The down payment and monthly installments are agreed to up front at current mortgage rates.

The deal is identical to a thirty-year fixed-rate loan, except there's no additional interest, because the higher up front price factors in payments that would have been made over the life of a traditional mortgage.

 

Guess it's not a "scientifically worthy" line of inquiry?

By Elizabeth Schiltz

An MOJ reader and blogger in her own right brought to my attention the fact that Obama's Executive Order on stem cell research also revoked a Bush executive order directing funding for research for alternatives  to embryonic stem cells.  Here's her blog post with more details, including a statement from the Catholic Medical Association on Obama's Executive Order.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Why does it have to be embryonic?

By Elizabeth Schiltz

I am in complete agreement with Rick's concerns about President Obama's explanation for his new policy on stem-cell research.

I continue to be frustrated and bewildered by these sorts of proclamations about how vital it is to press forward on all fronts with embryonic stem cell research, when there seem to be so many more significant and therapeutically promising medical possibilities emerging from adult stem cell research.  This story, for example (which was buried somewhere in the middle of my own local paper sometime over the weekend), announces some incredible advances in turning a person's own skin cells into stem cells.

Although  I don't know enough about the amount of federal funding at stake, I also appreciate this fiscal argument being made by Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life:     

“Embryonic stem cell research is the research of the past.  Millions of dollars have been spent on embryonic stem cell research and it has failed.  To pour more money into it is simply a waste.”

Dr. Yoest continued, “Even more, this research destroys lives at the very earliest stage of development.  Adult stem cell research is helping people now.  If we’re going to put tax dollars into research -- particularly at a time of unprecedented federal deficits -- it needs to be research that protects life and helps patients now.”

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Enviromental Stewardship and Population Control

By Elizabeth Schiltz

Rob suggests a 2.5 child limit is proposed by some as a lower parameter of responsible parenting.  Jonathon Porritt, the chair of England's Sustainable Development Commission, is arguing that the fight against global warming actually dictates a limit of 2 kids per couple.  

"I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.

“I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the “p” word.”

The article continues:

Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.

He said: “We still have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe and we still have relatively high levels of pregnancies going to birth, often among women who are not convinced they want to become mothers.

Can anyone comment on the science he cites?  "The Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group of which Porritt is a patron, says each baby born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland - an area the size of Trafalgar Square."

UPDATE:  A reader pointed me to a recent First Things blog post by Stephen Barr challenging Porritt on the mathematics of the two-child family as sufficient to sustain the population.  The reader also adds:  "Of course, in addition to the numbers, there’s the issue of the nanny state (or worse) implications of government getting involved in setting goals for optimal population levels.  One need only look at China to see where that can go."

 

Friday, January 23, 2009

Creative Tensions

By Elizabeth Schiltz

I really appreciated both Russ and Amy's attempt to dissect some of the different tensions running through our debates.  I find this more nuanced look at our complex debates much more helpful than attempts to fit us into the categories appropriate for American politics.

I'm particularly intrigued by Amy's "Generational" and "Genre" categories.  On "Genres", personally, I like the fact that we have these different genres.  I like Michael Perry's charts and articles as much as I like Bob Arujo's complex essays.  Both have their place, both are styles that might sometimes be appropriate for the information being conveyed, and both might be what the individual poster has the time and inclination to devote that that particular topic. 

I think the "Generational" category is fascinating, as well.  The comment from the reader who clearly identifies as a "younger" Catholic was illuminating.  I'm way too old to consider myself a "younger" Catholic, and I don't feel old enough yet to consider myself an "elder" (most days), but this reader's comment captured precisely one of the tensions I sometimes feel in my efforts to work on articulating the "new feminism" John Paul II' called for in  Evangelium Vitae para. 99.  A friend recently expressed to me some frustration that so many of the women identifying themselves with this effort seem to be ignoring the works of earlier Catholic feminists.  She said something like, "This has all already been done before.  Why are you all trying to redo it?"  What I believe many of my friends engaged in the "new feminism" project (many of whom are not really all that young) think is that many of these earlier efforts were focused more on (in the words of Amy's reader) "reconsidering settled teachings" (such as all-male priesthood), and we are simply more interested in "evangelizing the culture."  It's not that the reconsideration of these settled teachings isn't perhaps appropriate and important, it's just not of primary interest to us. 

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The Magisterium and Me.... and Newman

By Elizabeth Schiltz

There are a number of things about this conversation about "conservative" and "progressive" Catholics that make me feel as though, by blogging on MOJ, I am participating in an enterprise that is very alien to me.  Many of them were nicely expressed by Amy and Susan. 

In addition, though, I want to share two thoughts.  First, I think a "conversation" such as this demonstrates some very real limits of communication by blogging. I sincerely wonder whether it is possible to have a productive exchange about a topic like this without being us being physically present to each other, so that we can see each other's expressions, hear each other's voices, even interrupt each other if necessary to stop someone from going too far when he gets carried away with a rhetorical flourish that would be more difficult to pull off face to face.  So much of what we need to do in conversations like this is listen, hear, and respond.  So much of what we might want to say is communicated not just by our words, but our demeanor, our expressions, our tones of voice, and the way our bodies react to what we are hearing.  The love that we have to show to one another in keeping a conversation like this civil is not accessible in words printed on a computer screen.  Personally, I am very uncomfortable getting engaged in this debate on this forum, for those reasons.  (So I should just delete this post, right, instead of continuing.  I know....)

Second, I think that any attempt to categorize people as "progressive" or "conservative" Catholics, based either on politics or on adherence to the Magisterium, reflects a simplistic notion of Catholic doctrine.  Whatever the "Magisterium" is, it is simply not something that is reducible to the concerns on the forefront of the minds of a group of Americans in 2009.   Whether defined narrowly as those things on which the Church has arguably spoken "infallibly" [a very, very narrow definition, indeed, but one that probably ought to at least include the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which has not been proposed as sorting criteria in this discussions on MOJ], or more broadly, under whatever of the many varying definitions various Catholics have proposed over the years, the teachings of the Church are always limited, at the very least, by the fact that they represent man's attempt to express in the blunt tools of man's language, and man's capacity to use language, something that transcends our abilities to even understand fully -- divine revelation.

Those of you familiar with the work of John Henry Newman will recognize the influence of his writing (particularly, The Essay on the Development of Doctrine) on the preceeding paragraph.   I'm going to end with a Newman quote,  from Apologia pro Vita Sua ,  in which he uses vividly evocative language to express the constant tension between what I think Steve must mean by the "Magisterium" (Newman here uses the term "Infallibilty", but he understands it in the broadest sense of the Church's teachings) and the efforts of laypeople like us (and even theologians) to understand the Church's teachings and apply them.  It's a messy, dynamic, process, that defies being captured at any one particular point in history.  It's also a process that I might venture to suggest probably places every single one of us sometimes in Steve's "progressive" pile, and sometimes in his "conservative" pile, at different times and with respect to different Church teachings.

Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act by an intense and varied operation of the Reason, both as its ally and as its opponent, and provokes again, when it has done its work, a re-action of Reason against it; and, as in a civil polity the State exists and endures by means of rivalry and collision, the encroachments and defeats of its constituent parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism but presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide; -- it is a vast assemblage of human beings with wilful intellects and wild passions, brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power, -- into what may be called a large reformatory or training-school, not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in order to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral factory, for the melting, refining, and molding, by an incessant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature, so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purpose.

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