The Abortion Debate, Revisited.

It occurs to me that the approach to this debate is wrong.  Emotions are driven higher, and reason abandoned because of this erroneous beginning.  Abortion is spoken of as if it was a single issue.  It is not!  The present debate encompasses at least four separable issues.

1. Does the Federal government have the power (as defined by the ruling document, the Constitution) to involve itself in abortion?
2. How do you define life and when does it begin?
3. How should the State define life?
4. Does the majority have the philosophical and legal right to impose its morality on the minority?

The answers will likely be different for each person.  I will not attempt to answer them all, but to forward some thinking points for your consideration.

There are specific, enumerated powers granted to the Federal government by the Constitution.  Powers not mentioned specifically are reserved to the States and the People.  These powers can be added to or removed by the Constitutional Amendment process, and in no other way.  While the Declaration of Independence recognizes an individual's God-given right to life, the Constitution does not.  That power is reserved to the States.  While the Congress may have made laws concerning murder outside of the District of Columbia and the Army and Navy, they are currently un-Constitutional.

Each State has its own laws about murder.  This then, not the Federal, is the arena in which laws concerning abortion should be considered.

How do you define "life" and when does it begin for humans?  This is the question most people get hung up on, that generates the most heat, and is least important.  This is a question of science, philosophy, religion, and morality.  It should not be a question of politics or law.

The legal question should be properly phrased: "How should the State define 'person'?"  Does a "person's life" begin at the moment of conception?  Do you really want the State involved from that moment onward?  Do you want the State to monitor your pre-natal diet and nutrition?  Your exercise?  Your stress?  Your financial condition?  Your visits to the doctor?  Once you let that camel's nose under the flap of your tent, you'd better plan on the entire camel sharing your bed!  Will it become a felony to have one beer?  A nutritionally unbalanced meal?  Too many snacks?  To go swimming?  To ride a bike?  To go skydiving?  You might be endangering the life of a "person" for whom the State has legal responsibility.

I suggest that the point of the State's commencement of responsibility is the real question here.  It might be defined as "at birth" or "after the second trimester of pregnancy."  Whatever point is decided upon, it will have little to do with the definition of life, and more to do with the degree of intrusion by the State that we will accept.

Sharia Law, for instance, demands death for more than just first degree murder.  Indeed, it demands death for some offenses American law does not even recognize.  This is an obvious indication of the variations in the value of human life and morality that exist in our society today.  There is a philosophical question to be answered.  Does the majority have a right to impose its will on the minority?  In all cases?  Or is there a line?  Should we, the majority, decide that a woman must wear a veil in public, so that no man not her husband can see her face?  Should we rule that a raped twelve year old girl must carry the loathsome evidence of her victimization to term and give birth?  Do we have the right to impose our morality upon everyone else, regardless of the fundamental beliefs of their religion?  Would you have the same answer if you were in the minority?

I am not the Oracle of Delphi. But, I do have answers to all the above questions.  Were I the Emperor of the World, I could solve this problem now and forevermore in a New York minute.  Turns out, to my considerable disappointment, I am NOT Emperor of the World.  So, make up your own darn answers.  Just don't treat this issue as a simple question, because it is not.  There is not ONE answer.  And the answers you have may not be the same as mine.  And until someone dies and leaves you as Emperor of the World . . .

Backsliding

Reading Edmond Morris's biography, Colonel Roosevelt.  About, you know, the good cousin, Teddy.

Good book, but disheartening.  Theodore Roosevelt faced, during and after his Presidency, many problems in their infancy that we face today full blown.  Despite the passage of a hundred years and the convulsions of two world wars, problems have changed little except for the names of the guilty, unless it is to get worse.

We still have spineless politicians who would cede our sovereignty and our freedom to a World Court. 

We still have the battle between individual rights and the soullessness of large public corporations.

We still see the battle between seventh century Islam and twenty-first century rest-of-the-world.  Exacerbated by the aftermath of nineteenth and twentieth century colonialism.

I greatly admire T.R. and the things he was able to do, and wanted to do.  He was not a perfect man, but then who amongst us is?  Hint: far fewer than believe they are -- none, in fact!

One can see but faintly from the distance of a hundred years, clear as it may seem.  If I were to guess at how much mankind has progressed in that time, my guess would be zero.  Or a little bit less.

I'm just glad it's only half past seven of a Michigan evening, and still light out.  If I waited until eleven at night to write this I might have gotten really gloomy!