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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > politics of abortion. An even-handed approached. | Forum Quick Jump
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/10/2004 7:21 AM (GMT -6) |   | Kerry personally opposes Abortion, but believes in the separation of Church and State.
Kerry says he believes Life begins at Conception
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27920-2004Jul4.html
What is at issue for him is the separation of Church and State. He doesn't believe he can impose his beliefs on others legally. He would have voted for the PBAban if it had allowed for an exception for the woman's health.
What really seems to be at contest here is what is the meaning of the separation of Church and State and how the abortion political debate is framed.
So long as it is framed as either we make all elective abortions illegal or we keep them legal, then the result will be continued deadlock.
If instead, the issue is framed as the legal redefinition of when human personhood begins then at issue is the need for ongoing deliberation on the fetal developmental process and the meaning of what it is to be a human being as well as the need to work out a civil, political means for us to reconsider the laws/regulations that govern the US's abortion industry. The fact that there have been so many technological changes in our ability to observe and abort the unborn fetus itself mandates that we be open to reviewing and reforming our legal definitions governing the abortion-industry. One can have religious groups play a role in pushing for some reforms without a violation of the separation(autonomy) of Church(es) and State.
I have suggested repeatedly that one way to depoliticize abortion politics would be to make it so that the legal redefinition of human personhood takes place based on a national referendum that would require a 75% majority to pass. The merits of this procedure include: how it will permit legal change at the national level and ensures that the legal changes will not be dramatic, reflecting solely the beliefs of a religious minority. It sets a precedent that permits additional changes to take place over time as beliefs continue to change, but, more or less, guarantees that it is highly unlikely that human personhood will be determined to be at conception. It guarantees that the decisive voter will be a female. It reduces strongly the importance of the particular beliefs of elected politicians and appointed supreme-court-justices, subordinating them to the beliefs of the vast-majority of USAmericans. This would, of course, enable us to select politicians/justices based on other criteria. The super-majority-requirement from the referendum would make legal enforcement easier, since the changes would reflect the moral deliberations of the vast-majority of their fellow-citizens, not just particular religious groups.
Some have questioned whether this is possible. We have decided issues by referendums in the past, mostly at the state-level, and we have required different percentage majorities on different votes in the past. For us to set it up as a legal precedent would require a constitutional amendment and that would require its support by both pro-choicers and pro-lifers. For this to happen, pro-lifers have to accept the futility of making all elective abortions illegal again and pro-choicers have to accept that the existence of some ambiguity as to when we become human beings doesn't prohibit us from making laws that determine legal personhood as beginning prior to birth.
Given that abortion has been the most divisive issue in the US since slavery, there is a strong need for us to make legal changes that will enable us to settle our differences by compromise in a less acrimonious manner. To accept restrictions on the extent that legal personhood can be redefined will not prevent pro-life activists from continuing to try to sway people at the individual level or from pursuing other reforms that are meant to discourage/prevent abortions.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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