On Conscientious Objection and Abortion
It never goes away–perhaps as crucial in our politics as white supremacy. Though it originates as the same social imaginary: male supremacy.
Among the provisions of the Democrats’ “3.5 billion budget bill that’s going to reconciliation is one that would provide Medicare funding for medical abortions. An opinion piece on The Hill expressed outrage at President, Biden’s “flip-flop, after spending decades of his political career protecting the conscience rights of Americans, including his fellow Catholics, who are morally opposed to public funding of abortion.”
Here we go again with phony moralism. Of course everyone has a right to support or oppose “public funding of abortion.” But no one has a “conscience right” to see their preference put into effect. It’s not a “right;” the idea that my conscience has rights is exactly like the idea that my “freedom” should allow me to defy social distancing, masking, and vaccination. It’s hard for some persons to grasp this, but calling an opinion “moral” does not make it worthier of attention than any other opinion. They’re all equal in the institution of majority rule, except those that would discriminate against, or deprive of equal protection of the law, a group of such persons, when put into effect.
That is, “discriminates” meaning aimed at the group rather than at effecting a general policy preference. In this case, public funding of abortion does not prevent any person or group of persons, such as Catholics, from doing anything they don’t want to do. They don’t have to have an abortion if they don’t want one. They even, if they run or work in hospitals, don’t have to provide abortion services–though I would argue against that “right” if they’re receiving public money. And of course they can protest if that’s what they want to do–though only without engaging in harassment or violence.
We’re all in the same boat: I can’t stop public funding of violence in Yemen, for example. Ultimately, both myself and the author of the op-ed can refuse to pay taxes that fund public polices we find abhorrent–if we can figure out which taxes those are. I have a friend who went to jail rather than register for Selective Service during the Korean War. Had another who famously went to jail after taking a hammer to a nuclear submarine in its moorings. People have willingly gone to jail for taking such actions, including Henry David Thoreau (if only one night) for refusing to pay a poll tax in protest against slavery and the War on Mexico.
The anti-abortionists, though, prefer to hurt other people rather than take a moral stand that might hurt themselves–which is what conscientious objection usually entails. Really, when you come right down to it, I hope we win that vote, and if they lose it, the hell with them and their consciences. I have no respect for a “conscience” that consists of hurting other people, that is, women who desire or need an abortion. They’re just bullies. As to killing fetuses, Ross Douthat’s “holocaust,” that’s their opinion, I disagree, and despite the Catholic Church’s dogmas it’s no better than any other opinion: win, lose, or draw.
But now for something completely different:
From Elie Mystal in The Nation, on the President’s unilateral decision to extend the eviction moratorium for 90 days when Congress failed to do so:
“Biden’s Eviction Moratorium Is a Rare Act of Presidential Civil Disobedience.
The Supreme Court will almost certainly strike down the moratorium, but the president’s decision to heed the call of Cori Bush was the right and righteous thing to do.“
Cori Bush, we must note, for four days and nights sat down or slept on the steps of the Capitol to make that happen. She wasn’t arrested, but she could not have counted on that; and she received help from other members of the House because there were rain and sun to endure.
But then,”Roughly two decades before she was elected to Congress, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri lived in a Ford Explorer with her then-husband and two young children after the family had been evicted from their rental home.”
To quote myself from long ago (Retrieving Democracy: In Search of Civic Equality, 1985), “Transportation policies are set by people who generally travel first class. Safety legislation is voted on by people most of whom have never worked in a factory or mine. The administrators of national health services never wait in a doctor’s waiting room. Housing codes for public housing are drafted by people who will never live in public housing.”
Well, I’m now glad to be able to say that at least once, housing policy, for as long as it lasts, has been made by a person who has been homeless. Perhaps we need a lot more of such genuine representation on behalf of those people who live and die by it.
