This whole contraception debate has gotten completely out of hand. In light of the Obama Administration’s decision regarding birth control access for women employed by Catholic organizations, Catholic’s have been kicking and scream about Freedom of Religion. It seems that their main argument is that by forcing Catholic organizations to provide insurance that has the option of covering birth control for women who want it violates their religious beliefs and therefore violates the notion of religious freedom.
With that in mind, let’s turn to the even more controversial topic of abortion. Catholic’s and conservatives have made it abundantly clear that they believe and that their religion states that life begins at conception, therefore making abortions murder. This is what their religion dictates.
However, there are other religions that do not share these views.
In simple terms, Islam allows abortions for married women up to about 120 days and allows it for victims of rape and incest as well if the woman’s life is in danger. The more complicated stance is that while it doesn’t openly condone it, the act is permitted if there is a legitimate excuse and the decision to get one is “the lesser of two evils”. There is a great divide within the Muslim community regarding abortions because of external factors relating to culture and sexuality and while some Muslim’s regard it as sin, the religion itself states that abortions under certain circumstances are permissible.
Judaism also allows abortions for serious reasons. For example, the religion considers the woman’s life as more important than the fetus’ and in the event of a threat to her life, a pregnancy may be terminated. The religion is more lenient within the first 40 days of pregnancy. There are people within the religion that have made their own interpretations and consider it wrong. However, officially, the religions stance is not entirely against it.
The Hindu school of thought regarding abortion is a bit more complex. Old scripture states that it is not permissible. However, similar to Islam in this regard, Hinduism considers the “lesser of two evils”. That is, “to choose the action that will do least harm to all involved: the mother and father, the fetus and society”. Some Hindu’s believe that abortions after 3 months are not permissible. The religion does allow abortions if the woman’s life is in danger.
The Buddhist stance on abortion is even more convoluted. The religion itself does not have any official mention of it and women in Tibet usually do not obtain them even though they are available. There are many who consider it a sin based on their own personal beliefs. In an interview with The New York Times, however, the Dalai Lama stated:
When I was in Lithuania a few years ago, I visited a nursery and I was told, “All these children are unwanted.” So I think it is better that that situation be stopped right from the beginning — birth control. Of course, abortion, from a Buddhist viewpoint, is an act of killing and is negative, generally speaking. But it depends on the circumstances. If the unborn child will be retarded or if the birth will create serious problems for the parent, these are cases where there can be an exception. I think abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance.
Between these 4 religions, neither has a staunchly anti-abortion stance. Though Protestants, Mormons, and Catholics are definitely the majority in the United States, the focus here is on the notion of religious freedom.
Image via Wikipedia
So with that, here is the crux of this post: Keeping religious freedom in mind, outlawing abortion serves to violate the freedom of religion of many Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists. Protestant, Mormon, and Catholic anti-abortionists who seek to outlaw abortions based on their religious view of life beginning at conception are forcing their religious beliefs on millions of others who don’t necessarily hold the same religious views, not because they are atheists or agnostics, but because their religion does not believe that life begins at conception.
So does freedom of religion not apply to them in this case?
Why do the Catholics that are condemning the Obama Administration for violating their religious freedom not consider the religious freedom of others?
Stepping away from the aspect of abortion for a moment, Ryan Stevens, a fellow Tumblr-er pointed out that Christians have, in recent years alone, repeatedly violated the notion of freedom of religion for others. This includes preventing the building of Mosques (there are too many such incidents for me to link just one) or “when an atheist rightly points out that her school, as a public institution, cannot endorse Christianity or hang religious paraphernalia in their school, they flip a shit and threaten her with violence, death, and eternal damnation.”
Is it that freedom of religion is important to them only if it applies to Christianity because ‘who cares about all those other people who don’t share the same beliefs as us’? If they’re going to bring religion into this and make freedom of religion the current focal point in war on contraception (and it definitely is a war) then perhaps they should actually stand by freedom of religion for all and not just Christians and Christian beliefs.
Related articles
- US Bishops, Religious Freedom, Health Care: Omnibus Commentary, Part 5 (queeringthechurch.com)
- The Free Exercise of Religion and Freedom of Choice (conflicteddoomer.wordpress.com)
- ObamaCare vs. Freedom of Religion (conservativeeducator.com)
I respect your point of view and the fact that you are empassioned yet not full of the hatred and rage I have read on other blogs. Nonetheless, I do disagree with you. The Catholic Church follows natural law, and believing she holds God’s truth, she would be a knave or a fool if she fell into the current error of the current era, even if the majorities rise up against her. As nations have been built and have fallen, and as individuals have constantly sought selfishness and new old ideas of freedom, the Church will stay true. Even someone who opposes the Church must respect her steadfastness. May God love you.
I think you are confusing your issues in this post. You begin by discussing contraception and the Obama administration’s attempt to make Catholic institutions pay for it, but then you almost immediately switch over to the topic of abortion. The current backlash against president Obama is due to him trying to make the Catholics pay for abortion for their employees. If I understand it correctly, the Catholics are only protesting this action for religious organizations, they arent for instance, trying to stop Federal employees or Walmart employees from getting birth control (though I’m not putting it past Walmart to try and save a buck).
The other issue, abortion, the Catholics are against because they believe it is murder. They want to stop the killing of babies of all faiths. I guess it wouldn’t be a very good religion if they taught that it was wrong to abort Catholic babies, but ok to kill the Muslim babies, the Jewish babies, the Buddhist babies, and the Hindu babies.
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, I don’t think you quite understand the point. This post isn’t about any of the issues in particular but about the principle that Catholic’s are basing their argument on which is freedom of religion. I then go on to examine how in other circumstances Catholics try and violate the this very notion for other religions. Abortion is a mere example of something that Christians believe in but other religions don’t and therefore attempting to make it illegal based on Christian beliefs makes it a violation of “freedom of religion” for others? Does it make sense now?
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I understand the point. I don’t think you understand the point. As you clearly stated about all the other, non-Catholic religions, they do not teach that abortion is good, they only tolerate it, and only in specific instances. Your point about Catholics violating others religious beliefs by trying to outlaw abortion doesn’t hold water because abortion isn’t a religious teaching for anyone, anywhere. It may be tolerated as “the lesser of two evils” but that still makes it an evil, albeit the lesser one.
Conversely, when the Catholics say that contraception is evil, and then they are forced to offer it to their employees, there you have an actual case of violation of religious freedom.
Give me an example of a religion which teaches or promotes abortion as a religious belief and I may start to believe you when you claim outlawing abortion is a violation of religious freedom.
The “lesser of two evils” concept refers to putting a lot of thought into your decision on whether to carry the pregnancy to term or have it aborted. Therefore, the evils that are being referred to are giving birth or abortion. The point is for the parent to seriously consider each option and weigh which one will do the least amount of damage or be least harmful.
When you say that “It may be tolerated as “the lesser of two evils” but that still makes it an evil, albeit the lesser one.” then you must also include pregnancy and giving birth in that statement and not just abortion because those are the two things that the phrase “lesser of two evils” point is comparing.
I was raised in a Muslim home and Islam states that life does not begin at conception and it allows abortions up to 120 days. It emphasizes the “lesser of two evils” point to make sure that women and couples think hard about what ever decision they may make. So again, Islam allows me to obtain an abortion up to 120 days. Period. That being said, outlawing abortions based on the Catholic belief that life begins at conception violates my religious freedom. To reiterate, the first amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” and if it outlawed abortions based on the Christian belief of life beginning at conception then it is also a violation of this amendment.
Outlawing abortions due to non-religious reasons would be a different situation and a totally different argument and conversation which we could engage in if such a thing were to occur.
With respect, Catholics don’t make an argument based merely on their faith or religious tenets with regard to abortion, instead they also make a philosophical argument based on logic which states … intentionally taking an innocent human life is morally wrong, elective abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human person. Therefore, elective abortion is a serious moral wrong. This is not a religious argument, the question surrounds whether a child in the womb is a person and if so then one should consider it wrong.
“intentionally taking an innocent human life is morally wrong, elective abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human person. ”
A fetus isn’t an innocent human, it’s not a person at all. The idea of “life begins at conception” and that a fetus is a person or in your words an “innocent human” is a religious one and from that you draw your ideology on abortion.
I don’t believe in taking the life of any human person either doesn’t mean I can’t be pro-choice. I don’t regard a fetus as a person rights… could they eventually become one (after birth) absolutely but until then I believe the rights and personhood of the mother trumps all.
Thanks for the comment though!
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I am sorry, but you really do not have a clue what you are talking about sweetie. I have a degree in Constitutional Studies with a double concentration in the Origins of Rights and Supreme Court Jurisprudence, and extensive formal education in the the development and legacy of concepts of Freedom as culminated in the American founding. I am not stating all of this to gloat or because I am egotistical, but merely to establish my credentials as someone as with an accredited formalized education on the topic of Freedom and Rights (both in world history and modern America). The internet is great because we get to share information so rapidly and be heard by so many people, but the down side of the internet is that people who do not have a real education on topics try to weigh in and throw off everyone else’s understanding with fallacies and inaccurate or incomplete information. If you need some proof of my credentials I can provide you with the contact information of the founder of the Institute for American Constitutional Heritage (from Harvard), a highly sought after professor of Classical and Modern Political Science who is frequently invited to speak before congress, and an ex-Senator who serves on the President’s Intelligence Advisory board.
The principle of your argument is that not being allowed to do something that is not a violation of your religious beliefs is a violation of Freedom of Religion, or inversely, just because it is not a violation of your religion means that you should be allowed to do it. That has absolutely nothing to do with Freedom of Religion. You can test the strength of your argument by testing the same principle in other scenarios. For example, according to the principle of your argument, if it is not against your religion to sell US government secrets to China then to be prevented from doing so would be a violation of your Religious Freedom. If we were to go by your principle, then it would be a violation of Religious Freedom to make it illegal for Islamists to commit terrorist acts, after all, it is not against their religious beliefs to hurt people who they believe to be ‘infidels’ so therefore we should not prevent them from doing so.
Freedom of Religion is an explicit and defined concept. It means that you have the right to believe in and practice a religion that is different than the majority. It means that you cannot be forced to practice a religion that you do not believe in. Forbidding people to practice Judaism is a violation of Freedom of Religion. Making it illegal to be a muslim is a violation of Freedom of Religion. Likewise, your title “Religious Freedom for Christians Only” has an explicit and defined meaning; it means that the only religion that is legally allowed to be practice is Christianity, as in, you will go to jail if you attend a mosk prayer service or observe Jewish Synagogue rituals or attend a Hindu festival. It means that you do not have a choice in what religion you adhere to.
Just because a religion allows an action does NOT mean that it is a violation of their religious freedom if it is made illegal. For example, abortion may be tolerated in Judaism and Buddhism, but it is not A PART of those religions; outlawing abortion has absolutely NOTHING to do with preventing Jews and Buddhists from practicing their religion. Now, if ritual abortion was central to their religion, that would be a different story. Here is a REAL WORLD example of religious freedom in action: When the Federal Government of the United States made it illegal to drink all forms of alcohol during the prohibition era, the Catholic Church got an exemption because consuming wine is fundamental to the most important practice of that religion. If a religious group used wine in communion but did not REQUIRE the use of wine (as in they could religiously use grape juice) for the ritual to be religiously valid, then they were not given the exemption. Only churches that specifically required wine (as in, they could NOT grape juice or punch) got the exemption. Also, it not agains the religious beliefs of Catholicism to drink alcohol outside of religious ritual, however it was still illegal for catholics to drink alcohol outside of the communion ritual because that was a non-religious usage. Catholics got the exemption from the alcohol ban because it was REQUIRED to practice their religion, NOT because their religious beliefs allowed the use of alcohol in non-religious situations. Do you see how the principle of your argument is actually backwards from what Freedom of Religion really is? That explains why you do not understand uproar of Catholics over the birth control issue. I am not even sure if you are familiar with the REAL issue, which is that the Government is forcing Catholic medical centers to essentially pay for free contraception, which violates an important religious principle in Catholicism. If someone’s religious beliefs are ok with contraception, then not being provided any by a religious employer is NOT a violation of Freedom of Religion because it has nothing to do with the practice of their religion. The argument that Catholics want to restrict the religious freedom of other people by not offering birth control is the same thing as saying that it violates the religious freedom of an atheist if a Muslim owned restaurant does not sell pork.
You want to see a REAL LIFE example of trying to restrict other people’s religious freedom? Last year, the city of San Francisco tried to pass a law that made it illegal for anyone to circumcise their children, without exception. For Jews, circumcising their male children is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT religious ritual in their religion; in fact, in most forms of Judaism, you aren’t even considered Jewish if you are not circumcised. The backers of the bill refused to give the Jews an exemption on religious practice grounds, which meant that any Jew who practices this defining aspect of what it means to be Jewish would go to jail and pay a large fine. THAT is a TRUE attempt to restrict the religious freedom of other people. Now, to see how your principle comes it, many Christians, and even more so for Muslims, also circumcise their children. However, because that is an extra cultural practice that is allowed (actually is it STRONGLY preferred in Islam), and not necessary to the practice of the actual Christian or Islamic religion, the San Francisco Anti-Circumcision bill WOULD NOT have restricted the religious freedom of Muslims and Christians. Luckily however, the government of San Francisco realized that this would be a clear violation of the religious freedom of Jews (and ONLY jews, not of other religions that simply ‘allowed’ it), and they eventually struck down the bill.
Your principle of ‘if its not against my religious beliefs then to stop me from doing it is a violation of my religious freedom’ means that people only have to obey the laws of their religion. and therefore, if someone has no religious beliefs, then they do not have to follow any laws at all because ‘nothing violates their religious beliefs’. Furthermore, you would also have to contend with adherent to religions like the Satanic Church of Anton Levay, where it is not against the religion to kill people who offend you in that religion, so according to your argument, they should not be stopped from killing someone who hurts their feelings because it is not against their religion. Or the religious beliefs (which have luckily died out, but only within the past 25 or so years) of some Mormons that allow for 13 year old girls to be married to fully grown (and sometimes old) men. Or what about in Hinduism, where it is not against its religious beliefs to marry off 15 year old daughters to men they have never met before? How would you feel about being forced to marry to a man you have never met, who is probably 10 + years older than you, and having no say over it? According to your argument, it would be a violation of religious freedom to stop parents from doing that because their religion allows it. Actually, basically no religion has a mandated age limit for married sexual intercourse once the female has had her first period, nor religiously forbids arraigned marriages…..think about that.
What a person’s religious beliefs ‘allow’ has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with their religious freedom. Religious Freedom ONLY comes into play when they are forced to do something that their religion forbids, or not allowed to do something that their religion requires.
In other words, claiming that not being allowed to have an abortion or be given free contraception is a violation of your religious freedom is the worst distortions of the idea that you have the freedom to practice your religion ever seen in human history, because there is no religious system in which abortion and contraception are central to the ritual practice of the religion.
Also, I would try to find better sources that tumbler; tumbler is fun, but stuff like tumbler, twitter, facebook, youtube, and blogs combine to make the largest source of disinformation and corrupted understanding of historical, religious, and political events and concepts since the nazi propaganda machine; not everything on those sites is misleading and distorted, but you would be much better off going to the library or at least using accredited academic sources for your education on topics like this (and no, I am not ‘old’ and out of touch, I have a facebook and a twitter and all of that, I have been 24 years old for less than a month, i am VERY much IN touch and up to date).
If you are in school, or live near a college or university, I would recommend contacting and meeting with some history, religious studies, and political science professors and asking them for their understanding of historical, political, and religious concepts and events. The more well informed people you talk to, the better your understanding will be and the more your perspective will broaden; you could take your blog to the next level with that kind diligent research. I just finished my 2nd college degree, but for everything that I do know I know that there is so much more that I dont know, so I am applying to get my masters and doctorate degrees. NEVER stop learning, always research things for yourself, don’t just take what people say on the internet and media as the complete truth. You seem like an upbeat person with big heart and a bright mind, the kind of person with goals and who wants to help make the world a better place; you have the foundation, now you just need to sharpen your tools with a bit more education and completed understanding.
I appreciate that you read and spent 9 hours of your time to write out your thoughts. You even raise a number of interesting points. However, the condescension in your comment suggests that you are uninterested in discussing the issue like the educated adults we both clearly are. For example, opening your comment with the overly-familiar and diminutive “sweetie” has no place in a discussion of equals.
If I have misjudged, please feel free to revise and repost your comment appropriately. There is no need to include your educational history and credentials. A well-articulated argument should not need to be bolstered by a litany of degrees.
I assume that since I did not mention the 9 hours of typing various things in my comment on your blog, that you read my comment on a different blog that referenced you. I hope that you can tell that there is a difference between the amount of condescension between that comment and the one that I posted on your blog. I actually typed that one before I typed the one I posted on your blog but I did not hit ‘post’ until after; I had a significant change in attitude and interpretation of your intention between the two.
I feel that you should know that this discussion has been going on for a much longer time on that and other blogs that I participate on. My initial reaction was one of frustration that really had nothing to do with you personally and had everything to do with a several week long build up of arguing. I actually had decided to type out a thorough explanation and had been doing so for about 6 hours before I came across your article, so 95% of my condescending tone was out of frustration that existed well before you came to my attention. You just happened to be thrown in front of me at a point when I had become exasperated with hearing same arguments over and over that included a lot of ‘opinions’ without any evidence, a lot of talk about how people ‘think’ or assume that american freedoms work but almost no discussion about how it actually works according to the only people who’s opinion actually matters (which is the court justices). When I say ‘the only people who’s opinion matters’, I do not mean to say that some people are better than others; I merely mean to express that we can discuss our thoughts and opinions all we want, but the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day none of it has any bearing on reality because we are not on the court, we have absolutely no say on the issue, our opinions literally do not matter. That includes mine, i am not on the court so my opinion does not matter because I cannot affect anything; the only reason why I feel that my argument is correct is because that is what the Court has traditionally ruled (which is how lawyers are trained to think); it may however change in the future, because the court has altered how it defines certain things in the past. obviously, all of this assumes that it will get to the Supreme Court, but I would bet most everything I have that if the government tries to force catholics to pay for other people to do what they consider to be a sin, that it will defiantly go before the court eventually.
I apologize for talking down to you; I incorrectly assumed that, because you were arguing the same things as others that I had been debating recently, that you were just as dogmatic as they were – as in, placing your opinion over the reality of what the court has declared religious freedom to be, and so not open to adjusting your stance if you could not provide a logically superior argument based on court evidence. I realized near the end of typing my comment that you were not what I had originally interpreted (a major downside of communication through the internet is that you miss out on the voice intonation and body language of the person, and so loose a major part of the message they are trying to communicate); once I realized, I went back to edit and tried to modify the tone to a more friendly level, but I did not catch everything. That includes forgetting to delete the ‘sweetie’. Furthermore, I did NOT realize how old you were, from your picture I thought you were around 18 or 19, I did not realize until after I hit ‘post’ that you were actually a little older than I was. I do have to admit, however, that inclusion of the colloquialism ‘they flip a shit’ threw me off somewhat on guessing your age and interpreting your tone. Obviously, as a 24 year old, I use stuff like that in my everyday speech, but I am not used to seeing it in more formal and public discussions where people do not know each other and cannot use voice and speaking style to easily discern the tone of the comment.
Anyways, I apologize if I offended you, and I really did mean what I meant about thinking that you seemed like a bright and caring person.
Thanks for responding and explaining your comment. The “flip a shit” part was actually a quote from someone else which I should have edited out but it was nearly 3am and I wanted to finish the post and go to bed.
I can understand that often people get fiery and angry in political conversations, so I appreciate that you took the time to write this follow-up post and explain yourself.
Religious freedom means religious observance. In the US, the government may not abridge religious observances absent a compelling government reason to do so. There is no compelling state reason to make criminals of women who wish to use contraception or get an abortion. The decision whether to use contraception or to get an abortion may be regulated on public policy grounds that apply to everyone and make sense to everyone – but not on the ground that these procedures are forbidden by a particular religion. This is where the Catholic hierarchy is in error – by insisting that government policy reflect Catholic dogma. Invoking the power of the prosecutor to apply religious doctrine to the public would be a denial of freedom from religious compulsion. Denying employees of Catholic institutions access to medicines and medical procedures would amount to a violation of the consciences of women, whose own beliefs on these matters differ from the Catholic hierarchy. The second error of the hierarchy is to invoke an alleged freedom of conscience in the institutional church. A church entity may be said to have rules and regs but not a collective conscience. There is a heavy irony in the Catholic hierarchy speaking loudly about the need to coerce non-Catholic women, when the hierarchy refrains from insisting that Catholic women observe announced doctrine. The hierarchy does not so insist because the data shows that a majority of Catholic women already use contraceptives and believe that abortions ought to remain legal. Evidence: most Catholic families today plan and space their children in the same way that non-Catholic families do. The bishops are silent about this because they know they cannot threaten to sanction Catholic women who use contraceptives, and risk alienating even more practicing Catholics. The bishops have taken the dishonest, cynical, route of public posturing, which is always easier than working out a policy that respects the rights of all the citizens. Saira is right.
Your ignorance is taxing, but your rejection of formally educated opinion and real life evidence makes me fume with anger. I just typed a very long and scathing reply detailing how (1) that your reasoning is out of scope and full of logical fallacies, both of which are extensively tested on the Law School Admissions Exam, (2) your argument has no grounds in REAL american jurisprudence but rather what you have imagined american law to be in your head, and (3) how you are not someone who can be reasoned with.
I established WHY I might know what I am talking about (rather than assuming that I am right simply because it is ‘my’ opinion as most people on the internet do) by stating my background and specialized education, as well as offering to provide the contact information for a seasoned government official and two experts on American Freedom and Constitutional Law to prove that I am not just making up my credentials. I then politely explained what REAL american jurisprudence is on the topic, and I provided REAL LIFE EVIDENCE.
You do the exact opposite. You come in and establish absolutely no reason why what you say might have any truth or validity nor do you offer to provide any proof of it; rather, you assume that because you have access to the internet and a strong opinion you must clearly be right. Then, you go on to reject all of my expertise in the field (I have dedicated the last 5 years of my life to the study of american jurisprudence on freedom, rights, and religion). If you had established that your opinion on topics at hand has any credibility, or at least provided examples where courts have ruled against what I am saying (or even in favor of what you are saying) then I would not be so annoyed, as that is the process of logical and rational debate. However, you provide no evidence from court rulings, or any evidence or proofs AT ALL. We are merely supposed to ‘take your word on it’ with neither evidence nor credentials to back it up. You do not even attempt to engage my points or refute them, you merely just sit there and say “I am right and you are wrong because I have declared it to be so”. There can be no rational debate with such a person, they are not interested in accuracy or truth but merely declaring what they already think. For some reason you are so confident in your opinion that you do not think twice about ignoring the statements of people with accredited backgrounds in the topic as well as reject what the Supreme Court has ruled in REAL LIFE. I challenge you to provide hard evidence from real life, rather than requiring us to blindly believe in what your mind has imagined through incomplete understandings, faulty logic, and massive assumptions. I won’t bother to ask you to provide evidence of the Supreme Court to back up your argument, because I already know from my accredited EDUCATION that the court has NEVER ruled in favor of your argument.
People like you cannot be reasoned with, you are invincible in your ignorance.
I forgot to finish my thought that started with “I just typed a very long and scathing reply…”; the reason why I did not post my original response was because I know that it would be futile, because you are not interested in the FACTS of american jurisprudence, you are only interested in your opinion derived from your imagined idea of what american jurisprudence on religious freedom is.
Since the 1970′s and the Burger Court, the Supreme Court has followed a three-tier approach to analyzing rights versus government restrictions. Much of this analysis was the work of Justice Brennan, both in majority opinions and in dissent. The classification is as follows:
1. Non-suspect classifications and non-fundamental rights are subjected to the Court’s analysis whether the government has a rational basis for regulation, as in the case of regulations effecting the mentally disabled, or laws against indecency.
2. Middle tier – the Court inquires whether the proposed government regulation serves an important governmental interest, as in cases, whether the kids of illegal immigrants may be barred from public education; no, they cannot. Why? The government cannot show an important interest in denying kids an education.
3. A suspect classification and or a fundamental right – the Court requires the government to demonstrate a compelling interest in making the classification or abridging the fundamental right.
Re gay marriage: If the government (state or federal) intends to classify homosexuals as unfit for marriage, this is an inherently suspect classification and so the government must show a compelling reason for making the determination of unfitness to have access to a marriage license There is no compelling governmental reason why this access should be denied. In fact, no one has ever asserted that there exists such a compelling reason. Thus, gay marriage has been found to be constitutional by those courts that have ruled on this issue.
Re abortion, the Roe v Wade decision is a compromise, between the right of a women to elect not to become a mother and the interest of the state in protecting life. The compromise follows the progress of the pregnancy, with the rights of the women paramount in the early stages and the government’s interests gaining in importance in the later stages of pregnancy. The nature of this compromise is so reasonable, that no subsequent Supreme Court decisions have reversed it and the current court, with its Roman Catholic majority is not likely to do so either.
Federal jurisprudence has already laid to rest these contentious issues, gay marriage and abortion, though the Supreme Court may accept a gay marriage case in the near future. These issues surface and swirl around electoral politics but that’s about it. Thank goodness.
We are a diverse society. Our diversity is recognized in our jurisprudence. How could it be otherwise?
Thank you, I wish that you had started with some of that to begin with, and I can now see your argument more clearly. We are actually emphasizing different things. You are talking about arguments to ban abortion and contraception, which would largely fall under the ‘reasonable cause’ rulings that you properly brought up. I am primarily discussing the court’s stances on the government forcing or baring private organizations to provide access to products and activities that are against or required by their religion under the guise of “the some other persons’ beliefs somehow factor in”, as in “it is somehow a violation of my religious freedom that my employer does not provide me a product that my beliefs allow for”. As I constructed above with several examples was what someone’s beliefs ‘allow’ do not fall under ‘religious freedom’ protections, only that which is required or forbidden by their religious beliefs fall under religious protection/freedom of conscious. That is what I was referring to when I asked you to provide examples.
For some reason you seem to think that if someone does not want to be forced to do something that they do not approve of on the grounds that ‘other people’ do approve of it means that they are against ‘diversity’. Please explain to me how forcing everyone to offer a product regardless of their religious beliefs is supportive of ‘diversity’. To me, not allowing people to opt out of something even if it is against their beliefs is OPPOSED to diversity because it says “I dont agree with your beliefs so you have to follow my way”. If you were interested in true diversity, then you would support the idea that anyone who wants to offer free birth control can choose to do so and anyone who does not want to do so can choose not to.
Also, this is not solely a religious issue, it also has to do with traditional American principles about the government not intruding into the lives of other people unnecessarily, letting alone forcing them to go against their conscience. I honestly do not believe that anyone who supports the government increasing its regulation to this level does not truly believe in, or at least does not understand, the principles of the American founding (which is fine, everyone can believe what they want): which is that the rights of the individual to choose according to their conscience is more important than ‘collective opinion’ or ‘the good of the whole’. Except for some cases such as the promotion of violence, a break down of law and order, sedition or treason, or actively harming the welfare of someone else, then the government is supposed to let the individual choose.
Forcing everyone to comply with providing a product that is already easily obtainable on its own, regardless of the individual’s conscience, is AGAINST the principles of the founding of the United States. It is just another example of the slow erosion of the individual’s freedom to choose differently than the majority that happens in ALL democracies in history. It is called the slow march toward radical democracy, which believes that whatever the majority believes is more important than minority rights to belief and act differently than the majority – and radical democracies have some of the worse records of protecting minority rights to free speech and practice of any form of government, yes even of autocratic dictators (just look at how the protection of minorities has DRASTICALLY dropped in most of the countries that have experienced revolution in the middle-east, most minority populations were much better off under the dictator than they are now under more populist control). The framers of the United States were strongly opposed to radical democracy. In face, many people do not realize that the United States has the MOST aristocratic constitution of any modern free nation; because it allows for (among other things) 9 people who have life appointments and are not in any way responsible to the American people to overturn the will of the majority with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down (I am refereeing to the Supreme Court). The reason people like George Washington and the rest of those responsible for the Constitution of the United States created such an aristocratic constitution was that they understood that it would be the only thing to prevent the will of the majority (as acting through the popularly elected congress and president) from ignoring the rights of people of minority opinion to choose for themselves and forcing them to comply with the will of the majority (aka what the government decides for them).
People think that majority rule and democracy can do no wrong, that is FAR from the case. People used to actually believe (contrary to the examples of history) that if every country had a democratic government then there would never be another war again, after all, “democracies are enlightened and tolerant and use reason so they will never go to war”. They called World War 1 “The War to End All Wars”, because when it was over, all major powers had become democracies ‘so clearly there would never be another war again’. The very next thing that happened was World War 2.
The Nazi’s were democratically elected, Mussolini was supported by popular majority, Julius Caesar overturned the democracy of Rome not by force but because the people willingly GAVE him the power, the famous democracy of Athens voted democratically to execute Socrates because he criticized the popular wisdom of the day, the democracy of sparta did not allow anyone to own personal property or even have a say in raising their own children (they did not allow the individual to have a choice) by direct POPULAR VOTE.
This is defiantly a religious freedom issue, but it also is a secular political principles issue. It just so happens that many people with conservative political views also tend to be more against trends toward radical-democracy (as in the individual decides not the government), and people with less conservative religious views tend to be more in favor of trends toward radical democracy (the government choses and forces everyone to conform to a unified model, rather than allowing individuals to choose for themselves). However, they do not inherently go together, you can have conservative religious beliefs and favor radical-democracy (and vice-versa); the recent alignment between conservative religious beliefs and anti-radical democracy views is a recent phenomenon that started in the 1980′s and exploded in 2001. Read the excellent research book, ‘American Grace’, by a professor of Political Science over the affect on religious pluralism on american society and politics over the last 50 years and how the recent religious alignment with the conservative political party came to be, how politics defines your religion far more than the other way around, and a lot of other important research on the topic.
Basically what I am getting at is that just because someone is opposed to this contraception coercion does not mean that it is for primarily religious reasons, it is just the religious leaders who get all of the press because the american media is obsessed with any religious controversy and ESPECIALLY to any drama involving the Catholic Church. The same exact controversies happen in all other religious AND SECULAR organizations, its just that the american media puts the ones involving the catholic church on the front page and make you dig into the depths of the paper/website to read about it in groups of other orientations (if they even report it at all).
on a different topic, have you been following how Roe v Wade is being increasingly eroded in lower courts? And not by people arguing against abortion, but because what seemed like such a reasonable compromise 4 decades ago is increasing proving to be fundamentally flawed due its reliance on ‘fetal viability’ being totally dependent on the level of technology we have to examine the fetus in urtero, and especially in cases such as fetal-death. A person is usually charged with some form of double-murder if they kill a pregnant woman, and in many states you can be criminally charged if you end up killing the baby but not the mother. Roe v Wade states that a ‘fetus’ does not have rights because it is not a person. But how then can you be charged for homicide if the baby of a pregnant woman if it is neither a person nor has rights? here is one example (I do not really care for fox news, but they have thankfully been moving more to the right recently): http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/20/alabama-courts-wrongful-death-ruling-used-to-recommend-abandoning-viability/
Also, do you know much about Wade from ‘Roe v Wade’? Back when he was the the District Attorney of Dallas, he was seen as a public champion who was tough on crime, protecting the community, and the rights of citizens. However in recent years we have just begun to find out (through reviewing old court cases), that the reason he never lost a case that he took personally was because of his immoral and sometime illegal law practices. He convicted at all costs, even if he knew that the defendant was actually innocent. He withheld evidence from the court that he felt would hurt his chances of winning the case, including in cases where he knew that the person that he was prosecuting was innocent AND EVEN IF it would help lead to finding the true perpetrator of the crime. Why? because he did not care about fairness, and he did not care that true justice was served, he only cared about winning cases to keep his reputation for never having lost a case. They have reexamined scores of cases and found that many of the ‘criminals’ that he sent to jail for decades were innocent. I watched one of the documentaries backed by the City of Dallas District Attorney’s office when I toured a Law School there. Here is another one, I recommend you, Saira, and everyone watch this: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4069405n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox
Does this possibly shed new light on Roe v Wade?
I’m going to have to get back to you on this in a few days, I wanted to say so in case you thought I was choosing not to respond. I do want to say that without the initial hositlity you first exhibited, it’s very refreshing to hear from someone who is not using the simple “the Bible says life begins at conception” excuse in order to engage in this conversation. This is what a real abortion debate should look like and too often people simply rely on religion to validate their views.
You’ll probably hear from me in a few days regarding your comment above, in the meantime have a great week!
Thanks! And again, I am sorry for the initial hostility; as I said, I misjudged you. Your responses give me the impression that we might actually be much more alike that I originally thought, just from very different backgrounds. I really admire your restraint and maturity (you have already proven to be better at that than I am), and you preference for objectivity and non-religious arguments. Like I said, I think we are probably very similar, EXCEPT that I have a volatile temper and become impetuous when it flares up. You know what they say, girls mature faster than boys…. lol. Anyways, I am super busy this week, so take your time, I may not even be able to adequately respond until after next Tuesday, depending on how my course work goes. Also, you do not have to respond if you do not feel like it, I merely thought that you or your commenters might find it interesting.
Thank you very much for your valuable input.
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