A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

SB 146 – Abortion Bureaucracy

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SB 146 is the latest effort by Senators Drozda and Miller to impose more bureaucracy on any woman seeking an abortion. Today, by a voice vote, the Senate rejected an amendment offered by Senator Lanane. (Because it was a voice vote, we can’t see who was for the amendment or who was against it.)

The bill requires that, at least 18 hours before the medical procedure, a woman seeking an abortion be informed that there is “differing medical evidence concerning when a fetus feels pain;” that “many” couples who are “willing and waiting” to adopt a child and that “under certain circumstances” adoptive parents “may” legally pay costs associated with prenatal care, childbirth, and neonatal care; that there are physical risks to the woman having an abortion; and that “an embryo formed by the fertilization of a human ovum by a human sperm immediately begins to divide and grow as human physical life.” (Nice dodge with “human physical life” — technically true, leads to a nasty feeling by Mom that this is murder, and neatly sidesteps the messy debate about what is valuable about human life and whether that value is yet present to be destroyed by the abortion.)

Senator Lanane’s proposed amendment would have added more information – in addition to telling the woman that there are physical risks to an abortion, the doctor would have been obliged to tell the woman that there are physical risks to pregnancy — an inconvenient fact about which the Senate felt the incubators women should not necessarily be aware. The Senate rejected the proposed amendment. Senator Lanane’s amendment also would also have required that a physician advise that a woman should consult with her physician throughout her pregnancy.

SB 3 – Refusal by pharmacist to fill prescriptions

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SB 3, authored by Senator Drozda, provides special protections for pharmacists who don’t feel like filling prescriptions based on the pharmacists’ subjective belief that the prescribed medication would be used to cause an abortion, destroy an “unborn” child, or assist a suicide.

By a vote of 22 to 26, the Senate rejected an amendment offered by Senator Simpson that would have specified that the legislation does not extend to contraceptive drugs and devices that have been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration to prevent pregnancy.

In its current form, in some cases, the pharmacist might have to contact a physician to discuss the reason for the prescription, but I don’t see anything in the legislation that limits the pharmacists’ unfettered discretion to refuse to fill a prescription based on anything that may or may not be said by the physician during the discussion. Further, the pharmacist is granted immunity for his or her actions, and no sanction is permitted. A pharmacy is required to implement procedures to fill such a prescription in the face of recalcitrance by its employee-pharmacist; but the pharmacy is not allowed to discriminate in its employment practices based on the extra effort and expense necessitated by the pharmacist’s actions or refusal to act.

Update Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article on the proposed amendment. Apparently at the committee hearing, Sen. Drozda repeatedly said that the legislation wouldn’t apply to contraceptives. Then, once the bill was out of committee, he started backing away from that position. Sen. Simpson offered the amendment to make it clear that the bill didn’t apply to contraceptives and that, if Sen. Drozda meant what he said, it should be a slam dunk. Sen. Drozda said that such an amendment would have been more appropriate at the committee level and urged its rejection on the floor of the Senate. Well, perhaps Sen. Drozda, if you gave the committee accurate information; the issue could have been resolved in committee.

Scary Mike Huckabee

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Huckabee scares me:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

This, my friends, is theocracy. The problem, of course, is that God never speaks for himself. There is always someone seeking to gain or maintain power over his fellow citizen volunteering to speak for God.

If there’s a God, he presumably has better things to do with a whole universe to run. Let’s just decide what’s best for ourselves based on our own criteria. If God disapproves, he can just come strike us down at a later date. On the other hand, maybe we’ll all be treated to an eternal reward because we showed some f*&kin’ initiative.

Evolution and the Bible

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The Lafayette Journal & Courier ran an opinion column by Prof. Nancy Pelaez entitled Science Need Not Threaten Faith. The author’s basic point is that the National Academy of Science’s book “Science, Evolution, and Creationism” was the subject of very different reporting by the New York Times as compared to the Associated Press. The New York Times reported the new book is “intended specifically for the lay public and … devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.” Meanwhile, the AP reports that the book “takes swipes at creationism and other anti-evolution views,” and that “evolution is a continuing topic of debate in some states.”

Prof. Pelaez goes on to report on data suggesting that people want to know more about evolution and suggesting some of the ways in which evolutionary science is important to our modern condition. She concludes:

The lay public deserves access to intelligible explanations about recent science discoveries without fear that scisence has anything to say about their deeply held faith or personal beliefs.

Readers are encouraged to practice scientific skepticism and to access the original source from experts and not rely on an Associated Press article with biased statements about the teaching of evolution in public schools.

All of this is fine for most religions, I suspect. As I’ve mentioned ad nauseum around here, I’m not a religious guy. But, it seems to me that most people of faith don’t abandon their own powers of observation and judgment just because their holy texts say something different. “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?” But, there is a non-trivial segment of the population who feel that the Bible (and, for all I know, other holy texts for other faiths) commands them to do just that because of its supposed inerrancy. If the Bible is the literal, unchanging, inerrant word of God, contradictory evidence can’t be viewed very favorably. And, so, we have the evolution “controversy.” Scientific skepticism is anathema to those who believe that Truth is exclusively revealed rather than observed. Something in the Bible might prove to be falsifiable in which case a brittle sort of faith would shatter.

Even in this context, it’s never quite been clear to me why evolution seems to be the Holy Grail of wingnuttery. I mean, I get that the Bible says that God created all of the animals and that evolution suggests that this is not the case. But why doesn’t geology showing that the earth is a few billion years old come in for quite the same firestorm? There are Young Earthers out there, but they don’t seem to cause nearly the same level of fuss.

At the moment, I suppose this is mostly of academic interest to me. I’m not afflicted by doubts when presented with contradictions between scientific observations and the writings in the Bible. Others are free to believe what they want to believe and that alone does me no harm. However, if this nonsense “controversy” is a factor in the public schools my kids go to, I might have to have words with someone.

SB 327 – Abstinence Only Sex Education

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SB 327, introduced by Sen. Breaux, is a fun little bill. Basically, it requires schools that provide abstinence-only education to send notices to parents informing them that their children are receiving abstinence only sex education instead of useful, medically accurate education.

The text of the required notice:

“Your child is receiving abstinence-only human sexuality education.
Abstinence-only education does not teach students how to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases other than by remaining abstinent.
Your child is not receiving the following:
(A) Information on methods, other than abstinence, for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
(B) Medically accurate instruction on the risks and benefits, including safety and efficacy, of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved methods for:
(i) reducing the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS; and
(ii) preventing pregnancy.
(C) Medically accurate instruction regarding the correct use of FDA approved methods for:
(i) reducing the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS; and
(ii) preventing pregnancy.
(D) Instruction that provides lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students with the necessary skills for making and implementing responsible decisions about relationships and sexuality, including the use of all effective methods to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
(E) Instruction that provides sexually active students with the necessary skills for making and implementing responsible decisions about relationships and sexuality, including the use of all effective methods to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
You have the right to review the abstinence-only curriculum in its entirety. Written and audiovisual educational materials used in abstinence-only education are available for inspection.
You have the right to excuse your child from all or parts of abstinence-only instruction. You have the right to be involved in your child’s education.”

Brayton on the Founders & Religion

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Ed Brayton has a wonderful post on the Founders’ personal religious beliefs and the relationship of those beliefs to the Founders’ opinions of the proper role of government in religion (or vice versa). Go read the whole thing, but the short version is essentially this:

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison were all rational theists and not really Christians. They had a difference of opinion as to whether religion was necessary to support public virtue and morality. Jefferson and Madison believed that religion was not a necessary component of public virtue and morality. Washington and Adams believed that, while certain superior minds might be capable of virtue and morality independent of religion, by and large the rabble required religion to keep them in line. (I am paraphrasing, of course.)

With respect to a couple of today’s issues, Mr. Brayton suggests that Washington and Adams would have no trouble with “In God We Trust” on the currency but that posting the Ten Commandments in court houses would be a closer call. Jefferson and Madison would be opposed to all of it.

Huckabee: Liar or Idiot? (Part the Second)

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I didn’t really mean for the Huckabee: Liar or Idiot? to become a series, but in the blogging business, you go where opportunity takes you. Ed Brayton has some commentary on Huckabee’s latest bit of idiocy (or round of lies):

“The Ten Commandments form the basis of most of our laws and therefore, you know if you look through them does anybody find anything there that would be all that objectionable? I don’t think most people would if they actually read them,” he said.

Responds Brayton:

Utter nonsense. I can’t see how anyone who has actually read them could possibly think that they are the basis of “most of our laws. Of the ten commandments, only two would even be constitutional in the United States, with a third being constitutional in limited circumstances. The other 7 could not possibly be the basis for any law because they would be clearly unconstitutional.

Ed then goes on to analyze each one. Just as a refresher course, here are the Ten Commandments (more or less – they’re different depending on which Bible you’re watching):
1. Only worship the God of the Jews.
2. No graven images.
3. Don’t use the God of the Jews name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath.
5. Honor your parents.
6. Don’t kill.
7. Don’t commit adultery.
8. Don’t steal.
9. Don’t lie about your neighbor.
10. Don’t covet your neighbor’s stuff or his wife.

Commandments #6 and #8 are legally enforceable, of course, but they’re pretty much part of every legal system ever made, Christian or not, and, therefore, can’t be particularly tied to the Ten Commandments. I think politicians get away with spouting so much nonsense about the Ten Commandments mostly because folks never read them. They should probably be posted above public urinals so people would read them.

Rift in the GOP

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John Cole and some others see a rift in the GOP centering on Huckabee’s Old Time Religion. Personally, I don’t think it would be as noticeable without Romney. It’s easier to make vague statements about religion and claim that you’re only against those dreaded human secularists when you don’t have to explain why Romney’s Mormonism is a problem. Then it becomes apparent that a non-trivial segment of the GOP’s constituents want to promote a particular kind of religion. And that’s when the problems start. Could be a fun election year.

Update Blue Indiana has an excellent post on a column by Sylvia Smith that reports on the small-minded Mark Souder.

Says Souder:

“I’m unhappy that (President) Bush says we all serve the same God. I don’t agree with that. We have freedom to worship. We have freedom of expression. But that does not mean every religion is equal and good and right.

“Fundamentally, it’s wrong,” Souder said of Islam because part of the Quran refers to killing infidels. “I find their religion offensive.”

“The fundamentals of their religion is they want to kill Jews and wipe them off the face of the earth and any other allies. I simply am not going to praise a religion that believes that. I believe Jews are God’s chosen people,” Souder said. “It’s fundamental in their faith, from the very beginning, that Jews are dogs and should be wiped from the face of the earth. Why is that great?”

Souder is an ignorant piece of crap if he thinks that is the fundamental basis of Islam. Yup, just like Christians are all about bombing abortion clinics. I mean, I don’t subscribe to either religion. But, jeeze, if you’re going to condemn a religion, at least bother to know something about it.