One of the things that surprised me when I started drafting legislation for the General Assembly was how often the proposed legislation was the result of one incident that affected one constituent who went to their legislator. Almost always the issue was one that affected more than that particular constituent, but frequently it was the isolated case that started the legislative process moving. Prior to my experience as a drafter, I had always had a vague notion that legislators identified issues of general interest and began legislation based on broad concerns rather than particular incidents.
I was reminded of the specific nature of legislation yesterday when the particular case that started Rep. Torr’s efforts via HB 1020 to offer a tax break for stillbirths wrote in to comment on a blog post I had put up. Rep. Torr was kind enough to comment on his motivation for introducing the bill as well.
My suspicion when I discussed the bill and speculated on its intent was that it was part of a broader effort by pro-life advocates to broaden the legal definitions of when rights accrue to the unborn. This suspicion was fueled by the fact that Rep. John Hostettler had introduced similar legislation on the federal level back in July of 2005. Hostettler was a committed soldier in the pro-life army, so I don’t doubt for a moment that his legislation was part of the pro-life effort. Rep. Torr, unlike Rep. Hostettler, is not a zealot. So, I believe him when he tells us that he didn’t have any broader effort in mind. His constituents simply came to him with a tragic case, and he wanted to help.
This isn’t a particularly good example because it’s pretty easy to conclude that a lot of people go through the hardship of suffering a stillbirth, and the circumstances probably don’t change a great deal from one case to the next. But, I believe that, in general, having particular instances of hardship trigger legislation is a bad idea. Hard cases, as they say, make bad law. Instead, my preference would be for legislators to have general policy goals and to collect particular cases as data to guide them on those policy goals. That’s probably just me living in a fantasy land, however.
[tags]HB1020-2007, legislative process[/tags]
Doug,
Reviewing bills sponsored by Rep. Torr that you’ve mentioned on your blog, I find:
* Torr wants the federal government to tie Indiana’s hands on DST
* HB 1024 – Right to Work
* As you noted, the fearful symmetry between Hostettler’s anti-choice agenda and Torr’s HB 1020.
Rep. Torr may not be a zealot, but he appears to be willing to carry water for zealots.
Doug,
“Instead, my preference would be for legislators to have general policy goals and to collect particular cases as data to guide them on those policy goals. That’s probably just me living in a fantasy land, however.”
Your fantasy land sounds like a wonderful place.
Reading your reasoned posts for some months, I’ve wished that you were still involved in the legislative process (even when I don’t agree).
Thanks for sharing.
Branden,
Zealotry, to me, is the feverish promotion of an agenda–logic, prudence, and common sense be damned. The logical quicksand in which the anti-life (since you can’t even admit of pro-life or anti-abortion here) rests is evidenced by the reactionary opposition to measures that would, even in a peripheral way, extend what might loosely be called “rights” to the unborn–lengthening jail terms for assault when a fetus is also killed, etc. The irony is that you have so-called feminists who lobby AGAINST legislation toughening penalties for assault on pregnant WOMEN.
For a group that portends to see so much grey on these issues, the hard-liners on the left side of this issue are ominously concrete and black and white–ADMIT OF NO EXCEPTIONS. Anything that smacks of acknowledging that the unborn are anything other than mere tissue legally is unacceptable NO MATTER WHAT. Who are the zealots, again? Those who build their houses on solid ground need not fear a little rain…
Please, rest assured that I, as one pro-lifer, am not about denying anyone anything. I like choice, as long as it does not infringe upon the inalienable rights of others. The question that has not been reconciled for me, anyway, is the rational basis on which we are denying these rights without due process to a group that is logically and scientifically human.
I know that I am not going to change too many minds on this issue, at least not in this forum. I enjoy reading and engaging in the discussion here. As for the terms of the debate, I’m more than happy to refer to you as “pro-choice” if you can refer to the opposition as “pro-life” or at least “anti-abortion”. But, in a political forum that has a particular bent, that just wouldn’t be as fun, I know. :=)
Steve,
I use the term “anti-choice” because we’ve already seen from experience how putatively anti-abortion policies just drive abortion activities underground, where they persist but are more difficult to measure (and impossible to regulate, since they’re not supposed to be happening at all).
A coherent anti-abortion stance would necessarily entail vigorous pro-contraception policies, likely including greatly expanded sex education programs in the public schools (and possibly mandating such instruction in private schools as well)[*].
However, as I’ve noted previously on this blog on multiple occasions, abortion foes on the political Right seem to simultaneously oppose sex education programs and access to contraceptives. We already know empirically that unavailability of sex education (or ineffectual sex education that covers abstinence but not contraception) and contraception are positively correlated with abortion rates.
I wonder if instead of abortion prohibition laws that carve out exceptions for rape or incest, they should have exceptions for people who have received comprehensive sex education or who have responsibly used contraception which failed, since those people are “lost” to righteousness anyway.
[*] I should note that an alternative companion to abortion opposition that wouldn’t demand contraception or sex education would be a mandatory sterilization program for fertile people — but as I’m unaware of any serious advocates of such a policy, I don’t think it’s worth much consideration.
Steve,
You wrote:
This looks very much like a straw man to me. I don’t know of any political commentators, regardless of affiliation, who celebrate “grayness” for its own sake.
Acknowledgement of a continuum is appropriate where there exist many distinguishable states between extremes. Where distinguishable intermediate states don’t exist, inventing them is inappropriate. This is simple parsimony, á la Occam’s Razor.
Quoting Wikipedia:
(emphasis in original, source)
The criticisms of black-and-white thinking that I see in political discourse — usually launched by people on the “Left” against people on the “Right”, are typically grounded not on the charge that some phenomenon should be modeled in a way that is more complex than necessary, but on the charge that someone has disregarded essential facts in favor of a simple perspective that lacks explanatory power.
Brandan,
Without addressing the merits of a “vigorously pro-contraceptive” policy, I wonder why an anti-abortion stance must necessarily entail this. I will not cede that pro-lifers must endorse this or that other pre-requisite position on a peripheral issue to abhore what we see as a violation of the fundamental rights of others. How we get to a position where fewer individuals are put in the position of having their right to life violated (contraception, abstinence)is debatable, but that those individuals’ rights should not be violated, in my view, is not debatable, nor preconditioned on a position on some other issue. I would assert that your first paragraph above amounts to clever side-stepping of the fundamental issues I raised. I would contend that legalized unrestricted abortion leads to more abortions than would exist otherwise, so certainly I can characterize your position as “pro-abortion”. We know empirically that there are more abortions in 2007 than in 1972.
Your position on this issue is illustrative of a general trend in our society–that more and more, our actions within the natural sphere are not supposed to be linked to consequences, especially negative ones that we cannot undo. I’m reminded of Doug’s commentary on the tragic death of the gentleman over Thanksgiving in the Rocky Mountains.
We can all live north of the 40th parallel (at least those of us in northern Indiana) because modern means insulate us from what would be some nasty consequences that attended that choice 200 years ago: starvation, exposure, etc. More and more, we can mitigate the consequences of our bad eating habits, our lack of exercise, smoking, et. al. via pills and surgery. Since these methods involve no harm to others, great. Advance on, civilization!
As human nature would have it, the very pleasurable sex act is potentially very consequential in the human species in that OTHER human beings are brought into existence through it. In no other realm of experience is such a quotidien act (sex) accompanied by such potential responsibility. Modern man has invented a series of techniques ranging from barrier contraception, to hormonal contraception, to abortifacient contraception to surgical abortion all the way to infanticide ,to insulate against the consequences of the sex act. My assertion (and that of other pro-lifers) is that, unlike the other lifestyle issues I mentioned above, the issue of avoiding consequences in the case of abortifacient contraception on forward is not morally neutral insofar as it concerns the taking of life and should be subject to serious scutiny. To characterize that scrutiny as “anti-choice” does not account for the merits of the position at all.
I am simply saying that if one wants to deny fundamental human rights to individuals who are, by objective standards members of the species, in favor of some other individuals’ secondary rights, it’s a serious problem. Gratutiously stating that these individuals are not entitled to human rights doesn’t get the philosophical work done.
Steve:
You wrote:
Because I interpet the definition of an “anti-abortion stance” to be that in which one seeks to minimize the number of abortions that actually occur.
Incidentally, I’m always curious to know whether any given anti-abortion interlocutor I’m dealing with is opposed to prophylactic contraception, extramarital sex, and homosexual sex as well.
You’ve packed quite a few implicit premises into this sentence:
* A pre-requisite position to the “pro-life” stance is not necessarily logically connected to a “pro-life” stance. I have to disagree with you on this. If you’re going to reason from premises to reach the conclusion that abortion is categorially wrong, you’re going to have to identify and defend your premises as well.
* That you can maintain that your position is logical and at the same time identify any other given issue as “peripheral” merely by naming it as such. Again, I differ; in logical reasoning, you and I are not entitled to indulge in such branding. If our premises on an abortion argument demand certain conclusions on other subjects, then if we are to be intellectually honest we must identify what those conclusions are, or frankly acknowledge our inconsistent reasoning.
* You consistently prefix the word “right” with “fundamental”. I am not acquainted with any other kind of right. Can you identify some non-fundamental rights for me?
If your position is axiomatic then we have nothing to discuss, and I suggest to you that you not spend so much time structuring words into forms that look like attempts at logical argument.
It would save both of us time if you were to simply say:
“Abortion is always wrong and I will not change my mind about this.”
If this is not how you feel, then I recommend you avoid phrases like “is not debatable” or “not preconditioned”.
In logical argument, all conclusions come from premises, and both the validity of conclusions drawn, and the truth of the premises cited for it, are subject to challenge. If these are not rules by which you’re willing to conduct yourself, then what you are engaged in is not logical argumentation.
I suspect that you and I each have reached logically valid (in the formal sense) conclusions regarding the phenomenon of abortion rights; where we differ is in our premises, and my goal is to get at where our premises differ. I know there are premises I have little hope of getting anyone to abandon, such as those adopted axomatically due to to religious belief. It is therefore fruitful for us, and for anyone else bothering to read this, if we get down to brass tacks and identify any such premises extant in our arguments.
I would assert that your first paragraph above amounts to clever side-stepping of the fundamental issues I raised.
You confuse me; in what way did I side-step any “fundamental issue”, did I later engage the issue(s) you identify as fundamental, and what was so clever about it? More to the point, if you immediately see through some ruse I have constructed, how can it be “clever”?
To do so is equivocation, and is the same as accusing me of being “pro-vehicular-manslaughter” because I don’t oppose outlawing the existence of motor vehicles. I acknowledge the existence of abortions as a consequence of recognizing a woman’s right to control her own body, but I can regard it as a regrettable one nevertheless, just as I can sincerely regret the death of a friend in a car crash without being logically compelled to adopt a prohibitonist stance toward automobiles.
I characterized your position as “anti-choice” because a common aspect of abortion opposition is the belief that women should not be free to choose to have an abortion legally. Now, it’s possible that you regard this as merely a regrettable consequence, but for us to know that, we need to know your position on prophylactic contraception[*]. On the other hand, if you are an abortion prohibitonist, then you necessarily must oppose the legal exercise of women’s choice to have an abortion. To assert otherwise would render the term “abortion prohibition” meaningless.
I hope it is more clear to you now why issues that you characterize as “peripheral”, I regard as essential to understanding your reasoning.
Yes, keeping in mind that illegal activity is difficult to measure. However, if simply reducing the number of abortions is your goal, there are more effective means at our disposal.
We could, instead, compel young women to undergo tubal ligations at, or even before, puberty. Or, we could irradiate their ovaries at any time between birth and puberty to kill all of their egg cells.
I submit that the above methods would be highly effective at reducing abortion — if conscientiously implemented, much more so than simple legal prohibition.
If you find these methods objectionable, I could claim that any reasons you have for doing so are irrelevant, because they are “peripheral” to the goal of eliminating the scourge of abortion.
This post is long enough for the moment; if I have time, I will return to the remaining paragraphs of yours, including the part where you attempt a refutation of my position by associating me with some sort of “general trend” in society. I hope it’s not lost on you that such is a textbook example of the ad hominem fallacy, and as such unsuited for reasoned discourse. If reasoned discourse is not your goal, see my recommendation above for a more economical method you might use to express yourself.
[*] I am assuming here that we agree that prophylactic contraception (condoms, spermicides, surgical sterilization, etc.) are actually effective at reducing incidences of pregnancy. Let me know if you disagree.
An error in the above:
…is a quote of Steve, and not my own words. I goofed up and forgot to put the blockquote tags on it.
This raises an interesting point. From an evolutionary standpoint, the reproduction = pleasure equation makes a heck of a lot of sense. Evolution is going to favor an organism that’s geared toward replication. From the evolutionary perspective, once the DNA has been passed on, other functions don’t matter very much — certainly the well-being of the individual matters not a whit.
We’ve come to a point where we can break the evolutionary pleasure = reproduction equation to an extent. Next comes the question of, should we? Not so long ago, humans had to reproduce an awful lot in order to ensure enough of their young survived to do their own replicating. Nowadays, most of our young grow to maturity. Our population is at something like 6 billion people. Overpopulation of humans on the planet is beginning to look like a potentially serious problem. So, I would contend that circumstances have changed such that it is very much in our best interest to modify our evolutionary compulsion to reproduce. (And, to be clear, my preference for this modification would be in the form of preventing conception in the first place. And I don’t think abstinence is a realistic or even necessarily desirable way of preventing conception.)
May I make a few man-on-the street comments? Language traps us and language can free us.. words like ‘pro-life’,pro-choice’
identify whole constituencies and seek to appeal through pushing emotional buttons that appeal to like-thinkers. A test of ‘glossary validity’ can be examined by how specifically a terminology is used. Economic Conservatives use ‘choice’ when it comes to choosing health insurance, but in application it seems a matter of taking what you can afford.And why doesn’t pro-life apply to anything except embrionic stages? But I’ve been identified as ‘left of center’politically so I have my own application of glossary words,which I will admit to. My point is ,that discussion academically is nearly impossible because it’s always a matter of avoiding someone else’s well-planned characterizations,and trying to force one’s own terminology. That’s always true with the abortion debate.Roe vs Wade sought to give us a compromise between the moralists and the secularists ,but we just can’t let it rest.
Sigh. Another error.
I wrote:
Note strikethrough. (Hypotheticals aside, in reality I really do oppose outlawing motor vehicles. :) )
Doug,
Oh, goody. Now you’ve gone and dragged evolution in as well. :)
What other right-wing hot-button issues can we get into the thread?
School vouchers!
Prayer in school!
Academic tenure!
(U.S.) flag burning!
Lou,
Your points are well taken, and I agree that cool-headed, rational discussion of abortion is often difficult.
However, I’m doing the best I can myself, and I submit that if we give up the effort, then all discussion of abortion is left to the irrational by default.
I am unconvinced that abandoning any area of public policy to irrationalists will produce good outcomes.
Branden,
I suppose we could just discuss the evolution of vouchers for abortion by means of firearms.
Branden,
I honestly don’t think people arguing from a moral point of view think of themselves as irrational. But I also think one person’s moral view is another person irrationality and there is no way to bridge the gap,save through conversion or epiphany. So,God, Save our Constitution along with Democracy and the art of compromise and let’s be less moral for others,more moral for ouselves, and more good-willed generally! But I’m a moralist in my liberalism,and there needs be be more intramural religious debate of our social issues of the day.
Branden –
Out of consideration for our host, there should have been at least a passing reference to Daylight Savings Time…
Also, your hot-button issues list crosses the left-right divide, I think, rather than being exclusively ‘right-wing’.
Flying in circles,
Parker
Lou,
No one is perfectly rational or irrational. Thus my emphasis on getting at one’s premises.
If I take you literally, then you are arguing for pure subjectivism. I am an objective empiricist — I do not believe that one’s will determines whether or not a car speeding toward you as you cross the street will determine whether it will hurt you when it strikes you.
I don’t think you’re arguing that either, though — maybe you could be more precise. Do you argue that questions of moral value are fundamentally unknowable? Are they knowable only through revealed religion? Or is there some other possibility?
Just so you know, I am likely to reject any line of argument which demands that atheists be excluded (or disregarded) from any discussion of public policy or ascertainment of moral values. Most theories of morals that rely upon religious origins for morality do this — the others I’ve seen assert that even atheists are “programmed” with a moral sense by God, but this conflicts with the common prejudice on the part of believers that atheists are amoral psychopaths, so this class of moral theories is not currently in vogue.
(George H. W. Bush and Robert I. Sherman, 27 August 1987)
Parker,
How thoughtless of me! :)
Evolution is only a hot-button issue for those who don’t accept it for the fact that it is. For some, the non-flatness of the earth would also be a hot-button issue. But most of us have moved past that. Discussions among informed individuals can reasonably take place with things like the existence of evolution being a given. We are not bothered a bit that some want to find their “facts” in oft-translated, multiple-and-anonymously authored, hundreds to thousands of years-old texts purporting to describe eyewitness accounts of fantastic occurrences. But such persons’ disagreement with scientific evidence should not elevate it to a “hot-button” issue. It just makes them ideological dead-enders.
When the use of the word evolution in a discussion causes someone to chime in that it isn’t true (evidence be damned), the proper response would be laughter. That laughter should stop only if the person presents compelling evidence to the contrary.
Just a quick note. My arguments are not religious, nor moralistic. I draw the conclusion that those who are scientifically human are entitled to the right to life by virtue of that very fact. It’s that simple. Nuff said.
Steve,
It’s not nearly enough said.
* Do people have a right to control over their own bodies?
* What other rights do the “scientifically human” have? Any?
* Do children and the mentally disabled have the same rights as adults of average mental function?
* Is it possible to forfeit one’s right to life? If so, under what circumstances?
* What other “scientifically human” cells enjoy a right to life? Neurons? Gametes? Stem cells?
* Does an equal right to life require equal protection of that right among all claimants? Should we have police investigators looking into all miscarriages?
You have stated your belief succinctly. If our society were to adopt your belief as a fundament in shaping public policy, what would the consequences be?
Of course.
My gripe about evolution was just that, and parenthetical to the argument at hand. I was just taking the opportunity to protest that creationism is so often given an equal standing with evolution–which it most certainly should not be.
I would argue that a dog has more right to life than a blastocyst, owing to the dog actually being a sentient being, born, and self-sufficient. But we’ve argued this before…
Branden,
I admit that I will probably always be wanting in my logical arguments in comparison to you, especially since we seem to disagree. But, anyway, I’ll give it a try:
Question #1: Yes, insofar as the exercise of that control does not infringe upon the rights of others–Your right to extend your fist into the air ends where my nose begins. Just as a side note, society has even gone so far as to mitigate absolute control of one’s only body in any number of situations, including the consumption of alcohol, drugs, and prostitution–all in the name of the “public” good. So, mitigating the right to absolute control of one’s body when another’s rights are involved doesn’t fall outside the bounds of our jurisprudence. (BTW, this does NOT mean I advocate any position on those restrictions, just that they exist and that society has admitted of them.)
Question #2: I use the word scientific as to avoid subjective judgement calls about what a person is. Rights to the integrity of their person are always inviolable. Rights that accrue as a result of attaining majority (such as voting, property rights, etc.) accrue as per applicable law. Without ennumerating the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and its accompanying jurisprudence, I could not answer this question in any reasonable time.
Question #3: Children and the mentally handicapped are entitled to the same rights as others unless they are incompetent to exercise them–such as voting, etc. Again, this isn’t the space to ennumerate all the rights that could accrue and how. If you have specific examples that you would like me to address, I will try.
Question #4: As a voluntary act, one can always kill oneself (illegal though it might be), but before the law, to “forfeit” the right to life exists only in the case of the death penalty, which occurs with due process for the individual whose right to life is being questioned. It is my view that the state should not involve itself in the sanctioning of the destruction of human life and that the death penalty is therefore inadmissible.
Question #5: You speak of “scientifically human CELLS” where I speak of scientifically human INDIVIDUALS–however small they may be. I’m sloughing off skin cells as I type this that are inconsequential. Gametes, etc. are not human individuals, but cells of an individual and, as such, rights do not accrue to them.
Question #6: Should there be equal protection of the right to life? Yes, to the extent possible. Should all miscarriages be subject to police investigation? No. There would have to be probable cause for a crime to have been committed. The death of a person is not a crime unto itself. Homicide, however, is. As it stands now, the way in which different police organizations, prosecutors, and judges handle the protection of the right to life varies significantly from jursidiction to jurisdiction and is not equal for those that we can all agree claim the right to life. But, we can still agree that you and I, though we live in different jurisdictions, have that right.
In brief, people would have to be much more careful in their sexual conduct before conception. I expect that there would be fewer abortions if they were restricted and more live births.
So, let me ask you the same question since you posed it to me: What are the consequences to society if we accept your premise that the right to do with one’s body whatever one chooses is not bound by the actual harm inflicted on other individuals? What is the consequence to society of the 1.5 million humans not born each year? Empirically, it is unknowable, I suppose.
My post is getting long. Maybe more later, if time permits. :=)
Branden,
I was going to respond by giving little vignettes and personal experiecne then I remembered my venue and venue determines the level of thinking .All truth is a conclusion and subjective, because of our limited knowledge of our own language, our inability to think logically and objectively through our personal agendas,and we are greatly influenced by how we make a living.
My influences were John Dewey (american prgmatism,reaching consensus and wide participation as a goal),John Steinbeck who was my hero at 16 ( things dont always work right and when they don’t the poorer you are the worse it is), the RCC and catechism ( we are all created in God’s image,therefore we are all of equal value, so government should cater to egalitarian modles, but we still arent God so everything we know is subjective),John Paul Sartre and existentialism ( we have a choice to go through life in a dream or we can validate ourselves with meaningful commitment to a cause). Scientific method and Constitutional democracy are are 2 greatest gifts as they get us can back on track to commonsense rational thinking and and squelch extremism.Voltaire, paraphrased: ‘Truth is determined in the middle with moderation’ and only then may the arts and literature flourish unfettered,because there lies our history as human thinkers and creators.
This is my best answer to all your queries
The consequence to society of 1.5 million people not being born would more than likely be positive. The earth is teeming with billions and billions of humans–at least a couple billion too many, frankly. The earth is a closed system (other than the input of solar energy), and humanity is taking far more than our share of the resources, space, etc. In our lifetime we are seeing numbers of extinctions previously attributed only to things like massive asteroid strikes. We are obscenely laying waste to this place. Another 1.5 million would more likely be part of the problem rather than part of a solution.