McCain's Evangelical Problem

Bill Bunkley is concerned that, by failing to rally his religious-right base, McCain risks leaving them at home on election day. Obama, on the other hand, is actively pursuing evangelical voters, Bunkley notes.

But there is a little problem with Bunkley's analysis. Obama is pro-choice, while McCain holds "ending abortion" as his ultimate goal. Thus, while Obama, who has openly endorsed the separation of church and state, can court evangelicals without scaring the hell out of everybody else, McCain cannot.

A recent poll asked people whether they believe "Abortion should be legal and solely up to the woman to decide." The percent in agreement is 35 for evangelicals, 60 for "Mainline Protestants," and 51 for Catholics.

Meanwhile, Bunkley cites a report from Pew indicating, "White evangelical Protestants... [make] up over one-third of those who identify with the GOP and vote for its candidates."

In other words, McCain can pander to the religious-right third of his base and (further) alienate the "libertarian" right and most independents, while Obama can court the Christian vote -- including the third of evangelicals who support legal abortion -- without alienating anybody.

The Republican Party is stuck. It can't win with the religious right, and perhaps it can't win without it (especially with candidates who also trash the First Amendment and call for sacrifice to the collective). As I've suggested, the only way forward I can see is a new coalition of civil libertarians of the classic left and modern right, free marketeers (of the Austrian and Chicago schools), and free traders of the left. Basically, we need a new liberty coalition.

Who You Callin' a Liar?

A Pew poll recently found that most people think that other religious are a good enough ticket to heaven. (This differs from what some in my childhood church taught, that Catholics are going to hell.) In general, that particular poll result is a good thing. While it's unfounded to think that any religion offers eternal life, it's better to think that any "good person" can get into heaven than to think that only members of one particular sect are so destined.

Cal Thomas's response to the poll is so silly it's hard to believe it's not parody:

Do They Think Jesus Was a Liar?

I am shocked and appalled over a newly published survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. It finds most Americans believe there are many ways to salvation besides their own faith. Most disturbing of all is the majority of self-identified evangelical Christians who believe this.

Apparently they must think Jesus was a liar, or mistaken, when he said: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me.” Look it up. ...

Look it up? You mean, in the standard Christian Bible? Gee, that's helpful. Thomas urges Christian churches to fight heresy -- yes, heresy! -- "in their midst." All we need is another round of heretic purging.

Even if one believes that Jesus is the exclusive path to salvation, it's still possible to believe that Jesus would cut people a break for innocently believing other religious doctrines.

Thomas writes, "If there are many paths to heaven, Jesus suffered and died for nothing." That's not necessarily the case, even from a religious perspective.

Of course, if there are no paths to heaven, then Jesus did suffer and die for nothing.

More Assaults on Free Speech

Does free speech have a future in Europe?

Matt Purple writes:

Ian McEwan, author of widely praised novels Atonement and Enduring Love, condemned Muslim extremists for attempting to establish a tyrannical society intolerant of women and homosexuals. His comments were made in the context of defending his friend and fellow novelist Martin Amis, who had previously been denounced as a racist for other supposedly anti-Islamic remarks.

"Martin is not a racist," McEwan told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. "And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on –- we know it well." ...

McEwan's comments caused an uproar and were promptly denounced by the Muslim Council of Britain.

And that could be just the beginning. McEwan could also be brought up on hate crime charges, according to The [UK] Independent.

Is it true that Islamism promotes oppression of women and murder of homosexuals? Yes. It is also true that Islamism endorses terrorism and generally opposes civil liberties across the board.

For these reasons, I myself despise Islamism (not to be confused with modernist practitioners of Islam). And if we reach the point where we cannot say that without facing threats of criminal charges, then we'll no longer be living in America.

The Faith-Based Politics of Abortion

A recent spat between Barack Obama and James Dobson offers a good opportunity to further reply to Colorado Right to Life and Bob Kyffin on abortion.

Here's what Barack Obama said on June 28, 2006, in his "Call to Renewal" address:

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

I have expressed the same view on this web page. Note that Obama in fact holds a "pro-choice position."

The problem is that nobody has made an effective, non-religious argument for banning abortion. Instead, Colorado Right to Life (and the Republican candidates who signed its questionnaire) explicitly invoke God's will as the foundation of their position.

Now Dobson of Focus on the Family has attacked Obama's stance, saying, according to the AP, "Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies? What he's trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe."

Notably, Dobson is misrepresenting Obama's position. Obama did not claim that people must conform their views to what "everybody agrees" is correct; instead, he said people should make "universal" arguments "subject to argument, and amenable to reason."

Dobson's dilemma is that no reasonable argument supports the definition of a fertilized egg as a person or the prohibition of abortion. Thus, his only option is to "evoke God's will."

As if to further illustrate the point, Bob Kyffin sent in a reply to my criticism of his statements (stemming from my critique of Colorado Right to Life). Kyffin attempts to make a universal, reasonable argument in favor of banning abortion, but his argument completely fails.

Kyffin argues that an embryo, and even a feritlized egg, is a person because, first, "life begins at conception," and, second, a fertilized egg has "its own DNA" that dictates many of the egg's future traits, if brought to term.

Life not only begins at conception but precedes conception. Both the sperm and egg are living human entities. But not all living human entities are people. As I've mentioned, every cell in our bodies is a living human entity. Every cell is alive, and every cell contains human DNA. Yet Kyffin would hardly argue that we're committing mass murder every time we take a shower and exfoliate thousands of living, human cells.

Obviously, the mere fact that a fertilized egg contains human DNA does not qualify it for personhood for the same basic reason.

The difference that Kyffin seems to be going for, then, is that a fertilized egg, unlike a lone sperm or egg cell or a skin cell, has the capacity, if attached in a specific way to a healthy female uterus, to develop into an embryo, then a fetus, and finally into a born human being (a person). (We'll leave aside the complication that it's now possible to develop a new, independent human being from the DNA of any living human cell.)

But the fact that a fertilized egg has the capacity (in a certain environment) to develop into a person does not imply that the fertilized egg is itself a person. A fertilized egg has none of the relevant features of personhood, other than human DNA. It has no organs, cannot survive independently, etc. It is utter lunacy to call a fertilized egg a person. Kyffin might as well argue that an oak tree is a house, a field of grass a beef steak, or a silk worm a fine suit, because in each case the first thing has the capacity to develop into the second.

A necessary condition for personhood is the ability to survive independently, without any direct nourishment from the body of another. A newborn baby obviously needs a caregiver to provide food, warmth, etc. But a newborn baby is dramatically different than a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus, in that the newborn baby is an independent entity that will continue to live on its own if left by itself. A fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus physically cannot leave the mother without physical removal, and, until lates stages, if left on its own it will quickly die. A fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus is radically dependent on its mother's physical body, whereas a newborn is not.

This radical, physical dependency is a large part of the reason why a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have the rights of personhood. One implication of this is that a pregnant woman has the right to get an abortion. As I've said, a woman who has decided to get an abortion is morally bound to get it in the early term whenever feasible. However, even in very-late term pregnancies, in any conflict between the safety of the mother and the safety of the fetus, the mother has every moral right to protect her own life. (She is also properly free to accept increased risk to herself in order to protect the fetus.)

Those who oppose abortion typically invoke the horrors of gratuitous, late-term abortions in order to advocate the prohibition of abortion even of a fertilized egg. But gratuitous, late-term abortions are practically non-existent. Practically all abortions occur in the early terms.

For what it's worth, here's what Roe v. Wade has to say on the matter: "State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother."

Generally, I oppose restrictions even for late-term abortions, because the practical effect would be to intimidate doctors with zealous prosecution, thereby interfering with their considerations of the "life or health of the mother."

The essential debate, though, is over abortion in the early terms. Kyffin and Colorado Right to Life (CRTL) hold that a fertilized egg is a person and therefore should be granted full rights.

As I have argued, one obvious implication of the view that a fertilized egg is a person is that doctors would be legally required (or at least bullied) into sacrificing the lives of some women. CRTL's position is thus morally abhorrent.

At some level, CRTL seems to be aware that its position is horrific, or at least at odds with the common decency of most people. And so CRTL has tried to create an escape clause. As I've explained:

CRTL uses the same sleight of rhetoric. Recall that the position of CRTL is that "It is... wrong... to kill the baby to save the mother." CRTL opposes "the intentional killing of the unborn child, for the life of the mother." CRTL states, "When the mother's life is seriously threatened by a pregnancy, of course it is morally justified to deliver the baby but not if the intention is to kill the baby. ... If the baby dies, it is a tragedy; if the baby is intentionally killed, it is murder."

CRTL's position doesn't hold up for early-term pregnancies. "Delivering" an unformed embryo will kill it. Yet the only way that CRTL can preserve its stance that a fertilized egg is a person and still allow doctors to save the life of the mother is to pretend that "delivery" of an unformed embryo to death is somehow different than intentionally killing it. ...

So long as CRTL clings to the faith-based fantasy that a fertilized egg is a person, the group has only two paths. Either it can openly acknowledge that it would sometimes sacrifice the lives of women, or it can allow women to get abortions whenever they see any risk to their lives. This second path, however, is inconsistent with CRTL's position that "It is... wrong... to kill the baby to save the mother."

CRTL's escape clause doesn't work. If a doctor removes an embryo, the embryo will certainly die. (I'm leaving aside test-tube scenarios.) Any early-term abortion, for whatever reason, is an intentional act that necessarily results in the death of the embryo.

Yet Kyffin tries to exploit the same absurd escape clause:

...CRTL says, "if the baby dies, it is a tragedy; if the baby is intentionally killed, it is murder." The result may be the same. The intent is clearly different. There is a distinct and critical difference between the unfortunate death of a baby whose life could not be saved, in the course of protecting the mother, and the situation where a doctor goes in and intentionally kills the baby when it is not necessary. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, there is a (presumably) 0% chance of the baby surviving, and that is unfortunate. And yet, CRTL would support a surgery to protect the mother, so long as there is no malicious intent in the doctor’s mind to intentionally kill the baby. ... Since the baby needs the mother to survive, then of course CRTL would support taking such actions to preserve her life, even if it may mean the death of the baby...

I note my objection to referring to a fertilized egg or undeveloped embryo as a "baby," as the term wrongly implies personhood. Also, Kyffin is not, so far as I am aware, an authorized spokesperson for CRTL, so I will treat his comments as one possible interpretation of CRTL's stated positions.

Kyffin's intentionality argument is absurd (and could be taken as a reductio ad absurdum of his premise that a fertilized egg is a person). True, intention is an element of a criminal act. For example, one who intentionally fires a bullet into an innocent person is a murderer, while one who thoughtlessly fires a bullet over a crowd and strikes an innocent party has committed manslaughter but not (intentional) murder. But the idea that a doctor might remove a fertilized egg "to protect the mother," without having the intention to kill the fertilized egg, is laughable.

Here's an analogy. Let's say one of the Inquisition's torturers were brought up on charges according to modern law. If the torturer said, "Look, I didn't have the intention of inflicting pain on the victim; I had only the intention of saving the victim's soul, as well as the souls of observers," that obviously wouldn't fly. The pain was an obvious and necessary result of the torture; it was intentional. According to CRTL's premise that a fertilized egg is a person, a doctor who removes a fertilized egg, causing its death but not "intending" its death, should be just as guilty as the torturer. Given that CRTL's premise is ridiculous, the doctor is morally blameless.

I wish to stress that my case for legal abortion does not rest upon the fact that, if a fertilized egg were legally defined as a person and given full legal protection as such, the result would be the deaths of innocent women. It is true that CRTL's policies, if fully enforced, would kill women. However, even if by some stroke of a magic wand this were not the case, abortion should still remain legal, based on a woman's right to control her body. However, the fact that CRTL's policy would kill women, coupled with the fact that CRTL attempts to evade this fact, helps to demonstrate the weakness of CRTL's case.

There is no reason, no argument, no universal moral case that supports the notion that a fertilized egg is a person. The contrary claim can come only from faith, the belief that God said so. Such faith-based legal policies have no place in a free society.

Schizophrenic Republicans

The May 31 resolutions of the Colorado Republican State Convention illustrate the difficulties and tensions of the party.

Included are the pro-liberty:

2. [T]he United States will pay any price, bear any burden... to assure the survival of our republic and freedom.

4. [T]he practice of inserting earmarks into the federal budget [should] be eliminated.

18. ...Colorado Republicans support the 2nd Amendment right of individuals to keep and bear arms.

32. ...Colorado citizens [should] be free to choose their own health care and health insurance and not be required to participate in any particular health care program.

33. ...Colorado Republicans oppose all single-payer health care systems.

35. ...Colorado Republicans oppose governmental taking of private property for the benefit of private individuals, private entitites, or for governmental revenue enhancement.

Unfortunately, Colorado Republicans often are wishy-washy in their support of liberty. For example, while they opposed single-payer medicine, and while I'm pleased with their statement about choice, they hardly articulated the need to defend individual rights and free markets in medicine.

The third point pertains to a "balanced federal budget." That's great, but the central issue is not budgetary balance, but budgetary control. I'd rather see Congress spend half of what it does today and still run a deficit, than spend even more and confiscate the difference.

Points 11-17 denounce illegal immigrants, except fourteen calls for "a well-regulated guest worker program." Absent is any call to restore liberty in immigration.

Points 19, 20, 22, and 23 pertain to church/state issues. (Point 21 is omitted; I wonder what it said?) The big one is that Colorado Republicans believe "that life begins at conception." Of course nobody actually doubts that; conception is the union of two living cells. But this is euphemism for alleging that personhood begins at conception, as Colorado's Amendment 48 asserts.

Colorado Republicans want to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminate "public funds for destructive embryonic stem-cell research" (calls for an outright ban are noticeably absent), and restrict "marriage" to a man and woman.

These points show that Colorado Republicans are trying to walk the line. They say that "life" begins at conception, but they don't say that they want to prohibit all abortions. They say they don't want tax funding of embryonic stem-cell research, but they're silent on the issue of bans. They want to overturn the federal court rulings on abortion, but they don't say whether they want to leave the issue to states or allow federal prohibitions. They define marriage but don't mention domestic partnerships.

The result is to simultaneously pander to and insult the religious right, while convincing everyone else that Republicans remain the party of the religious right.

Meanwhile, the Democrats endorse the separation of church and state (at least as a rule) as they work to place ever greater portions of the economy under political control.

Wouldn't it be nice if some major force in either of the parties called for liberty across the board?

Peikoff 18

Leonard Peikoff has released his 18th podcast, which deals partly with matters of religion. My summary of the discussion should not be taken as a substitute for the original.

1. Peikoff first answers a question about the military, expressing concern that it will suffer continued problems. He adds that the military is the consequence of cultural shifts, not a main cause of them.

2. What is a hero? What one regards as a hero depends on one's moral code, Peikoff answers, but in general a hero is the "complete embodiment of a certain moral code."

3. Is there any proof for reincarnation? I consider Peikoff's discussion of this point the most interesting segment of the podcast. "What do you call evidence?" Peikoff begins. He points out that evidence is based on observation and must be integrated with the rest of our knowledge. Claims for reincarnation rest upon no means of knowledge other than some sort of mystic insight. Thus, such claims reject reason, the senses, and logic, Peikoff argues. So what's going on with claims of reincarnation? Peikoff offers four possibilities. People making claims about reincarnation might through "sheer chance" work in some factually true detail. People can selectively focus on the more seemingly plausible claims while ignoring all of the obviously ridiculous ones; any psychic can occasionally make some accurate (if vague) prediction, just by chance. Children making claims about reincarnation might be subject to coaching or tricks. Finally, people making claims about reincarnation may simply be lying.

4. Peikoff makes a few notes about thinking conceptually.

5. Did Ayn Rand use or comment on psychotropic drugs? Peikoff replies that she was "completely against them." He distinguished between alcohol, which when used in moderation can facilitate relaxation but "doesn't warp your consciousness," and a drug that "blows up your perceptual faculty" such as LSD. I basically agree with Peikoff here, but I add that some illegal stimulants, when used in moderation, also don't undermine the perceptual faculty and likely have legitimate uses. Likewise, some illegal pain-killers are very useful for certain medical issues. Of course, while Peikoff didn't discuss the issue of prohibition, Rand opposed the prohibition of any drug.

6. Is there a problem with "flooding our country with Mexicans?" Peikoff answers that immigration "should be free," on the grounds that some people in the country shouldn't be able to forcibly restrict the rights of property and contract of others. Regarding the problems of the welfare state, Peikoff notes that the proper solution is to "re-instate capitalism," not restrict immigration. Regarding culture, Peikoff points out that some Mexican immigrants may listen to Spanish music and prefer Tequila, but this hardly subverts American culture. Personally, I regard some of of the Mexican immigrants I know as more American than the xenophobic statists trying to shut down the borders.

Reply to Kyffin on Abortion

Yesterday I strongly criticized Colorado Right to Life (CRTL) for promoting the prohibition of abortion even of fertilized eggs and even in cases of rape and risk to the life of the mother.

Bob Kyffin offered several arguments in reply. However, he did not address the central point: a fertilized egg is not a person, as CRTL claims. Kyffin states:

Is there ever a case where slavery should be allowed? Ever a case when a Jew should be allowed to be killed? Never.

And there should never be a reason to take the life of an innocent human being...

Nobody doubts the evils of slavery or murder. But a fertilized egg is just not a human being (a person). It is alive, and it has human DNA, but so does every cell in our bodies. It is a potential human being, but a potential person is not a person.

The overwhelming majority of abortions occur in early stages of pregnancy, when the embryo is barely developed and still only a potential human person. As a matter of ethics, women who get abortions should do so in the early stages whenever feasible. (As a matter of ethics, people should have sex responsibly and take reasonable steps to avoid unwanted pregnancy.) Individual rights apply only to actual people, individuals who live a "biologically independent existence" (in Diana Hsieh's words.)

As a matter of rights, women have the right to get an abortion for whatever reason they deem fit. This is true even if some women get abortions for bad reasons or come to regret them. Similarly, women have the right to decide their sexual partners, even if some have sex for bad reasons or come to regret it.

A fertilized egg is not a person. An embryo is not a person. Neither Kyffin nor CRTL has offered any reason for thinking otherwise, beyond the pseudo-reason that God allegedly said so.

In his more specific arguments, Kyffin begins by addressing risks to the life of the mother:

They [CRTL] say you don't kill a baby to save the mother because it's a truism. It's never medically necessary to take active measures to kill the baby in order to preserve the mother's life. That's an abortionist's lie, and a popularly believed myth.

A Caesarian section is one of the safest and quickest medical procedures that exists. It takes 5 minutes, and if the baby is capable of living outside the womb, then she will live.

A late-term abortion, on the other hand, takes many hours, at the very least, and often takes days. If a woman's life is in danger, a doctor would be criminally incompetent to take the time to kill the baby before removing her, rather than simply delivering the baby alive.

A doctor should always try to save the life of the baby and the mother -- to do anything else is negligent.

Kyffin claims that in medical emergencies the interests of the mother and fetus usually coincide. This I do not doubt. However, it is not always the case, and unexpected emergencies late in pregnancy are not the only relevant cases. Doctors may know very early in the pregnancy that the mother would risk her life by carrying the embryo to term. Last November, I cited the case of a woman who died following an ectopic pregnancy. A woman might have any number of medical conditions that make pregnancy dangerous.

Kyffin fudges his case when he forbids only "active measures to kill the baby," adding that "if the baby is capable of living outside the womb, then she will live." That's a fairly big "if." Obviously, if a doctor removes an (early-stage) embryo, it's going to die. Kyffin's trick is to define "active measures" so narrowly that some cases of intentionally killing the embryo are discounted.

CRTL uses the same sleight of rhetoric. Recall that the position of CRTL is that "It is... wrong... to kill the baby to save the mother." CRTL opposes "the intentional killing of the unborn child, for the life of the mother." CRTL states, "When the mother's life is seriously threatened by a pregnancy, of course it is morally justified to deliver the baby but not if the intention is to kill the baby. ... If the baby dies, it is a tragedy; if the baby is intentionally killed, it is murder."

CRTL's position doesn't hold up for early-term pregnancies. "Delivering" an unformed embryo will kill it. Yet the only way that CRTL can preserve its stance that a fertilized egg is a person and still allow doctors to save the life of the mother is to pretend that "delivery" of an unformed embryo to death is somehow different than intentionally killing it.

In practice, though, medicine is often an art of managing risks. In many cases, a pregnancy will endanger the life of the mother somewhat. Only a certain fraction of dangerous pregnancies will result in the death of the mother. To flesh out its position, then, CRTL needs to specify when it's acceptable to risk the life of the mother. If the mother has a 40 percent chance of dying and a 60 percent chance of carrying the embryo to term, must the government force the woman and her doctor to continue the pregnancy?

So long as CRTL clings to the faith-based fantasy that a fertilized egg is a person, the group has only two paths. Either it can openly acknowledge that it would sometimes sacrifice the lives of women, or it can allow women to get abortions whenever they see any risk to their lives. This second path, however, is inconsistent with CRTL's position that "It is... wrong... to kill the baby to save the mother." And the first path is horrific.

Next Kyffin addresses the issue of rape:

On the subject of rape babies, surveys show that most victims of rape or incest want to keep their babies. The ones who don't keep their baby often regret it for the rest of their lives. An abortion simply re-victimizes the young girl.

Abortion for rape and incest also hides the crime from authorities (abortionists NEVER report underage pregnancies, even when they suspect rape -- this is WELL documented). The rapist is free to rape the same girl again, and again, without his wife (the girl's mother) or whoever else knowing about it.

The issue of documentation and protection of underage victims is distinct from the issue of abortion (though I doubt Kyffin's claim that abortion clinics "never" report rapes to the police). Obviously the issue is wider than underage pregnancy (though I don't know what percentage of pregnancies caused by rape involve minors).

Regardless of what the surveys say, the matter is not properly up for vote. Even if "most" women want to carry embryos resulting from rape to term, some do not, and they have the right to get an abortion. I do not doubt that many women regret getting an abortion, just as many do not, and many would have regretted not getting an abortion. But that's beside the point. It's the government's job to protect people's rights -- in this case, the rights of women -- not play psychoanalyst and protect people from their own choices as evaluated by the religious right. (The broader point is that the government should fight rape.) Besides, according to CRTL's premises, even if all raped women who became pregnant wanted to get an abortion and none regretted it, CRTL would still wish to prohibit all abortions, so Kyffin's argument seems misplaced.

Nothing Kyffin has written mitigates the fact that CRTL wants to grant a fertilized egg the full legal rights of a person, force women to bring pregnancies to term against their will, prohibit valuable medical research, force women to have the babies of rapists, and sacrifice the lives of some unwilling women in order to save embryos. Those who actually respect life must reject CRTL's faith-based politics.

Colorado Right to Death

The ludicrously named Colorado Right to Life (CRTL) openly admits that its policies would endanger the lives of women. It demands that Republican candidates work to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape. And it declares its commitment to faith-based politics, noting that Amendment 48, the "personhood" initiative that seeks to define a fertilized egg as a person, would allegedly "uphold God's enduring command."

Today I also discussed the politics of the situation; here I address the ideology, as detailed in the "CRTL 2008 Candidate Questionnaire."

Following are several of the group's questions:

Do you advocate that the government uphold the God-given, inalienable Right to Life for the unborn?

Do you agree that abortion is always wrong, even when the baby's father is a criminal (a rapist)? [See life-of-the mother note below.]

Do you support the 2008 Colorado Personhood amendment effort to define "person" to include any human being from the moment of fertilization?

Will you oppose any research or practice that would intentionally destroy the tiniest living humans (embryonic stem cell research)?

The group declares that, in the name of God, it desires to force women to have the babies of rapists, grant equal rights to fertilized eggs, and prohibit potentially life-saving medical research.

What about the mother's life?

When the mother's life is seriously threatened by a pregnancy, of course it is morally justified to deliver the baby but not if the intention is to kill the baby. When the life of the mother is at serious risk by her pregnancy, the goal must be to save the life of the mother and the baby if at all possible. It is just as wrong to kill the mother to save the baby, as it is to kill the baby to save the mother. "Legalizing" abortion, defined as the intentional killing of the unborn child, for the life of the mother leads to repugnant acts like emergency removal of late-term babies from the womb stopping midway in the procedure to kill the baby. If the baby dies, it is a tragedy; if the baby is intentionally killed, it is murder. If necessary to save the mom's life, the unborn baby could be delivered with the determination to care for both, and if possible, to save both the baby and mother!

Obviously, the best scenario is to save the mother and baby. However, when there is a conflict, CRTL is perfectly willing to sacrifice the mother, an actual human being, to an embryo, only a potential. Here is the key line: " It is... wrong... to kill the baby to save the mother."

Colorado Right to Life in fact endorses policies that would kill actual human beings. The group's alleged "right to life" means for some an obligation to die.

The organization makes clear that it does not merely wish to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the decision to the states, as so many Republicans declare:

Antonin Scalia has publicly stated that he would strike down any law that prohibited abortion in all fifty states, and Clarence Thomas has ruled that the public has the right to decide to legalize the killing of unborn children. Sadly, not even one of the seven current U.S. Supreme Court Justices nominated by Republican presidents support the right to life of the unborn.

Further, our pro-life presidents have nominated sixty percent of the U.S. federal judiciary, and yet the judiciary utterly rejects the right to life of the unborn. Also we should remember that the pro-abortion Roe v. Wade decision was written by a Republican Justice and passed by the Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, and abortion was legalized in Colorado by Republican governor John Love in 1967.

Most Americans don't buy into CRTL's absurd, pro-death, faith-based agenda. The problem is that Americans are used to viewing everything through pragmatist eyes, so many can't understand that CRTL means it. They actually want to ban birth control that prevents a fertilized egg from growing. They actually want to force 13-year-old girls to bear the children of rapists. They actually want doctors to let women die if necessary to save the fetus. They are deadly serious. It is time for sensible Coloradans to take them at their word and reject their dogmatic agenda resoundingly.

Censorship of Religious Criticism

Recent cases in France and Canada illustrate the growing movement to censor speech critical of religion. This trend must be fought, or liberty is lost.

The Ayn Rand Institute reviews the French case:

"The conviction of Brigitte Bardot by a French court for 'inciting hatred against Muslims' is a gross violation of her right to free speech and should be denounced by every civilized nation," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute.

Bardot was fined $23,325 on Tuesday -- barely escaping a jail sentence -- for a statement made in a letter to France's interior minister, protesting Muslims' refusal to stun animals before slaughtering them during religious holidays. The fine was levied for the following statement: "I've had enough of being led by the nose by this whole population which is destroying us, (and) destroying our country by imposing their ways."

"Bardot's statement was an expression of political opinion and obviously did not constitute coercion, or threat of coercion, against anyone," said Bowden. "As such, the French government has no right to fine or penalize her in any way for the exercise of her individual right of free speech.

"Moreover, there is no rational basis for a crime of 'inciting hatred.' Hatred is the emotion one feels in response to evil. Thus, to criminalize the incitement of hatred is to criminalize the expression of moral judgment, inasmuch as any moral denunciation may cause others to hate the alleged evildoer." ...

David Harsanyi of The Denver Post discusses the case in Canada:

Steyn is a U.S.-based journalist, columnist and best-selling author of "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It," a book that deals with demographics and Muslim influence in the Western world. Not only is Steyn's work widely read, his opinions -- whether you find them agreeable or not -- are also worthy of debate.

Yet when Maclean's, the largest-circulation magazine in Canada, published a Steyn essay based on "America Alone," it sparked a volley of suits and a vile legal ordeal.

First, the Ontario Human Rights Commission held a tribunal and deemed Steyn's essay "Islamophobic." Now, the British Columbia human rights commission in Vancouver has held a week-long trial on the matter. A federal commission is waiting on investigators to decide whether to proceed against Steyn.

Within the context of individual rights, the freedom of speech must be held as absolute. Freedom of speech does not protect violations of rights such as fraud and incitements to violence, but certainly it must protect criticisms of any ideology, including Islam, regardless of what the targets of the criticisms think or do about it. (Any civilized person responds to argument with argument.)

Free speech is a pillar of a free society. Censorship is an early mark of tyranny.

Lott on Abortion

John Lott explains the social impacts of abortion in a recent article for Fox. He argues that liberalized abortion laws resulted in the following:

A sharp increase in pre-marital sex.
A sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births.
A drop in the number of children placed for adoption.
A decline in marriages that occur after the woman is pregnant.

Lott argues, "With abortion seen as a backup, women as well as men became less careful in using contraceptives as well as more likely to have premarital sex." However, because not all of these women had an abortion, they had babies out of wedlock. Because men see abortion as a legitimate option, they are less likely to assume a fatherhood role if their partners choose to have the baby.

Lott argues that changed abortion laws were "a key contributing factor" to these trends. I find his case persuasive. However, my sense is that other factors are more important. For example, the era was also marked by Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," which in essence paid women to have children out of wedlock. And did liberalized abortion lead to more extra-marital sex, or vice versa? It was also an era of women's liberation and loosened sexual mores.

The broader point is that it's wrong to violate individual rights even if some people behave irresponsibly. For example, we wouldn't argue that women shouldn't have equal rights as men to own property and such, even if such rights contribute to irresponsible extra-marital sex.

People who have extra-marital sex should choose their partners carefully and take the proper steps to avoid unwanted pregnancy. This is not difficult. Properly used birth control is highly effective. Couples who have sex should know in advance how they're going to handle unexpected pregnancy. Couples should also bear the responsibility for children they bring into the world, rather than qualify for forced wealth transfers.

An embryo is not a person. A woman has a right to get an abortion. Any negative social consequences should be addressed in other ways, not by violating people's rights. As Diana Hsieh writes, banning abortions "would force a woman to provide life support to any fertilized egg -- even at the risk of her life and health and even if ruinous to her goals and dreams. It would make actual persons -- any woman capable of bearing children, plus her husband or boyfriend -- slaves to merely potential persons."

Democrats Find Religion

The religious left is expanding, as I've noted. Now a poll indicates Democrats have captured some religious voters:

The Henry Institute National Survey on Religion and Public Life found that Democrats made gains among mainline Protestants, those like Presbyterians who are affiliated with the National Council of Churches. Among those Christians, Republican identification shrank from 44 percent in 2004 to 37 this spring, while Democratic identification rose from 38 percent to 46 percent. The Henry Institute, at Calvin College in Michigan, studies the intersection of Christianity and public life.

Though both the Republicans and the Democrats lost 2 percentage points among evangelical Protestants in the survey, the Democrats were able to gain slightly among traditional and centrist evangelicals. ...

[Leah] Daughtry [the Democratic National Convention Committee's chief executive and a Pentecostal preacher] says the evangelical movement is changing.

"You see their list of concerns growing to include issues like Darfur, issues like the environment," Daughtry said. "I think as those issues become part of their conversation, then I think it's a natural fit for them to look to the Democratic Party... I think we have more in common with them, particularly on social issues, than the Republican Party does."

"Social issues" means expanded political control of the economy, more global and domestic welfare, and higher taxes.

The original survey may be downloaded.

The cited story from The Denver Post doesn't clarify what's going on with evangelicals. The survey breaks down "evangelical protestants" into "traditionalist," "centrist," and "modernist." What happened is that traditionalist and centrist evangelicals dramatically reduced their support for the GOP, while a few joined the Democrats. In a comparison between 2004 and 2008, evangelical support for the two parties dropped by two percent each. In 2004, 56 percent of evangelicals identified with the Republican Party and 27 percent with the Democrats. In 2008, 54 percent identified with the Republicans and 25 percent with the Democrats. I'm not sure how the numbers for evangelicals square with slight gains among traditionalist and centrist for the Democrats.

Mainline Protestants have made a big jump. Their support for Republicans has dropped from 44 to 37 percent, while support for Democrats has grown from 38 to 46 percent.

The upshot seems to be that some traditionalist evangelicals (about five percent) have dropped out of partisan politics, having become disillusioned with GOP. Meanwhile, the Democrats have made gains among many religious voters by appealing to the social-welfare view of Christianity.

Here's another interesting tidbit: the percent of evangelicals who disagree with the doctrine of free trade has grown from 51 percent to 60 percent. However, the question seems to have been grossly biased; "Free trade is good for the economy even if it means the loss of some U.S. jobs." Even if we discount the results because of the tainted question, evangelicals by no means show strong support for a free market.

Here's another interesting result that helps explain the move of Mainline Protestants to the Democrats. While only 35 percent of evangelicals believe "Abortion should be legal and solely up to the woman to decide," 60 percent of Mainline Protestants think so. (Surprisingly, 51 percent of Catholics think so.)

Interestingly, though, evangelicals are still strongly for McCain, 59 to 24 percent. McCain has a 3-4 point lead among Mainline Protestants and Catholics. This is from the Spring, though; it will be interesting to see if Obama's religious rhetoric and background can attract more religious voters.

The Wages of Mysticism

If you thought the days of witch burnings were behind us, here's the latest news from Kenya:

In late May, news outlets in Kenya told the story of 15 people, mostly elderly women, who were murdered in a witch hunt near the town of Kisii. The killings shocked the nation.

Villagers said more than 100 people gathered machetes and knives and stormed the village of Kegogi after midnight.

"They started banging on the doors, they broke into the house and then they killed our grandmother inside," says Justus Bosire. "The mob was screaming and we panicked. We ran away and they came to our house and burned it to the ground."

When Bosire returned to his grandmother's house, he found her dead on the floor in a bed of embers. His father is missing.

"They claim that my grandmother and father were practicing witches," Bosire says.

And you're in deep trouble if you have light skin in Tanzania, reports The New York Times (via Noodle Food):

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania -- Samuel Mluge steps outside his office and scans the sidewalk. His pale blue eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, trying to focus. The sun used to be his main enemy, but now he has others. Mr. Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania now there is a price for his pinkish skin. "I feel like I am being hunted," he said.

Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.

Many people in Tanzania -- and across Africa, for that matter -- believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.

We in the science-minded West find such stories difficult to fathom. Yet such mystic-based brutality used to be widespread throughout Europe.

The wages of mysticism is death.

The Religious Left

Electa Draper, apparently, The Denver Post's dedicated religious writer (which itself says something), reports:

A coalition determined to change the face of faith in the public square met Thursday night in Denver.

"We Believe Colorado" is a diverse group of faith leaders seeking to broaden the values debate for 2008, according to organizers. The group is challenging the political agenda set by social conservatives and the religious right in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Thursday's event combined worship and training for effective advocacy on moral issues such as civil rights, the environment and economic justice. ...

Issues this year include lifting people out of poverty, equitable public education, affordable health care, a just immigration policy offering paths to legal status and families' reunifications, progressive taxes and government budgets that embody the common good.

Here's the group's official web page, by the way.

There's an important difference between the religious left and the religious right. The religious left is the same as the regular ol' left. It advocates the same socialist policies that have been tossed around since FDR and Johnson. The religious left is an outreach program of the left to the Christian community.

The religious right, on the other hand, promotes an agenda of banning abortions, censorship, and state promotion of religion that others considered to be on "the right" (particularly the libertarian right) oppose.

I side with the new group on matters of civil rights and immigration (though I'm sure we differ on what constitutes a right), but what's distinctive about those issues is that they are neither left-wing nor religious in nature.

What worries me is the distinct possibility of ending up with a combination of the worst policies of the religious left and right: theocratic socialism.

Gibbon on Roman Religion

Finally I'm reading Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (I know; it's about time. Gibbon assumes more background knowledge than I have, so thank goodness for Wikipedia). I came across this interested quote from the first part of Chapter II of the first volume:

The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosophers, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

While the era had some serious problems, such as slavery, which Gibbon describes elsewhere, and while Christian unity did bring some advantages, on the whole "mutual indulgence" has a lot going for it.

I am not so much concerned that many people do not regard all religions as equally true; what concerns me is that many philosophers fail to see them as equally false, and many political leaders find right-wing Christianity particularly useful.

Stem-Cell Progress

The June 6 Rocky Mountain News reports advances in stem-cell research and argues against restrictions:

The announcement Tuesday that an Aurora spinal surgeon performed the first disc surgery in the United States using somatic (adult) stem cells to repair the patient's injured spine is the latest tangible advance in this path-breaking therapy. The company that grew the patient's stem cells from his own bone marrow, Regenerative Sciences Inc., is based in Westminster.

Another potential breakthrough comes from the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital. Last fall, physicians used somatic stem cells to treat recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a rare but fatal genetic skin and digestive disorder in children.

Remarkably, seven months after surgery, 25-month-old Nate Liao shows signs of normal development -- and a brother who also has the disease received similar treatment May 30.

The editorial is critical of Bush's restrictions of stem-cell research: "The president refuses to update a 2001 executive order limiting federal research on embryonic stem cells to a few dozen existing lines - twice he has vetoed legislation reversing that order."

For those looking for a bit of good news about the presidential candidates, here it is: "Sen. Barack Obama has said he would reverse the executive order; Sen. John McCain hasn't publicly gone that far, but he voted for both earlier bills" to overturn Bush's order.

The simple fact is the U.S. Congress cannot possibly predict which lines of research will prove useful. The federal government ought not be involved in scientific research, but, so long as it is, it should not discriminate based on religious dogmas. Faith that God infuses a fertilized egg with a soul is the only "reason" to restrict stem-cell research. The consequence is that real people risk pain and death that might otherwise be treatable.

'Imagine No Religion'

At least The Denver Post's Electa Draper has written about something other than a religious group or theme. She has turned her attention to the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which has purchased a Denver billboard stating, "Imagine No Religion."

The following segment of Draper's article gave me an exasperated chuckle:

Passer-by Joseph Sanchez, 23, said the billboard didn't upset him but that he doesn't agree with it.

"I'm not really big on organized religion, but I love religion," Sanchez said. "It's important for people to keep religion somewhere in the back of their mind but not to take it too seriously."

The ultimate effect of pragmatism on Americans is that many of them no longer take ideas -- any ideas -- seriously.

Unfortunately, FFRF's message is a bad one. The group explicitly refers to John Lennon's song "Imagine," which anticipates global socialism of "no countries" and "no possessions."

We don't have to imagine the consequences of Marxism: we need merely look to the Soviet Union and Maoist China, which slaughtered scores of millions.

The absence of religion is no substitute for the presence of a rational, this-worldly morality rooted in the requirements of the individual's life and mind.

Liggett, Hsieh Oppose 'Personhood' Amendment 48

Amendment 48, the Colorado ballot measure that seeks to define a fertilized egg as a person, has provoked passionate and reasoned opposition. The Denver Post recently published pieces by Gina Liggett and Diana Hsieh.

Liggett writes:

The Thomas More Law Center, which provides legal support for these groups, calls itself "the sword and shield for people of (Christian) faith" to fight for Christian values, which it claims are the foundation of our nation. Kristi Burton, the founder of CER, was quoted in denverpost.com (1-1/14/07) saying "we have God. And he is all we need." ...

If this barbaric "personhood" amendment passes, whose rights will prevail when a woman has a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy? Will a girl who's been raped be compelled against her will to carry a pregnancy resulting from that brutality? Will lawyers defending fertilized eggs argue that a miscarriage is a violation of an embryo's right to life, making a woman and her physician legally negligent? ... Many reliable birth control methods would have to be outlawed because they interfere with implantation of a fertilized egg. Couples unable to conceive would be forbidden to try in-vitro fertilization because some of the lab-created fertilized eggs are not used.

And Hsieh writes:

A woman's fundamental right to control her own body, including her right to terminate or sustain a pregnancy, should not depend on majority vote. This would violate that right in spades, based on the fantasy that an embryo is equal to an infant. It would force a woman to provide life support to any fertilized egg -- even at the risk of her life and health and even if ruinous to her goals and dreams.

Hsieh's letter appears with two others, one for and one against. The first refers to an alleged "impossibility to decide doctrinal merits," while the other states, without argument, "We believe that human life [a person] begins at conception." The first letter expresses skepticism, the second religion, while Hsieh's letter offers a positive moral theory based on the facts of reality and the requirements of human life. At least the debate over Amendment 48 takes us to fundamentals.

Faith-Based Welfare for Obama's Former Church

Jeff Goldblatt reports for Fox:

FOX News has learned that over the last 15 years, Trinity [United Church of Christ in Chicago] has received at least $15 million in grants from the federal government...

Records show this money supported a variety of outreach: everything from low income housing to nutritional programs for needy kids to money for HIV/AIDS education. [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright blames the government for intentionally infecting the African-American community with that deadly virus.

I'm sure that the church provides welfare as well as many secular organizations. That's not the point. The point is that I would never voluntarily donate a cent to that church for any reason whatever, and I'm confident that many Americans share the opinion. Forcing people to fund a church against their wishes is a violation of their freedom of conscience and an intrusion of politics into religion and vice versa.

Perkins vs. D'Souza: Miracles

Greg Perkins continues to show why Dinesh D'Souza's Christian apologetics fails. I've reviewed his first post, regarding the alleged harms of atheism. In his second short essay, Perkins explains why miracles are impossible.

Perkins offers a nice summary of the nature of causality and its validation. He explains especially well the fact that miracles do not merely refer to something unusual and unexplained; they refer to something supernatural:

We are not talking about just any improbable happening, and not even something which violates our current understanding of the world as expressed in scientific laws, like D'Souza tries to argue. The entire point of miracles is to provide evidence of divine intervention, and surprises which may only reveal a current lack of understanding can't accomplish that: by that measure, even the tricks of magicians would count as miracles. Indeed, much of what we enjoy in our modern world would have been considered miraculous in previous times, from vaccines and medications, to cars, and the Internet and on and on. Yet none of these prove or even suggest a possibility that there is a God. No, a meaningful miracle is not merely something which would violate the laws of nature as we currently understand them, but something which would be a violation of any such law we could ever discover. That is, it would have to be a violation of lawfulness itself.

The epistemological criticism is that miracles require a leap into faith beyond reason rooted in sensory evidence. Before people knew what caused lightning, many religionists said God caused it. The appropriate answer was, "I don't know what causes it -- yet." The metaphysical criticism is that supernaturalism, upon which miracles are based, contradicts the law of causality.

Peikoff 16

Leonard Peikoff makes a number of fascinating arguments in his sixteenth podcast.

Peikoff first addresses the alleged need for a mystic moral faculty. Apparently, a professor claimed the need for such a thing through a two-part hypothetical example. Is it okay to harvest the organs of one person to save the lives of five others? Peikoff agrees that this is wrong, because the one person is innocent.

But what if you see that a train is about to run over five people, and you are in a position to flip a switch so that the train instead runs over only one person on a different track? Peikoff again argues that this is wrong, again because the one person is innocent.

I agree with the thrust of Peikoff's argument, that we must not harm innocent parties. However, I'm not sure he's necessarily correct about the train track. I think that the cases of the emergency room and the train track are basically different. In the emergency room, we wouldn't change our mind regardless of the numbers involved. We would condemn as morally abhorrent the forcible harvesting of one person's organs even to save the lives of a million. But let's say we could keep a train from running over a whole station full of people, or deflect a nuclear bomb from New York City to a desert with a single inhabitant. I don't think deflecting the train is morally comparable to harvesting the organs, because only the latter case involves the initiation of force. If I were on a jury, I would automatically vote to convict the organ harvester, but I'd be troubled by the flip switcher. I'm inclined to categorize the case of the train as an emergency situation, outside of the normal moral context.

As Peikoff suggests, the train hypothetical is farfetched. If the people are walking on the track because of their own negligence, then they bear responsibility for their predicament. If the train company has created dangerous conditions, such that people tend to walk in front of trains, then that's a matter for the courts. Otherwise, the situation is by definition an emergency. While organ transplantation is an every-day event, I doubt that anyone could come up with more than a few examples from real life that are substantially similar to the train hypothetical. One reason that it strikes us as difficult is the fact that it's so unlikely. The overwhelming majority of people will never face any situation remotely like that. The fact that emergencies lie beyond our normal moral context does not imply mysticism or subjectivism.

Peikoff next discusses the possible character flaws of artists, the possibility of self-doubt for a moral person, and the necessity of athletes (and artists) to work in the moment, rather than try to evaluate their performance-in-progress from the perspective of history.

In answer to a question about artificial intelligence, Peikoff argues that it's philosophically impossible for a machine ever to think like a person. He argues that a machine cannot have volition. However, given the fact that humans arose through a process of non-volitional evolution, isn't it possible that humans might create an artificial being that acquires volition? Perhaps the distinction is that such a being would no longer be a machine.

Peikoff doesn't address the issue of human motivation here. Human choices are motivated; people have values and act on them. Thinking as a sort of action thus is necessarily tied to values. An artificial being would need the capacity for values as well as volition to be able to think like a human.

Finally, Peikoff addresses the question of whether the world was deterministic prior to humans. He said that the force in play was not determinism but causality; determinism is a specific doctrine that precludes the existence of volition.

The full podcast is worth a listen.

Ahmadinejad Predicts U.S. Annihilation

As you read these words of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, remember that this is the man whom we are allowing, through inaction and appeasement, to build nuclear bombs:

I must announce that the Zionist regime (Israel), with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene. ... Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.

I fear to think what it's going to take for the U.S. government and people to take this man's threats and belligerence seriously.

Personhood and Rights

In a comment to my recent post about Amendment 48, which would define a fertilized egg as a person, Jonathan Briggs writes:

Ignoring religion, let's use biology. It seems to me that we as a species, are wired to have an urge to protect women and children. Men are the expendable protectors of the future generations.

Just ask a group of people if it's a worse crime to punch a man, a woman, a pregnant woman, or a child.

The responses to that should come out that punching pregnant women and children is a worse crime than punching a man.

That tells us something. It seems that a pregnancy is valued almost equally to an actual child, even in the absence of religion. It's survival instinct wired by biology. Blaming religion and "evangelicals" for this is absurd.

The fact that we harshly condemn a criminal for harming a pregnant woman in no way implies that a fertilized egg is a person. I see no inherent problem with defining enhanced criminal penalties for harming a woman's embryo. That's not what Amendment 48 is about. Amendment 48 is about imposing criminal penalties on the woman (or her doctor) for harming her own fertilized egg. And that is a religiously motivated policy.

An embryo is a potential person, and that does matter very much to the mother who wants and expects to bear the child. A mother-to-be invests a great deal of emotional energy, physical preparation, and planning in her future child. Thus, someone who harms a pregnant woman harms not only the woman's health, but another dear value to her. Plus, usually it's possible to tell whether a woman is pregnant, so somebody who intentionally harms a pregnant woman is particularly nasty.

By analogy, if somebody intentionally broke the fingers of virtuoso piano player, we would condemn the perpetrator more harshly than had he simply punched a person in the face. That doesn't mean that a finger should be defined as a person, even though it is both human and alive.