"Pro-Life As Any Candidate Can Be"

Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, is as "pro-life as any candidate can be," Fox News reports. However, as Diana Hsieh and I have pointed out, the allegedly "pro-life" position, which would grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs for reasons of religious faith, is in fact profoundly anti-life. I didn't need any additional reasons not to vote for McCain, but his selection of Palin reaffirms some of the reasons I've already given.

The religious right is ecstatic, as The New York Times reports:

Social conservatives were relieved and highly pleased.

"They're beyond ecstatic," said Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition. "This is a home run. She is a reformer governor who is solidly pro-life and a person of deep Christian faith. And she is really one of the bright shining new stars in the Republican firmament."

Ms. Palin is known to conservatives for choosing not to have an abortion after learning two years ago that she was carrying a child with Down's syndrome. "It is almost impossible to exaggerate how important that is to the conservative faith community," Mr. Reed said.

Obviously, a Down's baby is precious to his mother and has the same legal rights as anyone else. The choice properly belongs to the woman whether to bring a fetus with Down's to term. However, given the severe problems associated with the disease, and the possibility of detecting it early in a pregnancy with modern medicine, certainly it is perfectly moral for a woman to get an abortion under such tragic circumstances. But apparently the religious right grants Palin some sort of special moral status for having a Down's baby, as though tragedy and suffering itself were the mark of goodness and political competence.

I don't think McCain's pick is going to do what he hopes it will do. If anything, it will drive Hillary's supporters to more loyal support of Obama. And it will only further alienate independents and secularist Republicans, who are growing increasingly weary of faith-based politics.

Faith-Based Obama

In his August 18 article, Jim Towey, former director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, writes that "Obama wants to abandon President Bush's -- and President Clinton's -- efforts to protect the right to hire on a religious basis of faith-based charities that provide taxpayer-funded social services."

What are these alleged rights? Towey thinks recipients of federal dollars should be able to "hire on a religious basis," yet "[f]or decades, religious charities have had to knuckle under to the directives of the federal government if they wanted public money."

Religious groups do not have any right to other people's money redistributed by force.

Whether or not faith-based groups discriminate on the basis of religion when hiring, they should not receive a single cent of tax money. To forcibly redistribute money to religious groups from those who do not wish to fund them violates the latter group's rights of property and conscience.

Towey writes, "Planned Parenthood receives bundles of federal money and hires only the like-minded. Why are faith groups held to a different standard?" Towey's argument is disingenuous; there is no "different standard." Planned Parenthood does not discriminate on the basis of religion, and the fact that opponents of abortion choose not to work there is their own choice. Regardless, the relevant standard is that government ought neither promote nor hinder religion. Spending tax dollars for faith-based purposes clearly violates this standard. I agree that it's wrong for Planned Parenthood to receive tax dollars. But the first wrong does not justify state support of religious organizations.

Gazette Slights Atheists

The generally-thoughtful Gazette of Colorado Springs gets off track in a recent editorial. While there's much wrong with the piece, I want to focus on one particular paragraph:

This column has advocated religious liberties for atheists, citing case law that defines atheism as just another religion - as in just another unproven and forever unprovable belief. This column has applauded a federal court ruling that forced prison wardens to allow prisoners an atheist study session. The court allowed the study session for the same reason wardens allow Bible study meetings: atheism is a religion, therefore subject to protections and restrictions of the First Amendment.

Notice the subjectivism inherent in this view. The editorial presumes that religion is superior to atheism, yet all religious beliefs boil down to "unproven and forever unprovable" beliefs. In other words, the point of religion is not to get to the truth, but to promote some particular and entirely arbitrary position. Later, the editorial explicitly invokes ignorance to "justify" religious beliefs. This shows an irony common among Christians. Christians blast atheism as subjectivist and relativistic, yet many of these same Christians ultimately rest their case on subjectivism and relativism (and all of them implicitly do so).

What is needed is an alternative that is neither faith-based nor subjectivist, but based on the objective facts of reality. True, we don't know everything about reality, but we can know a lot, and we can continually expand our real knowledge. With the advances particularly of Aristotle and Ayn Rand, we have available to us an objective moral foundation.

As for the First Amendment, atheism is not protected because it is "just another religion." That amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..." The principle is that the government ought neither promote nor hinder religion. Instead, the government's job is to protect individual rights. Freedom of conscience is the broader principle inherent in the First Amendment, and this properly applies to all ideas, not just religious ones. However, while it's wrong for government to force the religious to finance non-religious ideas, the First Amendment expressly limits government support for religion.

Hsieh's Warning for Democrats

Diana Hsieh has been busy promoting the Coalition for Secular Government. A few days ago, her letter appeared in the Rocky Mountain News; it is a needed warning for Democrats as they converge in the state:

The First Amendment of the Constitution upholds freedom of religion as absolute. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, it builds "a wall of separation between church and state."

For the past 30 years, that wall has been under attack from the religious right via "intelligent design," "faith-based initiatives" and now Colorado's own "definition of a person" amendment.

Alarmingly, Democrats are jumping on the faith-powered bandwagon. A powerful religious left is emerging within the Democratic Party, determined to entangle politics and religion. The ideal espoused by John F. Kennedy that the religious views of a politician should be "his own private affair" is dying.

Democrats, religious or not, must speak out for freedom of religion. If they don't, their party will soon be in the iron grip of savvy Christian evangelicals, just like today's Republican Party.

Thankfully, Colorado Democrats such as Mark Udall have endorsed the separation of church and state. That is a major reason why Colorado Democrats routinely beat the hell out of Republicans.

Churches Should Keep Out of Politics, Poll Says

This is an interesting survey (thanks to Kelly M.); a slim majority of Americans (52 percent) think churches should keep out of politics. This is up from 44 percent just four years ago. Perhaps when people got a taste of the religious right via the Bush administration (which only partly tried to appease the religious right), they figured out that maybe faith-based politics isn't so great, after all.

This surprised me a bit:

The new national survey by the Pew Research Center reveals that most of the reconsideration of the desirability of religious involvement in politics has occurred among conservatives. Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view.

Yet it's not hard to figure out that, with government programs such as "faith-based initiatives" come government strings. And perhaps many religious conservatives are figuring out that, when they alienate independents and the secular free-market movement, they no longer participate in a winning coalition. Grover Norquist points out that, when the religious right merely calls on government to leave religious beliefs alone, the faction can play nicely with others. But when religious conservatives try to impose faith-based restrictions and spend tax dollars to promote religion, they make enemies out of those loyal to liberty.

If There Is No God

Dennis Prager's "new" article, "If There Is No God," recycles a variety of bogus claims about atheism, yet at least it grants, "[I]t is not possible to prove (or disprove) God's existence." However, if it is not possible to prove something, it is not necessary to disprove it. Arbitrary claims should be dismissed out of hand. Nevertheless, because claims about God involve absurd metaphysical presumptions, it is possible to disprove God's existence.

Without God, Prager asserts, "there is no good and evil," "there is no objective meaning to life," "[l]ife is ultimately a tragic fare," and so forth. Of course this is complete nonsense. Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, which rejects supernaturalism, shows that good and evil are rooted in human life and its requirements and that one's life, properly lived, can be meaningful and joyous.

Moreover, supernaturalism deflates to the same subjectivism that Prager criticizes; good and evil become dependent on the whims of a supernatural being, and "objective" comes to mean adherence to arbitrary doctrines. A better title for Prager's article would have been simply: "Projection."

How to Think Like an Apologist

A few days ago, I pointed out that many or most fertilized eggs fail to implant in the uterus and die naturally. Thus, according to the Christian view that God controls the universe, God is the ultimate abortionist.

A fellow named Darrell Birkey replied, "So you slander God, blaming him for miscarriages and failures for the fertilized egg to implant in the womb. God designed the procreation process, but He doesn't cause miscarriages,etc. You slander and demean God to claim that he does."

I confess to be being disappointed with Birkey's reply; I was sort of hoping he'd, you know, offer some sort of argument to back up his position. If I were a Christian apologist, I might argue something along these lines:

It is true that God controls the universe and whether an egg fertilizes and implants in the uterus. However, when God allows a fertilized egg not to implant, that is not the equivalent of an abortion. God knows before-hand whether he's going to allow an egg to implant, and he imbues only those fertilized eggs destined for implantation with a soul. Thus, a fertilized egg that God allows to die does not have the moral status of a fertilized egg that the woman willfully aborts.

Yes, God also knows before-hand whether the mother is going to abort. However, this remains a matter of free choice for the woman. A woman is bound to obey the will of God. It is impossible for the woman to know which fertilized egg God intends to imbue with a soul. Thus, it is wrong for a woman to take any action with the intention of blocking a fertilized egg from implanting in her uterus.

But why does God allow some fertilized eggs to die in the first place? Why didn't he create us such that all fertilized eggs implant in the uterus and successfully grow to live babies? Why do fertilized eggs fail to implant or sometimes die after they have implanted? God's plan for the universe is too grand for us lowly mortals to fully comprehend. However, the biological facts do offer us a wonderful opportunity to live our faith in God. Some women are tempted to think that the fertilized egg she kills is the same as a fertilized egg that God allows to die. But the woman properly understands that God is in charge, and she must let his will decide the matter.

And here is my brief reply to this apologist nonsense.

First, there is no God, no proof of God, and no mystical soul with which God imbues a fertilized egg. Thus, there is no reason to think that one fertilized egg is different from any other, morally speaking. The final paragraph appeals to human ignorance, as though that resolves any paradox with the religion. Finally, if God did exist, it would be a bit nasty of him to allow some fertilized eggs to die merely so that women could face temptation to prevent implantation or get an abortion.

If anybody else has a better explanation for why God would kill more fertilized eggs than all abortion doctors combined, I'd love to hear it.

Army of God

The Colorado Independent has published a story by Wendy Norris discussing the colorful backgrounds of some of the supporters of Amendment 48.

The article reports, for example, that Dr. George Maloof "Signed American Life League's petition that saving the life of the mother is never an excuse for abortion." I was curious, so I looked it up. Here is the relevant statement:

I agree that there is never a situation in the law or in the ethical practice of medicine where a preborn child's life need be intentionally destroyed by procured abortion for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. A physician must do everything possible to save the lives of both of his patients, mother and child. He must never intend the death of either.

As I've written, this may allow just a little bit of wiggle room; perhaps a doctor supposedly can remove an embryo without "intentionally" killing it, even though the doctor knows full well it will die. The more likely scenario, though, is that the doctor will wait until the embryo dies, or the mother is absolutely on her death bed, before taking any action. Of course for some women it will be too late. So, yes, these people believe crazy things.

However, I don't think the Independent's story will do quite what the author thinks. The main doctor it discusses doesn't even live in Colorado. I'm quite certain that, with minimal effort, I could find crazy people who endorse causes close to Wendy Norris's heart.

Everything has to be grand conspiracy for the left. That's because, I think, the left doesn't have much of a positive philosophy to offer. I mean, it has Marx, but it turns out that Marx was wrong about practically everything. So the left, by routine now, just tries to tie everything it doesn't like to some crazy or shady person or group, as though that were a substitute for an actual argument.

Still, this sort of story has value, if taken in its appropriate context.

More Anti-Abortion Insanity

While many in the country want some restrictions on abortion, the few consistent opponents of abortion want to ban it across the board. The only possible exception might be an extreme risk to the mother's life (because then the fetus is at risk, too). Here's what one Christian has to say on the matter:

The best way to handle it legally is to attempt to protect both mother and fetus from being deprived of life without due process. Because of the emergency nature of most life-threatening pregnancies, the doctor would have to make a call that ending the pregnancy (and therefore, if the fetus is too young to survive, the life of the fetus), just as a policeman often must make the decion that a suspect has to be shot dead to protect the public.

The way to handle these emergencies isn't to grant broad judgment to doctors (or cops) to just kill people at their descretion; rather, it is to allow for the prosecutor to not pursue the case if it appears that the doctor (or cop) proceeded on good faith, believing that such a drastic measure as killing was necessary to protect the innocent life of the mother (or public).

Notice the high bar here: if an abortion is "necessary" to protect the "life of the mother," then it may proceed. Presumably, that means that, without an abortion, the mother certainly would die. Unfortunately, in the real world, risks often are less than 100 percent, and doctors rarely are able to perfectly anticipate risks. By the standard mentioned, anytime the risk to the mother were not 100 percent, the doctor would be wading into legal trouble by offering an abortion. Does that mean that, with an 80 percent risk of death to the mother, the doctor may not operate?

Even if the doctor believes that the mother's death is a certainty without an abortion, a prosecutor may disagree. Could a prosecutor find any anti-abortion doctor anywhere who would testify that the mother's life might possibly have been saved? In many or most cases, yes. Medicine is not a science of exactly calculated risks. It is art that often involves educated guesses.

The writer cited does not explain, in detail, how the program would be carried out (because there is no way to do so). What is obvious, though, is that the policy described would result in the deaths of women. That is considered by some to be the "pro-life" position.

"Prolifers" Advocate Pain and Death for Women

The position of the Association of Prolife Physicians speaks for itself:

We must respond to all tragic circumstances of pregnancy from the unshakeable foundation of two indisputable premises: human life begins at conception, and it is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. The unborn child's right to life and liberty is given by his or her Creator, not by his or her parents or by the state. ... It is never right to intentionally kill an innocent person, even if it does relieve another's emotional or physical suffering. ...

We find it extremely unfortunate that many pro-lifers have regarded the health of the mother to be a consideration in whether or not she should have the right to terminate the life of her pre-born baby. ... To intentionally kill or condone the intentional killing of one innocent human being precludes one from being considered 'pro-life' at all. A murderer of one person is not any less a murderer if he allows thousands to live, nor if he saves thousands from dying!

Contemplate that for a moment. This allegedly "pro-life" position would subject women to agonizing physical suffering and the risk of death to maintain the faith-based fantasy that a fertilized egg is a person.

God: The Ultimate Abortionist

Amendment 48 would define a fertilized egg as a person in Colorado's constitution. The presumption behind this initiative is that God infuses a fertilized egg with a soul, so it's immoral for a woman to choose to abort it. There's just one little problem with this view; as Pamela White writes in her outstanding overview of the implications of 48:

[A]bout 30 to 70 percent of the time, the fertilized egg fails to implant and is flushed from the woman's body during her next menstrual period without her ever knowing about it. This is not considered a miscarriage because the egg never implanted and never initiated the physical changes of pregnancy.

Those who want to ban all abortions and the birth-control pill (which prevents implantation of a fertilized egg) believe that it's God's will whether a sperm enters an egg and the egg implants. In other words, according to the assumptions of the Amendment 48 crowd, God commits abortion in 30-70 percent of all cases of fertilization.

"Abortionist" is the smear term used by anti-abortion zealots against doctors who perform abortions. But God is the ultimate abortionist, having performed (I'm guessing) millions of times more abortions than all "abortionist" doctors combined. Anti-abortion zealots routinely refer to abortion as a "holocaust." Then what is it that God is perpetrating?

This points to a deeper problem with this sort of theology. The point of ethics, so goes this line of thought, is to conform our will to God's will. The reason not to murder is that God said so. But if God says to kill your own son, then it would be immoral to refuse. Similarly, God allegedly says that having an abortion is wrong. But if God wants to abort 30-70 percent of all fertilized eggs, then that's perfectly fine. What matters is conformity to God's will, in this view.

This points to the ultimate irony of the anti-abortion crusade. A big part of that movement is a criticism of moral subjectivism at the personal level. But barely beneath the surface of these religious beliefs is moral subjectivism at the supernatural level. Morality is what God says it is, end of story.

What's needed is neither personal subjectivism nor supernatural subjectivism, but an objective morality rooted in the facts of human life.

Values of Harry Potter

My just-published book Values of Harry Potter discusses the themes of courage, independence, and free will in Rowling's novels. As this blog focuses on religion, here I'll summarize my treatment of the subject in the book.

The first three chapters are not about religion. Instead, the first chapter describes the heroic fight for values in the Harry Potter novels. As I review, Harry and his allies fight for for their lives, their futures, their friends, and their liberty. They do so against the viciously evil Lord Voldemort. In the second chapter I discuss the virtue of independence that the heroes display; in the third I review the themes of free will in the books.

Chapter Four explicitly takes up the religious theme of sacrifice. I contrast the heroic fight for life-promoting values with self-sacrifice. I briefly discuss Ayn Rand's view of sacrifice and spend several pages going through Aristotle's views of friendship and self-love. I point out that sacrifice does not mean abusing others; it means surrendering a higher value for a lower one (as Rand says). Friends are crucially important to our lives, so it's not sacrificial to fight for our friends; doing so promotes our values. I review numerous cases from the Potter books in this light.

Chapter Five is titled, "Materialism and Immortality." "Voldmort," others have noted, means "flight from death." Mortality and life after death are large and explicit themes in Rowling's books. I explain how the Horcrux relates to a crass sort of materialism and a pathological fear of death (as well as the abuse of others). I also discuss how these themes relate to the themes values, independence, and sacrifice.

Obviously my book is intended for readers of the Harry Potter novels. So if you haven't finished them yet, get going! You can read the introduction to my book on its web page.