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Pro-Life / Politics
Life and Abortion:
A Pro-Life Defense in Dialogue Form
by John G. Crandall

Unjust Law
by John G. Crandall

GOP Leaders Call on Moran to Stop Negative Campaigning

Tuesday, 02 March 2010 15:52

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 1, 2010

Speaker Pro Tem of the Kansas House Arlen Siegfreid (R-Olathe), House Majority Leader Ray Merrick (R-Stilwell), Assistant Majority Leader Peggy Mast (R- Emporia) and Majority Whip Rob Olson (R-Olathe) released the following statement in reference to a quote from Jerry Moran’s U.S. Senate campaign to The Hill Blog regarding Congressman Todd Tiahrt’s complete exoneration by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. 

Siegfreid stated, “Todd Tiahrt is a man of honor and integrity, so it was no surprise to those of us who know him that he’s been fully exonerated by the Standards Committee. What does come as a surprise is the reaction from Jerry Moran, who appears poised to ignore the ruling and continue attacking Rep. Tiahrt on the issue. This isn’t the way to earn the respect of Kansans. I’m supporting a genuine statesman. Perhaps the news of Rep. Tiahrt’s exoneration and his opponent’s reaction tells voters all they need to know when choosing a Senator.”  Merrick said, “The unfounded political attacks against the character and integrity of Todd Tiahrt have no place in Kansas.”

“Apparently, the truth is not important to Jerry Moran. I am disappointed that after all his talk about his Kansas values and his Kansas roots, Jerry Moran brings the dirtiest of Washington politics home with him. Conservatives expect to be attacked by Nancy Pelosi and her liberal elite friends, but when a fellow Kansan seeks to perpetuate the same baseless, partisan slurs and false accusations it is negative campaigning at its worst. Kansans deserve better,” said Olson.

Mast stated, “Kansans believe that honesty and integrity are more than just words. We expect our political leaders to debate the issues with passion and vigor, but to conduct themselves and their campaigns with honor and truthfulness. To attack a man’s character without cause or justification is out of bounds. Jerry Moran and his staff should know better.”

Referenced quote from Jerry Moran’s campaign to The Hill Blog, “The fact there’s not

apparently an ongoing inquiry by Congress, we don’t think that takes away from the manner in which Tiahrt has operated in the Congress for many years.” The senior campaign staff continued, “You will hear more from us on that.”

The Politics of “Personally Opposed”
by John Crandall

            We heard it again - that politically-correct phrase used by pro-choice politicians to temper or mask their position on abortion.  It is a meaningless phrase - a cop-out designed to give moral cover to those without the political courage to state their true convictions.  We heard it most recently from Kansas' own Kathleen Sebelius.  Three weeks before her confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Ms. Sebelius went before the Senate Finance Committee.  In response to a question   from Senator Jon Kyl, she pulled out that old familiar reply, “I am personally opposed to abortion.”

            Personally opposed!  Why is she personally opposed?  And what, exactly, does it mean to be personally opposed?   Furthermore, is it ethically or even logically possible to be personally opposed yet politically committed to abortion?  These are the questions that should have been asked.  These are the follow-ups that should be asked of any politician that tries to use this phrase as cover.  Just once it would be refreshing to have a public official or courageous journalist challenge the politics of “personally opposed.”

            Suppose these hard questions had been asked.  Would Sebelius have been confirmed?  Imagine what might have been, or better yet, what could be next time.  Just imagine, if you will, that a governor from a midwestern state has been nominated for a cabinet post – say, the head of Health and Human Services.  And suppose this governor must answer questions from a philosophically-astute member of the Senate Finance Committee.  Consider how such an exchange might play out.

 Senator:  Governor, I would like to begin by asking your position on abortion. 

Governor:  I am personally opposed to abortion, but I believe the Constitution guarantees the right of   women to choose that option.

 Senator:  Why are you personally opposed?

 Governor:  My faith informs my morality.  It teaches me that life is sacred and deserves my utmost respect.

 Senator:  Does that include unborn human life?

 Governor:  Yes.

 Senator:  Doesn't abortion take an innocent human life?

 Governor:  Yes, I would say so.

 Senator:  Do you believe it is morally wrong to take an innocent human life?

 Governor:  That is my position.

 Senator:  Then you believe abortion is morally wrong, is that correct?

 Governor:  As I stated before, my faith informs my morality.  Abortion is morally wrong for me.

 Senator:  Governor, you are speaking as though morality is subjective, a matter of personal taste.  It seems to me if abortion is wrong, it's wrong for you, wrong for me, wrong for anyone.

Governor:  We live in a pluralistic society.  Not everyone shares the same moral viewpoint.  I can't force my moral view on others.

 Senator:  Have you ever vetoed pro-life legislation in your state?

 Governor:  Yes, but only those bills that threatened the constitutional rights and medical privacy of women.

 Senator:  By exercising your veto power, weren't you in fact forcing your moral view on those pro-life legislators?

 Governor: (Pause) Well...if you want to look at it that way.  I look at it as protecting the rights of women.

 Senator:  Are you claiming that privacy rights outweigh the fundamental right to be born?  Didn't you state that life is sacred?  Didn't you also agree that abortion takes an innocent human life and that it is wrong to take an innocent human life?  Can you justify how a wrong can be made a right?

 Governor:  I also stated that we live in a pluralistic society.  There are many moral viewpoints and beliefs.

 Senator:  People believe a lot of foolish things, but believing them does not make them right.  I may believe that 2+2=5, but believing it does not change the fact that I am wrong.  Two conflicting moral viewpoints cannot both be right.  Governor, you speak of having a personal morality, but I am not certain you have a grasp on what it means to be moral.  Classical  morality has three unalterable principles.  First, it is an authoritative guide to human conduct.  Second, it has a prescriptive element, that is,  it tells us what we ought to do and what we should not do. Third, classical morality is universal.  Moral rules, like mathematical rules, apply to everyone, everywhere, and at all times.  The equation 2+2=4 is universally true.  Someone's personal belief that it equals five does not make it so.  Likewise, unjustified homocide is always wrong, it always has been for everyone, everywhere, and for all times.  Classical morality has never been defined by one's personal choice.(1)

Governor:  I believe morality is relative.  We ought to respect the moral viewpoints of others.

 Senator:  Governor, if morality is relative, then your statement is meaningless.  There is no sense to the word “ought.”  We need not respect anyone's viewpoint because there is no moral force requiring us to do so.  If morality is relative, then there is no moral difference between the individual actions of Mother Teresa and Dr. Mengele.  If morality is relative, the Allied Nations had no moral duty to stop Hitler's Third Reich in World War Two.  If morality is relative, then your “personal opposition” to abortion holds no moral weight at all.  It is just your personal    taste – like preferring one flavor of ice cream over another.  “You prefer butter pecan ice cream, I prefer strawberry ice cream.  You prefer abortion, I prefer not to abort.”(2)

 Governor:  Senator, I do not consider crisis pregnancies and the health issues of women to be matters of personal taste.  We are speaking of weighty issues about real women making tough personal choices!

 Senator:  I agree that these are very weighty matters.  That is precisely my point.  You stated that your faith has taught you the sanctity of life, yet your actions say otherwise.  You are a moral relativist, so your personal opposition to abortion is meaningless. Governor, your answers before this committee today do not indicate to me that you have the moral knowledge or integrity to make morally correct decisions to these very weighty issues.  I cannot, in good conscience, recommend you to head such an important post in our government.  Thank you for coming.

______________ 

1. See Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl,  Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted In Mid-Air (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1998), 29ff.
2. For a good treatment on moral reasoning, see Francis J. Beckwith, Politically Correct Death (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), 19-28.
    

Unjust Law
by John G. Crandall

             In a recent Letter to the Editor (Legal Standing, Letters, June 14) the writer presented a well-written argument in support of the legal standing of the pro-choice position.  He argued that the pro-choice position is “legal and grounded in the Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court” and in the democratic tradition of individual liberty.  In contrast, the pro-life position is illicit in that “its advocates promote overturning the law.”

            The argument, compelling on its face, is deeply flawed.  First, the writer confuses a law's,  i.e., Roe, present legal status with its legal and moral legitimacy.  That abortion was made legal in 1973 by an act of “raw judicial power” does not give legitimacy to Roe v. Wade any more than Chief Justice Roger Taney gave legitimacy to the pro-slavery position in his 1857 Dred Scott majority opinion. By substituting a few words, the writer's argument sounds very similar to Taney's argument: “The pro-slavery position is legal and grounded in the Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.  It holds that 'individuals,' i.e., slave-holders, have a right to property that includes a right to make choices regarding their property.”  This was Taney's argument in 1857.  Legal scholars consider both Roe and Dred Scott to be poorly reasoned.  Both claimed to “find” rights in the Constitution that theretofore did not exist.  Judge Robert Bork writes that one can draw a direct line of reasoning from Roe backward to Scott.  Sandra Day O'Conner has written that “Roe... is clearly on a collision course with itself....[It has] no justification in law or logic.”

            Second, the writer, like Justice Taney and Roe's Harry Blackmun, commits the logical fallacy of begging the question.  He assumes what he is attempting to prove without providing evidence for that assumption.  Bush assumes that the unborn are not fully human, just as Taney assumed blacks were not fully human.  If the unborn are not fully human, then his argument holds.  However, if the unborn are fully human, then his argument collapses as Blackmun conceded Roe would collapse.  But Blackmun discounted the evidence for fetal personhood from the outset, and so reduced his argument to an emotional appeal that begs the question.

            Pro-lifers advocate the overturning of illegitimate laws like Roe because, as Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law,” and one has the moral responsibility to work to overturn such a law.