Legislating Mortality...I mean, Morality
Been thinking a bit lately about the debates in this election year involving issues of morality: gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, etc.
It's really getting quite tiresome for me to hear candidates (admittedly, mostly Democrats and for that matter, mostly John Kerry) go on and on self-righteously saying that although "personally opposed" to things like abortion, gay marriage, and the like, they cannot "legislate morality" to the American people. This sounds very high-minded and takes several forms. One form I am particularly "fond" of is what I have Kerry and other pro-choice "Catholics" say regarding abortion:
[imagine sincere and earnest facial expression combined with a very convicted voice:]
"I respect those who hold the view you hold (pro-life). I myself am a Catholic. I was raised Catholic. I was even an altar boy [do they want a certificate for this or something?] But I cannot force onto other American people what for me is an article of faith."
Again, this sounds really sincere and high-minded, but the problem I have is with the use of the term, "article of faith."
The sanctity of life is not something that is an article of faith in the strictest sense of that term. In other words, the Church teaches the sanctity of life not because it thought it might be a good idea to promulgate it, but because it recognizes that inherent in the order of creation itself life is good and is to protected and preserved. Therefore, not being Catholic does not give one the option to not believe in the sanctity of life. All mankind should believe in the sanctity of life. To say otherwise is to give in to that postmodern heresy that it is the community that comes up with its own rules, rather than God revealing Himself to a community. So, if you are not in the Catholic community, the sanctity of life cannot be forced upon you, because perhaps you haven't experienced life that way. Really?
What if my experience of life tells me that it's okay to kill people I don't like? Or not pay my taxes to the government? Or steal things that I do not own? Or marry 20 women? Or even 10 men and 10 women?
Clearly, the government does legislate morality. The good of a society is dependant upon the moral behavior of its citizens and upon the government's ability to restrain evil. Morality as it is legistated by the government is meant to protect the good of the society as a whole. At least, it used to be.
Now it seems that legislation is more about individual rights than about the good of the society. The sanctity of life as a bedrock prinicple of a stable society is no longer as important as an individual woman's right to choose. The sanctity of marriage and family as a necessity for a stable society is no longer as important as the rights of two individual men or two individual women to have the "rights (or rites)" of "marriage."
The legitimate legislation of morality is giving way to legislation of mortality, leading more and more into a culture of death.
But, hey, at least no one is imposing his traditional views on anyone else, right? It's just the non-traditional views being imposed.
RED+
P.S.- For a devastating critique of the current rhetoric of "not imposing my views," see this article by David Mills of Touchstone Magazine.
posted by FrRon @ 6:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Fr Ron, this "don't want to legislate morality" line is common, but complete balderdash nonetheless. The entire criminal code of every state in the union is essentially nothing BUT morality legislated! The only reason property theft is a crime is because the general judgement of society is that it is MORALLY WRONG to steal (though, of course, the basis for this moral judgement might vary from citizen to citizen, the legislature is composed of people creating laws that reflect the MORAL judgement of their electors). Do these liberal legislators really beleive that every vote they cast does NOT reflect their own moral choices? If not, what pray tell are they basing their voting decisions on? Craven self-interest?
Good questions, Randall. What seems to be most important to these legislators is that they remain legislators at all cost rather than stand up for the convictions of their faith. An article in Touchstone magazine this month makes a good point: Catholic politicians should let the voters decide if they want a faithful Catholic representing them rather than the politician waffle on key issues for the sake of getting elected.
I believe the "morality" they believe people are trying to impose is not necessarily the morality of the sanctity of human life, but rather the "morality" of sex strictly for the purpose of pleasure, which they believe is the ultimate target of many anti-abortion laws because even the Bible defines the beginning of life as the point of "quickening" and not conception.
One might argue that only modern technology can reveal conception as the start of life, but one need consider no farther than identical twins to begin to question precisely where life begins. Identical twins begin existence as a single cell. Is that cell the "parent" of the twins? Is one twin the parent of the other? Because a single cell can become identical twins (and more very rarely), if someone destroys a single fertizlied egg should they be held accountable for multiple murders?
What happens when we have true gene sequencers? Does a unique human life come into being at the moment that the sequencing of genes exists on the computer's hard drive?
This is precisely how muddy this question is. And until someone has some more definitive suggestions, I'd just as soon not see the alley behind my house running three feet thick in the blood of teenagers.
Some good reflections and thank you for them. The question of whether or not "life" actually happens at the moment of conception is not the most important question any longer in this discussion. That much is fairly clear. Certainly activity characteristic of the life cycle begins immediately after conception. So the discussion often shifts from whether "life" is involved to whether that life is actually a human person, i.e. a life which possesses the qualities of human personhood. But this is not a good point of departure either. Once you begin to discuss personhood as the criteria for the rightness or wrongness of ending human life, you open the door to question the viability of the lives of those who are not embryos but who do not necessarily exibit the qualities of human "personhood" ie. persons in a vegetative state, persons with severe developmental disabilities, persons with degenerative neurological disorders, etc... I think the real frame of the discussion should be how we balance the tension between the fact that as human beings we are free beings and the fact that as created beings we stand under the authority and judgement of a creator, stripping us of our oft-asserted position of complete and unqualified autonomy. This discussion brings clarity to questions of how far we may tamper with the human life cycle and even how we may enjoy the good gift of sex. I think the debate on things such as abortion, euthanasia, contraception should always be a theological debate, not simply a biological or scientific one.
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