{"id":955,"date":"2004-07-10T16:45:41","date_gmt":"2004-07-11T00:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/07\/10\/is-abortion-a-religious-question\/"},"modified":"2004-07-10T16:45:41","modified_gmt":"2004-07-11T00:45:41","slug":"is-abortion-a-religious-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=955","title":{"rendered":"Is abortion a religious question?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over on the Family Scholars Blog, David Blankenhorn critiques <\/a>Kerry’s position on abortion. Kerry, you will recall, says he’s personally anti-abortion but says “I can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist …who doesn’t share it. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.”<\/p>\n

David writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Being for or against abortion in our public debate is not a theological question, or what Kerry calls an “article of faith.” A theological question concerns who God is. Whether or to believe in the Triune God, or whether or in what ways the sinful are punished in the next life, or whether God answers prayers, are examples of theological questions. And it is certainly true that in our republic, in which government is a secular function, the state does not, cannot, mandate or endorse particular theological propositions.<\/div>\n

Following this logic, shouldn’t we criticize Senator Lieberman for not trying to outlaw eating pork? After all, eating pork is not a theological question – not if you define “theological” as narrowly as David does. (Hat tip: Jake Squid<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But abortion is a moral question, not a theological question. Taking a position on abortion is not taking a position on who God is — it is instead taking a position on how we should treat unborn or developing human life.<\/div>\n

I think David’s view is a little too black-and-white to be realistic; abortion is both a moral and <\/i>a theological question, and the dividing line varies from person to person. For many non-think-tank Americans, abortion is<\/i> a religious question, and I don’t think it’s possible to understand the abortion debate if you’re not willing to acknowledge that it frequently has a religious component.<\/p>\n

For instance, suppose Kerry is against abortion because he believes that God gives each embryo a soul, starting at conception; although Kerry is also familiar with the secular arguments against abortion, he doesn’t believe they hold water. That would certainly make Kerry’s opposition to abortion a religious belief.<\/p>\n

Based on that belief, Kerry could decide to be pro-life (reasoning that saving the babies should be his highest priority), or he could decide to be pro-choice (reasoning that he should not enforce his religious beliefs about abortion onto others). Either position strikes me as reasonable and self-consistent (although I personally prefer the pro-choice position).<\/p>\n

Now, David is certainly correct to say that taking a position on abortion policy does not require<\/i> taking a theological stance. But Kerry hasn’t claimed that it does. Kerry has said that, for Kerry<\/i>, opposing abortion is a theological issue; it doesn’t follow from that statement that Kerry believes that it’s a theological question for everybody<\/i>.<\/p>\n

David continues:<\/p>\n

This whole episode is very similar, it strikes me, to Sen. Kerry telling us that he “personally” opposes SSM, but that as a matter of actual politics and policy, he is strongly and totally opposed to those who oppose SSM.<\/div>\n

This statement isn’t even remotely true: Most elected Democrats are (alas) opposed to SSM, yet Kerry isn’t “strongly and totally opposed” to most elected Democrats.<\/p>\n

Isn’t it time that we deny our politicians access to this particular form of I-want-it-both-ways evasiveness? I say this not as a special political opponent of Kerry’s (I’m a registered Democrat)…<\/div>\n

Ironically, David is being evasive: As he must know, one can be a registered Democrat and still be a political opponent of Kerry’s (just ask Zell Miller). The question is, David, are you intending to vote for Kerry or for Bush? You have to answer that question before you can credibly claim to not oppose Kerry. (I’m not saying David is required to reveal how he plans to vote – he could just not bring up the question at all. But David is trying to make himself sound credible and objective by claiming he’s not opposed to Kerry – while at the same time, dodging the question of if he opposes Kerry in the election. That won’t wash).<\/p>\n

More to the point, I dislike the way David is conflating a reasonable, complex position with evasiveness – as if no politician is allowed to take a nuanced position on any moral question. In essence, all Kerry is saying is that his religion tells him that abortion is immoral, but at the same time he doesn’t believe that all moral questions are best dealt with by a government ban. Rather, on some issues – including issues with a strong connection to religious beliefs, such as abortion – he wants all Americans to have the freedom to make their own moral choices, even if they make choices Kerry would personally disagree with.<\/p>\n

That’s a more sophisticated position than David’s implied position (judging from this post, David apparently believes that legislators are required to legally ban every act they feel is immoral), but it’s hardly evasive. In fact, it’s the position that a large number of ordinary Americans hold on abortion, and on many other issues (pornography, alcohol, gambling, etc).<\/p>\n

I say this as a partisan – although I am not a registered Democrat, I intend to vote for Kerry. Nonetheless, there is a tendency in politics – on both sides – to interpret any complex or nuanced position as evasiveness or flip-flopping. Whether he’s pro- or anti-Kerry, David’s post is a clear example of this tendency..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over on the Family Scholars Blog, David Blankenhorn critiques Kerry’s position on abortion. Kerry, you will recall, says he’s personally anti-abortion but says “I can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}