After the passage of the health reform bill yesterday and the announcement of the Stupak deal with the White House for an executive order maintaining the current Hyde language, people on both sides of the issue seem unsatisfied, which is often evidence that a good deal has been made. Nevertheless, since the question of why government funding of abortion is so particularly unacceptable has come up a lot in recent weeks, I thought it would be useful to talk about the issue and try to assess just how much moral distance there is between legal abortion and government-funded abortion. Especially of interest to me is how much of the issue comes down to the expectation that it will increase the number of abortions as opposed to simply having government funding of the ones which would otherwise have happened anyhow.Links:
Universal health care reduces abortion rates (Wash Post)
Rate of abortion per 1,000 women 15-44 by country (UN)
Abortion and crime rates misunderstood (Steve Sailer)
The Stupak Mystery (Slate)
Obama’s executive order (White House)
Fascinating info on “Nay” Democrats (NYT)
Executive order not worth it’s paper (Operation Rescue)
Executive order does nothing (AUL)
3 comments:
I gave some thought to this before leaving this answer. I believe that what the apostle Paul was inspired to write has some interest here: "8 Look out: perhaps there may be someone who will carry YOU off as his prey through the philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ." (Col. 2:8) If we start off discussing what this legal action does or could do and what the implications are of this action of that action instead of sticking strickly to what God thinks and allowing that to influence our thoughts, we are sure to be self-deceived.
What should be the attitude and judgement of the Christian in regard to abortion? Well, Jesus said that God's Word is truth. (John 17:17) Therefore, it has the final say. And what has He revealed?
In Psalm 139:13-16 the David wrote, "You [Jehovah] kept me screened off in the belly of my mother. . . . Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing." From this its clear that God views the life of a child as precious even during the very early stages of development after conception.
Also, God stated that a person would be called to account for injury to an unborn child! Moses wrote: "In case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him; and he must give it through the justices. But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul.” (Exodus 21:22, 23) Some versions and translations make it appear that in this law to Israel the crucial matter was what happened to the mother, not to the fetus. However, the original Hebrew text refers to a fatal accident to either mother or child. Consequenly, the life of the unborn - at whatever stage of development - is important in the eyes of God. It should be the same with all who profess to be Christians.
How serious is the willful taking of a life for a reason not authorized by the Creator? God said, "Anyone shedding man's blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God's image he made man." (Gen. 9:6) The apostle John was inspired to write, "No manslayer has everlasting life remaining in him [or her]." (1 John 3:15) To take the life of the unborn is murder in Jehovah's eyes and should not be taken lightly . . . or debated "legally".
Just my thoughts.
Universal health care tends to cut the abortion rate
This is not a coincidence. There's a direct connection between greater health coverage and lower abortion rates. To oppose expanded coverage in the name of restricting abortion gets things exactly backward. It's like saying you won't fix the broken furnace in a schoolhouse because you're against pneumonia. Nonsense! Fixing the furnace will reduce the rate of pneumonia. In the same way, expanding health-care coverage will reduce the rate of abortion.
At least, that's the lesson from every other rich democracy.
The latest United Nations comparative statistics, available at http://data.un.org, demonstrate the point clearly. The U.N. data measure the number of abortions for women ages 15 to 44. They show that Canada, for example, has 15.2 abortions per 1,000 women; Denmark, 14.3; Germany, 7.8; Japan, 12.3; Britain, 17.0; and the United States, 20.8. When it comes to abortion rates in the developed world, we're No. 1.
No one could argue that Germans, Japanese, Brits or Canadians have more respect for life or deeper religious convictions than Americans do. So why do they have fewer abortions?
One key reason seems to be that all those countries provide health care for everybody at a reasonable cost. That has a profound effect on women contemplating what to do about an unwanted pregnancy.
The connection was explained to me by a wise and holy man, Cardinal Basil Hume. He was the senior Roman Catholic prelate of England and Wales when I lived in London; as a reporter and a Catholic, I got to know him.
In Britain, only 8 percent of the population is Catholic (compared with 25 percent in the United States). Abortion there is legal. Abortion is free. And yet British women have fewer abortions than Americans do. I asked Cardinal Hume why that is.
The cardinal said that there were several reasons but that one important explanation was Britain's universal health-care system. "If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it's needed," Hume explained, "she's more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn't it obvious?"
On Exodus 21: no ancient interpreter would have read the passage that way: when this passage was translated ~300BC by Jewish makers of Septuagint, it was assumed that no matter what, the accident described resulted in the death of the fetus. Meaning if fetus was "not fully formed" (early in pregnancy), perpetrator should be fined but guilty of murder. OTOH, if accident occurred late in pregnancy, it was deemed to be "fully formed" and perpetrator guilty of murder and subject to the death penalty.
But another way it has been interpreted — Jerome translated it in the Vulgate (which became the approved translation of the Roman Catholic Church) to denote the "mishap" to be the death of the mother. Nothing at all to do with the fetus. An interpretation in alignment with rabbis who believed the fetus to be "limb of the mother" until head emerged from the womb.
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