By Robert Hockett
Hello again to all. I thought I'd have another try at the subject I've been writing on lately both here and at Mirror of Justice, from another angle. Specifically, I want to address it through the lense of one simple question.
The question is this: Suppose that the state has bracketed some question as being beyond its competence, either for the present or for the indefinite future. If it has done so, is it possible for the state to avoid violating that bracketing by taking care to disburse funds (a) only in furtherance of purposes that bear no essential relation to the bracketed subject, and (b) in such a way that only an 'intervening' action taken by an individual acting in a private capacity can possibly implicate the bracketed subject?
It seems to me that the answer here must be yes, and that this must be the case irrespective of what the bracketed subject is -- sectarian truth, the morality or regulability of abortion, or something else. And it seems to me that this idea is what accounts for the intuition of folk like me who tend to regard the state as innocent of aiding, abetting, or 'endorsing' sectarianism and abortion alike if it disburses funds in furtherance of some clearly legitimate public interest like education or health insurance and does nothing to push recipients toward or away from particular private providers of such items as education or health insurance. Am I wrong here?
Here's another Gedenkenexperiment that might aid reflection here: My guess is that most if not all RLLers and MoJers, along with most if not all RLL and MoJ friends and other readers, have health insurance. My guess is, moeover, also that most or all companies from whom they purchase their coverage offer policies that cover abortion. And I'll conjecture yet further that many, if not indeed most or even all, of the people I have just referenced, are even beneficiaries of insurance policies that themselves cover abortion. Are these people -- are we -- then, relevantly 'subsidizing,' aiding, abetting, or 'endorsing' abortion?
If we decide that we are not, is this not because (a) the insurance industry does not offer us alternatives here, (b) we have decided that in such case we can do little but 'settle' for policies we're not thrilled with, which settling we are in turn more prepared to do than we otherwise would be because (c) at least it is not we ourselves who are seeking abortions, while (d) we deem other policy-holders who do seek such abortions to be taking 'intervening' decisions that effectively sever any salient (any 'proximate') causal linkage between our premium payments and their abortions? If the answer here is yes, then why should the state be viewed any differently than we here? Why is it any less innocent or more guilty than we?
One final point by way of an aside: Please note that one very easy way to eliminate the unhappy facts (a) and (b) just mentioned would be to institute a 'public option' in health insurance that did not itself include abortion coverage. It strikes me as quite significant, both from a public policy point of view and from a Catholic social teachings point of view, that the only reason we're having to resort to this conversation about 'proximate' causal linkages between public disbursements and abortion right now is that we're treating the private insurance industry -- which is almost entirely free of federal regulation and offers virtually no non-abortion-including choices to US consumers -- as sacrosanct and untouchable in the current debate.
Thanks again for listening,
Bob
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