Would you vote for Stephen Douglas?
Paul Goodell“I’m personally opposed to slavery, but I don’t want to force my opinion on people who support the right to own slaves.”
This statement probably sounds ridiculous to most people, but it was, more or less, the position of Stephen Douglas, the Democratic candidate for president in 1860. Douglas is famous for his failed attempt to address slavery through “popular sovereignty,” the policy that each state should be allowed to determine for itself whether or not it would allow slavery. Does his position sound familiar? Maybe not? Alright, how about this:
“I’m personally opposed to abortion, but I don’t want to force my opinion on people who support the right to have abortions.”
This statement probably doesn’t sound ridiculous to many people because it is, more or less, their own position. I want to suggest, however, that this statement may not be so different from Stephen Douglas’s. Both slavery and abortion are profound moral issues that cut to the very heart of what it means to be human. There were many good reasons in 1860 to vote for Stephen Douglas (who didn’t oppose the extension of slavery, as Abraham Lincoln did). There was one big reason not to. In 2008, there are many good reasons to vote for candidates who support the right to abortion. The question is, is there one big reason not to?
In November, 2007, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB, the Catholic Church in the US) released its quadrennial voter guide for Catholics, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. In 2004, several US Catholic bishops had caused a stir by declaring that they would refuse communion to John Kerry, a Catholic and the Democratic presidential nominee, because of his support for abortion. In Faithful Citizenship the USCCB extended the bishops’ opinion by declaring that any Catholic who voted for a pro-choice candidate “would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil,” (p. 15) in a way that Catholics who voted for, say, a pro-war or an anti-immigration candidate probably would not.
Many Catholics immediately protested. Joe Feuerherd, a former Washington correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter magazine, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post accusing the Bishops of partisanship and of distorting Catholic Social Teaching. “To Catholics like me,” Feuerherd said, “who oppose liberal abortion laws but also think that other issues — war or peace, health care, just wages, immigration, affordable housing, torture — actually matter, the idea that abortion trumps everything, all the time, no matter what, is both bad religion and bad civics.” Feuerherd’s list includes some pretty important Christian duties: treating the sick, protecting the alien, sheltering the homeless, and freeing the oppressed. Why, he asks, should Christians allow one moral duty to trump a host of others?
To answer that question, though, a person first needs to ask himself two others: What is abortion? and Are there any reasons to oppose it? The two questions are intertwined. Perhaps it will help if we first apply them to the slavery debate, circa 1860.
Contrary to popular conception, the US in 1860 wasn’t divided between Southern people committed to slavery and Northern people committed to freedom. While few whites (in the North or the South) considered blacks their equals, many of them were still vaguely uneasy with slavery. Eventually, despite slavery advocates’ best efforts, most people came to view blacks as fully human. Consequently, they also came to view slavery as the deliberate withholding of freedom from a human being, and, therefore, as evil. Despite all the other legitimate issues at stake in 1860, a large number of people came to believe that none of them justified allowing slavery to expand.
The best way for a person trying to answer Joe Feuerherd’s question in 2008 to proceed is first to ask what abortion is and only then to ask what, if any, reasons exist to oppose it. Most Americans, though, have got it backwards. They generally haven’t settled what abortion is, but most of them still oppose it at various stages. Consequently, they tend to feel very uneasy about it. But what is this thing that they feel so uneasy about?
For over 1,900 years the Christian Church has declared abortion to be the deliberate killing of an innocent human life — in effect, murder. This is a serious accusation, and countless ethicists and medical experts have disputed it over the past several decades. It also provides the only reasonable basis, so far as I can see, for opposing abortion. It forces us to see the issue more clearly, by making us ask: Is abortion the deliberate killing of an innocent human life? If it’s not, why should anyone feel uneasy about it, anymore than anyone should feel morally conflicted about removing his appendix? If it is, why should anyone not oppose it? What other issues justify supporting the deliberate killing of innocent human lives?
Today, as in 1860, most of us disagree with the major candidates on some very important issues, and when we vote we must therefore choose between issues of relative importance. 158 years ago, millions of Christians believed that other important issues justified their voting for Stephen Douglas, the pro-choice (”popular sovereignty”) candidate — in effect, saying, “To Christians like me who oppose slavery laws but also think that other issues — war or peace, states’ rights, homesteaders’ rights, immigration — actually matter, the idea that slavery trumps everything, all the time, no matter what, is both bad religion and bad civics.” For people who are uncomfortable with abortion, yet are considering voting for a pro-choice candidate, the important question is: Would you vote for Stephen Douglas?
March 6th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I think there’s a third question needed to finish your analysis. After answering to themselves what this thing called abortion is, and what reasons, if any, exist to oppose it, thinkers on this issue should also ask themselves, “what form should that opposition take?”
If someone concluded that abortion was something less than murder, but still wrong and a practice they ought to oppose, they still need to consider what form that opposition should take. Should they support a federal ban on the practice, sacrificing a core area of state sovereignty (health welfare) to a centralized government many feel is already too powerful? A person with such beliefs might rationally conclude that he had both a moral duty to oppose abortion personally and through the influence of persuasion, and a moral duty to oppose federal laws banning abortion.
Even if a person concludes that abortion is murder, and that they should oppose it as vehemently and categorically as they oppose murder, that conclusion doesn’t compel the conclusion that abortion should be a significant factor in their choice for president. A person with these beliefs could rationally conclude that the form of their opposition ought to be local, or statewide, since the states are designed to handle precisely those kinds of issues. They could rightly conclude that single-issue voting in general, and single-issue voting aimed to elect a president who will appoint Supreme Court justices who will decide a certain way politically on a given issue regardless of the specifics of the case, is an dangerous trend, exceptionally destructive to the very fabric of the American polity, and that they have a duty to act otherwise.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I think I understand your argument, Jeremy. Let me see if I can restate it to make sure that I do:
“I think there’s a third question needed to finish your analysis. After answering to themselves what this thing called slavery is, and what reasons, if any, exist to oppose it, thinkers on this issue should also ask themselves, ‘what form should that opposition take?’
“If someone concluded that slavery was something less than withholding freedom from human beings, but still wrong and a practice they ought to oppose, they still need to consider what form that opposition should take. Should they support a federal ban on the practice, sacrificing a core area of state sovereignty to a centralized government many feel is already too powerful? A person with such beliefs might rationally conclude that he had both a moral duty to oppose slavery personally and through the influence of persuasion, and a moral duty to oppose federal laws banning slavery.
“Even if a person concludes that slavery is deliberately withholding freedom from human beings, and that they should oppose it vehemently and categorically, that conclusion doesn’t compel the conclusion that slavery should be a significant factor in their choice for president. A person with these beliefs could rationally conclude that the form of their opposition ought to be local, or statewide, since the states are designed to handle precisely those kinds of issues. They could rightly conclude that single-issue voting in general, and single-issue voting aimed to elect a president who will appoint Supreme Court justices who will decide a certain way politically on a given issue regardless of the specifics of the case, is an dangerous trend, exceptionally destructive to the very fabric of the American polity, and that they have a duty to act otherwise.”
Did I restate your argument correctly?
March 6th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
You restated it correctly in principle, but the lawyer in me feels obligated to point out that slavery is a matter of interstate commerce, and thus much more appropriate for federal regulation.
But I understand what you meant. And, speaking to what you meant, I stand by my observation.
There’s a big difference between believing that a practice is wrong, and believing that the solution is to involve the sweeping coercive power of the federal government.
Lots of people disagree with me, though; lots of people who believe that coercive force should be brought to bear against all who err morally. They’re called muslims. Perhaps the title of your essay should be “Would You Vote for Moqtada Sadr”.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:43 am
That’s a very nice straw man you have there, Jeremy. Unfortunately, I can’t accept it. I appreciate the gesture, though.
For starters, you read things into my argument that don’t follow from it at all — such as supporting presidential candidates with the intent that they will appoint politically biased judges. As the old Yankee saying goes: you can’t get there from here.
Next, you assume that a preference for pro-life candidates implies a support for federal regulation regarding abortion, but this doesn’t follow either. One could, for instance, support a Constitutional amendment regarding abortion (which was, after all, how we abolished slavery), something unlikely to be voted on with several current members of Congress. Then it would be up to democracy to do its work, for or against abortion. None of this should inspire any snide Moqtada al Sadr comments, nor does it necessitate any straw men equivocating between a principled opposition to abortion and sharia.
If one were to assume that abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent human life, then refusing to support politicians like Barack Obama, a man on record as supporting infanticide (http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2008/02/barack_obama_and_the_culture_o.html#more), no more resembles sharia law than refusing to support Hillary Clinton because of her intent to expand the role of the state in our everyday lives (and hence abrogate many of our personal freedoms) does.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:44 am
I’m not sure I understand you. You’re essentially saying that single-issue voting in federal elections is okay, as long as the issue is morally imperative. In other words, saying that it’s acceptable for people to base their choice for president–the head of the federal government–on the candidate’s stance for abortion. You implicitly condemn even a passive states’ rights stance by presidential candidates (i.e., a stance that says that coercive federal power ought not be applied in favor of either side of the issue).
It’s not a straw man to infer from there that someone wholeheartedly opposed to abortion should, using your model, seek out and vote for candidates who are in favor of using the power of federal law to end abortion. The only way the president can do this is by: 1) signing (or vetoing) legislation; or 2) appointing like-minded justices to federal courts.
The more democratic alternatives you suggested, like a constitutional amendment, are good, politically principled means of opposition. They do not, however, follow directly from your argument, which concerned who to vote for for president. I refer you to the essay’s title.
Calling my argument a straw man won’t change the fact that you’re advocating the use of force to prohibit a practice you consider immoral. That’s not neccesarily bad–we do it for murder, robbery, and rape. But it is undemocratic.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Slavery is not appropriate for federal regulation, aside from its banning, provided we can all agree what slavery is, per Paul’s first question.
I would offer, though, a different set of questions, which best weds my (see my earlier post on abortion politics) and Jeremy’s view.
1.) What is slavery/abortion/the act in question? (Per Paul)
2.) Does this act infringe on Americans’ civil rights?
IF YES
3.) Is federal action the most effective means at stifling the act?
With slavery, it is clear that the answer for the latter two questions are both ‘Yes.’ I will never advocate voting for a pro-choice candidate, but I’ve yet to be presented with proof that the banning of abortion is the means to its most effective end.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Err, provided we can’t agree what slavery is. Sorry.
March 8th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are foundational rights, absolutely non-negotiable, beyond which it is impossible for a rational government to exist, or be genuinely respected by its citizens. The Declaration of Independence of purposefully undemocratic. It was enacted by revolution and riflemen, not petty arguments about what issues we should allow to direct our vote.
There is a hierarchy to rights. If we do not give any fetuses the right to life, it is nonsense to talk about protecting other rights to healthcare, housing, etc. One is the basis for the other. The foundational rights are the basis for government, and the basis for state and local jurisdiction. The very basis for state soveriegnty, is to define the limits of state soveriegnty. These rights are always ‘genuinely’ enacted by force. Merely voting on them as one-issue-among-many is a false construct which is a result of new laws/amendments in the legal canon, which have challenged the foundational rights (or their interpretations) of the Declaration. To my mind, these foundational rights can be BOTH positive and negative: the right to life is a NEGATIVE right: it prevents anything from taking it away, i.e. protects against state sanction of abortion. The right to liberty is a POSITIVE right, protecting against state laws which prevent certain liberties, such as sharia Islamic law.
I think single-issue voting can be a ‘civic’ imperative, if the issue at stake is ANY of the foundational right. Paradoxically, I think there is a stronger secular case for pro-life voting than there is a religous case. But I also think it can be a moral imperative, if the issue at stake involves the undermining of a NEGATIVE right already explained. In the case of POSITIVE rights, I think a lot of other moral principles come into play, many of which are sufficiently descibed by St. Paul. It’s less morally alarming, to put up with extraneous legalisms, such as bans on smoking or excessive taxation, than it is to accept (by your vote) a government which is passive in relation to negative rights such as the right to life, or to due process prior to execution.
To answer Tom Lyons’s challenge… the banning of abortion is the best way to end abortion, for the obvious reason that a government which allows the right to life to be determined in a tyrannical fashion by parents, will be implicitly disrespected by its citizens. Children will grow up realizing that their government did not protect them from their parents fundamentally. So in turn, they will have to protect themselves from their government. Other laws will be ignored, if this foundational right is ignored. The entire basis for civil law is undermined, when the fundamental right presupposing civil law is undermined. It is universally recognized that there is a civic duty (and moral duty per St. Paul) to submit to government even when we disagree with government. You can find it in Plato and Aristotle somewhere. The limits to this principle, are defined by the foundational rights already described. But unless the limits are respected, the principle is undermined. So firstly, making abortion illegal promotes sincere, genuine respect for the basis of law, and this will in turn, alter the public’s willingness to abide by law. (In short, argument 1. people abide by laws partly by virtue of the credibility of the government enforcing them.) But secondly, people also obey laws out of fear of punishment. Making elective abortion illegal will dramatically reduce the number of elective abortions, by blocking the vast majority of people who make decisions based on the legality of their options. (In short, argument 2. people abide by laws partly by virtue of blind civic duty, which is a good thing, assuming the laws are good.)
March 9th, 2008 at 1:25 am
“The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are foundational rights, absolutely non-negotiable, beyond which it is impossible for a rational government to exist, or be genuinely respected by its citizens.”
Really? So, virtually every government prior to 1776 was not rational or respected by its citizens?
March 9th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Hey I’m just quoting Mr. Jefferson! “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men…” I suppose that to ’secure’ a right implies a rational, intentional action, which engenders the respect of those to whom it applies. As for monarchies, which I did not mention, that respect is of a different kind.
I suppose it would be foolish to claim that in order for a government to be rational, or respected by its citizens, it must do what Mr. Jefferson did, draft out an explicit document. This second premise, which I did not say, would lead to your ‘ad absurdum’ conclusion. I think that in post-Reformation and postEnlightenment periods, in which undue focus is put on ‘private judgment’ and ‘right to individual consciene’, it’s necessary to be as explicit as Mr. Jefferson. But… don’t you think natural rights are implicit in Roman government and medieval monarchies, in a different way?
As for pre-colonial and English influence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights
http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/1770s/corenatural.html
March 9th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
How do you account for, say, the oligarchical and monarchial forms of Jewish government as described in the Pentatuech? Those governments had little concept of “natural rights”, in the sense that you mean it, even for their own citizens, and certainly not for those beyond their borders. Were those governments irrational? Unworthy of respect by the governed?
March 9th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
In a legitimate theocracy formed by right morals, there is little role for natural rights or natural reason. In those situations the ‘natural’ is subsumed under the ‘moral’. Anything prescribed by God in the Pentateuch cannot, by definition, be contrary to natural law. But the natural part is covered over by the spiritual. Thus kings and priestly judges are either godly or ungodly, holy or unholy, acceptable or detestable, rather than: respectable or not, reasonable or tyrannical. a) I don’t think that God’s precepts for Israel were irrational, because I am not a Muslim or a Calvinist- I think that for God, right makes might, not the other way around. b) I do think that the idea of ‘respect’ is implicit in Israel’s concept of a god-fearing King.
You can deduce from Revelation in a backwards fashion, the precepts of natural law. E.g. the covenantal nature of the Old Testament gave natural law philosophers such as Hobbes a background for ideas like ’social contract’.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:38 am
I’ve been meaning to respond to Jeremy’s earlier comment for a several days, but I haven’t had time.
First off, I misspoke when I talked about people voting for constitutional amendments. What I meant was that the president could initiate and put the weight of his office behind a constitutional amendment (as Lincoln did with the 13th amendment, which likely wouldn’t have passed had he not pressed for it as much as he did). Presidents can offer crucial support in this area, although they can’t vote on it, obviously. (It’s that whole “separation of powers” thing messing me up again.)
Next, one question we must ask when voting is, “What is the central or ultimate purpose of government?” Some have said that it is to do justice, but that statement is pretty vague. Others say that government exists to protect the weak and innocent from the strong and guilty. This answer,I think, is closer to the real purpose of government, but doesn’t nail it entirely. I’d say that the ultimate purpose of government is to secure people’s rights to their lives and to their legitimate property.
If this is the case, then it seems to me that a government that manifestly and totally fails to do that is not a legitimate government, and may need to be reformed or replaced. Likewise, candidates who will clearly fail to do that should they be elected are unworthy of being elected in the first place. If someone concludes that abortion is the deliberate killing of a human life, it would be reasonable for them to elect candidates who pledge to stop the government from aiding or abetting it. This would bring the government back into harmony with its legitimate purpose for existence. Might it be undemocratic? Perhaps. But this is not the same thing as it being wrong, especially when it would ensure that the government fulfill or justify the reason its existence.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Paul,
You have discussed the purpose of government and what may be done to bring it into right standing when needed. The implication is that an objective model for government exists and, futher, there is a moral standard regarding the function of government. Was this your intention?
The root of authority, as I have always understood, resides in the will of the people. The functions of any governmental body are defined by what its subjects give it the authority to do by agreeing to support regulations and penalties it prescribes. To say a government is good or bad really begs whether it protects morality and defends against immorality or not. But like any tool, it seems fallacious to say that the government itself can be bad. Do you have a basis to presume that there is a moral basis for a governmental model? It seems like having a moral model for a hammer to me.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am
There is a difference between democracy and democratism. Democracy is the idea that the sheer majority will win, and that individual wills are motivated by transcendent, moral, and quite undemocratic motivations. Democratism, on the other hand, assumes that the collective will of the majority is intrinsically transcendent and what’s ‘moral’ is determined by that. Clearly, our founding fathers opposed democratism, or rule by ‘mob’, by designing the electoral college and the Senate.
A person who is ‘personally’ pro-life but believes in separation of Church and state is by definition, a democratist. He/she believes that social contract and ‘good’ government comes out of the inestimable abyss of ‘free-thought’. But not individual free-thought, but collective (& therefore, secular) free-thought.
But the individual ‘free-thought’ of a democratic pro-life person who feels obligated to vote one-way, is based on the primacy of both the individual will and the individual conscience, which is best informed by another ‘collective’ entity, the Church, or the City of God if you will, rather than the City of Men. After this person leaves the voting booth, they are able to pray ‘thy kingdom come’ in all sincerity.
A good monarchy (even a theocratic one) is always better than a bad (collectively selfish, willful, secular) democracy, and the idea of a good democracy presumes that each individual could be king, that Man is fundamentally a Royal creature, and that there is an irreducible primacy to his conscience.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:52 am
The question, Benji, is not whether government qua government is bad (or good), but whether this government or that government is bad (or good). Your tool analogy is instructive.
Hammering nails is not an essentially moral activity. If a hammer were to stop being useful for hammering nails, its failure wouldn’t reflect badly on the hammer in a moral sense — even though it failed in its basic function — because that function wasn’t essentially moral. Protecting innocent people’s lives, however, is an essentially moral activity. It’s also one of the central reasons for the state’s existence. If the state fails to do that, its failure reflects badly on it in a moral sense precisely because that aspect of its function was quintessentially moral.
Therefore, if a candidate for office (such as the President) will clearly refuse to protect innocent lives if elected, that person, should he be elected, will directly contribute to government failing in its essential moral duty. That is, he will help cause the government to become morally bad. If someone became convinced that a candidate was such a person — if, for example, someone believed that abortion was the deliberate killing of an innocent human life, and that a pro-choice candidate would refuse to protect those lives — then he would be entirely justified in refusing to support the candidate with his vote.
To address your other point, democracy is not a moral absolute. It is, as C.S. Lewis said, like clothing — a result of and response to the Fall. True, final authority can only ever come from God; all other authority is ultimately derivative. We prefer today to be bound by our neighbors’ collective authority instead of an autocrat’s, but we must remember that our neighbor’s authority is also not final. We in the West have a jones for democracy (real or superficial), but this is a recent development that may or may not last. (Recent developments in the EU seem to indicate that it may not.) Regardless, we must remember that the only source for final authority is God: if He doesn’t exist, than no source of authority is ever final, and power, as Mao claimed, grows out of the barrel of a gun.