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utsfl:classroom:seminars:pbp310h [2018/03/22 16:59] – gestational limits notes balleyne | utsfl:classroom:seminars:pbp310h [2023/08/14 08:28] (current) – mmccann | ||
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What is incrementalism? | What is incrementalism? | ||
- | * Clarke Forsythe, Politics for the Greater Good: The Case for Prudence in the Public Square((https:// | + | Let's start with a video from We Need a Law, discussing incremental initiatives, such as their International Standards |
- | * Philosophy of Prudence: Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas | + | |
- | * History of Social Reform: William Wilberforce, | + | |
- | * " | + | |
- | * Critique of Incrementalism | + | |
- | * Legitimizes abortion | + | |
- | * Provides political cover for those who want to attract pro-life voters while keeping | + | |
- | * Defence of Incrementalism | + | |
- | * Debate over incremental laws serve an educational purpose, e.g. partial birth abortion ban | + | |
- | * Incremental laws keep abortion debate alive politically | + | |
- | * Incremental laws have been effective at lowering abortion rates | + | |
- | * Political prudence means seeking to achieve the maximum change possible at a given time | + | |
- | First, we'll look at a debate between incrementalism and immediatism surrounding Abolish Human Abortion in the US, to help more clearly articulate our principles. Then, we'll turn to the Canadian debate over gestational limits and which kinds of incremental measures are acceptable to apply those principles. | + | {{youtube> |
- | ===== AHA: Incrementalism vs. Immediatism ===== | + | Incrementalism is a political strategy to reach a goal through achieving success in small, discrete increments, rather than all at once. In this seminar, we'll discuss: |
- | In the US, Abolition | + | * Incrementalism vs. Immediatism: |
+ | * Gestational Limits: Why some pro-lifers oppose this particular incremental measure, and how to respond | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | First, we'll look at a debate between incrementalism and immediatism that we can see from a movement of anti-abortion abolitionists, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Abolitionism: Incrementalism vs. Immediatism ===== | ||
+ | There is a small but vocal movement of abolitionists, | ||
+ | |||
+ | e.g. | ||
+ | * [[http:// | ||
+ | * [[https:// | ||
+ | * [[https:// | ||
+ | * Some [[https:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | Abolitionists use the term [[http:// | ||
+ | * They oppose the secular approach of the educational arm (based on science and human rights), and argue that you must share the Gospel explicitly to fight abortion (rebuttal: [[https:// | ||
+ | * They oppose the pastoral arm for seeing the post-abortive as victims rather than seeking punishment and justice | ||
+ | * They oppose the political arm for incremental measures, and argue that the only moral response is to advocate for immediate abolition | ||
+ | |||
+ | They say: | ||
+ | * The term " | ||
+ | * Pro-lifers prefer gradual, | ||
+ | * You can be a secular pro-life; you cannot be a secular abolitionist | ||
+ | * Pro-lifers prefer common ground; abolitionists prefer to proclaim the Gospel | ||
+ | * The pro-life movement argues that we should focus on saving the babies. The abolitionist movement argues that we should focus on converting the culture. Abolitionists believe that saving souls holds the key to saving babies. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Today, our focus is specifically on // | ||
- | * Abolish Human Abortion | ||
- | * Debate exists in an American context, but responding to AHA helps to define and provide clarity to our moral beliefs and strategic practices | ||
- | * [[http:// | ||
- | * The term " | ||
- | * Pro-lifers prefer gradual, over immediate, abolition | ||
- | * You can be a secular pro-life; you cannot be a secular abolitionist | ||
- | * Pro-lifers prefer common ground; abolitionists prefer to proclaim the Gospel | ||
- | * The pro-life movement argues that we should focus on saving the babies. The abolitionist movement argues that we should focus on converting the culture. Abolitionists believe that saving souls holds the key to saving babies. | ||
* T. Russell Hunter, AHA vs Gregg Cunningham, CBR (2015): https:// | * T. Russell Hunter, AHA vs Gregg Cunningham, CBR (2015): https:// | ||
* The Tree: 54: | * The Tree: 54: | ||
* If it's an injustice/ | * If it's an injustice/ | ||
+ | * Argues that supporting incremental laws is some how endorsing or condoning sin((Caleb VDW: Laws forbid things, what an incremental law forbids is evil, and well worth forbidding, forbidding one thing does not endorse any things not forbidden by that particular law | ||
+ | |||
+ | For example, if the law against murdering born persons were up for debate today, with the options of either A) continuing to forbid the murder of born persons, or B) not forbidding any murder whatsoever, the " | ||
+ | |||
+ | There is also no logical reason why this logic ought to be constrained to the specific injustice known as murder. So once you hold the " | ||
* We must call the nation to repentence for national sin -- there is no talking about abortion in a way that it's not a spiritual issue, secular people need to hear about sin also | * We must call the nation to repentence for national sin -- there is no talking about abortion in a way that it's not a spiritual issue, secular people need to hear about sin also | ||
* Cunningham position: 28:30-33:05 | * Cunningham position: 28:30-33:05 | ||
Line 53: | Line 66: | ||
* Strategic incrementalist: | * Strategic incrementalist: | ||
- | ===== Gestational Limits ===== | + | [[https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/abortion-dies-by-a-thousand-votes|Scott Klusendorf says]] the immediatist argument is fundamentally flawed, |
- | In Canada, every major pro-life organization supports incrementalism((http://www.theinterim.com/features/survey-of-pro-life-groups-on-gestational-limits-and-incrementalism/)). However, several organizations vociferously oppose gestational limits | + | |
+ | - Second, the immediatist argument assumes no steps are better than any steps | ||
+ | - Third, immediatists get their history wrong | ||
- | Guidance comes from Catholic moral theology, namely, Evangelium Vitae 73.2: | + | > As Princeton University professor Robert George points out, “public opinion |
- | > Abortion | + | > |
- | > | + | >> Politics is the art of the possible. . . . The pro-life movement has in recent years settled on an incrementalist strategy for protecting nascent human life. So long as incrementalism is not a euphemism for surrender |
- | > In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion | + | > |
+ | > Pro-life advocates are not satisfied with the status quo; they abhor abortion and would stop it immediately if they could. They are not “regulationists” who decide which babies live and which die. They have no such power. Instead, they work to pursue the good and limit the evil insofar as possible given current legal realities. That is not compromise. | ||
- | Opponents of gestational limits argue that gestational limits are an intrinsically evil form of incrementalism, and cannot | + | So, we must be moral immediatists, |
- | Yet also EV73.3, very next paragraph: | + | ===== Gestational Limits ===== |
- | > A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, | + | FIXME **Gestational limits debate now at [[PBP411H]]** |
- | So, are gestational limits intrinsically evil? Are they an unjust means to achieving | + | FIXME it gets more complicated when you look at other legislative initiatives... |
+ | * AFLO opposed Molly Matters - see [[https:// | ||
+ | * AFLO opposes Bill C-233 (Sex Selective Abortion Act) - though CLC has supported it | ||
+ | * Made a distinction between M-412 (just condeming sex selective | ||
- | On the side against gestational limits, Colin Harte writes an entire book on this, Changing Unjust Laws Justly, and Canadian pro-lifer Geoff Cauchi has written extensively on this as well within the Canadian pro-life movement. Cauchi argues: | ||
- | * Gestational limits are intrinsically unjust, and thus can never be supported in good conscience | ||
- | * He calls EV 73.2 the "No Exceptions Statement" | ||
- | * Key to this view is that Canada has no law on abortion, therefore to create a law that allows for abortion based on age or circumstances of conception would be intrinsically evil, and that this is radically different than if Canada did have an abortion law already and a proposal was to restrict it or limit it further | ||
- | * This is viewed as bargaining away the rights of some children for others((Cf. AHA)), " | ||
- | * strongest objection (that I've never heard anyone make): how can we fight age=based discrimination with age-based discrimination? | ||
- | * Self-identified as " | ||
- | * We can propose incremental measures that are not intrinsically unjust, ie. that do not discriminate against pre-born children, e.g. defunding abortion, parental consent/ | ||
- | * This is a distinctly Catholic objection, based on interpretations of Catholic moral teaching, yet it is a minority view among Catholics: the major consensus of Catholic moral theologians, | ||
- | * In Summary: | ||
- | * Since Canada has no abortion law, promoting a law that restricts only some abortions (for example, making abortions after 12 weeks illegal), would mean that we are legalizing and condoning all of the abortions that are not banned (e.g. those happening before 12 weeks) | ||
- | * Jan 2014 Interim: We find politically motivated compromise that creates arbitrary demarcations to protect some human lives but not others to be abhorrent, adding the insult of age discrimination to the injury of death by abortion. Protecting pre-born human life requires political action, not political compromise. | ||
- | * The UK is a big question, where gestational limits were viewed by the pro-life movement as a mistake | ||
- | * The plural of anecdote is not data, and the empirical questions matter: would any given gestational limit actually save lives (or would there be an educational value to the law)? But the empirical objection is different from the principled objection. //Any// incremental measure should be subject to an empirical analysis | ||
- | What are the problems with this view in opposition to gestational limits? WNAL Direction Matters((https://weneedalaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/ | + | ==== Extra Content ==== |
- | FIXME | + | |
- | * What is not illegal is legal | + | * Clarke Forsythe, Politics for the Greater Good: The Case for Prudence |
- | * We already have a gestational limit: birth (Section 223 of the Criminal Code on when "a child becomes a human being" | + | * Philosophy of Prudence: Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas |
- | * New restrictions do not make abortion legal, it's already legal | + | * History of Social Reform: William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln |
- | * In a country with no restrictions | + | * " |
- | * Theory | + | * Critique |
- | * From pre-1969 to present, we've gone in the wrong direction from illegal abortion, to regulated abortion, to decriminalized | + | * Legitimizes |
- | * In order to protect pre-born human rights and make abortion | + | * Provides political cover for those who want to attract pro-life voters while keeping |
- | * How is gestational incrementalism different from other forms of incremental laws? | + | * Defence |
- | * Does defunding | + | * Debate over incremental laws serve an educational purpose, e.g. partial birth abortion ban |
- | * Would parental consent | + | * Incremental laws keep abortion |
- | * Is there an issue of scandal? Would supporting gestational limits send a message | + | * Incremental |
+ | * Political prudence means seeking | ||
+ | FIXME incrementalist step (age verification) helping shut down pornogrpahy sites https:// | ||