Newsweek's Lithwick vs. the First Amendment
That the debate about abortion was ever about "the dignity and autonomy of pregnant women," as opposed to the right of women to evade the consequences of decisions made of their own free will at the cost of another human being's life, is highly debatable. In fact, which of the two ways the question is put not only will automatically dictate which side wins the argument, but constitutes the very heart of the debate itself.
That being the case, I am no more impressed by the appalling logic of Dahlia Lithwick's frightening piece in Newsweek, nor by its preachy self-righteousness. She begs the very question she presumes to answer. And she begs it in the service of an argument which ought to be utterly unconscionable to anyone who believes in the First Amendment, specifically as it applies to the right of health care workers to refuse to perform procedures which violate their religious beliefs.
There is simply no way in which one can torture that language of the First Amendment sufficiently that it does not, for example, obviously protect the right of a pharmacist who believes that he would become an accomplice to murder by dispensing the "morning after pill" to decline to do so. This would not, it should be noted, prevent any woman from receiving it. It would merely require her to get it from another pharmacist, whose conscience would not be violated by providing it.
The woman would not be prevented by that refusal from obtaining the pill. Her legitimate rights would be in no way infringed. But then, protecting the woman's rights is the issue.The issue is denying pro-life pharmacists and other non-medical health-care workers the right to follow their consciences in a direction of which Lithwick and other pro-abortion radicals don't approve.
The issue is patently the right of others to religious beliefs Litwick doesn't like.
Lithwick acknowledges that Congress has protected the right of pro-life doctors to refuse to perform abortions for decades- though disturbingly, she seems rather unhappy about it. She fails to make a credible argument that the right of a woman to practice retroactive birth control with the help of a specific non-medical professional whose conscience would be compromised by providing that assistance trumps the right of that health care professional to the integrity of his or her conscience- especially since the ability of any woman desiring the service in question would be in no way compromised by simply requiring that she secure it from someone whose religious convictions permit them to supply it .
And I quite frankly question whether the argument that it does can be taken seriously by anybody who is seriously committed to the Bill of Rights. Whatever might conclude about the right to abortion- "discovered" by the Supreme Court in the "penumbra" of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights- there can be no doubt that the guarantees Lithwick would deny health care workers are spelled out by the Bill of Rights in so many words.
HT: Real Clear Politics
That being the case, I am no more impressed by the appalling logic of Dahlia Lithwick's frightening piece in Newsweek, nor by its preachy self-righteousness. She begs the very question she presumes to answer. And she begs it in the service of an argument which ought to be utterly unconscionable to anyone who believes in the First Amendment, specifically as it applies to the right of health care workers to refuse to perform procedures which violate their religious beliefs.
There is simply no way in which one can torture that language of the First Amendment sufficiently that it does not, for example, obviously protect the right of a pharmacist who believes that he would become an accomplice to murder by dispensing the "morning after pill" to decline to do so. This would not, it should be noted, prevent any woman from receiving it. It would merely require her to get it from another pharmacist, whose conscience would not be violated by providing it.
The woman would not be prevented by that refusal from obtaining the pill. Her legitimate rights would be in no way infringed. But then, protecting the woman's rights is the issue.The issue is denying pro-life pharmacists and other non-medical health-care workers the right to follow their consciences in a direction of which Lithwick and other pro-abortion radicals don't approve.
The issue is patently the right of others to religious beliefs Litwick doesn't like.
Lithwick acknowledges that Congress has protected the right of pro-life doctors to refuse to perform abortions for decades- though disturbingly, she seems rather unhappy about it. She fails to make a credible argument that the right of a woman to practice retroactive birth control with the help of a specific non-medical professional whose conscience would be compromised by providing that assistance trumps the right of that health care professional to the integrity of his or her conscience- especially since the ability of any woman desiring the service in question would be in no way compromised by simply requiring that she secure it from someone whose religious convictions permit them to supply it .
And I quite frankly question whether the argument that it does can be taken seriously by anybody who is seriously committed to the Bill of Rights. Whatever might conclude about the right to abortion- "discovered" by the Supreme Court in the "penumbra" of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights- there can be no doubt that the guarantees Lithwick would deny health care workers are spelled out by the Bill of Rights in so many words.
HT: Real Clear Politics
Comments