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Kerry says he believes Life begins at Conception

What is at issue for him is the separation of Church and State. He doesn’t believe he can impose his beliefs on others legally. He would have voted for the PBAban if it had allowed for an exception for the woman’s health.

What really seems to be at contest here is what is the meaning of the separation of Church and State and how the abortion political debate is framed.

So long as it is framed as either we we make all elective abortions illegal or we keep them legal, then it seems that the result will be further deadlock.

If instead, the issue is framed as the legal redefinition of when human personhood begins then at issue is the need for ongoing deliberation on the fetal developmental process and the meaning of what it is to be a human being as well as the need to work out a civil, political means for us to reconsider the laws/regulations that govern the abortion industry in the US. The fact that there have been so many technological changes in our ability to observe and abort the unborn fetus itself mandates that we be open to reviewing and reforming our legal definitions governing the abortion-industry. One can have religious groups play a role in pushing for some reforms without a violation of the separation(autonomy) of Church(es) and State.

I have suggested repeatedly that one way to depoliticize abortion politics would be to make it so that the legal redefinition of human personhood takes place based on a national referendum that would require a 75% majority to pass. The merits of this procedure include how it will permit legal change at the national level and ensure to pro-choicers that the legal changes will not be dramatic, reflecting solely the beliefs of a religious minority. It sets a precedent that permits additional changes to take place over time as beliefs continue to change, but more or less guarantees that it is highly unlikely that human personhood will be determined to be at conception. It guarantees that the decisive voter will be a female. It also reduces strongly the importance of the particular beliefs of elected politicians and appointed supreme-court-justices, subordinating them to the beliefs of the vast-majority of USAmericans. This would, of course, enable us to select politicians/justices based on other criterion. It would also make enforcement of the laws changed by the legal redefinition easier, since people would know that the changes reflected the moral deliberations of the vast-majority of US citizens, not just particular religious groups.

Some have questioned whether this is possible. We have decided issues by referendums in the past, mostly at the state-level, and we have required different percentage majorities on different votes in the past. For us to set it up as a legal precedent would require a constitutional amendment and that would require its support by both pro-choicers and pro-lifers. For this to happen, pro-lifers have to accept the futility of making all elective abortions illegal again and pro-choicers have to accept that the existence of some ambiguity as to when we become human beings doesn’t prohibit us from making laws that determine legal personhood as beginning prior to birth.

Given that abortion has been the most divisive issue in the US since slavery, there is a strong need for us to make legal changes that will enable us to settle our differences by compromise in a less acrimonious manner. Accepting restrictions on the extent that legal personhood can be redefined will not prevent pro-life activists to continue to try to sway people at the individual level or pursue many other reforms that are meant to discourage/prevent abortions.

dlw

James K Galbraith gives us a list of issues the election should deal with and a brief analysis of each one. The paper more or less reads as a keynesian critique of Bush’s economic policies that also is critical of the manipulation surrounding GWII and its economic costs/impacts. I give my own summary of the points made.

Jobs, not outsourcing.-dlw:Globalization is disconnecting the well-being of US companies from the extent they provide jobs for US citizens. Jobs for US citizens matter because we pay for their Unemployment checks and we feel the economic-social negative spill-overs from when they cannot find decent employment.

Future deficits, not those right now:Having gov’t deficits are not bad things in and of themselves. However, dealing with projections of large future deficits are serious because they affect our Gov’t’s flexibility in dealing with, perhaps maybe another 9-11-style terrorist attack on our country. That is why Bush’s tax-cuts should be repealed.

Healthcare, not Social Security and Medicare: Recent changes in Healthcare have been rent-transfers to businesses that have scaled back the gov’t’s ability to use its economic-weight to procure better health-care for a wider range of people.

Tax fairness, not tax hikes:The distributional consequences of Bush’s tax-cuts have been very strong. To countervail the deficits caused by the reduction in corporate taxes, regressive Social Security payroll taxes have risen and states and cities have had to increase their property and sales taxes.

The dollar, not the renminbi: the value of the dollar is falling and that is part of why Greenspan is raising interest rates, which will likely end the credit-boom and housing bubble that is helping the economy do better.

Will the recovery continue? Not: Has it started?: Unexpected costs associated with our commitment to Iraq may harm the recovery. (This is why it may be important to make nice with the rest of the world and the UN so we can get others to help shoulder the burden and spread the risk. ) Likewise, higher interest rates and reduced gov’t domestic spending could harm the economy.

Iraq: More or less a restatement of the much lowered expectations for what can be accomplished in the near future in Iraq. The question is posed as to whether or long-term commitment to Iraq will interfere significantly with our long-term commitment to the war on terrorism/Al Quaeda.

dlw

The ‘prop-agenda’ war

The above article goes into the forms of propaganda used by the BushAdmin to build support in the US for immediate regime-change in Iraq.

Propaganda typically is judged negatively, but “facts” rarely speak for themselves as far as their normative significance and since action requires solidarity or the formation of a majority-opinion, there is always spin going on.

This could be seen as assessment of the meaning of factual anaylysis in light of normative ideals, but it usually isn’t so clear-cut.

Anyways, I think the NAE’s civic-responsibility paper would be enriched if it struggled with some of the darker-parts of how propaganda is prevalent in public life, perhaps as is found in much of Vilfredo Pareto’s sociology. Something that I must confess I have but a rudimentary understanding of.

dlw

Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder

Almost 17 percent of those who fought in Iraq reported symptoms of major depression, severe anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, compared with about 11 percent of the troops who served in Afghanistan.

And so we’re doing worse than GWI, but better than Vietnam.

Hardly a surprise given the joys of urban warfare and the extended time
period we have been and will be there, with insufficient troop support.

The “good” news of course is that the percentages are more than capable of going up as has happened with past conflicts and as we rely more upon National Guard and reserve troops who are less prepared for battle.

dlw