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Thursday, May 23, 2019

Is protecting babies unchristian?

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made the claim Thursday that the slew of anti-abortion laws passing multiple states are “against Christian faith.”

“If you are a person of the Christian faith, one of the tenants [sic] of our faith is free will,” Ms. Gillibrand told reporters following a discussion with lawmakers, physicians and abortion rights activists at the Georgia state house, CBS News reported.

“One of the tenants [sic] of our democracy is that we have a separation of church and state, and under no circumstances are we supposed to be imposing our faith on other people,” the New York senator said. “And I think this is an example of that effort.”

Ms. Gillibrand made the trip to Georgia after the state last week banned abortions after about six weeks or when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Mississippi, Kentucky and Ohio have recently passed similar measures. In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the most restrictive anti-abortion bill yet, outlawing virtually all abortions in the state, including in cases of rape and incest.


i) Along with presidential hopeful Pete Buttboy, this is another example of a Democrat candidate attempting to co-opt Christianity. To replace it with something contrary to Christianity, but act like that's the real Christianity. 

ii) Christianity is not equivalent to freewill theism. That's a tradition within historical theology. But historical theology includes predestinarian traditions. 

iii) I doubt she has a philosophically informed concept of freewill, but she sets it in contrast to "imposing" one's views on others. Since, however, she's not an anarchist, her position is nonsense. She's a lawmaker. She believes in passing laws that tell people what they can and cannot do. Laws that impede their freedom. That's what most laws do, after all. Most laws mandate or forbid various behavior. Most laws curtail liberty. 

iv) Separation of church and state is not a tenet of "our democracy". The first amendment prohibits the federal gov't from establishing a national church. That's it.

v) But suppose, for argument's sake, that separation of church and state was a tenant of our democracy. That would mean local, state, and federal gov't must never mandate or forbid conduct that violates an individual's religious faith. Yet she supports the Equality Act, which is a massive gov't intrusion into the religious freedom of Americans. 

vi) She commits the genetic fallacy. The relevant consideration is not whether an idea is religious or secular, but whether it's good or bad, true or false. Unless she takes the position that religious values are automatically wrong, there's no reason why religious values shouldn't figure in law and public policy so long as they are good.

vii) We have a system based on popular sovereignty. If a majority of voters wants law and public policy to exemplify Christian social ethics, they have the Constitutional right to elect officials who will enact such policies. 

viii) Naturalism is unable to justify moral realism. So unless laws are just an exercise of arbitrary power, they must have theological underpinnings. 

2 comments:

  1. What about the "tenant" of our faith about protecting and preserving innocent life? Her statements sound ridiculous, attempting to justify sin with theology.

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  2. Gillibrand:

    "If you are a person of the Christian faith, one of the tenants [sic] of our faith is free will."

    Gillibrand again:

    "The fact that they [Republicans] want to exempt all businesses from providing any preventive care for a woman is outrageous and a clear, callous disregard of the health and well-being of America’s women." Gillibrand said the amendment is also dangerous for children because vaccines could be denied on the basis of personal beliefs. "This [Blunt] amendment isn’t just dangerous for women...It's also dangerous to our children, and children’s health groups are opposing this amendment because vaccines could be denied on the basis of personal beliefs."

    ReplyDelete