What should we make of the often heard reference to “religious terrorism,” coupled with the innuendo that religion is a uniquely dangerous influence when it comes to just how far people will go in the name of their God, even to the point of outright terrorism?

I know, finding rhetorically cute but terribly skewed and misleading comments on religion from the late Christopher Hitchens is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. It was his forte after all. But because it does dovetail nicely with the issue that caught my eye today, here’s a memorable gem from his book God is not Great:

A week before the events of September 11, 2001, I was on a panel with Dennis Prager, who is one of America’s better-known religious broadcasters. He challenged me in public to answer what he called a “straight yes/no question,” and I happily agreed. Very well, he said. I was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching. Now—would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? As the reader will see, this is not a question to which a yes/no answer can be given. But I was able to answer it as if it were not hypothetical. “Just to stay within the letter ‘B,’ I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance.”

Yes, it’s a case of thinking quickly on his feet, and yes the examples he cites are probably fair game, given the actual scenarios he describes from the 1970s and 80s, and yes it’s made all the more punchy by the Sesame Street style “things that start with the letter B” approach, and there’s a rhetorically powerful (but terribly misleading) effect being elicited in the reader along the lines of “Wow, and that’s just the letter B! And there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, so that’s six times twenty-six…”

It’s a popular card to play. When you aren’t in the mood for offering arguments for the truth or falsehood of religious beliefs, just go all anti-realist and appeal to the harm done by adherents of religious beliefs (because you know, that tells us which ones are true of course). But it’s a very risky card to play. And I’m not even talking about the obvious: That one-off, large-scale atrocities were worse under secular regimes than under religious ones. We know that. But set aside the errors of the past, give everyone a blank slate, and ask: What’s going on in the world today? I’m not doing any of this to bash or malign any group of people (other, I guess, than those who make inappropriate generalisations about religion and extremism or violence). But I do want to draw attention to a couple of things: First, the fast and loose way that some people are inclined to use (and interpret) the word “religion,” and secondly, the way that this simple religious/non-religious categorisation doesn’t make the non-religious looks squeaky clean. Let me be clear. I do not endorse the tactic of besmirching a general outlook based on the misdeeds of its less sociable adherents (that’s a mild way of describing them). But given that this is a tactic that is used against religion as a blanket category far too often, it seems appropriate to draw on the empirical data to see if it tells us anything relevant (as one should assume that it would).
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In the Nuts and Bolts series I lay out some of the basic concepts thrown around in my areas of interest – philosophy, theology and biblical studies – and explain them for those unfamiliar with them.

This time I’m looking at the “Original Position,” a term that originates with John Rawls, one of the most significant political philosophers of the 20^th century. Rawls, like many people in the Western democratic tradition, advanced a form of social contractarianism; the view that the principles of just government are grounded in an agreement (a “social contract”) between the governed and those who govern. Those who govern must govern according to the terms of that contract, and in fact fellow citizens should only support policies or laws that are in keeping with that contract.

But what sort of contract would that be? Is it an overtly stated contract that we all actually agree to? No. Like many other social contractarians (e.g. John Locke), Rawls realised that the types of contracts that everyone might actually agree to could be significantly flawed in all kinds of ways. We want to think of social arrangements in terms of contracts partly because it stresses the fact that each side has the power to negotiate with the other on equal footing with them. But this is often not the case. Simply out of ignorance, for example, we might agree to terms that are actually unjust to us and unfairly advantageous to others. What if members of an ethnic minority in your society were willing to agree to a social contract that, unbeknownst to them, actually had the consequence that they were exploited and seriously disadvantaged when it came to, say, employment? What if all the kind, gentle people were happy to endure conditions in, say, trade negotiations that were flagrantly unfair to them and helpful to cutthroat, assertive, dishonest swindlers? So the actual contracts that people happen to form aren’t really good enough here.

What is needed to come up with the standard of what sorts of laws and public policies are acceptable, then, is a kind of hypothetical social contract, one that we would arrive at under idealised conditions. And what sort of conditions are those, you might ask? Here is where the title of this blog comes into play: The constitutional basis of law and government in a just society, says Rawls, are those that we – or at least ideal versions of ourselves – would formulate from the perspective of the Original Position.
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Compulsory student association membership is now a thing of the past in New Zealand thanks to the passing of the Education (Freedom of Association) Bill.

One of the things that I’m really passionate about is first generation human rights. These are the kinds of rights that make up the bedrock of social justice. A fair society is unimaginable without them. Among such rights are thing like the right to life, the right to freedom of speech and opinion, the right of all people to be treated as equals before law, you get the idea. In a free society for a public figure to advocate denying people of these rights is – and should be – immediate political suicide. To undermine first generation human rights is to eat away at our basic regard for the dignity of persons. Indeed it is precisely when we see a society with patches of these rights missing that our “dictatorship” sensors start to go off.

For a shockingly long time, University students in New Zealand were denied one of those rights. Article 20 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights reads as follows:

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Likewise, section 17 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 is headed “Freedom of Association,” and it is to the point: “Everyone has the right to freedom of association.”

Up until today, New Zealand students, as a rule, didn’t have freedom of association. They were required – by law – to join a student association, which gathered the millions each year, spent it as it saw fit with little accountability to the student body, had executives who very often thought that speaking on behalf of students simply meant supporting left leaning policies (no matter what students themselves might actually think), with an absolute guarantee that no matter what they said or did, the money would come flowing in next year. It had to – it was the law.

Today that changed. The Education (Freedom of Association) Bill passed its third reading in Parliament and will become law in New Zealand.
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If you’re not from New Zealand you may never have heard of a taniwha, a creature from Maori mythology that lives in the deep. While some such creatures were good, serving as protectors of an area, some of these monsters were killers who, like dragons in myths from other nations, needed to be taken care of by taniwha slayers.

There have even been the occasional Nessie/Bigfoot style sightings. More seriously however, A couple of times in modern history, local Iwi (Maori tribal groups) have sought to halt construction or development projects because, according to them, they would disrupt an area that is occupied by a one of these creatures, a taniwha.

A few days ago the issue was raised again in Auckland:
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“Access to abortion services is an essential part of women’s health!”

“Abortion is healthcare, not a crime!”

“You should not use your personal values as a way of interfering with women’s healthcare services.”

I’ve heard slogans like these used more times than I care to remember. These slogans are now being trotted out by the World Health Organisation as it is World Health Day. A number of pro-abortion rights bloggers have initiated a mini blogswarm over this issue. Labelling something “healthcare” gives the impression that by opposing it, your in some way opposed to good the good health of the people who seek access to it. Calling abortion a healthcare service automatically makes those who oppose abortion into opponents of healthcare. And who wants to be in that boat? But is it actually true?

Are abortion services a matter of healthcare provision?

The first thing to say is that even if abortion provides health benefits to the women who have them, this is not a sufficient reason to provide abortion services. After all, there are people whose health might be improved if they did not have school-aged children in their care, but this is not in itself an adequate reason to provide termination services to these people so that they can choose whether or not to remain parents of school aged children. Dressing such a grizzly scenario up in the language of healthcare would only make things more sinister and dystopian.

But what’s really interesting here is that the abortion rights lobby here in new Zealand has, for many years now, been well aware that abortion services are not, as a rule, about women’s health. Of all abortions carried out in New Zealand, the number that are actually carried out because of a danger to the mother are a minuscule fraction of the total. By contrast, over 95% of all abortions are carried out on the notoriously dubious grounds that the pregnancy (not future parenthood, but the pregnancy itself) poses a serious risk to the mother’s mental health. This is the ground that has seen abortions approved because the expectant mother fears getting pimples when she is pregnant, or is worried because she does not currently have enough seatbelts in her car for another baby car seat (as much as you might like to believe otherwise, there are not fictional examples).

In fact, for a number of years the Abortion Supervisor Committee has lobbied parliament to loosen abortion law in New Zealand precisely because all these abortions are carried out on the basis of a legal criteria that the other simply does not meet. What we are told by the ASC is that since the law is simply not being followed, this proves that the needs of women have changed and so the law needs to change with them.

So wait a second. If women are having abortions, but not because of any physical or medical risk posed by the pregnancy, and not because of any mental health risk posed by the pregnancy, then on what basis can abortion be considered a healthcare service? If the New Zealand abortion lobby has continually argued that abortion should be a matter of choice regardless of healthcare concerns, then why do they keep referring to abortion as healthcare? Someone’s trying to have their cake and eat it too. If abortion is a matter of health, then let’s see the abortion lobby in the country call to see abortion restricted to cases where health is genuinely at risk – which would reduce abortion numbers to less than 5% of what they are now.

Come on ALRANZ. Let’s see if you have the integrity. You’re going to have to make up your mind: Should abortion be an issue of healthcare, and restricted accordingly, or should it be a matter of personal choice that can be morally evaluated quite apart from the tar-baby of interfering with health issues? It’s not both.

Glenn Peoples

Other blogs on this issue:

• National Public Health Week & Abortion – Matt V. at The A Word
• If Abortion is Health Care, then Health Care is Dead – The Culture Vulture
• Abortion: Not Health Care – Insights from Eire – Prolife New Zealand
• World Health Day: Abortion is Not a Health Issue – Dr. Matthew Flannagan, PhD
• Madeleine is Right, Abortion isn’t a ‘Health’ Issue, It’s a Moral Issue – Dr. Jim West, ThD
• “Abortion – Not Healthcare” – Lydie Moore, Stand Up Girl
• Abortion: It’s a Health Issue AND a Crime – Jim McVeagh, MD
• On World Health Day tell the world, “Abortion is not health care” – JillStankek.com

Justin Bieber is now a blip on the radar when it comes to the abortion issue. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone he made some fairly casual and yet politically inflammatory comments, setting himself apart from the popular liberal celebrity milieu:

“I really don’t believe in abortion,” Bieber says. “It’s like killing a baby?” How about in cases of rape? “Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.”

You might think it’s stupid to care what a celebrity says about abortion. Sure, logically that’s true. Of course, it doesn’t stop the screaming hordes from lapping up Eddie Vedder’s pro-abort tirades. And that’s the point. For better or worse, fans dig what their idols say. And Justin Bieber’s fans are young teenage girls – and that’s why it matters what he says about abortion. This fact is not lost on the critics of Bieber’s comments:

What Justin Bieber must not understand is how this anti-choice statement, however nonchalant (and naive) it might have been, is going to travel at lightning speed around the Internet, and all his bazillion teen-aged girl fans are going to ponder it. I don’t have a problem with girls pondering this topic, of course. Please ponder it!

However, how do we talk to our teens about abortion after their favorite teen idol makes such a strong statement against it?

What’s interesting about this worry is that advocates of abortion rights never, as far as I know, raise the concern that pro-choice celebs like Vedder or Whoopi Goldberg might skew the view of young people grappling with the issue. I suspect that avenue of complaint is something of a one-way street.

Hat tip to Bryan Kemper for this one.

EDIT (Hat tip to Andy Moore for this update)

Apparently Rolling Stone originally toned down Bieber’s comments, weakening their pro-life stance. As Lifenews reports, the magazine has issued an updated version, claiming that certain parts of the young pop star’s sentences were removed due to an “editing error.” The version initially published suggested that Bieber thought that rape would count as a reason for abortion. But the corrected version reads: “Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.” The bold section was omitted from the version first released.

Or take Bieber’s general opposition to abortion, as first quoted: ” ‘I really don’t believe in abortion,’ Bieber says. ‘It’s like killing a baby?’ ”

What Bieber actually said was much more direct: “I really don’t believe in abortion. I think it [an embryo] is a human. It’s like killing a baby.”

Accidentally edited or toned down? Beats me.

The other day I met Jill Stanek in Dunedin as she was traveling through New Zealand on the Pro Life Tour. Jill has a pretty horrific story to tell – but she’s not the only one by any means who has seen this. Watch the clip below where she is interviewed by Bill O’Reilly and explains “live birth abortion,” a procedure where a living and often perfectly healthy but very premature baby is born so that it will die:

Becoming the most liberal senator in the USA, Barack Obama voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Bill, which stipulated that all children born alive have the same constitutional rights as anyone else (while not denying that they should be afforded those rights earlier).

The reality is that I think when it comes down to the fundamental factors that make abortion wrong, an abortion at nine weeks has those factors no less than one of these live birth abortions at twenty weeks. This infanticide in the name of late term abortion is no less homicide than the killing of a foetus at nine weeks. But there’s still an obvious aggravating factor in these late term killings, and it’s this: Unbelievable callousness. People are willing, in scenarios where it is impossible to feign ignorance about the development of the child, where the child is present right in front of your eyes, where they hold the child, watch him or her move and struggle to breathe, where they wrap it in a blanket, where in some cases they even have the child baptised (!!!), deliberately kill that child, contend that no wrong is done, no unjust death has occurred, and that the cost is acceptable to pay the toll of reproductive freedom. Waving that banner, pursuing that holy cause – The idol is so important to some that they will, with full knowledge and understanding, literally sacrifice children to it.

This one has more relevance to my American readers than to others. Expose Planned Parenthood is an organisation that has the goal of exposing the conduct of the Government funded Planned Parenthood.

Make no mistake about it, Expose Planned Parenthood are opposed to liberal abortion laws. But the way they expose Planned Parenthood is not by pointing out that they facilitate killing unborn children. That’s not news. It’s the fact that Planned Parenthood in many cases conducts itself as though the ends justifies the means, and no ethical question is so serious that it can’t be ignored.

Here’s a recent example of Planned Parenthood effective aiding and abetting (as far as its employee knew) underage prostitution.

And here Lila Rose discusses the exposé on CNN.

And lastly, Planned Pimphood’s response:

Notice the main response: It’s not that what Live Action have recorded is misleading. it’s not that what they are saying is false. It’s not that they haven’t made a damning case against planned parenthood. The “main point,” Planned Parenthood says, is that Live Action hold “extreme” political views (that is, they oppose abortion). What an amazing defence, the good old ad hominem.

Admittedly this hasn’t been done in New Zealand. Back in the mid-late nineties an organisation I was involved in had a young woman go into a Family Planning Association clinic in Hamilton, New Zealand, seeking an abortion, making it very clear that she did not meet any of the legal criteria, and on multiple occasions FPA were prepared to flagrantly break the law. But this footage takes it to a new level.

EDIT: After I thought I was clever coming up with the title of this post, Bryan Kemper pointed out to me that he had already coined the phrase “planned pimphood.” This is NOT over, Bryan!

Someone said this on the 22nd of March 2007:

The Labour Government has shown utter contempt for New Zealanders and the democratic process with its plan to railroad the anti-smacking bill through Parliament, says National Party Leader John Key. “The Labour-led Government knows the measure is deeply unpopular, so it plans to act against the wishes of the majority of Kiwis and ram the bill through under urgency. “This is a deeply cynical abuse of power as Labour tries to clear the decks of this controversial issue.

It’s almost unimaginable, in light of his reponse to public denunciation of the law change, that the person who said this is the same person who now leads the government. Let’s not let him forget.

This episode is a recording of a talk I gave last week at the University of Canterbury on abortion.

As promised in the episode, here’s a summary of some questions and answers that followed.
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Episode 029: Is abortion immoral and should it be illegal? [ 50:33 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download