Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state’s law, which “imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations.”

That last quoted phrase I have no argument with.

Fertility doctors who have moral objections will close their practices or move them to another state. This results in a net decrease of care.

Those doctors who have no moral objections now have one less thing to separate from other doctors. They could have charged a premium for their service, but now they are a commodity.

For both sets of doctors as well as patients, this is a lose-lose-lose situation.

Proponents of sex education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence are launching a nationwide campaign aimed at enlisting 1 million parents to support the controversial approach.

photo credit: phauly

Of course, abstinence is neither a controversial approach nor a bad idea; it’s worked every time it’s tried. Applying your monthly confiscated tax dollars to such a goal should indeed remain controversial, as with anything the government spends its money on through its implicit powers.

Does it make sense that schools which have an increasingly tough time with other sexual education issues get your tax dollars to spend on programs? Scientists can usually agree on “this is a body part; this is what it does,” but the authorities that spend your money on sexual ethics, how-to, and abstinence education are more likely than not going to disagree with your views on the subject.

We should see this cry out for abstinence education as a failing of our society to lay down moral standards. People recognize that this education needs to happen, but they aren’t sure where it needs to be handled.

Abstinence education should be conducted, but it should be done by people you can trust: you, and your church. It should be included in normal catechesis (by the way, Lutherans, not just the week of Confirmation where the Seventh Commandment is covered), along with the other behavioral coaching we receive. This makes sex less likely to be taboo, and it gives kids another trustworthy person to approach for advice should they feel too embarrassed to ask parents.

Some churches and pastors are morally corrupt, refusing to admonish bad behavior, thinking they are loving the sinner when they are letting them continue in sin. This can lead some to petition the secular government to handle the teaching of morality where it hasn’t had to in the past.

If approved by voters next fall, the amendment would guarantee every person, at every stage of life, the right to life, liberty, equality of justice and due process of law, Burton said. And while the initiative would not make abortion illegal, supporters and opponents alike believe it could lay the legal framework to legislate against abortion.

“For the first time in 40 years of ‘legalized’ child killing, pro-lifers have moved an entire state to consider the God-given right to life of the unborn,” said Brian Rohrbough, president of American Right to Life, in a statement of his own on Thursday.

I am pretty much as pro-life you can get. I’ve never seen a baby that chose which parents conceived it, so it shouldn’t have to suffer because of that. I realize that the current abortion exception of “the health of the mother” can be stretched to mean she was inconvenienced from playing sports, but I am curious about ectopic pregnancies which do endanger the mom. Will there have to be a judge to approve it?

I also want to know the next step. Is the next step legislation that increases the abortion ban, or is this responsibility going to be passed to judges who can either nullify the concept or legislate from the bench?

“Abortion clinics nationwide refuse to comply with mandatory reporting laws for suspected child rape,” noted Jo Scott, director of the group Pro-Life Colorado.

“We brought audio-taped evidence of that failure to the Colorado attorney general’s office, and they chose to look the other way,” Scott said. “Personhood for the unborn will reduce crimes against women and children.”

If the problem is enforcement, passing more laws isn’t going to fix the problem. The Colorado attorney general should be replaced by the voters.

Right off the bat, though, she starts with a blanket statement about her side that is refuted by evidence:

And I just want to put this out there: nobody is pro-abortion. Regardless of when you believe that life begins, nobody is advocating or encouraging abortions.

I would like to believe that. Unfortunately we have abortion groups putting on “Screw Abstinence” parties, thus engaging in the behavior that leads to more abortions.

Wallis, a Jew, provides links that state that Jewish law doesn’t consider fetuses children until they are born, yet from her own experience she believes that she felt life in her womb sooner. That is a commendable admission.

photo credit: miss pupik

I was reading her links on Jewish law, and they cite Exodus 21:22-23 for that view. I am curious though how that squares with Jeremiah 1:4-5, where the Lord tells Jeremiah he knew him before he was formed in the womb. But I am most disturbed with the rabbinic teaching from that article:

Rabbi Yom tov Lippman Heller, known as Tosafot Yom Tov, in his commentary on this passage in the Mishnah, explains that the fetus is not considered a nefesh until it has egressed into the air of the world and, therefore, one is permitted to destroy it to save the mother’s life. Similar reasoning is found in Rashi’s commentary on the talmudic discussion of this mishnaic passage, where Rashi states that as long as the child has not come out into the world, it is not called a living being, i.e., nefesh. Once the head of the child has come out, the child may not be harmed because it is considered as fully born, and one life may not be taken to save another.

So if the wrong body part comes out first, the child can be destroyed. Grisly.

Back to Ms. Wallis’s post. One of her notes states:

Although I am pro-choice I too am sickened by this “abortion art” in Sherry’s post. However, when we live in a country where we celebrate freedom, inevitably there are going to be those who challenge the extent of that freedom.

The revulsion is righteous. The act may even be a hoax. What she did was not “performance art” but a sick cry for attention. It should equal the horror were an exhibit released, “What I did at Columbine High School,” or “How Many Kurds Should We Gas Today?”

I hope Ms. Wallis’s continued contemplation of her experiences as a mother lend her the insight that the life in the womb deserves the protection of law.

According to a 2004 study done by A Women’s Concern (AWC), an organization dedicated to “compassionate peer-counseling to women and couples who are making decisions about unintended pregnancies,” less than a fourth of women chose to pursue an abortion after they were given ultrasounds and made clear their available alternatives to abortion.

“This bill is reflective of a national trend that recognizes the ability of ultrasound technology to provide mothers with the opportunity to see the development of their unborn child in real-time,” commented Mary Spaulding Balch, pro-life attorney an

This is intriguing. A full abortion ban, it is argued, forces seekers underground, but this keeps it out in the open and convinces 3 out of 4 moms to keep baby. Is discovery more effective than the ban?

Discussion of the ban has brought up an interesting fact: deaf parents have been deliberately selecting potentially deaf children. I could possibly imagine how deaf parents may feel inadequate if they have a child who is hearing. This wouldn’t be the first time, though, where a child has different capabilities than his or her parents.

photo credit: Drab Makyo

A deaf subculture does neither deaf or hearing people any favors in the long run. Any subclass or minority is a ripe target for government officials to promise favors in exchange for votes. Withdrawal from the community at large ironically reduces the community’s need to be aware and makes discrimination worse. We need each other.

Whether or not there is an entire deaf subculture that chooses to operate unto itself, choosing an embryo and leaving the rest in the freezer permanently as mere property is abandonment, perhaps reckless endangerment.

I’m not sure how this law can be enforced. As soon as there is a screening, parents have a choice in their laps. If more embryos are produced than are implanted, and they are all screened, does the doctor use a board-game spinner to determine which embryos get implanted first?

The other major comment that Barkley makes is that conservatives are “fake Christians,” that conservatives are hypocritical because “they’re not supposed to judge other people…They act like Christians, but they are not forgiving at all.” I know the fact that Charles “I am not a role model” Barkley said this actually detracts from the charge. But, alas, he probably got the idea from somewhere else, and so it must be answered, lovingly, of course.

My first and immediate answer to his statement was yes, we are all fake Christians, if being Christian is defined by what we do. There are not only conservative “fake Christians,” but liberal, libertarian, socialist, and anarchist ones. Being a Christian is not about what we do but what we believe Christ did for us. There are generally accepted ecumenical criteria (some would say creeds) about the basics of what needs to be believed, even though some theological planks are well disputed.

Sir Charles’ charge is both theological and political, similar to many of us who would say that supporting gay marriage or abortion is anti-Christian. When we debate these topics we need to recognize without separation the civil and religious components of the debate, emphasizing the component that is more conducive to the people we are trying to persuade. We also need to realize that within the set of generally accepted “bad behavior,” there is a subset of behavior which we can say, “this is the behavior we are going to punish.” Resources are limited. It would not surprise me that the effort alone in enforcing all of Islam’s hadiths (not to mention the brutality of the punishments themselves) have held back Muslim countries technologically. We would all end up in jail if we civilly punished every sin.

Christianity certainly gives us an idea of what is right and wrong, though some areas are more gray than others — e.g. polygamy vs. homosexuality. It also informs us that human government has been instituted by God (Romans 13:1-6) for us to live peaceful, quiet, godly, and dignified lives (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Our society is twisted enough that some Biblical proscriptions would cause outright rebellion, but our society is not so twisted that we cannot take Biblical proscription as good advice for human rule.

We can recognize the value of this good advice. The National Right to Life Committee estimates that over 48.5 million abortions have been conducted since 1973. These are people that could have helped us fight wars, advance technology, teach, provide food, and other things that we don’t know we are even missing. If we could have laid that statistic at the hands of the five justices who voted in favor of Roe, perhaps they would have changed their vote.

Some issues we cannot find statistics for yet. We don’t know the complete effect of our actions. Biblical advice becomes the conscience that warns us when things are wrong, before we make a decision and see the results. Some things cannot be undone once started. If marriage were simply a contract where people would live together and share medical plans, it would be easy to allow it, but we have Biblical revelation that also informs us that marriage is instituted by God, consists of a man and a woman, is intent on creating children, and has multiple parallels with the relationship between Christ and his church. A Christian cannot simply ignore that any more than we can ignore the virgin birth. We do not have a grasp of the social chaos that will ensue. To borrow from Todd Wilken, we participate in our government to serve our neighbor.

Without Christianity, abortion can be argued using autonomous rights of the unborn, and that argument seems to be winning. Gay marriage has to be contested with conflicting studies on both sides until we see the results long after the point of no return.

Barkley’s accusation that conservatives cherry-pick scripture can be leveled at himself quite easily, but let’s examine his theological argument. Indeed, Jesus tells us not to “judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1) and “Judge not, and you will not be judged” (Luke 6:37). Looking back in the text, both admonitions are part of Christ’s teaching to multitudes. They certainly apply.

But that isn’t the entire counsel of God. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-22) informs us that part of our duty is “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (v. 20) When we teach not to judge, or to flee from sexual immorality, or to fill the earth and subdue it, etc., etc., we are teaching the Word. The Lord is doing the killing and making alive (Deut. 32:39). Where we add what has not been written, we are the judge. Where the plain reading of the Word is delivered, the Word is the judge.

It’s not a lot of genes, so we’re supposed to be comfortable:

“The proportion of genes in the mitochondria is infinitesimal,” said Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Fertility and Reproduction. Shenfield is not connected to the Newcastle University Research.

Given that we do heart transplants now, the idea of someone having someone else’s parts isn’t all that new. The worst part of the story then is toward the end:

So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days.

If you believe in life beginning at conception, the termination of 10 embryos is a terrible thing.

“On the one hand, when existing treatments have been tried and have proven ineffective, patients who are suffering from serious diseases have an understandable interest in trying potentially effective investigational drugs, particularly when the patient’s illness is life-threatening,” Solicitor General Paul D. Clement said in a brief filed with the court.

“On the other hand, allowing patients to obtain and use unproven drugs carries a host of risks and potential detriments for the public health.”

The Solicitor General’s last comment makes little sense, unless I suppose the dying would re-sell radical medications to everyone else. The patients were terminally ill, and they wanted to try one last treatment. It would seem to me that the FDA or the health care industry would covet this group, who wouldn’t hold anyone liable if they died during the trial.

The FDA prefers instead to be the absolute judge of what is safe and not safe. This desire to look omniscient not only leaves the terminally ill without treatment but prevents the government from being an honest broker when it comes to determining what is safe and unsafe. It has incentive to save face and liability, and bureaucrats seldom put their own interests below everyone else’s.

Where one finds a lot of disagreement is how to stop abortions.

Ron Paul and Fred Thompson get hammered when they say they are pro-life and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, but stop short of calling for a federal ban on abortion. They see the issue as two sides of the same coin: federal power existing outside the explicit tenets set forth in the Constitution. Barring a Constitutional Amendment which would define the ban as constitutional, I think they are right on this.

You can find “pro-choice” people who can agree that Roe v. Wade was bad law, even if it was bad law that resulted in their favor. If Al Gore had petitioned to recount all the counties in Florida rather than just the several counties he thought he had more votes in, Bush v. Gore may not have even existed. How we use the law matters.

Every state has murder statutes. The federal government has a murder statute for the grounds that it occupies; hence the separate state and federal murder charges for Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. State charges for murder are generally sufficient to get people punished for the crime of murder.

If Roe v. Wade were lifted, some states would ban abortion and some may not. That’s better than what is going on now, and the ban would be enforced by more fiscally responsible government agencies than the federal government. In those states were abortion would be left open, there are municipal, county, and other regulations that can ban it. License fees can be charged to support adoption facilities.

Whatever happens to Roe v. Wade, the Christian church needs to be united in opposing this behavior. Unless the child unwittingly is in the act of killing his or her mother, the killing of a child is murder no matter who its parents are.

There are plenty of reasons for Republicans to castigate one another. Berating some because they would not use the federal government to achieve the same goals is not one of them.