Texas Abortion Law Elicits Hypocrisy

Friday, January 13th, 2012 (from the WSJ):

AUSTIN, Texas—A federal appeals court cleared the way Friday for the immediate enforcement of a new abortion law in Texas requiring doctors to conduct a sonogram before the procedure.

The debate surrounding such laws contains some extreme hypocrisies about rights and the Constitution. Before, we look at the hypocrisies, let’s try to enter a reasonable and fair frame of mind.

We cannot simply look to the Constitution on abortion itself because whether it grants rights to a fetus depends entirely on whether a fetus is a person having rights. The Constitution offers no guidance on whether a fetus is a person, and even if it did, we would still have to consider amending it if the knowledge we have gained since 1792 proved otherwise. However, the knowledge we have gained since 1792 does not resolve the question. It is still a purely subjective question, and both sides can have rational, consistent, and noble reasons for their position – although most people on both sides are just rationalizing what they want to believe. For a more thorough discussion of abortion read my article: Reproductive Freedom.

Now let’s look at the hypocrisies elicited by this new law. First, let’s look at the conservative hypocrisy.

A large minority of Americans support an honest interpretation of the Constitution, and anyone who supports an honest interpretation of the Constitution must oppose this law. Even the pro-life majority among those who support an honest interpretation of the Constitution must admit that it is unconstitutional to force doctors to perform a procedure just because it might possibly persuade some women to choose differently.

To support this law is to support the existing unconstitutional big government apparatus that progressives have built over the last century so that they can make take as much of the fruits of our labor as they want so that they can reward their friends and make it difficult for people who try to buy guns, who try to make a profit, who try to express wrong ideas, who try to improve their children’s education, who try to hire the best employees, who try to be self-sufficient, etc.

To support this law is to abandon one’s traditional liberal American principles and support only the one principle behind all forms of big government:

Government rightly has the power to implement any good idea.

The temptation to give up our traditional liberal American principles and adopt such pragmatism for the sake of expediency is the temptation that has been used The Prince to divide us against each other and lead so many of us down the path of progressivism, socialism, fascism, communism, and every other form of big government.

Now let’s look at the progressive hypocrisy.

Progressives say that if a woman wants to carry a gun for self defense, then government absolutely must make her first learn about carrying a gun; whereas, now progressives are saying that if a woman wants to abort her baby, the littlest of the little guys, then government absolutely must not make her first learn about it.