Ronald Bailey Quotes
Why should ethical decisions as personal as those involved in reproduction and medical care be decided by democratic vote?
Ronald Bailey, Science Journalist, “Split Decision: The reckless conservatism of the President’s Council on Bioethics,” Reason Online, July 17, 2002
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Portugal, a traditional Roman Catholic nation where the Church has always had great influence, had laws banning abortion. However, in a national referendum the Portuguese people voted overwhelming to allow abortion despite the Church’s stand. The Parliament then overwhelmingly passed a law legalizing abortion on demand up to the 10 the week of pregnancy. The President, though opposed personally to abortion signed the bill. This quotation illustrates a common occurrence in industrial democracies whereby politicians will not impose their personal moral views on the laws of society but may well have contrary personal views.
Churches are political organizations too and are subject to the forces of their membership. In the case of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1971 they passed resolutions to assure the right of a woman to have an abortion to protect her health. The position on abortion changed steadily thereafter to even pass Constitutional amendments to ban abortions except to save the life of the mother. See {614356},54122, {614358}, {614359}, {614360}, {614361} for the dynamic history of the change.
This is a wonderful example of a good rhetorical technique. He focuses the attention on the unborn by observing that all his opponents on this point have already been born. Of course, he and all his supporters on the point—those who are against abortion—have already been born also. So what would the unborn say? Well that no one could know nor can any one know if the unborn have any thoughts must less thoughts on the subject of abortion.
At the time the president made this quotation there were over 400,000 frozen embryos stored in fertility clinics across the country that were no longer necessary for the couples who had created them and for which no other couples could be found. Each costs about $2,000 a year to maintain in a viable state. Some are destroyed as no longer necessary and others are given to scientists for research. Most just stay in frozen storage with no prospect of ever being brought to term.
On this issue she and her father disagreed.
Ronald Bailey is an American libertarian science writer. He has written or edited several books on economics, ecology, and biotechnology.
