Figuring out the "problem" in my Plan B article
We should recognize agnosticism and atheism as religions. If not, they could be “established,” because nothing says they can’t. You think the public schools are bad now . . .
I’m actually going to use that principle in an argument I’m writing. Here’s how it works. Given the intensity of the pro-choice position, much of which often seems only supported by writings from a narrow group on their own side, and now seems to have lost its scientific support as we understand more about pre-natal development, has it risen to the level of religious belief by American legal standards? I submit, at a more philosophical level, “defining religion,” is one of those places where angels fear to tread, but there’s good caselaw and some top scholars who argue that pro-choice is religion. If so, by preferring their belief to mine - by being non-neutral, even at the formal level even the Everson Court recognized - has the Supreme Court has established a religion? Or has Congress done so by passing laws that assist women in exercising their freedom and doctors in the business?
Truth: it’s a dumb argument, but I want that to be seen. My point is that too much doctrinalism and too little looking at people as people on both sides is not getting us anywhere. In many of the articles about religious pharmacists and doctors in religious hospitals who won’t give out Plan B, what always strikes me is how the author humanizes the woman, who is obviously in a tight spot, especially if she has been raped but even if all she did was something extraordinarily dumb. For one thing, her best hope of avoiding pregnancy and its abortifacient effect (not a small issue to anyone) is getting the Plan B sooner rather than later, and I will not insult anyone’s intelligence by arguing that even as a Catholic I think the moral imperatives of abortion versus contraception are equal. Really hard decisions have to be made in a matter of moments, at a time when a woman may be least equipped to think through what’s happening to her. I am not offended by a pro-choice writer humanizing a woman in that situation.
But why is the doctor or pharmacist so rarely humanized in the same way by pro-choice writers? A Catholic author with a resume similar to mine described the situation beautifully: that forcing a Catholic doctor to do an abortion was worse than depriving him or her of the Mass, because the first causes the doctor to lose his or her soul and the other is merely a tragic deprivation. I promise you, her piece will not be read. A student who wrote one of the finest pieces in this area I have seen in terms of catching issues and outlining arguments, though she stumbled, I think, when she concluded without analysis that the usually much greater burden on the woman (Why? She may be correct, but I do not understand her argument) had to trump the burden on a pharmacist, at least told a story about a pharmacist who cried when being interviewed about what he viewed his job as having become.
But those are rare. Most articles suggest a conspiracy by an unidentified “someone” - the religious right, or conservatives, or men (yep, the ones who in greater numbers than women back abortion!), or legislators, or the boogeyman, I can’t say for sure - against women is out there. The anti-Catholic hate, anger and bigotry that Laycock described in his article both in the past and throughout U.S. history and that Ed Gaffney further detailed in his, which was not mostly about Muslims, could not be more shrill than at any time in my life. Even scholarly articles read like sloganeering barely fit for activism. And to think that these authors have the temerity to argue people who think like I do should not speak in the public square. No wonder they worry; my folks do much better than they do.
Just as I would not define the “person on the other side of the abortion debate” for purposes of this unusually sensitive subject as “pro-choicers” or “judges” or “colleagues” - you see, I focused above on women in crisis - what we have to recognize is that a doctor or pharmacist in these situations faces a crisis as well. The doctor or pharmacist may have begged for a transfer, be looking for a job that will get him or her away from these problems, be praying hard for guidance, whatever. These people are in healing professions, and while docs and pharmacists sometimes seem so money driven, that is partly the way the business has developed, too. To be fair, a feminist writer did a great job of actually describing the mind-numbing aspects of being a pharmacist today - and therefore, how unusual it would be even to notice a Plan B prescription or counsel a patient unless the pharmacy was really concerned about it. But what life is that? A well-educated professional doing this almost factory-like job where he watches what he believes is part of a Holocaust going on around him. I’d cry, too.
As for burden shifting (which is how the law looks at this in part), while it is hard for a lot of people to see how a mother could not just have an abortion later elsewhere, carry the child to term and then put it up for adoption, or pursue a number of other options that only constrain her for nine months, the doctor or pharmacist may believe he is contrained eternally. People from different priority-sets will have a terrible time balancing these sets of burdens, but the oft-expressed view that the burden on the woman is intolerable while the burden on the doctor/pharmacist is does not count as simply a desire to impose what should be private into his professional life (most religious people think we are supposed to do this to at least some degree) is unfair. It does matter if the woman was raped or if she simply is using Plan B as a true “Plan B.” Even standards for Catholic hospitals concede this.
So why can’t a woman in the latter situation be more prepared for sex if contraception isn’t a problem for her? After all, she has a right to make decisions about childbearing and to purchase contraception, but I would have to do some serious research to see if a court has ever said she has the right to snap her fingers and make the rest of us start running. Why must the rest of us, as a matter of public policy, accommodate her if she just hasn’t been careful? I am highly sympathetic to rape, immaturity, domestic violence, men-who-do-miscellaneous-other-bad-stuff and mental illness. “Not bothering to be careful” does not cut it with me when I see what could be on the other side of the scale. And yes, I concede that some religious people are very genuine, while others are real jerks.
Most importantly, no pro-choice article ever uses the word “she” when referring to a doctor or pharmacist claiming the need for a religious accommodation. Usually they use "she" for every third person pronoun. I think that says a lot.
I’m actually going to use that principle in an argument I’m writing. Here’s how it works. Given the intensity of the pro-choice position, much of which often seems only supported by writings from a narrow group on their own side, and now seems to have lost its scientific support as we understand more about pre-natal development, has it risen to the level of religious belief by American legal standards? I submit, at a more philosophical level, “defining religion,” is one of those places where angels fear to tread, but there’s good caselaw and some top scholars who argue that pro-choice is religion. If so, by preferring their belief to mine - by being non-neutral, even at the formal level even the Everson Court recognized - has the Supreme Court has established a religion? Or has Congress done so by passing laws that assist women in exercising their freedom and doctors in the business?
Truth: it’s a dumb argument, but I want that to be seen. My point is that too much doctrinalism and too little looking at people as people on both sides is not getting us anywhere. In many of the articles about religious pharmacists and doctors in religious hospitals who won’t give out Plan B, what always strikes me is how the author humanizes the woman, who is obviously in a tight spot, especially if she has been raped but even if all she did was something extraordinarily dumb. For one thing, her best hope of avoiding pregnancy and its abortifacient effect (not a small issue to anyone) is getting the Plan B sooner rather than later, and I will not insult anyone’s intelligence by arguing that even as a Catholic I think the moral imperatives of abortion versus contraception are equal. Really hard decisions have to be made in a matter of moments, at a time when a woman may be least equipped to think through what’s happening to her. I am not offended by a pro-choice writer humanizing a woman in that situation.
But why is the doctor or pharmacist so rarely humanized in the same way by pro-choice writers? A Catholic author with a resume similar to mine described the situation beautifully: that forcing a Catholic doctor to do an abortion was worse than depriving him or her of the Mass, because the first causes the doctor to lose his or her soul and the other is merely a tragic deprivation. I promise you, her piece will not be read. A student who wrote one of the finest pieces in this area I have seen in terms of catching issues and outlining arguments, though she stumbled, I think, when she concluded without analysis that the usually much greater burden on the woman (Why? She may be correct, but I do not understand her argument) had to trump the burden on a pharmacist, at least told a story about a pharmacist who cried when being interviewed about what he viewed his job as having become.
But those are rare. Most articles suggest a conspiracy by an unidentified “someone” - the religious right, or conservatives, or men (yep, the ones who in greater numbers than women back abortion!), or legislators, or the boogeyman, I can’t say for sure - against women is out there. The anti-Catholic hate, anger and bigotry that Laycock described in his article both in the past and throughout U.S. history and that Ed Gaffney further detailed in his, which was not mostly about Muslims, could not be more shrill than at any time in my life. Even scholarly articles read like sloganeering barely fit for activism. And to think that these authors have the temerity to argue people who think like I do should not speak in the public square. No wonder they worry; my folks do much better than they do.
Just as I would not define the “person on the other side of the abortion debate” for purposes of this unusually sensitive subject as “pro-choicers” or “judges” or “colleagues” - you see, I focused above on women in crisis - what we have to recognize is that a doctor or pharmacist in these situations faces a crisis as well. The doctor or pharmacist may have begged for a transfer, be looking for a job that will get him or her away from these problems, be praying hard for guidance, whatever. These people are in healing professions, and while docs and pharmacists sometimes seem so money driven, that is partly the way the business has developed, too. To be fair, a feminist writer did a great job of actually describing the mind-numbing aspects of being a pharmacist today - and therefore, how unusual it would be even to notice a Plan B prescription or counsel a patient unless the pharmacy was really concerned about it. But what life is that? A well-educated professional doing this almost factory-like job where he watches what he believes is part of a Holocaust going on around him. I’d cry, too.
As for burden shifting (which is how the law looks at this in part), while it is hard for a lot of people to see how a mother could not just have an abortion later elsewhere, carry the child to term and then put it up for adoption, or pursue a number of other options that only constrain her for nine months, the doctor or pharmacist may believe he is contrained eternally. People from different priority-sets will have a terrible time balancing these sets of burdens, but the oft-expressed view that the burden on the woman is intolerable while the burden on the doctor/pharmacist is does not count as simply a desire to impose what should be private into his professional life (most religious people think we are supposed to do this to at least some degree) is unfair. It does matter if the woman was raped or if she simply is using Plan B as a true “Plan B.” Even standards for Catholic hospitals concede this.
So why can’t a woman in the latter situation be more prepared for sex if contraception isn’t a problem for her? After all, she has a right to make decisions about childbearing and to purchase contraception, but I would have to do some serious research to see if a court has ever said she has the right to snap her fingers and make the rest of us start running. Why must the rest of us, as a matter of public policy, accommodate her if she just hasn’t been careful? I am highly sympathetic to rape, immaturity, domestic violence, men-who-do-miscellaneous-other-bad-stuff and mental illness. “Not bothering to be careful” does not cut it with me when I see what could be on the other side of the scale. And yes, I concede that some religious people are very genuine, while others are real jerks.
Most importantly, no pro-choice article ever uses the word “she” when referring to a doctor or pharmacist claiming the need for a religious accommodation. Usually they use "she" for every third person pronoun. I think that says a lot.