In Sunday’s Philosophy in Action Webcast, I took an early look at the 2012 election, then surveyed four GOP candidates — Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Gary Johnson. I’ve posted all five questions as videos, and so here they are!

The first question was:

What’s your view of the upcoming 2012 election? By what standards do you judge the presidential candidates?

My answer, in brief:

In a presidential candidate, I’m not looking for either John Galt or “Anyone But Obama.” I’m looking for someone who will do more good than harm to the cause of liberty in America.

Here’s the video of my full answer:

The second question was:

Should I support Mitt Romney for US President? What’s the proper evaluation of his principles and record on the budget and the debt, health care, foreign policy, immigration, the drug war, abortion, and gay marriage? Does Romney deserve the vote of advocates of individual rights in the primary or the general election?

My answer, in brief:

Mitt Romney is a smooth talker, but his proposal reveal that he has no understanding of individual rights or the economic problems facing America. He’s no better than Obama – and likely worse, because the opposition will vanish. I cannot recommend voting for him in the primary or the general election.

Here’s the video of my full answer:

The third question was:

Should I support Newt Gingrinch for US President? What’s the proper evaluation of his principles and record on the budget and the debt, health care, foreign policy, immigration, the drug war, abortion, and gay marriage? Does Gingrinch deserve the vote of advocates of individual rights in the primary or the general election?

My answer, in brief:

Newt Gingrich is explicitly theocratic, and a major threat to the separation of church and state. He advocates and practices “active governance,” meaning right-wing social engineering, not liberty. Like Obama, he is enamored of bold transformative ideas, which could be okay or horrible for liberty. I cannot recommend voting for him in the primary or the general election.

Here’s the video of my full answer:

The fourth question was:

Should I support Ron Paul for US President? What’s the proper evaluation of his principles and record on the budget and the debt, health care, foreign policy, immigration, the drug war, abortion, and gay marriage? Does Paul deserve the vote of advocates of individual rights in the primary or the general election?

My answer, in brief:

Ron Paul is not even libertarian, but a neo-confederate conservative Christian, albeit with some grasp of basic economics. He’s a rationalist, driven by ideology, and not open to facts. He would be very dangerous to elect as president, not just for actual policies, but as a supposed advocate of liberty. I cannot recommend voting for him in the primary or the general election.

Here’s the video of my full answer:

The fifth question was:

Should I support Gary Johnson for US President? What’s the proper evaluation of his principles and record on the budget and the debt, health care, foreign policy, immigration, the drug war, abortion, and gay marriage? Does Johnson deserve the vote of advocates of individual rights in the primary or the general election? Also, should supporters of Gary Johnson vote for him on a Libertarian Party ticket?

My answer, in brief:

Gary Johnson is not John Galt. However, he’s fundamentally oriented toward facts, plus he has good basic principles about liberty. Alas, he was shut out from the race by the media and the establishment GOP. I recommend voting for him in the primary, as well as in the general election, if he runs as the Libertarian Party candidate. I still reject the Libertarian Party, but a protest vote can be delimited to endorse him and not the party.

Here’s the video of my full answer:

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All posted webcast videos can be found in the Webcast Archives and on my YouTube channel.

Video: Voting for Horrible Politicians

 Posted by on 14 November 2011 at 4:00 pm  Abortion, Election, Politics, Videocast
Nov 142011
 

In last Sunday’s Philosophy in Action Webcast (Nov 6th), I discussed when and why people should vote, given that politicians are mostly horrible. The question was:

All the candidates are nearly perfectly horrid, just in different ways. Why should I even bother to vote?

My answer, in brief:

We’re not always faced with choice between two varieties of evil in elections, and in those cases, it’s proper to vote. Also, it’s good to vote for ballot measures. So vote selectively!

Here’s the video of my full answer:

If you enjoy the video, please “like” it on YouTube and share it with friends in e-mail and social media! You can also throw a bit of extra love in our tip jar.

All posted webcast videos can be found in the Webcast Archives and on my YouTube channel.

Best.Comment.Ever

 Posted by on 28 July 2011 at 7:00 am  Abortion, Coalition for Secular Government, Funny
Jul 282011
 

I’ve been blogging here on NoodleFood and elsewhere for nearly ten years now. In all that time, I’ve never gotten as wildly inane a comment as this one on my CSG post on the efforts to impose anti-abortion “personhood” laws on Mississippi. The comment is from “Carol Arens532.” Brace yourself:

Think about it before abortion was made legal, the abortionist had to worry about maternal deaths from abortion, simply because these could very easily lead to an investigation by the FBI, after all if you are going to break the law the last thing that you would want to do is leave behind evidence of your illegal activity so that there can be an investigation. Thus before Roe vs Wade should a pregnant woman be seriously injured from an illegal abortion, she would be brought to a hospital and should she die there, there would be an oddtopisy done to determine the cause of death, the medical personal of the hospital would then be required to report this to the police clearly letting them know that someone is breaking the law, and initiate an investigation. Now however that abortion is legal the abortion can botch as many abortion as he wants without having to worry about there being an investigation, infact he can have a number of women die from abortion at his facility and never have to worry about the police or the FBI investigating his activity. It sure is good to think that the state of Mississippi thinks that it’s women and children are worth protecting from this. Sincerely Carol

When I posted it to Facebook and Twitter, many people noted that they hoped that they’d never have to have an “oddtopisy.” But my favorite comment was posted by Roberto Sarrionandia to Facebook.

This is hilarious. Presumably the same thing is true for all surgery. Paul can get away with strangling his patients, because radiography is legal and thus the authorities aren’t concerned with investigating it.

Similarly, when people are stabbed, nobody bothers investigating because knives are legal.

Exactly!

Nov 182010
 

Unfortunately, Personhood USA won a major victory in court recently: a “personhood” measure has been cleared to appear on the ballot in 2011 in Mississippi. Here’s their press release:

Victory for Personhood Mississippi, Planned Parenthood/ACLU Lawsuit Dealt Major Blow

Sponsors of the Mississippi Personhood Amendment, Initiative Measure Number 26, have been notified that the motion to remove the Amendment from the Ballot, filed by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, has been denied.

ACLU and Planned Parenthood attorneys filed a lawsuit against the Mississippi Secretary of State in July, seeking to disallow Mississippi voters from voting on the Mississippi Personhood Amendment.

Amendment sponsors and volunteers exceeded state signature requirements on February 17, becoming only the fourth successful ballot initiative since 1992. The amendment, Initiative Measure Number 26, reads, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”

The ACLU then filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that the Personhood amendment, which seeks to define the term “human being”, modifies the Bill of Rights, which is expressly prohibited by Section 273(5). Steve Crampton, Liberty Counsel attorney for Personhood Mississippi, explained that Section 273(5) does not prohibit the definition of an otherwise undefined term, such as “person”. Crampton went on to explain that the Personhood Amendment complies with section 273(5)(a) because it does not propose any new right and does not modify or repeal any existing right guaranteed under our bill of rights. Instead, the Personhood amendment merely defines the term “person”, and does not modify the Bill of Rights in any way.

The Court decision read “Initiative Measure No. 26 has received more than the required amount of signatures to be placed on the ballot and the Constitution recognizes the right of citizens to amend their Constitution.” The decision was ordered by Judge Malcolm Harrison.

“Isaiah 59 tells us that, ‘the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear’ so we first give all praise and honor to our Lord Jesus Christ for hearing our prayers and giving us the victory in this round” explained Les Riley, amendment sponsor. “We are grateful from this clarification. From the early days of the petition drive those opposed to the amendment have claimed that our amendment was flawed and did not meet the Constitutional muster based on a surface level researching of the law. We have been certain that we have the right to define the term ‘person’, and that right was affirmed by the Circuit Court and Judge Harrison. The Personhood Amendment, in defining the term ‘person’, merely seeks to recognize the rights of every innocent human being in Mississippi. The people of Mississippi have spoken – they want to vote to recognize those Personhood rights in November 2011.”

“It is time for Mississippi voters to recognize that all human beings are people, and every person should be protected by love and by law,” added Cal Zastrow, co-founder of Personhood USA. “We are praising Jesus that Planned Parenthood was thwarted in their efforts to protect their billions with frivolous lawsuits.”

First, it’s clearly false that a personhood amendment would not “propose any new right” or “modify or repeal any existing right guaranteed under our bill of rights.” Sections 14 and 15 of Mississippi’s Bill of Rights say:

Sec. 14. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law.

Sec. 15. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this state, otherwise than as punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.

To grant rights to embryos and fetuses would violate the life and liberty rights of every pregnant woman. At the moment of fertilization, the woman would be be legally bound to provide life-support to the embryo or fetus. She would be obliged to subordinate her values, her goals, her health, and perhaps even her life to it. That’s involuntary servitude. For details, see Ari Armstrong’s and my discussion of rights in pregnancy in in our policy paper on the “personhood” movement.

Second, when an organization quotes scripture and thanks Jesus in its press releases, you need not doubt that it’s goal is to impose theocratic law. Such appeals to religious dogma are the life-blood of the “personhood” movement, and that’s part of why “personhood” measures violate the proper wall of separation between church and state. For details, see Ari Armstrong’s and my discussion of “personhood” and the separation of church and state in our policy paper.

And third, we have a year to inform the public and fight this measure. Sadly, that’s the only good news.

 

I’m delighted to report that Colorado’s “personhood” measure was defeated strongly, yet again. Ari Armstong and I were certain of its defeat, but we worried that it would gather significantly more support than did Amendment 48 in 2008. (Amendment 48 was defeated with 73% NO and 27% YES.)

Much to my delight, the results so far (with 88% of precincts reporting) show that “personhood” is almost as unpopular as ever, with 70% NO and 30% YES. That’s despite the more confusing language of Amendment 62 and far less of a campaign in opposition by the major coalition, Protect Families, Protect Choices — in comparison to 2008′s Amendment 48. While “personhood” is still a threat, particularly in the long-run, I’m hopeful that enough Colorado voters understand its moral and practical evils to vote against it, time and again.

Once again, I want to give a heartfelt thanks to everyone who pledged to support our hugely revised policy paper on it: The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception. That paper was viewed 3,000 times in HTML format, and downloaded 500 times as a PDF and 100 times as in e-book format.

Unfortunately, Stephen Bailey did not prevail in his race against Jared Polis, but I’m so glad that he ran. And Amendment 63 — for health care choice — looks like it will be defeated by a narrow margin. The rest of Colorado’s election results — including the dead-heat in the Senate race between Ken Buck and Michael Bennet — can be found on 9 News.

 

As I mentioned in a prior post, Ari Armstrong’s and my op-ed on Colorado’s Amendments 62 (personhood) and 63 (health care choice) was published in the Denver Daily News on Friday, October 22nd. It was a non-exclusive op-ed, so we hoped that some of the smaller papers around the state might choose to print it too. That hasn’t happened that we know of, so I thought I’d post it here before the election. Hence:

A62, A63 reveal ideological rifts
Friday, October 22, 2010
By Diana Hsieh and Ari Armstrong

This year’s ballot presents voters with a mystery. Amendments 62 and 63 are based on opposite political premises, yet many prominent groups either endorse both or oppose both. What explains this contradiction?

Amendment 62, the so-called “personhood” measure, would grant full legal rights to embryos. Its goal is to eliminate a woman’s choice to get an abortion, use the birth control pill, or obtain common in vitro fertility treatments.

Amendment 63, Health Care Choice, seeks to protect people’s choices in health care by forbidding state government from assisting in the enforcement of ObamaCare. It would preserve people’s choices in insurance as well as ensure their ability to pay directly for health care.

Amendment 62 destroys liberty and choice in health care, while Amendment 63 protects those values. Yet few seem to recognize that.

In an Oct. 15 e-mail, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains opposes both 62 and 63. The group alleges that Amendment 63 “drives up health care costs by reducing insurance coverage.”

In fact, those rising costs are due to government controls and welfare programs, and the mandate to buy insurance will only exacerbate the problem.

Likewise, Progress Now opposes both measures. Planned Parenthood and Progress Now follow the standard left-wing approach on these issues, advocating some choices in health care while denying others.

Religious-right advocates of Amendment 62, on the other hand, attempt to package their measure with Amendment 63. In an over-the-top video complete with Obama as the Angel of Death, proponents of 62 attempt to appeal to Tea Partiers. They suggest that the same movement responsible for legal abortion led to the bailouts and ObamaCare.

Amendment 62 supporters also endorse a “Blue Book Alternative,” which features one-sided praise of their measure along with positive language about Amendment 63.

Both the left and the religious right, then, express contradictory views about liberty and individual choice. They support it in some cases, but not in principle. Why is that?

The left rejects America’s founding ideal of liberty as each person’s freedom to pursue his own life and happiness using his own property. They regard rights as entitlements to goods and services provided by others, not freedoms to think and act without coercive interference.

That’s why Planned Parenthood does not merely want to protect the freedom of women to obtain abortions from willing doctors using their own funds, health insurance, or private charity. Instead, Planned Parenthood wants to force people to fund others’ health care, including abortions. Therefore, the organization seeks to protect the right to abortion while denying any right to choose what health insurance to buy, if any.

The religious right claims to support individual rights, but its conception of rights is little more than sectarian dogmatism. Rights are whatever God declares them to be, on this view.

By contorting some Bible passages and ignoring others, advocates of Amendment 62 claim that newly fertilized zygotes — even before implantation in the uterus — must be declared persons with full legal rights. By similar methods, they ignore the Bible’s overt hostility to individual rights and capitalist values.

The consistent, secular view of individual rights is opposed to both the entitlements of the left and the dogmatism of the religious right. Rights, on this third view, define the individual’s proper sphere of freedom in a social context. They enable each person to act by his own judgment and for his own life and happiness.

Such rights are based on the facts of man’s rational nature, not the whims of the majority or the arbitrary commands of God. They apply equally to every person, to individuals living in society, as opposed to an embryo or fetus entirely contained within a pregnant woman’s body.

By this secular view of rights, any attempt to dictate the choices of others is morally wrong. Nothing can justify the forcible seizure or control of another person’s property, whether via Medicare taxes or insurance mandates. And nothing can justify forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or banning the pill.

Under a consistent, reality based view of individual rights, Amendment 62 violates rights while Amendment 63 protects them.

Philosopher Diana Hsieh and political writer Ari Armstrong coauthored the paper, The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life, available at SecularGovernment.us.

 

Advocates of “personhood” for zygotes often claim to be opponents of the subjectivism and relativism that dominates the left. In fact, they’re good friends — in two ways.

First, the Christians pushing personhood are advocates of a specific form of religious morality, namely Divine Command Theory. They hold that right and wrong is not based on any objective facts of reality, but rather God’s commands. So if God decrees the stoning of a blasphemer (Leviticus 24) or the sacrifice of a man’s only and beloved son (Genesis 22), then that’s morally obligatory. Such is subjectivism: the content of morality depends on the arbitrary decrees of divine will, rather than facts of reality.

Second, the subjectivism and relativism of the left cannot articulate or defend proper principles of ethics or politics — as Ari Armstrong and I discussed in the section on Today’s ‘Pro-Choice’ Rhetoric in our policy paper, The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life. To many people, the pseudo-secular arguments of “personhood” advocates seem substantive and perhaps even compelling in comparison to the silence of most “pro-choice” advocates.

However, the more perfect exemplars of the subjectivism and relativism of the left are not merely silent on basic questions about the nature and basis of rights. They’re downright hostile to any definitive claims. A dramatic example of that view was just published in the Denver Post, in a column by Susan Greene: Personhood extremes born of nonsense. She claims to be pro-choice and opposed to Amendment 62, yet she portrays “personhood” advocates as wholly sympathetic, with logic on their side:

If you’re old enough to know how babies are made, you’d be disingenuous to deny a certain logic in proponents’ belief that an undeveloped fetus is a form of life. At least as an intellectual exercise, it’s not a leap to equate life, more or less, with personhood.

Meanwhile, the opponents of “personhood” are, in contrast, boorish extremists wholly lacking in good argument.

Opponents [of 62] would do better sticking to that point than pretending to know when personhood starts. They offer up a cast of walking wounded like Jen Boulton, who, after three failed pregnancies, asserts that an undeveloped fetus is “no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree.”

With that, Ms. Green only confesses that she’s ignorant of the importance of actuality versus potentiality in the debate about “personhood” and rights.

Frankly, I couldn’t imagine a better way to undermine abortion rights than with a column like that of Ms. Green. And that’s why the subjectivism and relativism of the left is the best friend of the religious zealots crusading for Amendment 62. Her viewpoint concedes everything to the religious crusaders, even logic itself.

Happily, I see a silver lining in her column: Ms. Green reports that she was “booed by pro-choice veterans when making some of these points at a recent luncheon.”

 

Ari Armstrong and I published an op-ed on Colorado’s Amendment 62 (personhood for zygotes) and Amendment 63 (health care choice) in Friday’s Denver Daily News: A62, A63 reveal ideological rifts.

Our article observes that many groups either oppose or endorse both Amendments 62 and 63. Yet these measures are based on opposite political premises. Amendment 62 (personhood) violates rights, while Amendment 63 (health care choice) protects them. The article then explains how both the entitlement left and religious right advocate a false view of rights. And it sketches a secular view of rights whereby each person is left free to act by his own judgment and for his own life and happiness.

Go read the whole thing!

For more information on Amendment 62, see Ari Armstrong’s and my policy paper: The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception.

For more information on Amendment 63, visit the Independence Institute and Patient Power Now.

Also, Paul has been busy advocating free market medicine via FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine. Here’s his two most recent endeavors:

Enjoy!

 

This post is drawn from Ari Armstrong’s and my new policy paper: The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception. I’m currently posting the full paper as a series of blog posts. You can read the full paper in PDF format or HTML format.

The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception

By Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh, Ph.D
A policy paper written for the Coalition for Secular Government (www.SecularGovernment.us)
Published on August 31, 2010

Amendment 62 Is Not a ‘Message’

Ironically, the fact that Amendment 62 is so outrageous in its implications may cause some Colorado voters to not take it seriously. Many voters may be tempted to think: “surely they don’t really want to ban abortions even in cases of rape, incest, deformity, or risks to the health of the mother; surely they don’t really want lengthy prison sentences or even the death penalty for women who get abortions; surely they don’t seriously want to outlaw the birth control pill; surely they don’t want to shut down fertility clinics; surely not.” But the most consistent advocates of Amendment 62 do intend those effects–and they will strive to use “personhood” laws to make them the law of the land.

The religious right typically packages the issue of abortion with a variety of other cultural issues, such as relativism, postmodernism, promiscuous sex, violent video games, and pornography. They claim that voting for “personhood” laws will send the “message” that “all human life has value.”[175] Dan Maes, the Republican candidate for governor of Colorado in 2010, endorsed Amendment 62 but then stated, “People are overestimating the personhood amendment. It simply defines life as beginning at conception. That’s it. Who knows what the intent of it is? They are simply making a statement. That is all I see it as. Do they have another agenda? I don’t know.”[176]

Yet Amendment 62 is not merely a “message” or a “statement.” It does not say, “Resolved: All human life has value.” Nor does it say, “Resolved: Life begins at conception.” (Nobody doubts that a zygote is alive.) Rather, Amendment 62 is a specific measure with specific, foreseeable political implications. A vote for it is a vote for those sweeping political changes. It is a vote for granting full legal rights to zygotes from the moment of fertilization–at the expense of the real men and women of Colorado.

As this paper has shown, Amendment 62 and comparable proposals would fundamentally change Colorado law. If Roe v. Wade were reversed, the consistent enforcement of the measure would outlaw abortion in all cases except perhaps for extreme and immediate risk to the woman’s life, outlaw popular forms of birth control, outlaw all embryonic stem-cell research and the most common in vitro fertilization techniques, and impose severe police and prosecutorial control over the sexual lives of most couples. Not only would it cause some women to suffer and die needlessly, but it would violate the rights of many actual persons and prevent them from making the best choices for their lives.

In its essence, Amendment 62 is profoundly anti-life.

Some who endorse Amendment 62 hope that Colorado voters will overlook the real and frightening implications of the measure, and instead vote based on their disapproval of irresponsible sex and their affection for cuddly babies. Yet in this case, an irresponsible vote would be worse than irresponsible sex. The way to change the culture in the direction of greater responsibility and stronger moral values is not to pass a law that would endanger women, foster a police state, foist parenthood on unwilling couples, and severely violate the rights of millions of actual people.

If you believe that “human life has value,” the only moral choice is to vote against Amendment 62.

Read the full paper in PDF format or HTML format.

 

This post is drawn from Ari Armstrong’s and my new policy paper: The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception. I’m currently posting the full paper as a series of blog posts. You can read the full paper in PDF format or HTML format.

The ‘Personhood’ Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception

By Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh, Ph.D
A policy paper written for the Coalition for Secular Government (www.SecularGovernment.us)
Published on August 31, 2010

‘Personhood’ and the Separation of Church and State

To the world at large, advocates of “personhood” might seem to be little more than unusually devoted and consistent opponents of abortion. They might seem to be motivated by a commitment to scientific fact and inalienable rights. Yet in fact, they are religious zealots seeking to impose the tenets of their faith by force of law. Consequently, any “personhood” measure, in addition to the other harms they threaten to unleash, would violate the proper separation of church and state.

“Personhood” advocates do not conceal or disguise their religious agenda. They proclaim it, loudly and persistently. Consider a few representative claims.

Kristi Burton, the public face of Amendment 48 in the 2008 campaign, explained her reason for fighting to ban abortion: “It just came to me. I prayed about it and knew God was calling me to do it.”[159]

As noted previously, Personhood USA’s founders proclaim their religious motives:

Personhood U.S.A. is led by Christian ministers Keith Mason and Cal Zastrow…who are missionaries to preborn children. …They also lead and participate in peaceful pro-life activism, evangelism, and ministry outside of places where preborn babies get murdered [sic]. Personhood USA is committed to…[h]onor[ing] the Lord Jesus Christ with our lives and actions.[160]

In Personhood USA’s “Amendment 62 Campaign Video” for 2010, a spokesman (erroneously) claims that the Declaration of Independence declares that “the rights of the unborn…come from the Creator.” The video follows this statement with a Bible passage purportedly supportive of “personhood.” Personhood USA thanks the “thousands of volunteers and hundreds of churches that made Amendment 62 a reality.” For background music, the video uses the Bluetree song, “God of this City,” which begins, “You’re God of this city, you’re the King of these people, you’re the Lord of this nation.”[161]

Personhood Colorado (while misrepresenting the arguments against “personhood”) tailors its message to the religious:

Now the Church must unite and act boldly for the child in the womb. Amendment 62 needs men and women of faith to promote the culture of life in our churches by organizing campaigning events and prayer teams.

In 2008, an unprecedented number of churches awoke from their slumber to put the Personhood Amendment on the ballot. This year, we are on the ballot and need to reach out to even more churches so that we may continue to educate and advocate for the preborn child.

Personhood is a Spiritual Battle. The secular world and their false gods have no reason to protect the preborn child. However, with the power of God’s promises, and the loving support of His people, all of the lies and scare tactics used by the secular world will be defeated.

God’s word is clear. The only real question is, will we be faithful? …There are a number of resources available for you to use in your churches. One is a letter by the Alliance Defense Fund, a national Christian law firm, assuring pastors of the legality of working on a constitutional amendment vis-a-vis their non-profit status. …

The most important aspect of our outreach to the churches is 1) to have God’s people praying for the preborn child and for this campaign, and 2) to have God’s people work to get Amendment 62 [passed].[162]

Colorado Right to Life, whose vice president helped submit Amendment 62 to the Secretary of State, “commits to never compromise on” what it holds to be “God’s law,” which is that “[e]very human being has a God-given right to life from the beginning of that person’s biological development [fertilization] through natural death.”[163] The organization also includes a web page titled “The Bible and Abortion” to highlight the many Biblical passages the organization deems supportive of “personhood.”[164]

The “About” web page for Personhood Florida begins and ends with Bible passages. The organization declares, “As the hands and feet of Christ it is up to us to safeguard this most fundamental of these rights–human personhood.”[165]

Personhood.net, a website of Georgia Right to Life, proclaims four “laws of personhood,” where the first two are explicitly based on God’s will, as revealed through Judeo-Christian scripture:

Law 1: A person is a living physical/spiritual being created in the image of God, male and female, from their earliest biological beginning until natural death.

In a Judeo-Christian worldview the human being as such is afforded a special status and dignity on account of being created in the image of God: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Gn 1:27) …Because we bear the image of God, all mankind, and, by extension, each and every human life has a “specialness” and worth that demands respect.[166]

And:

Law 2: A person’s right to life is inalienable regardless of age, race, sex, genetic pre-disposition, condition of dependency or biological development.

Genesis 2:7 (ESV) “…then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” The right to life is inalienable because it originates with God.[167]

Abort73.com, a website featured prominently by Personhood USA, is a project of Loxafamosity Ministries.[168] “Motivated by our Christian calling,” the organization works to “establish justice” and “expose evil injustices” in accordance with its religious views. The organization’s seven-point statement of religious faith, which discusses among other things the Christian’s need to evangelize, concludes with a call to recognize the “social implications” of the “announcement of the gospel of Jesus,” which the group holds to include the policy goal of totally banning abortion.[169]

Such proclamations of deeply religious motives are representative of the “personhood” movement and pervasive within it. “Personhood” activists leave no doubt that their political agenda is fundamentally motivated by religious faith. For example, upon turning in signatures for what would become Amendment 62, supporters cheered for Jesus and broke out in the song, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”[170]

Undoubtedly, “personhood” advocates offer a secular argument to supplement their appeals to God’s will–as seen in a prior section. Yet even that argument is fundamentally religious, in that the logical leap from the human biology of the embryo and fetus to its personhood requires an assumption of God’s gift of rights at conception. The secular argument is mere veneer for the thoroughly religious worldview that animates the calls for “personhood.”

In fact, American Right to Life, “The Personhood Wing of the Pro-Life Movement,” explicitly warns against appealing to science rather than focusing on basic religious dogmas:

Don’t make excuses for Planned Parenthood murdering countless children by saying, “Now that we have 4D ultrasound, we know that this is a baby.” Long before ultrasound, the mutilated body of the first aborted child, and the millions since, testified to the wickedness of child killing. 3,500 years ago the Mosaic Law in the Hebrew Scriptures recognized the unborn child as a person…[171]

Evidently, even “personhood” advocates don’t take their own secular arguments very seriously–and no wonder, since they’re so simplistic and fallacious.

In all likelihood, “personhood” advocates resort to secular claims only to appeal to mainstream voters, and perhaps to ward off future legal challenges. In that respect, they resemble the Christians promoting creationism under the pseudo-scientific banner of “intelligent design.”

Ultimately, we should take “personhood” advocates at their word: they seek to impose God’s law on America. They want to force all Americans, whatever their religious beliefs, to conform to the dictates of their faith. As such, Amendment 62 and other “personhood” measures must be regarded as prime examples of faith-based politics–or worse, outright theocracy. They violate the separation of church and state–and that’s an additional reason to reject them.

Despite the frequent claims from the religious right that America was founded as a “Christian nation,” the U.S. Constitution is a thoroughly secular document, referring to religion only to forbid any mingling of faith and politics. Most importantly, the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

In his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson expounded the significance of this basic law:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.[172]

What does that analogy of a “wall of separation” imply about the relationship between church and state? As philosopher Onkar Ghate argues, its original and proper meaning is two-fold. First, the state ought not use its powers of coercion to shape people’s religious beliefs or practices, such as by requiring people to accept Islam or attend church. Instead, the state must only consider whether people’s actions, regardless of any religious motivation, violate the rights of others. So the state should intervene to stop men from beating their wives, even if sanctioned by religious scripture. And it should allow people to speak in tongues, even though that is foolish. Second, churches cannot be permitted to harness the power of the state to promote or enforce their preferred religious beliefs and practices, such as if priests acted as television censors or received special tax refunds. Instead, churches must respect the rights of others, using only persuasion to motivate belief.[173]

In essence, a proper government cannot give any more or less weight to certain beliefs just because they are religious in nature. The government must allow people freedom of conscience–including the freedom to act on their beliefs, however wrong or even absurd–provided that they do not violate the rights of others in the process. Yet the government itself must act solely based on rationally provable facts about man’s nature, including secular principles of individual rights–not based on any claims of religious faith. Such is the true meaning of a separation of church and state.[174]

Despite some secular veneer, “personhood” advocates aim to force Americans to comply with their notion of divine law. As we have seen, they proclaim that purpose, loudly and clearly. As such, they seek to violate every American’s freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.

Of course, “personhood” activists have every right to attempt to persuade others to follow divine law, as they see it. They have every right to condemn abortion on religious grounds–and attempt to persuade pregnant women not to abort. However, to impose their views by force–whether as vigilantes or political activists–constitutes a grave violation of rights.

In sum, due to their inherently religious motivation and justification, “personhood” measures violate the separation of church and state–and thereby threaten the very foundations of our freedom. A just and proper government must determine the rights involved in pregnancy on the basis of empirical fact, informed by an objective theory of rights. It must recognize and protect the rights of actual persons, not invent rights for merely potential persons. It must uphold the right of the pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy at any time, for any reason.

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