The best answer to the problem of abortion is the same as with any other sin. It is found in the preaching of the gospel. Still, legal strategies are not entirely out of the question when it comes to simply curbing a practice and I would like to address those here. In my last related post, which was about the reversal of a ban on a specific type of abortion, I concluded that these kinds of bans would never work unless they first addressed the fundamental rights involved. There are three: 1) The right of the state to protect the lives of its present or potential citizens; 2) The right to privacy (under which file the right to choose); 3) The right of all persons to life (unless forfeited for a capital crime and under due process of law). Current abortion law, as outlined in Roe v. Wade, is a balancing act between the first two. The third right remains intact but is made moot by the fact that the unborn are not legally recognized as persons. If they were, then the interplay between the first two would be moot, for abortion would be illegal except in the case of clear and present danger to the life of the mother. This much is admitted in Roe v. Wade section IX: The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. [Emphasis mine]
For the moment, though, and in order to understand the balance between the first two rights, please agree that the unborn are not persons. The right to privacy is never actually stated in so many words; consequently, many abortion opponents try to argue that it does not, in fact, exist. There is a misunderstanding here to the effect that this right entails the right to murder. It does not. The right to privacy is a matter of common law. In its simplest form, it is the right to be left alone. It is the right to be free from state intereference in one's private life. Be careful not to limit the concept of privacy to things that would be embarrassing if any one else witnessed them. This right coveres such things as personal medical decisions, family relationships, child rearing and education, etc. Any attempt to toss this one out will have some undesired consequences. The right is not absolute. The right to raise your children as you see fit does not include the right to abuse them. The state can and should step in. Similarly, the right to an abortion is balanced (at least in theory) against the state's interest in its present and potential citizens.
Roe v. Wade divides pregnancy into trimesters (we will leave aside the question of whether in so doing they intruded into legislative ground- it is de facto the law of the land). Stipulating to the facts as understood by the court, first trimester abortions are equally or less dangerous to the life and health of the mother than is natural birth. The state, therefore, has no compelling interest in restricting the woman's right to privacy. Second trimester abortions are more dangerous to the life of the mother; consequently, the state has the right to regulate how these abortions are done. Two factors are present in the third trimester: 1) Greater risk to the life of the mother and, with that, more restrictive regulations; and 2) the immenent potential for the state to gain a citizen. This last point means that the state can proscribe third trimester abortions altogether. But only in theory. While the states interest can override the woman's right to a personal decision, it cannot override something like a claim to physical or mental distress. Some of these claims may be legitimate, others are just loopholes. The bottom line in practice is that if a woman wants an abortion, she gets an abortion. And so it should be; that is, if the unborn are not persons.
The court considered a combination of factors in its determination of pre-natal nonpersonhood; some more legitimate than others. 1) It noted the lack of a agreement within philosophical and religious circles. 2) It noted certain legal precedent for not affording the unborn the same civil rights (e.g., inheritance rights). 3) It noted the history of abortion within common law. 4) It looked at the word "person" as it is used in the Constitution. The first is not quite to the point. While lawmakers would certainly want to consult various opinions on the matter, the final determination of legal personhood is a matter of legislation. On the second, the court overlooks the distinction between the rights of citizens and the rights of persons. It may be the case that the unborn have a history of fewer rights because they are not seen as persons, but it is not necessarily so. It is more likely that the intents of the lawmakers were diverse.
The third factor, abortion within common law, notes that the relatively stringent abortion laws found in the United States are of comparitively recent origin; not much over 100 years at the time of the ruling. They note that abortion was rarely, if ever, illegal before the first "quickening," that is, the first detectible movement in the womb. After this, the punishment was still less than was that for causing a post-natal death. Nonetheless, the facts in evidence are insufficient to warrant the court in concluding that the reason for this lesser punishment had anything to do with the personal status of the fetus.
As previously noted, it had been argued that a fetus is person within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. However, the amendment does not state this in so many words, nor are there any cases that state this. The court looked at the use of the word elsewhere in the Constitution, noting: "Person" is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, Art. I, 2, cl. 2, and 3, cl. 3; in the Apportionment Clause, Art. I, 2, cl. 3; 53 in the Migration and Importation provision, Art. I, 9, cl. 1; in the Emolument Clause, Art. I, 9, cl. 8; in the Electors provisions, Art. II, 1, cl. 2, and the superseded cl. 3; in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, Art. II, 1, cl. 5; in the Extradition provisions, Art. IV, 2, cl. 2, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The very next line is as obvious as it is irrelevant: But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally.
Why, yes Mr. Justice Blackmun, very few 30 year old fetuses ever run for Senate. There is no need to count 3/5 or any fifths of them for tax purposes. They are unlikely to commit any crimes worthy of extradition. They make very inefficient slaves, but, at least, they never run away. And the jury is still out on their effectiveness as Electors.
While the intelligent conclusion would have been that none of these are applicable to the question of pre-natal personhood, the court, instead, writes: All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.
This misses entirely the point of the objection.
This same section of the Fourteenth Amendment that protects the rights of persons also provides the constitutional basis for the right to privacy. It reads: All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Justice Rehnquist, in his dissenting opinion, failing to draw the distinction between the right to privacy and the denial of the right to life, argues against the former. Nevertheless, he does make a good point against the Fourteenth Amendment as a whole being used in favor of so -called abortion rights. He writes: By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion. While many States have amended or updated their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today. Indeed, the Texas statute struck down today was, as the majority notes, first enacted in 1857 and "has remained substantially unchanged to the present time."
If there really were a right to an abortion contained and intended in this amendment, it would not have taken over 100 years to notice that something was amiss. Furthermore, the framers of this amendment could not have been unaware of the implied status of person found in these several laws.
It is up to the court to prove, if it wants to draw this conclusion, that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically meant to exclude the unborn. If it were a simple matter of not thinking about them, then the guarantee of life would apply whenever any legislature within the United States decided to recognize them as persons. This was implicitly done when Texas passed the anti-abortion law in question. The court acknowledges this intent: Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
But the legislature is. Nevertheless, the court denies them this right and substitutes its own speculation anyway. It begins section X of its decision: In view of all this, we do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake.
This resides among the worst cases of judicatory legislation. By denying Texas the right to its own theory, the court substitutes its own, which is that this life cannot be pre-natal.
If there are to be any effective challenges to Roe v. Wade, they need to address the fundamental rights involved. The best option, as I see it, is to challenge the court's legislative usurpation by passing laws that explicitly define when personhood begins. This is where it would be possible to take a gradualist approach. We can compromise at some point other than conception. The definition needs to be reasonably demonstrable. I believe that personal life begins at conception, but I would have a hard time demonstrating this, much less proving it. A far more plausible objective is for legislation to connect the beginning of personal life with viability defined with or without life support. The actual age of the fetus would decrease as the technology advanced. I would not, however, advocate a challenge to the right to privacy. Not only does this right protect women who choose not to have an abortion, but it is not possible to open a significant dialogue by proposing to take away someone's rights. We need to protect those rights while at the same time making a convincing case that they don't always apply.
Guide me, Lord, o'er paths you've chosen:
Set for me to walk within.
Not to right nor left digress me;
Keep me from presumptuous sin.
Make me neither poor nor wealthy;
Take far from me lies and fame,
Lest I say, "My God, who needs you?"
Or defile your holy name.
You are righteous, Lord, and upright
Are your judgments. Judge me, then,
That I might be more like Jesus:
Sanctified and freed from sin.
Teach me, Father, how to trust you,
How to not depend on man.
Lead me, God, and daily show me
How I fit into your plan.
Make your Word a lantern for me
While above are darkened skies.
Light my heart until the day dawn
And the Day Star in me rise.
I don't know how feasible this would be or how many details I'm overlooking; nevertheless, in the middle of the night, while trying to sleep, I have suddenly found myself wondering why we have to pay taxes. Federal taxes, that is. I'm curious about this and so would like to argue the following point: In an advanced capitalistic economic system such as ours, federal taxes are unnecessary. Note that this does not mean that government spending or the government itself is unnecessary. The government needs to exist and it must spend money in order to function. So the question is not whether the government should have some spending money, but what it should do to get it. Someone already may have thought of this and I'd be interested in some literature on the subject, but why can't the government just legislate it's budget into existence and then deal with the economic consequences by adjusting the interest rate? I'm not proposing phantom money here (at least, I don't think I am). To see why, though, we need to consider where money comes from in the first place.
All of the wealth in a society is ultimately derived from raw product; namely, mining and agriculture. If any society is to function at all, it needs these. If it does not have them for itself, then it has economic ties with a society that does. Consider the most primitive society. Everyone spends the bulk of his time obtaining the means to survive. It's not really a society. Advance it slightly through some specialization, and you have the basis for trade. There is no currency, only a barter system. If the society is large enough, there will have to be a magistrate who cannot spend time growing food. Therefore, taxes. Feed the chief. The potential for a great deal of wealth is locked up in such a society and will remain so as long as the entirety of the people's effort is spent getting the earth to produce.
And then, streamline the process a bit so that it takes fewer people to supply the raw material for the population. One night, a farmer decides to stay up and invent a plow. He increases his produce and has more than he needs. A neighbor notices and the two strike a deal. The farmer will give his neighbor the plow in exchange for a portion of the increase in his crops. The neighbor accepts the plow and the farmer retires to become a full time plow maker. A layer of artisans have been added to the economic mix and more of the wealth of the raw product is extracted. Next, the artisans become more efficient at what they do and there is room for a merchant class. At some point in the process, barter as been replaced with currency. It is in the form of coins, the value of which is inherent in the material. Eventually, the coins will be replaced by paper currency. For the time, however, this will all be backed by some valuable product, such as gold. Taxes are still required.
The basic idea is that, as each layer of society becomes more efficient, another can be added and more wealth can be extracted from the raw product. It goes further. Now add an industrial revolution: artisans on a macro-scale. After this, there is the service industry, information age, and so on. Interspersed throughout all of these layers are employees with incomes. The government stands outside of this economic structure, but it needs the structure in order to exist; consequently, it must ensure the viability of the structure. The government is responsible to ensure fair trade. It sets uniform standards for weights and measures and it controls the money supply. The more money there is floating around in relation to actual wealth, the less valuable it is, and vice-versa with less money. The way in which this control takes place has changed.
Consider the gold standard, which was in existence until well into the last century. In this system, the real money supply is fixed. The pieces of paper represent various amounts of gold. If more paper is pumped into the system, prices will go up, but only on paper. The actual value will settle down to what it was. X amount of cheese will still be worth x amount of gold. The gold will simply be represented by a greater printed number. Still, sudden money can cause some chaos. Counterfeiting is frowned on. Generally, the government is not going to want to throw more paper into the system. At least, not until the value of the economy has increased. This, however, does not devalue the currency. The assumption is that not all of the gold is being used. As the economy grows, more gold is put into play. All of which works just fine for a moderately sized economy. But what happens when the value of the economy outstrips the value of the gold? Either the economy stalls, or the gold loses value.
The purpose of having a gold standard was to give the government a credible means of regulating trade. There was no reason, though, to maintain this means. With the government firmly in place, it retains this power along with the exclusive right to print money. Yet now, the money does not represent the value of the gold, but the value of the economy. Since the value of the economy is not fixed, neither is the value of the money. Too much money representing the economy and there is inflation; too little, and there is stagnation. [It's also possible to have both. Inflation would be relatively harmless if it happened evenly across the board. For instance, if when I noticed that prices at the gas pump had gone up I could be assured that my wages had also risen in equal measure, I wouldn't care. But since it doesn't happen so evenly, I might stop spending my money and stall the economy.] In order to maintain things, the government will print more or less money. But it doesn't just dump the money. It injects it into the economy by lowering interest rates and removes it by raising them. Nor does the economy have to be cash based. It could be all credit and debit cards with electronic banking and the money supply would still be controlled by the interest rates.
Concerning taxes: Suppose that I, your average American, am in one of the economic layers earning wages. Assume that these wages are a fair representation of my work. And then the government taxes me. I no longer have everything I worked for. If we add everbody together, taxes alter the economy. This is inescapable. The government must exist and the economy will just have to absorb the burden. But why must it do so at this particular point? Consider the wages again. It isn't necessary to think of income taxes in terms of having been cheated. This can certainly be the case; I submit, however, that this is more do to the unevenness and social engineering in our current tax system. It is conceivable for an income tax to be fair.
Trade is subjective. If it is to be successful, each party must leave with the better part of the bargain. I am not going to buy a book unless the value of the book is worth more to me than its price. You are not going to sell me a book unless the price is worth more to you than the value of the book. Apply this to a good work situation. For the sake of round numbers, let's say that I get paid $10 and hour and get taxed $2. What is the net difference between this and getting paid $8 with zero taxes? If I'm happy with these wages, what does it matter if my paystub has an inflated number? If I am to be dissatisfied, it must be because the value of my work is worth more to me than the money I actually get to keep. It cannot be a psychological reaction to my so-called gross pay. If I have been smart in my job search, my subjective rewards will be more than I put in. My employer is happy to pay me $10; $2 more than I am content to receive. This is only because my work causes the company's profits to increase more than I am paid. Both my employer and I are getting full value out of my work. So where did the $2 in taxes come from? For all practical purposes, the government created it. Remember what lies behind the value of money: the economy as a whole. It is no longer barter, nor is it a gold standard. Essentially, the government determines the value of the economy and then assigns it a number of credits. The idea is for the credits to consistently represent value within the economy. As the value of the whole goes up or down, so should the number of credits available.
Assuming a strong capitalistic system, in which any tax-based intereference with the value in the economy is kept at a minimum, taxes are nothing more than the incremental unveiling of extra credits at various points of economic exchange. The government creates them and stores them outside of the economy. Some credits may escape into the economy and other credits that belong there may be locked away all due to too great or too little withholding. It all evens out on April 15. The real effect on the economy comes when the government decides to spend the taxes. Suddenly, a number of credits, which were not a part of the economy's original assessed value, are released into it. The net result is the same as if the government had lowered interest rates. Because there are now more credits, each one lessens in value. Interest rates must be raised to maintain the right balance. [Not necessarily at that time. I don't mean to suggest that they keep fluttering up and down. It is possible to adjust them to a level that would retain some stability throughout the process.]
Back to my original question. Why can't the government just legislate its budget into existence? Why can't it just declare that it has money, spend that money, and then raise interest rates to compensate for any imbalance to the economy? If I'm understanding the basics of a free-market tax system correctly (feel free to question this), the government is already legislating its budget into existence. It just makes it jump through a bunch of hoops before spending it. Here's how: The base value of the economy is determined and the credits are assigned. The legislation of the budget comes at the point where interest rates are kept lower than required to achieve the proper number of credits. The additional credits created are gradually removed after being identified as taxes during various economic exchanges. The subsequent spending process and results are the same. As I'm seeing it, aside from a massive reduction in paperwork and the sudden inability to resdistribute wealth, the only tangible effect of simply declaring government money into existence would be higher interest rates. But since the rates are artificially low in the first place in order to create the necessary tax revenue, this shouldn't be that big of a problem.
I'm tired.
Tertullian was born in Carthage in the vicinity of 150 to 155 AD. He grew up in a pagan household and later may have become a lawyer in Rome. He was converted to Christianity around the age of forty and, subsequently, turned all of his legal expertise toward writing in defense of the faith. He kept this up, but then, in about 207, he became a Montanist. It is not known when Tertullian died.
Tertullian was a prolific author. His works range from apologies addressed to pagans, to arguments against heretics, to practical and moral works. In the latter category, there is a marked shift toward moralism after he converts to Montanism. Tertullian’s writing style was somewhat terse and tinged with sarcasm throughout. In many cases, he would coin his own words in order to capture a thought; thereby becoming the primary contributor to Ecclesiastical Latin. The negative side of this is that his writing is sometimes obscure. Although he came up with some of the formulations that would later be used in the church’s definitions of orthodoxy, there is some question as to whether he invested them with the same definition. Tertullian never wrote just to practice his technique, but always had a specific purpose mind.
Perhaps the best example of Tertullian’s knowledge of Roman jurisprudence is found in The Prescription against Heretics. The argument does not try to refute specific heresies as such; rather, it is a matter of legal procedure. A prescription was a strategy used by the defense in which objection was made to the form in which the plaintiff wished to pursue the case. If successful, the case could be thrown out of court. In the case of orthodox Christianity vs. heresy, the form in question was the use of Scripture. The heretics were interpreting Scripture in a manner contrary to the accepted teaching of the church. Normally, at this point, the debate should have become a matter of hermeneutics or exegesis. But Tertullian prevents it from getting this far by arguing that Scripture belongs only to the church. The heretic has no right to use it in the first place.
The Prescription is an ingenious argument; nevertheless, from our post-Reformation perspective, it may appear to beg the question. Why couldn’t the Roman Catholic Church have used this argument against the Reformers? The answer, I believe, can be found by observing the nature of either side. Despite the overemphasis that is present today on the sufficiency of the individual in scriptural interpretation, this was not the intent of the Reformers. They were interpreting Scripture in line with the teaching of the historic, catholic church. Neither present day individualists nor second century heretics do this.
As to the church, there is no identity between the church of Tertullian’s day and the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century. Tertullian did appeal to apostolic tradition in support of his argument; however, this was a tradition that was rooted in scripture. The Reformers protested against an organization that had formed a body of tradition alongside scripture. Such tradition, not arising from the only legitimate doctrinal source, must fall prey to Tertullian’s prescription. It is interesting to note that Tertullian had to abandon this strategy after he became a Montanist.
One of the aforementioned phrases that would later come to express the orthodox view of the trinity is “one in substance, three in person.” It is found in Against Praxeas. Praxeas was a monarchial modalist. He believed that there was only one person in the Godhead who manifested himself in different ways. God’s ability to rule, that is, his monarchy, is dependent on his unity. Multiple persons, so said Praxeas, destroyed this unity. Tertullian disagreed and ably demonstrated why. Nevertheless, what he presented in support of the unity of the Godhead may not be so clear.
The question goes to a debate over Tertullian’s use of the word “substance.” Was he using it in the metaphysical sense commonly associated with orthodoxy; or, as some have argued, was he using the term in a legal sense? Here, substance is property and the right to use it. Insofar as Tertullian is arguing against Praxeas’ view of monarchy, the comparison is drawn to the Emperor, whose substance is the Empire. The Emperor is able to share this substance, and, consequently, his rule with his son. Under this view, the divine Father and Son would be no different. Not only is it possible for more than one person to share a single substance, it is also possible for the same person to have more than one substance.
We do need to exercise caution here. Even if the case can be made that Tertullian had this legal view of substance, it does not follow that this goes beyond a mere illustration. We do not need to conclude that Tertullian thought of godness as something accidentally owned by the three persons of the trinity. Nevertheless, despite a desire to give Tertullian the benefit of the doubt, I do find myself wondering to what extent an unorthodox view of the trinity might have led to his conversion to Montanism. Montanus claimed to be the incarnation of the Holy Spirit. I cannot see how agreement with this is orthodox.
Another problematic doctrine of Tertullian’s was traducianism. This is the idea that the soul derived from the souls of the parents. Actually, the doctrine itself, although wrong, is not that bad. This was, until the Middle Ages, the majority report of the church to explain original sin. The problem lay in the Stoic philosophy behind this doctrine. Tertullian, according to Gonzalez, believed that both the soul and God were corporeal beings. If this is, indeed, the case, then, going back to Tertullian’s views on substance, he would have to conceive of deity as a property owned by the three persons of the trinity. His phrase, “distinct but not separate,” would not have the same orthodox flavor that we might like.
I do not accept the usual criticisms of Tertullian’s irrationalism. His statements need to be understood in context. And, normally, I would give the orthodox sounding things he says every benefit of the doubt. However, for me, his conversion to Montanism calls much of his previous writing into question. He may have provided some invaluable language and formulations for later orthodoxy, but I am still left wondering what he really meant.
Drink, my thirsty soul, of waters
Jesus Christ your Lord supplies.
Taste the life blood freely flowing
As upon a cross he dies.
Seek the Lord while you may find him;
Call on him and you will live.
By his death, your God has spoken.
By his death, he will forgive.
Why then would you vainly labor
In what cannot satisfy?
Jesus Christ has bought your pardon:
Solely on his work rely.
And the hills will break forth singing
Midst the clapping hands of trees
For my Jesus heals the wounded
And the captive soul he frees.
Drink no more of earthly waters
Drawn from fountains made by men.
God supplies you living waters-
Drink, and never thirst again.