Notre Dame

Bad post below. I lack the will and time to polish and properify...

I've never been a Notre Dame fan despite being Catholic. I certainly don't see the point in making noise about Obama's talk there. He didn't say anything surprising or contrary to previous statements. The Pope has expressed optimism about Obama (the friggin Pope!).

To be sure, while recently abortion has been supplanted by gay marriage for the title of "wedge issue d'jour," it is still a major issue within the Catholic Church. It is actually pretty hard to get excommunicated, but abortion is one of the easiest paths to that, e.g.

On the one hand I sympathize with the moral difficulty surrounding the question. On the other, the only time we can legislate against a moral issue is if that issue goes against our rights as well (murder, robbery: illegal, cheating spouse: legal). The anti-abortion crowd rallies around the fetus as a separate human deserving equal protection. The pro-abortion crowd fights back that a pregnant woman is not two people--no matter her declarations--historically, under the law, or in practice. The privacy issue goes something like this: a woman does not need to declare herself pregnant, and so any actions that she takes while pregnant cannot be judged on the basis of that pregnancy. Abortive actions, while bizarre, would not be illegal actions if a woman were to chose to have them done while not pregnant. Elective surgery is not illegal. Since it is not legal to forcer her to declare her pregnancy, nothing she does while pregnant can be illegal if it is not illegal otherwise. ...or something.

My personal view on the legal front is that it cannot (and should not) be outlawed. On the other end any moral decision made in a vacuum (as mine must be made) is precludes a stark response, so I am limited to saying that I feel, in general, it tends toward the darker shades of gray. My biggest issue is that "pro-life" people in large numbers seem to have supported the pro-death Bush administration. I can say that on the moral gray scale, starting a war against a much smaller country that has done nothing to you is pretty damn black...and so is torture.

Of course I bring up the abortion and Notre Dame thing to point out bad and highly publicized statistics (the link goes to the reasons for the bad).