Liberty NOW?

The left is truly amazing. Really, they are. They can do the most amazing things with words. Erin Matson accomplishes this and with great finesse. She is able to subtract meaning, add meaning, and substitute meaning, all it appears without breaking a sweat. Her concern is the Illinois judge's ruling that a pharmacist has a conscience right regarding the dispensing of specific medicines. She begins:

Yesterday, an Illinois Judge turned over a state rule requiring pharmacists to sell emergency contraception, asserting that it violates a state "right-of-conscience" law and the First Amendment.

So far so good. She disagrees with the ruling. No surprise there. But her next paragraph begins to express the inconsistency we find in today's left.

How "free speech" has come to be interpreted as a right to deny a safe and legal prescription and directly control the inner workings of another person's body is an inexplicable overreach, and judicial activism of the worst kind.

I guess this means that Erin supports a ban on flag burning. That is, after all, a personal speech expression.

It is also sexism, as it is directed only toward women.

But is it directed at them because they are women? That's a correlation without a cause, a pretty basic fallacy.

Now she plays her hand -- she lets us know exactly what she things about our system of laws and freedoms.

This ruling represents a triumph of superstition over science.

We live in the Enlightenment world of dualisms where what is supposedly "real" knowledge is supposed to hold sway over what is "unreal" knowledge. In Erin's world there is no room for morality. There is no room for faith. There is no room for anything other than that which is measurable -- scientific. This is, of course, a position which has not been thought through very well, and we will discuss that at length later.

Like the "Monkey Scopes" trial less than 100 years ago, in which religious fundamentalism scored a temporary triumph over a large body of scientific evidence supporting the theory of evolution, the entire premise of this "conscience" has no basis in science.

Well, unfortunately Erin has a quite limited view of Christianity and religion in general. Unless she is willing to say that all religious systems which hold to conscience and moral values amount to some type of "fundamentalism" it seems that she is using the term "fundamentalism" as a pejorative. As I recall, a good deal of liberal religious morality is one of the abortion industry's foundations.

Some people who don't support abortion rights also don't support the right to emergency contraception, and to justify their second belief they claim that emergency contraception is abortion. However, the facts don't back that up.

I wonder what makes contraception an "emergency"? What makes it so life-critical that contraception must be given? Is it life-threatening? That is hardly the case for those many college girls who use this system for personal convenience. There is nothing life-threatening about the next morning. The "emergency" does not exist -- unless pregnancy itself is considered evil.

Implantation is the first step of a pregnancy, as recognized by the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association and other respected medical institutions. Emergency contraception prevents implantation before it occurs -- that is why it's called emergency contraception. It's a contraceptive. It's not an abortifacient. The American Medical Association debated the issue, and after a period of review, rejected the idea that emergency contraceptives are abortifacients.

Here is an important line that Erin has drawn. She has changed subject. This not about preventing contraception -- this is about preventing implantation of a conceived human being. It is about interrupting the process of life. The product of Erin's remark is to change conception into implantation and redefining terms is a convenient method for deception.

It's really bizarre for "pro-life" pharmacists to try to stop women from accessing emergency contraception, because emergency contraception makes it less likely that women who are currently not pregnant and do not want to be pregnant will seek abortions in the near future.

Again with the inflammatory "emergency" rhetoric. And again with the confusion of definitions -- it's about life, not about pregnacy and convenience.

Yesterday's ruling is a horrific moment for reason, and more important, the health, lives and well-being of women and their families in the state of Illinois. The Attorney General has announced an appeal is planned, and that's a good thing.

And again with the dualism of "reason" versus "faith" that is her primary subtext. But she cannot escape without the fear-mongering -- that women all over the place are going to die if they cannot get this med the next morning. Their health is apparently also at risk.

But even in all of this she can still define something as "good." The problem is that nobody can measure "good" because it is a value judgment. And if her ability to measure according to science and reason cannot account for the immeasurable content of "good" then she has no business saying that anything is good.

She may respond that it may be accounted for as a result of some deontological utility -- that there is some duty to provide the least pain and greatest pleasure possible. But to do that would mean that she would have to dismiss her claim of "science" as a foundation her belief system. Science demands either a specific measurability or a framework for measurement. Utility provides neither.

The removal of theology from public discourse leads to this type of logical emptiness. It is no wonder that the West is failing in education. When the institutions of this and similar nations proceed to produce such ill-conceived (pun intended) notions that secularity can produce goodness then we are headed down the road of 20th c. Europe and Asia. We are headed toward totalitarianism and the explicit removal of the right of conscience -- an end which is specific to and a requisite component of Erin's post.