I think a good litmus test for whether you should let people make political decisions is how well they can explain the best in-good-faith arguments of the side they disagree with.
For example, the best argument for a progressive income tax is that it makes those people with more disposable income shoulder more of the collective tax burden than those with less disposable income, and any conservative who won’t grapple with this particular nut isn’t going to see himself any closer to a flat tax. (Progressives, it should be noted, cannot articulate the best arguments for conservative positions.)
The Kansas supreme court has issued a ruling on abortion rights today that sets forth what is the best argument for legal abortion; namely that people should have the right to do whatever they want with their bodies. (The best argument against abortion, if anyone is interested, is that abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human life).
The problem, though, is that when deciding policy, one shouldn’t just look at the best argument for one’s case, one also needs to look at the larger consequences for that argument.
A frequent complain of libertarian-leaning pro-lifers is that they want to make pretty much everything legal for someone to do to their own body, except for this ONE THING which happens to kill someone else when a woman does it. On the other hand, progressive-leaning pro-choicers are pretty much comfortable with the government regulating every aspect of a person’s conscience and action except this ONE THING which happens to kill someone else.
Court rulings are different than political arguments. Political policies are usually contradictory and in flux. Court rulings set permanent precedence in a jurisdiction.
The Kansas Supreme Court has just made it very, very plausible that voluntary suicide, polygamy, complete decriminalization of drugs, voluntary separation from schooling by children, and essentially any other non-violent act are now legal in Kansas.
This, more than anything else, is the inherent civil flaw in unlimited access to abortion based on personal autonomy. No state that says “you have such complete control over your body that you can kill someone else” can possibly also say “but not such complete control that you can’t kill yourself”.
In a sense, unrestricted rights to abortion give citizens the right to eat the whole pie, which means that any attempt to restrict access to lesser parts of the pie become absurd. Basic calculus tells you that if you allow someone to go 80 mph on the highway, you also have to let them go 60.
The Supreme Court of Kansas has backed itself into a corner. In order to protect abortion, it has made it impossible for the people of Kansas to regulate any kinds of personal behavior.
This, more than anything else, should demonstrate just how extreme law codes need to be in order to accommodate unrestricted abortion access, and this extremism should give pause to the political left.
Should–but won’t.
granolarepublican 