If Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani is right about abortion, Paris Hilton should be released from jail immediately.
BY The Editors
June 17-23, 2007 Issue |
Posted 6/12/07 at 8:00 AM
If
Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani is right about abortion, Paris
Hilton should be released from jail immediately. Consider what he said about
abortion at the last presidential debate: “My view on abortion is that it’s
wrong but that ultimately, government should not be enforcing that decision on
a woman.”
We all know why Rudy thinks abortion
is wrong — because every abortion snuffs out the life of a human being, the
most vulnerable human being among us, the unborn child. If abortion weren’t the
killing of an unborn child, then it would be irrational for Rudy to say “my
view on abortion is that it’s wrong.”
Rudy thinks drunk driving is wrong
for the same reason he thinks abortion is wrong. When he was mayor of New York,
he explained it very succinctly: “Drunk driving kills people.”
So, if Rudy is against abortion
because it kills people and he’s against drunk driving because it kills people,
then we should be able to change his sentence from the presidential debate this
way:
“My view on drunk driving is that
it’s wrong, but that ultimately, government should not be enforcing that
decision on a woman.”
But of course, he would never say
such a thing. As mayor of New York, he toughened drunk-driving laws. “The
purpose is simple,” he said: “to save lives.”
Paris Hilton is in jail (for driving drunk and then driving on a suspended license) thanks to the same sorts of laws Rudy
Giuliani put in place in New York. And Paris is lucky. She learned the easy way
that it is wrong to drink and drive. The hard way is to cause a traffic
accident that either kills or hospitalizes you — or, perhaps worse, in which
you kill or hospitalize someone else.
The easy way is to face the law and
learn that the law won’t bend, not even for you. The result may be the
humiliation and hardship of incarceration, but that’s better than a long life
filled with guilt or a short life filled with pain.
Paris needs to call Rudy and tell
him what she has learned about the law. Rudy needs to know that there is also
an easy way and a hard way to learn that abortion is wrong.
The easy way is the way Rudy learned
it. He grew up in a country where it was illegal, and learned why it was
illegal in Catholic schools. The hard way is to actually have an abortion.
“Respect for human life finds an
ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child,” said the
Supreme Court in its opinion on Carhart vs. Gonzales.
“While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems
unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the
infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of
esteem can follow.”
Women who have had an abortion
regret it for the rest of their lives — the thought that an innocent child died
at their hands is almost too much to bear.
That’s why it is indeed the business
of the law to make a determination about when life begins and to prevent the
big business of abortion from preying for profit on women in difficult
circumstances. If it were illegal, our culture’s attitude toward abortion would
change. We often think of the law as a mere enforcer of community standards,
when law in fact sets community standards.
Years ago, we wouldn’t think twice
before driving after drinking a little bit too much. First came a
public-education campaign about the dangers of drunk driving. There was a new
public stigma attached to drunk driving and an awareness of the dangers. That
changed our behavior quite a bit.
But then came changes in the law.
First, there were tougher sentences on repeat offenders. Then there were
tougher sentences on first-time offenders. Finally, there was a change in the
definition of what blood-alcohol content means “drunk.”
The changes in the law changed our
behavior a lot. We are less likely to drink more than a little if we are
planning to drive, and far more likely to find an alternate driver if we have.
In case after case, the laws
enforced by the government change the behavior — and the moral standards — of a
community.
“Click it or ticket” laws have
greatly increased seat belt use. No smoking laws have drastically cut smoking.
Decency laws that kept pornography out of mainstream stores kept pornography
relatively rare. Laws that prevent communities from banning pornography have made
pornography ubiquitous.
If the New York court’s decision to
override the FCC’s ban on TV profanity is successful, you will soon find
profanity as pervasive on network television as it is on restricted cable
channels.
When Rudy Giuliani made his argument
about abortion, lightning struck the building in which the debates were being
held, causing his microphone to cut in and out.
“For someone who went to parochial
schools all his life, this is a frightening thing that’s happening right now,”
Giuliani joked. Of course, precisely because he has gone to Catholic schools,
Rudy knows that the image of an angry God making his feelings known through
lightning bolts is from the cartoon world, not the Catechism.
God knew the importance of law. That’s why he gave us the
Fifth Commandment. And God’s response to people who know killing is wrong, and
promote it anyway, isn’t very funny.
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