That Age Old Question

I want to focus something very important that may have gone unnoticed in the VP debate last Thursday night.  Near the end of the debate, Martha Raddatz asked Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden about their views on abortion and why they hold those views.  Here is the question, which is telling in certain ways, and Paul Ryan's response:

MS. RADDATZ: I want to move on, and I want to return home for these last few questions. This debate is indeed historic. We have two Catholic candidates, first time on a stage such as this, and I would like to ask you both to tell me what role your religion has played in your own personal views on abortion. Please talk about how you came to that decision. Talk about how your religion played a part in that. And please, this is such an emotional issue for so many — 

REP. RYAN: Sure. 

MS. RADDATZ: — people in this country. Please talk personally about this if you could. Congressman Ryan. 

REP. RYAN: I don't see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do. My faith informs me about how to take care of the vulnerable, about how to make sure that people have a chance in life. 

Now, you want to ask basically why I'm pro-life? It's not simply because of my Catholic faith. That's a factor, of course, but it's also because of reason and science. You know, I think about 10 1/2 years ago, my wife Janna and I went to Mercy Hospital in Janesville where I was born for our seven-week ultrasound for our firstborn child, and we saw that heartbeat. Our little baby was in the shape of a bean, and to this day, we have nicknamed our firstborn child, Liza, "Bean." (Chuckles.) 

Now, I believe that life begins at conception. 

That's why — those are the reasons why I'm pro-life.

I cut out the rest of his answer, which was very good and focused on the extreme nature of the Obama Administration's abortion record.  Here is VP Biden's answer:

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: My religion defines who I am. And I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life. And it has particularly informed my social doctrine. Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who — who can't take care of themselves, people who need help. 

With regard to — with regard to abortion, I accept my church's position on abortion as a — what we call de fide (doctrine ?). Life begins at conception. That's the church's judgment. I accept it in my personal life. 

But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews and — I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the congressman. 

I — I do not believe that — that we have a right to tell other people that women, they — they can't control their body. It's a decision between them and their doctor, in my view. 

And the Supreme Court — I'm not going to interfere with that.

Although I didn't quote the last section where Biden said unequivocally that the HHS mandate does not force Catholic institutions to pay for contraception-related drugs (the Catholic Bishops came out in a strongly worded statement and reproached Biden for his equivocation), I want to focus on Biden's articulation of a "creed" that seems to go for high intellectual thought today:  That one can privately hold views that touch on things right and wrong but that publicly, they have no right to impose those views on anyone else.

This is a basic non-sequitor.  If this were true, law would not be possible.

What if in 1858, during the debates with Stephen Douglass, Lincoln came out and gave the exact same answer Biden gave with respect to the question of slavery?  How would we of thought of Lincoln if he said that while he privately abhorred slavery, he had no right to "impose" his views on others?

When Congressman Ryan said that he "believes" abortion to be a wrong (he made a mistake by using the word belief), he was stating that it is not only wrong for him but wrong for anyone else as well.  This view emanates from permanent truths that are bound in our nature, truths that are not dependent on the teachings of biblical revelation (though they are consistent with those teachings).  Abortion is wrong not because of some feeling or belief; and it is certainly not wrong simply because a majority of our country now believes abortion to be wrong:  it is wrong because it ends the existence of a whole class of beings on the basis of nothing more than the convenience or feelings of hardship by another group of beings.

Lincoln's statement of the true nature of slavery would be well remembered here:

"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent."

It is a shame that the moderator asked this question near the end of the debate, because this is a conversation that needs to be had (the best place to start is with this book).