Steven Waldman

Should Morality be in the Abortion Plank?

Thursday August 21, 2008

Oh if only the abortion debate could be carried out with the civility of two posters in our comment box. Both Denny and Michael make excellent points (on opposite sides) related to my long post about the behind-the-scenes negotiations over the Democratic Party abortion plank:
Denny:

In the Democratic Platform it says "In the platform hearings, Americans made it clear that it is morally and economically unacceptable that our high-schoolers... The Democratic Party clearly believes that graduation from a quality public school and the opportunity to succeed in college must be the birthright of every child-not the privilege of the few." So while the need for education is put in moral terms, the need for birth is not
.

Michael:

The problem with the "moral" language expectation is that there are two, competing moral concerns here. Abortion is a moral problem; the state restricting or controlling a woman's health care is a moral problem.

Would the pro-life side have been happy with moral language on abortion if there was competing language on the morality of the state controlling a woman's health care? Obviously, the risk of Obama including moral language when talking about abortion is that it ignores over 30 years of work by party loyalists working for the morality of allowing women to make their own heath care decisions without facing the power of the state. Restrictions do raise concerns about the morality of accessing helath care.


Advertisement

Post a Comment

By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.



Please type the text you see in the box below to verify your post and help us prevent spam. You have a limited time to type - you may wish to compose your comment in a separate document and paste it here upon completion.

Type the characters you see in the picture above.

Advertisement

Search This Blog

feed icon Subscribe

RSS Feed

Receive updates from Steven Waldman

Calendar

Advertisement

Advertisement


About Beliefnet

Our mission is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness. More about Beliefnet.

Legal

Copyright © Beliefnet, Inc. and/or its licensors. All rights reserved. Use of this site is subject to Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy. Constructed by Beliefnet.

Advertisement

Report as Inappropriate

You are reporting this content because it violates the Terms of Service.

All reported content is logged for investigation.