Socrates and FOCA

Ray Moose's favorite game is to raise a big stink about something important while slipping something else in on the side. We all get excited about the economy--admittedly important--and while the air is still full of dust the issue of life itself--which gives the economy its importance--slips through. And so we end up with a president who wants to sign FOCA.

Thanks to the USCCB, most people know that FOCA would force hospitals to perform abortions. At once the religious freedom flag went up, and much dust has rightfully been kicked up about it; but we should take time to hear the argument in favor of this pro-abortion coercion and think about what it means.

The argument is this: abortion is part of basic health care.

Now apart from whether every hospital is bound to provide every part of basic health care, as though half a loaf were not better than none, notice that we have entered into a philosophical debate. How would you define what man is: based on sick people or based on healthy people? Obviously, the standard for what man is, or should be, is the healthy person. So the question of what constitutes basic health care is a question about what man is. It could have come from the mouth of Socrates.

Our president emphasizes common ground, and hopes that we can find reasonable comprimises on issues like abortion. But FOCA brings things into focus: the truth about man is not only philosophical, but political as well. Politics hinges on anthropology. Pragmatic unity cannot trump radical theoretical division.