Brown, Rehnquist and Contemporary Politics

[JMHACLJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/11/2005 8:16:07 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
mgraber at gvpt.umd.edu writes:

Might  this be a reasonable
measure of their moral compass (in a way abortion is  not, as it remains
the case that persons we think reasonable take different  positions). 



If one believes that children in utero are humans and alive, then, of  
course, this is the lodestar of moral decision-making.  And, it goes  without 
saying, if that is one's view, then it is no more reasonable to support  legalized 
abortion than it is to support legalized slavery of Africans,  legalized 
oppression and ghetto-ization on reservations and murder of Native  Americans, 
legalized Holocausts, etc.
 
Now in the Rehnquist screed by Dershowitz and in the comments that  followed, 
at least one participant here noted that the Chief was not being  remembered f
or his civil libertarian bent and a downward reaching hand in  his decisions 
to aid those less fortunate.  But if you have reviewed the  evidence and 
concluded that abortion kills human beings, then you wonder  how anyone can 
celebrate the civil libertarianism of Brennan or of  Marshall.  Libertinism, yes.  
Civil libertarianism, no.
 
Now, I realize some will recoil at my suggestion that killing tiny  babies is 
be morally equivalent to enslaving blacks, oppressing Indians, or  genocidal 
murder of Jews, gypsies and others.  But you should understand  your revulsion 
for what it really is:  a blank and utter failure to  understand precisely 
what it is that we believe and know, those with whom you  hold such deep and 
abiding disagreement.  Reasonable people "can and do"  disagree about many 
things, but this often is the result of ignorance or  misunderstanding, not of the 
evidence that there are no lodestars, no watersheds  and no "one right answer."
 
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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