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C Rulon: The Christian Right & the power of money

The Davids of science, rationality and humanistic compassion vs. the Goliaths of powerful Christian fundamentalist and evangelical organizations.

By Charles L. Rulon
Emeritus, Life & Health Sciences
Long Beach City College ([email protected])

Introduction

The total financial budget of all those organizations in the United States in 2010 that educationally and politically campaign for humanistic societies, gay equality, death with dignity, abortion choice, separation of church and state, plus sex education, evolution education, and climate change education runs in the low tens of millions of dollars. For example, the Center for Inquiry which publishes Free Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer has a budget of around $3 million. NARAL, a leading pro-choice organization has an annual budget of under $5 million.
In stark contrast is America’s Christian Right. Campus Crusade for Christ in 2010 raised around $500 million!! Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network/Regent University raised over $350 million! Jerry Falwell’s ministries, Liberty Counsel and Liberty University raised over $400 million! The Southern Baptist Convention raised over $200 million! James Dobson’s Focus on the Family – $130 million!; Heritage Foundation – $70 million!…and on and on. [1] Don’t even ask about the financial resources of the Vatican or of huge sums of money pouring into Christian Right political candidates from giant corporations.

The explosive growth of the Christian Right

Money, of course, buys power. Throughout the 1980s there were reported to be some 4000 evangelical and fundamentalist television and radio broadcasters in the U.S. reaching an estimated 40,000,000 Americans. There were also some 80,000 evangelical pastors, plus 200+ Bible colleges across the United States.
By the early 1990s, fundamentalist and evangelical Christians were swinging major elections. In addition they claimed control of over 2000 school boards nationwide, elected nine state governors, took control of numer¬ous legislatures and dominated 20 state parties. [2]
By 2001 the Christian Right had taken control of the White House and much of Congress. By 2005 100 million Americans were claiming to be evangelical Christians, Christian radio and TV broadcasters were reaching over 140 million listeners and a number of religiously conservative law schools were training students for legal assaults on church-state separation.
In 2010, more that 600 measures were introduced in state legislatures in an attempt to force women with unwanted pregnancies to stay pregnant against their will—in essence, to be reproductively enslaved. Also, 29 Christian conservative governors were elected, all solidly anti-choice.
Consider just three of the many Christian Right organizations and leaders: Campus Crusade for Christ, Focus on the Family and Televangelist John Hagee.

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ (now known as Cru), with its $500 million budget, has operations in 190 countries, is on over 1000 college campuses in the United States and has extended its operation into high schools. The problem is that its beliefs (and the beliefs of over 10,000 other Christian clubs on campuses) can create serious obstacles to learning. After all, why learn about our biological evolution, or the critical importance of keeping abortions legal, or of insuring basic human rights for gays when Scripture is said to be against all of these? And why be too concerned about overpopulation, or equality for women, or global warming, or nuclear and biological weapons when all the truth one needs to know is in Scripture — particularly since the destruction of our world is inevitable as foretold in Revelation and the Second Coming of Christ is only around the corner.

Focus on the Family

A major player is James Dobson of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. By 2010, James Dobson’s colossal fundamentalist Christian media empire was taking in over $130 million/year. It was presenting news programs daily on 3,000 radio stations in North America, heard on radio broadcasts in 99 countries, mailing out four million pieces of mail each month, buying television time on 80 stations daily and maintaining an activist network of over 100,000 people. Dobson has backed political candidates who called for the execution of abortion providers and defined embryonic stem-cell research as “state-funded cannibalism.” He issued warnings to the Bush administration that his agenda must begin to be implemented in Washington and by the federal courts if the Republican Party wanted his continued support. [3]

John Hagee

Reverend John Hagee is an extremely influential American televangelist. He is the founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, a non-denominational evangelical church with about 20,000 members. Hagee has received millions of dollars in compensation for his position as CEO of his non-profit corporation, Global Evangelism Television (GETV), which telecasts his national radio and television ministry carried in America on 160 TV stations and 50 radio stations to 100 million homes. His ministries can also be seen in Canada, Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and in most third world nations.
Hagee has asserted that Hurricane Katrina was an act of God, punishing New Orleans for “a level of sin that was offensive to God”. He specifically referred to a homosexual parade that, he said, was held on the date the hurricane struck as proof “of the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” (Actually the gay parade was scheduled for the next week and those areas spared the destruction included most of the gay neighborhoods.)
Another reason for God sending Katrina, Hagee claimed, was the Bush administration’s pressure on Israel to abandon the land God gave them 2000 years ago (the Left Bank). Therefore, claimed Hagee, God took American land in a tit-for-tat exchange during Hurricane Katrina.
In 2008 Hagee came out in strong support for presidential candidate John McCain who initially sought and welcomed his endorsement. Later, McCain changed his mind when he learned that Hagee said that God had used Hitler and the Holocaust to send the Jews to Israel, the Promised Land.

Closing Thoughts

There is little doubt that the Christian Right has become a financially extremely powerful force in American politics. [4] Today, there is no comparable force in either our state or national governments that is willing to defend secularism, or to vigorously support women’s reproductive rights, or gay equality, or death with dignity, or evolution education, or ecological sanity. The Republican Party is currently dominated by conservative Christians who appear wedded to archaic biblical morality. The Democratic Party has also failed, as its politicians increasingly affirm their devotion to religious piety in public pronouncements. Indeed, to amplify Will Rogers quote, we have the best Congress and media that religious/corporate money can buy.

“Any person or group who holds beliefs contrary to those of the Religious Right is certain to be the target of hostility, recrimination and ridicule…I do not object to them expressing their views. That is their right. But I will not remain silent while these political operatives manipulate religion to condemn those who op¬pose their narrow agenda.”

—Walter Cronkite [5]
——————————————————

[1] Major organizations in the Christian Right include The Christian Broadcasting Network (www.cbn.org), Focus on the Family (www.focus onthefamily.com), the American Center for Law and Justice (www. aclj.org) working with the Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, The Alliance Defense Fund (www.alliancedefensefund.org), the American Family Association (www.afa.net), the Family Research Council (www.frc.org), Concerned Women for America (www.cwfa.org), Jerry Falwell Ministries (www.falwell.com).
Also included are the Christian Coalition, National Right to Life Committee, National Conservative Political Action Committee, Liberty Foundation, Coalition for America, Institute on Religion and Public Life, Heritage Foundation, Ava Maria Foundation, Christian Voice, Christian Action Council, American Coalition for Traditional Values, the Eagle Forum, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Citizens for Excellence in Education, Coral Ridge Ministries, National Legal Foundation, Traditional Values Coalition and many more.

[2] “Onward Christian Soldiers,” U.S. News & World Report, June 6, 1994, p. 43. Also see Creation/Evolution, Vol. 15, #1, p.47. (Published by the National Center for Science Education; www.natcenscied.org)

[3] “Dobson’s Choice: Religious Right Leader Becomes Political Power Broker” at www.pfaw.org.

[4] An excellent newsletter which monitors Christian Right activities is “Church & State” published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit educational corporation www.au.org.
For everything you might want to know about the Theopolitical Right: Their personalities, ideologies, agendas, goals, and methods of operation read Democracy under Assault: TheoPolitics, Incivility and Violence on the Right, by Michele Swenson (Sol Ventures Press, 2005).
For a fascinating history of the Christian Right, along with an analysis of their arguments, see Robert Boston’s 1993 book, Why the Religious Right is Wrong, published by Prometheus Press at www.prometheus books.com. Also check out Boston’s book, Close Encounters with the Religious Right at www.robert boston.com.
See also Kimberly Blaker’s The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America and John Shelby Spong’s Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism.

[5]Walter Cronkite, The Interfaith Alliance www.interfaithalliance.org

C Rulon: The Christian Right

By Charles L. Rulon
Emeritus, Life & Health Sciences
Long Beach City College ([email protected])

Introduction

The United States with its powerful Christian Right with its medievalist faith-based agenda and its allies in Congress is a disquieting anomaly in the present industrialized world. It stands in glaring contrast to the last several hundred years of solid scientific discoveries, comparative religious studies and humanistic ethical advances. Made up of evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant sects, plus conservative Catholic organizations, the Christian Right is a major theological movement whose ultimate goal is to “return” America to a biblically-based morality. [1]

Since the early 1980s, the Christian Right has been waging a massive political, propaganda and legal war against separation of church and state. They have been undermining the art of negotiation, empathy, compromise and even democracy, itself, in favor of a quasi-theocracy with inflexible religious dogmas codified into law. They have been using their biblical world-view version of both physical reality and of morality to justify aggressively blocking many important scientific, medical and social programs.

Morally rigid solutions
Christian fundamentalism is based on a literal reading of the Word of God, the Bible. It is, thus, not an elastic world-view that can be updated with advances in scientific knowledge (although most now accept that the earth goes around the sun).
Fundamentalists refer to the Bible for their beliefs regarding abortion, contraception, homosexuality, sex education, non-marital sex and the origin of species and races. They believe that morality in America is collapsing due to our having deserted the Bible, “our only true moral foundation”, in favor of “atheistic evolution”, secular humanism and “killing God’s unborn children”. [2] They believe that God made us heterosexual with definite gender roles and that sex is reserved for marriage. All other forms of sexual expression are sinful and thwart God’s purpose. So they believe that God abhors pornography, homosexual acts, adultery, abortions from the moment of conception, premarital sex, sex education (except to stress abstinence) and the teaching of evolution.
According to anthropologist Sheila Womack the “hard-core” fundamentalists even believe that there exists a cosmic war on Earth between God and Satan, battling for human souls. It’s the Christian forces of good battling the atheistic disbelievers who are controlled by Satan. These fundamentalists, according to Womack, live to fight against abortion, gay rights and anything else they perceive as coming from Satan. Satan never quits in attempting to discredit Scripture. So, it’s a battle to the end. [3]
Womack found that most fundamentalists were not of the “hard-core” type. But most did believe that dilution of biblical doctrines could only lead to hopeless moral relativism and despair. In their perception, the breakdown of the family, the perceived promiscuity of the sexes, the spread of AIDS and drug abuse, the spread of homosexuality (actually, it’s not spreading), the acceptance of abortion and pornography, etc., are symptoms of a culture that has turned away from God and the Bible.

Evolution
For the large majority of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians (including many of the current Republican candidates for President), the scientific reality of our 3.8 billion-year evolutionary history is rejected. They fervently believe that without a literal Adam and Eve there can be no fall from grace, no original sin and, thus, no need for a savior. They believe that if one can’t trust Genesis to be literally true, what can one trust in the Bible? They believe that if one takes evolution seriously instead of the Bible, the moral foundations of our society will collapse. “Christ died to save God’s creation, man, not to save some evolved monkeys!” Thus, these Christians must choose either to stay willfully ignorant of much of science, or else to believe that any science that conflicts with Scripture is either the work of atheistic scientists, or even of Satan, Himself.

Private schools
Fundamentalists believe that there is a concerted attempt by the secular society to turn young minds away from the Bible and God. So every day more and more children are being pulled out of public schools and placed in private “Christian” schools that demand obedience to the “Authority of Scripture”. There are now several million children in thousands of such schools across our country.
According to Alan Peshkin, Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, the textbooks of these Christian schools have been grounded in the institution’s religious, cultural and political convictions. They present an extremely one-sided and often verifiably false view of the natural and social sciences and of the abortion issue. No attempt is made, according to Peshkin, to develop an appreciation of this nation’s cherished democratic principles such as the freedom of speech, the freedom of inquiry and the idea of pluralism. Instead, they seem to teach contempt for critical thinking and a condemnation of those who do not share the same religious beliefs or political views. Toleration of different beliefs is undermined and dissent is seldom tolerated. Such tactics subvert the students’ ability for rational, critical thought and cripple their ability to incorporate modern astronomy, geology, anthropology and biology into their education. These tactics also undermine the arts of negotiation, empathy and compromise, also critical in a democracy for finding solutions to the complex technological and moral dilemmas of our day, concludes Peshkin. [3]

Closing Thoughts

A conflict of global importance exists today between two fundamentally different views of sexual morality and even of reality, itself. One view is supported by hundreds of years of scientific discoveries, by rational, critical thought and by humanistic ethics based on compassion and science. The other view is based on papal infallibility and on ancient religious authority. These men spread the pernicious lies that morality in America is collapsing due to our having deserted the Bible, our only true moral foundation, in favor of “atheistic evolution”, perverted homosexual practices and “murdering God’s unborn children”.
To quote Sam Harris from his 2004 book, The End of Faith. “Imagine that we could revive a well-educated Christian of the 14th century. The man would prove to be a total ignoramus regarding geography, astronomy, biology and medicine, embarrassing even a child. But his religious beliefs would still be up to date and beyond reproach. And he would have access to 21st century weapons.”

—————————————————–
[1] Major organizations in the Christian Right include The Christian Broadcasting Network (www.cbn.org), Focus on the Family (www.focus onthefamily.com), the American Center for Law and Justice (www. aclj.org) working with the Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, The Alliance Defense Fund (www.alliancedefensefund.org), the American Family Association (www.afa.net), the Family Research Council (www.frc.org), Concerned Women for America (www.cwfa.org), Jerry Falwell Ministries (www.falwell.com).
Also included are the Christian Coalition, National Right to Life Committee, National Conservative Political Action Committee, Liberty Foundation, Coalition for America, Institute on Religion and Public Life, Heritage Foundation, Ava Maria Foundation, Christian Voice, Christian Action Council, American Coalition for Traditional Values, the Eagle Forum, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Citizens for Excellence in Education, Coral Ridge Ministries, National Legal Foundation, Traditional Values Coalition and many more.
[2] See creationist web sites; Also see Free Inquiry, a magazine published by the Council for Secular Humanism. (www.secularhumanism.org)
[3] Womack, S., 1982. Confronting the Creationists. (Ed. S. Pastner and W. Haviland)
[4] Peshkin, A. 1986. God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School. Peshkin, 1987. “The Truth and Consequences of Fundamentalist Christian Schooling,” Free Inquiry, Fall.

C Rulon: Emergency Contraception

By Charles L. Rulon
Emeritus, Life & Health Sciences
Long Beach City College

Emergency contraception

Q. What is emergency contraception?

A. Since the 1970′s, rape victims have often been immedi­ately given several ordinary birth control pills to avoid pregnancy. This worked most of the time and became known as the “morning after pill”. Today, there is a specifically formu­lated “pill”, a high dose of a synthetic hormone that can be used by women within 72 hours after unpro­tected sex to pre­vent preg­nancy (www.GoToPlanB.com). EC is about 75% successful in preventing a pregnancy that would have occurred otherwise.[1]
EC was finally approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1999 for women 18 and over with a doctor’s prescription. In 2006 it became available without a prescription and in 2009 the age was lowered to 17. Girls under 17 can obtain a prescription.

Q. How does emergency contraception (EC) work?

A. Depending on when they are used during a wo­man’s month­ly cycle, EC works by prevent­ing the release of an egg from the ovary, or by block­­ing sperm from fertilizing the egg, or by inhibit­ing the im­plan­tation of the blastula in the en­do­met­rium or inner lining of the uterus. The blas­tula is a ball of cells smaller than a pin head that will eventually be­come the embryo.

Q. How safe is EC?

A. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have re­viewed the scientific data on EC and found it quite safe. Although regular use is not rec­ommended, there have been no reported deaths or serious complications in over three decades of use. In addition, studies have shown no in­creased risk of birth defects or other problems with women who accidentally took high dose birth control pills after they were already pregnant.

Q. Can EC interrupt an early pregnancy and cause an abortion?

A. No. It takes about five days after fertil­iza­tion for the develop­ing blastu­la to reach the uterus and begin to implant in the endometrium. EC is ineffective once the im­plan­tation process has begun. The American Col­lege of Obstetricians and Gynecolo­gists, the World Health Organiza­tion and the Nation­al In­sti­­tutes of Health all define pregnancy as be­gin­ning with the success­ful im­plan­tation of the blas­tula in the uterus. So even as long as two decades ago, polls re­vealed that 85% of phy­si­cians in the U.S. who opposed abor­tion did support EC.[2]

Q. Should EC be avail­able to minors without a pre­scrip­tion?

A. Of course! Because of the short time factor for using EC, because so many teens are into preg­nancy denial and careless when they have sex, and because they refuse to discuss their private sex life with their par­ents, the ready availability of EC becomes critical. Remember, con­doms, foam and the sponge are already available to minors without a prescription.[3]
France made EC avail­­­able to minors with­out a pre­scription years ago. The French Gov­ern­ment says it’s just being prag­­matic. Teens have sex. They make mis­takes. Preg­nancy shouldn’t be one of them. So nurses in public high schools through­out France have been authorized to distribute EC to some 1.7 million French girls by re­quest. Free of charge.

Q. Do we really want to copy the French?

A. In this area, why not? Consider: Every year in the U.S., over three million unin­tended preg­nancies occur. Half are from contra­ceptive failure and about half of these end in abor­tions. Furthermore, over one million of these un­planned children are being born to teens at a taxpayer cost of billions of dollars a year. In addition, over two million chil­d­ren in the U.S. are physically abused each year by their mostly young par­ents. And finally, over 15 million American kids now live in poverty, with hundreds of thousands abandoned to the streets. The emotion­al, physical, social and finan­cial costs of unwanted pregnancies to all these girls and women, to their kids, to their families, and to society at large are stagger­ing. So of course EC should be widely adver­tised on TV, covered in all high school sex education classes, available without a prescrip­tion in pharmacies, and freely handed out to all girls and women during their routine family planning visits to keep for an emergency!

Q. But if EC becomes too easy to obtain, won’t teens use it instead of contra­ceptives?

A. Some might, but at least they would be using something! Besides, EC can have unpleasant side-effects including nau­sea, vomiting, head­aches and cramping. It’s also less effective in preventing pregnancy (75% effective) than are most contra­ceptives. And, of course, EC provides no protection against AIDS and the other two dozen or so sexually trans­mit­ted diseases. This is the main reason why condom usage is so important with casual sex.

Q. Won’t giving teens EC encourage even more sex and more unwanted preg­­nancies?

A. Numerous studies have al­ready shown that in-depth sex education classes and the easy availability of contra­ceptives do not result in more sex. But they do result in more responsible contraceptive usage. Also, most contra­ceptives are not fool-proof. The condom has a 15%/year failure rate with typical use. Even the pill has an 8% failure rate with typical use. Teens are careless and make mistakes. So with EC as a backup, unwanted pregnan­cies can be greatly reduced.
In most Wes­t­­ern European coun­tries, teens are just as sexual as here. But be­cause of widespread availa­bility of sex edu­ca­tion, con­traception and EC, plus less sexual guilt, the teen preg­nancy rate is one-half to one-tenth of ours! Also, the spread of sex­­u­ally transmitted diseases is viewed as a serious pub­lic health problem, not a sign of dirtiness and immor­al­ity.

Q. Still, isn’t abstinence preferable for teens?

A. Arguably, certainly for young teens. But in the U.S. only 7% of males and 20% of females are currently holding out for their honey­moon. So for those teens who’ve chosen to be sex­ual, shouldn’t our society do everything possible to avoid unwanted pregnancies?

The importance of EC

Q. Could EC re­ally make that big a difference worldwide?

A. Absolutely! Globally, literally millions of families are devastated year after year as women with small children die from illegal botched abor­tions, or from pregnancy complications, or suf­fer chronic debilitating pain from massive infections, perforated uteruses and punctured intestines from botched abortions.
Furthermore, there are now one bil­lion teenagers worldwide who are (or soon will be) having sex. Most lack any sex education, or any access to family plan­ning services. In addition, tens of millions of aban­don­ed children now wander­ the streets of its major cities and over ten million children continue to die every year from preventable causes.
But with EC the number of un­intended pregnan­cies could potentially be cut in half. In HALF! Thus, the wide­spread easy availability of EC could consti­tute one of the most important advances in birth control in the last 30 years. The ability of women to have re­productive control over their own bod­ies has long been an essential goal in the never-ending bat­tle for global fe­male equality and stronger families, plus re­duced poverty and disease.
In addition are sobering environmental realities. Our planet continues to pile up over 75 mil­lion additional humans every year, roughly half of whom were never planned in the first place. Because of human activity, invaluable for­ests and topsoil are disap­pearing at alarming rates. Water tables are seriously dropping in many ar­eas. Deserts and waste­lands are rapid­ly ex­panding. Species extinc­tion is accelerating. Massive, de­stabi­lizing ecological migrations to al­ready over­crowded cities continue to occur­ and global warm­ing has now become a major concern. If this environmental deterioration is al­lowed to continue, famines, riots and even social disintegration can’t be far behind.

Opposition to EC

Q. Why haven’t I heard more about EC?

A. Because of strong religious opposition from funda­men­ta­list Pro­tes­­tants and, in particular, from the Roman Catholic Church.[4] God has “told” them that once fertiliza­tion has oc­curred, a sacred, precious, innocent, new human life has come into existence, a life to be protected above all else. So “EC pills are abor­tifa­cients that murder innocent pre-born babies!” reads the anti-abor­tion lit­era­ture. Thus, to vig­­or­ously oppose EC is to do “God’s Will.”
Also, anti-abortion activists are claiming that EC encourages promiscuity, which leads to more unwanted pregnancies, which leads to more abortions! These religious beliefs, coupled with patriarchal power motives and moral zealotry have largely fueled the anti-abor­tion, anti-EC, anti-con­­­tra­­cep­tion and anti-sex edu­ca­tion efforts in the United States.
As a result, few family doctors until recently have been informing their patients and few health education instructors have been teaching their stu­dents about EC. In addition, drug manufacturers were slow to mar­ket EC fearing law­suits, boycotts and major finan­cial back­lashes from religiously conserva­tive mut­ual funds. Also, dozens of states have introduced bills that allow pharm­acists to re­fuse to fill prescrip­tions for EC.

Q. How about advertising EC on TV?

A. Good luck! Even mod­ern effective contraceptives (repre­senting some of the most important scientific advances in the history of civilization) are still not being widely adver­tised on American television. In 1986, 50 years after it became le­gal to adver­­tise contra­ceptives in the U.S., the first con­dom commercials ap­peared on tele­vi­sion—but not be­cause we had the high­est teen preg­nancy rate of all developed na­t­ions. Instead, it was a long overdue response to the deadly AIDS epi­demic. Yet, even then the up­roar, politi­cal pressure and threatened boy­cotts from the Christian Right squash­ed most ads. Con­tra­ceptive education and advertise­ments, they believed, encour­ages non-mar­i­­tal sex. Even the mention of respon­si­ble con­tra­ceptive use in most net­work pro­gram­ming has been censored for decades.

Q. Wouldn’t the Catholic Church be op­posed to EC regardless of the abortion issue?

A. Yes, since the Church is already strongly op­posed to all forms of “arti­fi­cial” con­tra­ception. Until 2011, the pope was even opposed to condoms for married couples in which one par­tner was HIV positive. U.S. bishops also have been vocal and consistent oppo­nents of EC (plus opposed to all domestic and interna­tional fam­ily planning programs). At the United Nations, Vatican officials have aggres­sively used their Church’s of­ficial governmental status (which no other reli­gion has) to block pro­grams and poli­cies that would make contra­cep­tion and EC more accessible in the poor­er parts of the world.

Q. Hasn’t there also been a problem with Catholic hospi­tals in the U.S. when it comes to EC?

A. Absolutely. One in six hospital admit­tances are to Catholic hospitals. That’s 50 million patients a year. About 80% of these hos­pitals don’t offer EC to rape victims brought in. Nor do they re­fer rape victims to hospitals that do supply EC.[5] To make matters worse, in recent years an in­creas­ing number of non-sectarian hospitals and HMOs have been taken over by Catholic health or­gani­za­tions.

The American public and EC

Q. Do most Americans agree with those opposed to EC?

A. No. Few really consider fertilized eggs and microscopic blas­tu­las to be so valuable or sacred that women should be forced to stay preg­nant against their will. Remember, even the majority of anti-abortion phy­si­cians in the U.S. support EC. The Religious Coalition for Repro­ductive Choice repre­sents several dozen reli­gious groups in this country. It argues that since major Christian faiths strongly dis­a­gree as to God’s position on contraception, EC and abortion, this entire is­sue is not (and never has been) a strug­gle between the God-fear­ing and the God­less, as the Christian Right has character­ized it.[6]

Q. Where do Catholics stand on these issues?

A. The majority of American and Euro­pean Catho­lics are us­ing mod­ern means of con­tra­­cep­tion in about the same mea­sure as are Protes­tant and Jewish couples. And by the late 1980s, Cath­o­­lic women in the U.S. were actually having abor­tions at a slightly higher rate than were Pro­tes­tants.

[1]The Office of Population Research at Princeton University operates the EC Web site, http://opr.princeton.edu/ec/.
[2]Trussell, J., Stewart, F., Hatcher, R., 1992, “Emer­gency con­tra­ceptive pills: A simple proposal to reduce unin­ten­ded pregnancies,” Family Planning Perspec­tives, 24: 269-273.
[3]Ellertson, C. et. al., 1998, “Should emergency contracep­tive pills be avail­able without prescription?’ Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association 53 Continue reading →

C Rulon: Medical Abortions (A potential revolution in women’s reproductive health)

By Charles L. Rulon
Emeritus, Life & Health Sciences
Long Beach City College

Introduction

In 2000, 12 years after RU-486 (a.k.a. Mifepristone or the abortion pill) became available in France, the U.S Food and Drug Administration finally approved it (with several restrictions) for the early medical termi­nation of preg­nancies. By 2008 medical abortions accounted for about one-fourth of all abortions nation­wide.

Why the 12 year delay? Because since the late 1970s there has been a “civil war” of sorts in the U.S. over abortion. There have been bombings, shoot­ings, death threats, clinic destruction and physicians murdered. Anti-choice literature continues to claim that it’s no coinci­dence that RU-486 was produced by the same German com­pa­ny that made the poison gas for the death camps in Nazi Germany.

Yet, comparing the U.S. to Nazi Ger­many pre­sents a window to the extre­m­ist world-view of anti-choice activists. The many pro-choice religious, social and medical groups that endorse a woman’s right to choose would never have done so if they had believed for one second that abortion was equiva­lent to mur­der­ing babies.[1]

The Republicans in Congress and in state legisla­tures continue to be strongly anti-abor­tion. In just the first seven months of 2011, some 472 anti-choice state bills had already been introduced. Today, 87% of all counties in the U.S. no longer even do early abortions.

But Mifepristone could potentially diffuse much of America’s (and many developing nations) current abortion “civil war”. It could do this:

a) By moving abortions out of the easily picketed (and bombed) public cli­n­ics into the pri­vacy of a doctor’s office and the privacy of one’s own home;

b) By encour­ag­ing very early abor­tions (safer, cheaper, less upset­ting, more politi­cally tenable than later ones);

c) By causing a miscarriage that is indistinguishable from a natural one (especially important for women in countries where they risk arrest if they seek help in a hospital after a botched abortion); and

d) By greatly in­creas­­ing the number of physicians willing to do abortions. Over one-third of doctors inter­viewed in the U.S. have said they would be wil­ling to dis­pense Mifepristone in the pri­vacy of their offices.

In addition, 5 out of 6 abortions take place in developing countries where abortion is frequently illegal and/or where poor sterilization and training makes surgical abortions quite dangerous. 70,000 women die every year from botched abortions and millions more need hospital care due to hemorrhaging and life-threatening infections. As a result, having a private medical abortion rather than a public or clandestine surgical one potentially represents a major revolution in women’s reproductive health.

“As word spreads among women worldwide about what a few pills can do, it’s hard to see,”

writes Kristof in the N.Y. Times (8/1/10),

“how politicians can stop this gynecological revolution.”

Basic information

Q. How does Mifepristone work?[2]

A. Mifepristone [Mifeprex™] blocks the action of pro­ges­terone. Progesterone is a “pro-gestation” hormone neces­sary for the uter­ine lining to support a devel­op­ing embryo. With­­­­out pro­ges­terone the uterine lining breaks down and is expelled along with the em­bryo. When used with the drug, misoprostol a day or two later (which brings about uterine contractions), Mifepristone is over 95% effective if taken within 9 weeks of gestation.

Q. How safe is Mifepristone?

A. All drugs carry some risk. But Mife­pristone has proved to be much safer than car­rying to term and giving birth. In the 1990′s over 600,000 women in Europe and millions more in China used Mifepristone to terminate an un­wanted pregnancy.[3] No deaths were reported. In contrast, dozens of men have already died from using Viagra, a drug with far fewer restrictions. According to the FDA there are no known long term risks associated with using mifepristone and misoprostol.

Therefore, women may pursue another pregnancy whenever they feel the time is right after having a medical abortion.

Q. What are the side effects and cost of a medical abortion?

A. There’s cramping and bleeding similar to an early natural miscarriage. There can also be nausea and diarrhea. It costs about the same in the U.S. as an early surgical abor­­tion (vacuum aspiration). In India, a medical abortion pill kit is sold online for about $5.

Q. How do women who’ve had a medical abortion feel about it?

A. In one study of 1,049 women who had already had an earlier surgical abor­tion such as vacuum aspir­ation three-fourths said they pre­ferred the medical abortion.[4] But some women maintain that because of the side effects of a medical abortion they would have preferred a safe, quick abortion via vac­uum aspiration . . . . except for the “domestic terrorist” ac­tivities of the picketing anti-abortionists at clinics where vacuum aspirations are performed.

Q. Could Mifepristone be used as a “morning-after pill”?

A. Yes! In fact, Mifepris­tone appears to be better than any of our currently avail­able emer­gen­cy con­tra­cep­tive pills. Its success rate is much higher (99% vs. 75%) and there appears to be signi­fi­cantly less nausea, vomiting and head­aches.

Q. Are there other uses for Mifepristone?

A. The American Medi­cal Associ­a­tion has en­dor­sed testing Mifepristone as a possible treatment for breast and prostate can­cer, glaucoma, certain brain tumors, infertility and en­do­metri­osis.

Q. Would the easy availability of Mifepristone result in more abortions?

A. It didn’t in France or Sweden. But there abortion is viewed as a public health issue instead of a sinful/criminal one. The U.S. is a dif­fer­ent story. If all it took were a few pills taken in the privacy of one’s home to end an un­wanted preg­nancy in its very early stages, then who knows? Some have esti­ma­ted that the abortion rate for early abortions could rise consider­ably. But pro-choice supporters see such a possible increase as another giant step forward in the ageless quest for women to gain re­pro­ductive con­trol over their own bodies and for couples to give birth only to truly wanted children. Besides, if the U.S. and state governments were really inter­ested in significantly lowering the abortion rate, we’d have widespread in-depth sex education and excel­lent inexpensive contracep­tion, plus emergency contraception readily available for all, including teens. This has been done for decades throughout Western Europe where the teen pregnancy rate varies from one-half to one-tenth of ours.

Q. I’ve read that Mifepristone can cause wide-spread infant de­form­ities. Is this true?

A. No. You’ve been reading dishonest propaganda cranked out by the anti-choice activists. After over 600,000 medical abor­­tions in Europe, Mifepristone has yet to be im­pli­cated in any fetal ab­nor­mali­ties.

Q. Didn’t France initially have trouble marketing RU-486?

A. Yes. RU-486 (Mifepristone) was initially developed in France in 1988. But it was only on the market for a month before being pulled from distri­bution by Roussel–Uclaf, the drug manufacturer, because of intense pressure from mostly American-inspired anti-abortionists. How­ever within one week the French Minister of Health order­ed the drug to once again be dis­tributed, stating that RU-486 was “the moral property of women, not just the property of the drug com­pany.” This is in glaring con­trast to how the U.S. has acted.

Q. How has our government responded to Mifepris­tone?

A. Over three decades ago the Republican Party joined forces with the Religious Right and has fought against the right of women to terminate unwanted pregnancies ever since. As a result, under Republican Party leader­ship Mifepris­tone studies were banned in the United States up to 1993 when Bill Clinton became President. Clinton immediately issued an exec­u­­tive order lifting the ban and began to exert pressure on Roussel–Uclaf to make this drug avail­able in the United States.
In 1994 Roussel–Uclaf removed itself from this heated controversy by donating the U.S. rights to man­ufacture RU-486 to the Population Council, a New York-based nonprofit organization that pro­motes repro­ductive health.

By 1996, Mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness had been confirmed by the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­istration. Now all that was needed was a manu­fac­turer. And that’s where the whole process bogged down. The anti-abortionists threatened mas­sive boy­cotts and liability lawsuits against any company seek­ing to obtain F.D.A. approval to manu­facture Mife­pris­tone. They also threatened to target anyone who helped to manu­facture, market, sell, or finance its produc­tion. As a result, virtually all of the major pharma­ceuti­cal companies declined to ei­ther produce or distribute Mife­pris­tone.[5]

Also, a num­ber of state legisla­tures intro­duced laws out­lawing the use of Mife­pristone if it ever became available. In 1998 the House of Representa­tives voted to bar the FDA from using funds for the testing, development, or man­u­facture of any drug that could be used for an early medi­cal abortion.

­Finally, in September 2000, 12 years after it became avail­able in France, the U.S Food and Drug Admin­istration approved Mifepristone for early termina­tion of pregnancy.

Misoprostol

Misoprostol causes uterine contractions. It is used with Mifepristone in medical abortions. Yet, 5 out of 6 abortions take place in developing countries where abortions are frequently illegal. But misoprostol is not illegal. It has long been widely available for treating gastric ulcers and for saving lives of women with postpartum hemorrhages. Also, it is cheap, stable at room temperatures, easy to transport, easy to administer, and does not require refrigeration, even in hot climates. It can be found on Internet sites all over the world.

So what? So researchers have discovered that misoprostol all by itself can be 75-85% effective in terminating an early pregnancy. This makes misoprostol potentially much better and safer than the horrible alternatives available to the tens of millions of women who seek out illegal abortions each year. Active research on the optimal dosing and administration strategy of misoprostol is ongoing throughout Latin America and East Asia.[6] In the roughly 15%-25% of cases where misoprostol administration does not lead to a complete abortion, additional intervention is required.

Some closing thoughts

History has clearly documented that it’s the num­­ber of mater­nal deaths and injuries, not the number of abor­tions, that are most affected by laws attempting to block elective abortions. In poor coun­­tries, the risk of death from an illeg­al abor­­tion is from 25-100 times greater than it would be from having a legal one.

Also, pregnancies in poorer coun­tries can be very dan­ger­ous. Over 600,000 women die yearly from pregnancy-related com­plica­tions. Since half of these preg­nancies were never wanted in the first place, the availability of excellent contra­cep­tion, plus emergency contraception, plus medical abortions and vac­uum aspira­tion as backups, could prove invaluable. Those who oppose such availability are assisting in the reproductive enslavement of women, the disintegra­tion of millions of families, the spread of poverty, and the increase in the number of illegal abortions.

Yet conservative Christians continue to claim they’re doing God’s will by opposing essentially all abortions. But, since the Bible is silent regarding elective abortions, where is it written that God wants us to force women to stay pregnant against their will—to be unwilling embryo incubators? Where is it written that God wants women to be either celibate or obligatory breed­ing machines? Furthermore, in spite of biblical interpretations, where is the religious wisdom and social justice today in placing women in a permanently subor­dinate position to men and essen­tially in reproductive bondage to the state?
————————————————

[1]The Religious Coalition for Repro­duc­tive Choice, repre­sents over 40 dif­ferent denominations and faith groups in this coun­try and can be reached at www.rcrc.org. Also Phy­sicians for Repro­ductive Choice and Health, which now has thous­ands of physician members and speaks for over 130,000 physicians in getting RU-486 released. See www.PRCH.org.

[2]www.medicationabortion.com – a multi-language website provides accurate information about medication abortion to health service providers including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, counselors, and office staff as well as educational information for women considering the option of medication abortion. For additional updates on Mifepristone, check www.earlyoption-pill.com, www.popcouncil.org, www.now.org, www.feminist­.org, www.PRCH.org.

[3]As of 2000, Mifepristone was legal in Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

[4]Winikoff, B. et al, 1998, “Acceptability and feasibility of early pregnancy termination by mifepristone-miso­pro­stol: Results of a large multi-center trial in the United States,” Archives of Family Medicine, 7: 360-366.

[5]New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1999.; Feminist Majority Newsletter, Sept. 1999.

[6]Gynuity – http://www.gynuity.org/ – Instructions for Use of Misoprostol for Women’s Health in several languages.

Body Snatchers; Learning outside the Field; and Big Tent.

by Juan Bernal

Invasion of the Body Snatchers:

After working hard at a recent group discussion to fend off the aggressive thrusts of some philosophical Dualists (those who believe that the body is an incomplete and inadequate reality without a dual non-material reality, e.g., soul, mental ego, or independent mind), I was struck by the similarity between such Dualist campaign to downgrade physical views of human beings and the story of aliens who snatched the bodies of human victims and replaced them with strange facsimiles. Of course, it may not appear that dualists and spiritualists are out to snatch away one’s body and replace it with an alien likeness (a strange pod which ‘hatched’ into a strange in-human likeness of the original), as were the aliens in the popular movie. But they do seem intent on reducing the human body-brain to mere matter-in-motion, a primitive form of material existence that cannot support the complex and high level of activity that we justifiably credit to our corporeal nature. If we argue that evolved human animals with their large brains are very much capable of reason, language, and culture, the Dualists reply that materialism is committed to the view that such animals are nothing but “matter-in-motion” which, of course, is far from being capable of reasoning, language use, and development of culture. So in a way, they have metaphorically “snatched away” our real bodies-brains (impressive organisms capable of great deeds) and replaced them with a strange pod of mere “matter-in-motion” capable of nothing but motion and mechanical interaction with other bits of matter-in-motion. Hence, they draw their invalid inference that a scientific materialistic philosophy either paints a frightening, alien picture of human beings or falls into obvious contradictions when applied to human, social reality. But, of course, this is definitely an invalid inference.
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Those Outside the Field Have been my Teachers:

Since my early days as a college student when I first developed an interest in philosophical thought and inquiry, after I accidentally came upon Walter Kaufmann’s Critique of Religion and Philosophy, I have gravitated to writers outside the mainstream of philosophy. It is the works of such writers such as Walter Kaufmann, Friedrich Nietzsche, Spanish writer and philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, the American-Spanish writer, George Santayana, and others who are more literary figures than academic, professional philosophers, that have given me the nourishment to sustain a life-long interest in philosophy. Although Walter Kaufmann was a philosophy professor at Princeton University, he was better known as an interpreter and commentator on Nietzsche and Existentialist thought, and as a scholar of religious history and scripture, than as an academic philosopher.

Later, while working on graduate degrees in philosophy, I developed great interest in the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the author of the Philosophical Investigations. As anyone familiar with the story, Wittgenstein was an engineering student who became interested in some problems in the philosophy of mathematics being worked on by Bertrand Russell. With little or no background in philosophy, Wittgenstein became Russell’s student for a time, before breaking with him to lead not one, but two, innovative philosophies of analysis and language. But he mostly worked independently and outside the academic environment of most professional, academic philosophers; and was often very critical of the mainstream English-German analytical philosophy of the twentieth century.

After my years in philosophy graduate programs ended, I went to work in the computer field as a business applications programmer and was able to reflect on the field of philosophy from the outside. My interests then became those of the logic of computer languages, the relationship to logic, linguistic analysis and natural languages, an amateur’s interest in the new field of artificial intelligence, and some curiosity as to how all this related to the philosophy of mind.

Later as I had more leisure to pursue “philosophical issues and questions,” it was the sciences that provoked my interest more than academic philosophical topics and research. First it was the physicists, with their deep puzzles and maddening paradoxes of modern physics (Einsteinian Relativity Physics, Quantum Physics), that drew my attention. How did all this affect traditional views of physical reality? How does all this affect our traditional philosophical thought? (Taner Edis’s book, The Ghost in the Universe, was very helpful here.) I did not see much in traditional philosophy that answered or even clarified the mysteries, finding more help from scientific writers such as Taner Edis and George Johnson. Then it was evolutionary biology and Darwinian evolution by natural selection that gave me an entirely new orientation to philosophy. Here I owe an intellectual debt to an academic philosopher, namely Daniel Dennett. His book, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, was as much an “eye opener” for me as the Walter Kaufmann book had been twenty five years earlier. But it was Dennett, as a scientific-oriented philosopher, not one focusing on mainstream philosophical issues, who proved to be such a great influence on my thinking. It was Dennett working outside the philosophical mainstream that I found so instructive, provocative, and inspiring.

After my initial look at the importance of Darwinian thought to many crucial issues in philosophy, I went on to read works by such neo-Darwinians as Richard Dawkins and Ernst Mayr in order to get at least a layman’s grasp of Darwin’s revolutionary insight – his theory of evolution by natural selection. This was followed by an interest in related evolutionary sciences – such as evolutionary psychology and anthropology. All this eventually led to the contemporary works on the philosophy of mind (Dennett, Doug Hofstadter), on neurological work as it relates to philosophy (Antonio Damasio), artificial intelligence and the incompleteness theorem (Doug Hofstadter) and the cognitive sciences (Steven Pinker).

Add to all this my discovery of a self-taught writer, Eric Hoffer, and his most insightful book, The True Believer, and we see that I had an uncanny tendency to seek out non-philosophers and non-academics when looking for enlightenment and intellectual stimulation.

Finally, in the past year I accidentally came upon a long book, Philosophy in the Flesh, by George Lakoff (linguist) and Mark Johnson (Philosophy Professor), in which the authors argue that a philosophy of an embodied mind which bases itself on the empirical findings from the cognitive sciences — instead of a-priori philosophical assumptions — yields a revolutionary perspective on much of philosophy. Here I found many of the ideas which I had only previously seen obscurely, ideas which the authors expressed, developed and argued impressively. Again, I am influenced by a scientist and a philosopher working outside the mainstream of philosophy.

Although I studied and earned degrees in philosophy, I am drawn to sources and teachers outside the field in my effort to reach some degree of philosophical understanding.

Go figure.(?)
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“Big Tent” Philosophy:

Sometimes I see the field of philosophy as a big tent which holds a variety of inhabitants; and sometimes I’m impressed by the strange variety of philosophical species that share this tent. The inhabitants are so strange and exotic that it is a wonder they can ever communicate at all, much less engage in meaningful discourse. Consider the variety of tent inhabitants that we find inside the tent: academic and non-academic scholars of philosophy; people interested in the history of ideas; Libertarians and those who look to Ayn Rand as a great teacher, Socialists and Marxists, those engaged in Christian Apologetics; Thomists; enthusiasts of some far eastern religion and mysticism; promoters of the Ba’hai; Phenomenologists who still value Husserl, Hegelians, Kantians, Cartesian Dualists, Empirists, Promoters and defenders of Atheism, Theistic philosophers, Naturalists or those who are scientifically oriented; mathematicians who are Platonists, Humanists, Skeptics, Logicians and Analysts, Wittgensteinians, Heideggerians, Pragmatists, Spiritualists and Idealists, Existentialists, Post-Modernists, and so on. (This does not list all the wonderful species and varieties; I just got tired of typing!) It is a wonder that those who call themselves “philosophers” or more realistically, see themselves as students of philosophy, can even talk to one another. As it happens, sometimes they really cannot; and sometimes it is a mystery why all fall under the heading “philosophy.” Besides claiming the label “philosophy,” I’m not sure they all have much in common; in fact, I’m fairly sure they do not.

Some confusion on the structure of language.

Not too long ago I engaged a philosophical acquaintance in a rather confusing discussion. I had objected to some philosophers’ tendency to bring up the notion of “incommensurable languages” when referring to our very different forms of expression when we talk about physical objects and when we talk about mental life. Accordingly, these two incommensurable forms of “language” allegedly suggest two distinct orders of existence, namely physical reality and mental reality: the discredited Cartesian dualism.

My interlocutor, Spanos, then restated things by substituting differing perspectives on reality for a dualistic metaphysics.

“It is a significant piece of evidence in metaphysics if we assume that the structures of language follow the structures of reality. Then the existence of incommensurable languages suggest that there are incommensurable orders of reality. In other words, it suggests dualism. But if we reject dualism, then we can distinguish between reality as it is in itself, and reality as it is in our experience. Then we can hypothesize that the incommensurability stems from the nature of reality as it is in our experience and not from the nature of reality as it is in itself.”

To which I replied:

Now you choose to talk about orders (plural “orders”) of reality. I thought that you had taken the position that there is only one reality of which there are two manifestations, physical and mental? But now it is a plurality of orders of reality. This might permit you to avoid a Cartesian dualism, but this surely brings up its own set of problems. The point at issue is your presupposition regarding the nature of descriptive language. I have grave problems with that.

Isn’t it a type of metaphysical confusion to speak of the “structures of language” reflecting (you say “follow”) the structures of reality? A good deal of any language (English, French, German , Spanish) has nothing to do with “following the structures of reality.” Language is used for many things other than describing reality. When I use language to make a request, to issue a command or to express my surprise, I am not describing the structures of reality. Moreover, I’m not sure that any part of descriptive language and scientific language can reasonably be described as one in which “the structures of the language follow the structures of reality.” The metaphysical claim regarding parallel structures is suspect, if not downright false. It is not as if a proposition (expressed as a statement in a language) is a picture of reality, which might or might not be commensurable with it.

For example, let’s take the declarative sentence: “The cat is on the mat” — uttered when in fact a cat is on the mat. Does it describe the structure of reality, and hence can be commensurable with reality? It seems to me that all it does is accurately state a fact: the cat on the mat. There is no attempt to state the structure of anything here; nor is the statement one that could pass as a picture of reality. If I needed to show the structure of the situation — cat on the mat — I would take a photograph or construct a model of the room-cat-mat. If I tell you that the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range is southwest from Pueblo, Colorado. I have accurately reported a geographic fact. I have not given a piece of language whose structure reflects the structure of reality (at best a good model of south-central Colorado might do that). Why would anyone think that language does that? I don’t have the vaguest idea what language would have to be to do that. Language does not function that way.

But I suppose this misses the metaphysical point about the function of language that you have in mind. However, surely the metaphysical position at issue (structure of language reflects the structure of reality) is not one held by many philosophers and scientists today.

Spanos then amended his position:

“I am not so sure that the structure of language follows the structure of reality. Maybe it only follows the structure of reality as we experience reality. That, in fact, is what the double aspect theory implies. So the dualism may be more apparent than real.

“Maybe the structures of language impact causally on the way we experience reality, as many philosophers have suggested. But if statements did not follow something, how could they be true? If a pragmatist says that they are true only because they work, the realist asks how they could possibly work if they did not at least reflect reality as we experience it. If someone says, “the cat is on the mat,” then he suggests a certain relation between the cat and the mat. If I take a look and find that the cat is in fact on the mat, then I would say that the relation represented in the sentence is verified by the relation found in experience. The whole of science seems to depend on this kind of relationship between idea and experience.”

To which I replied:

Your statement that maybe ” the structure of language…”only follows the structure of reality as we experience reality” strikes me as just another way of saying that in some cases we use language which is descriptive of the situation we perceive as fact. If we see a cat on the mat and in fact a cat is on the mat and I describe this by saying “a cat is on the mat,” my affirmation of the entities: cat and mat, and statement of their interrelation — cat is on the map – describes what is factually true. But I would claim nothing about ‘structures’ in general, either about language and certain not about reality, even reality as experienced. A description of a simple empirical fact (cat presently on the mat) does not involve a commitment (not even a suggestion) to a metaphysics regarding structures of language, reality, or reality-as-experienced-by-us. It is just a simple description of empirical fact.

Contrary to what the young Wittgenstein tried to show in his book, Tractatus, the syntax of language and patterns of logic do not parallel the ‘structure’ of the world. Languages function in varieties of ways which are not exposed by any particular patterns or syntax. And whatever “structures’ of the real world are exposed by the natural sciences (not by philosophy, which discovers nothing!) are varied and complex, and hardly such as to be “followed” by the structure of language. Not even the language of mathematics can be fully descriptive of the rich variety of “structures” found in nature. Maybe fractal geometry comes close; but surely the structures of fractal geometry are not found in our natural languages.

In short, I doubt that the parallel between language and reality which you assume as a metaphysical truth is really there at all.

Another acquaintance, Pablo, interjects:

“Well, yes, Spanos, I agree that language does reflect the structures of reality. I argued for this position long ago. Our notions of space, time, causality, and the subject/object nature of language reflect a world that is actually composed of space, time, causes, and a subect/object manner of looking at the world.”

At this point, I could only utter some bewilderment in closing the discussion:

“Language reflects the structures of reality”(?) “Our notions of space, time, causality” reflect “…a world composed of space, time, causes (?) And “and the subject-object nature of language” reflects “a subject-object manner of looking at the world” (??)

HELP! Some wooly-minded metaphysician has captured both Spanos’ and Pablo’s philosophical minds!

Yes, the natural sciences and religion do conflict

Many people (including rationalists and skeptics) believe that science does not conflict with religious faith. They point out that the natural sciences advance empirical theories about processes, forces and objects in the natural world, theories that involve measurable (quantifiable) tests and predictions. But the sciences do not deal with the big questions of religion and philosophy. They would emphasize, then, that science and religion are completely distinct areas of human activity and, thus, do not come into conflict. Furthermore, many scientists have no difficulty combining some scientific specialty with practice of their religious faith; when it is time to proceed scientifically, they do so; and when it is time for worship, piety and affirmation of their religious beliefs, they do that. For example, a practicing Christian (Protestant or Roman Catholic) can be a good physicists, biologist, chemist, anthropologists, psychologist, engineer, etc. . .

Hence, a first glance at the issue may indicate that there is no conflict between science and religion. They work in different areas of human reality, and do not infringe on each other. But as is often the case, a first glance does not tell the whole story. To tell the whole story, we have to take a closer look at the activities of scientists and the claims of religious people. When we do, we shall find reason for rejecting the claim that there is no conflict between two areas of human activity.

One way of describing the work of the scientist is to say that he develops and tests general theories that explain specific features of the natural world (e.g., the biologist works to explain life forms; the physicist, physical events and forces; etc. ). The natural, phenomenal domain is the domain of science; and, in principle, every aspect of this domain is a likely area for scientific investigation. For science there are no sacred cows.

In approaching his subject, a scientist may start with an initial attitude of curiosity combined with skepticism. Initially he seeks to explain certain phenomena or facts; at some point he comes up with a working hypothesis. The scientist, then, advances by trial and error, testing the hypothesis and at an intermediate stage of work, proposing the hypothesis as a tentative theory. The theory should be testable and subject to confirmation, or refutation, by other scientific investigators. When a theory passes such tests and thus enables scientists to explain a wide range of phenomena (even predict future events), scientists may accept it as a general theory in the field (e.g. Einstein’s Relativity Theory, or the Darwinian theory of evolution). Even then its acceptance is conditional; for future events or a more comprehensive theories could require that scientists abandon the theory or revise it significantly.

Does religious work proceed in any similar way? Religious doctrines never resemble tentative hypotheses; on the contrary, most religions start with doctrines and principles (matters of faith) that are seen by the adherents as absolute truths, not in anyway subject to doubt or in need of testing. Moreover, a large part of religious practice involves matters of spiritual and moral values; religions teach the faithful what their proper spiritual and moral orientation should be. In some cases, religions teach the correct way of interacting with other people (ethics, morality) and the correct values and priorities that should define a person’s life.

Does science have anything to say about man’s faith in God, or about God’s existence, or about man’s spiritual state, or about moral and spiritual values, or about a life’s orientation or the “way of wisdom”? Posing the questions this way suggests that there is no conflict between science and religion. For the sciences generally do not focus on these things; hence, there does not appear to be any conflict between science and religious faith. But before accepting this conclusion, let us look a little further.

When we delve a little more into this subject, we find that religions also hold doctrines that assert “truths” regarding human reality; for example, the theistic doctrine that God is creator and the ground of all our reality; or the doctrine that human beings are creatures of God, having a physical nature and a spiritual aspect (the soul), or the claim that the soul is immortal and will continue to exist in an after-life. In short, some religions (e.g., the dominant religions in the West) claim to know truths about the ultimate nature of human reality and the world that human beings inhabit. Additionally, western religions claim to know that God intervenes in human affairs and in other natural phenomena. They also hold that a full explanation of what human beings do and what happens to them ultimately will be traced to the actions of God; and, lastly, many of these religions hold that the origin of life, (plant, animal and human life) on earth can only be explained as the work of a creator god.

Here we have reason for claiming a conflict between religious doctrines and the sciences. For certain religious doctrines affirm particular propositions about human reality and the world of human experience, propositions which are very far from agreement with the findings of the sciences and rational inquiry. The sciences advance theories and reach conclusions that put into question, even contradict, the doctrines of religion regarding the nature of human reality and the world that humans experience. Consider the results of scientific cosmological inquiry into the origins of the universe and the results of the evolutionary sciences and the cognitive sciences regarding the nature of life and human beings. Surely with respect to questions regarding the nature of the universe and human reality, science and religion are make contrary, if not contradictory, claims.

We can conclude, then, that religious faith and science do conflict in those areas in which religions purport to explain the nature of the world and human reality .

I Could not have done otherwise than what I did?

In many discussions of the “free will” issue, the argument is made that we don’t have any freedom of choice because, with respect to any action we do, we could not have done other than what we did. For example, suppose I choose to support candidate “Tom” for some elective office I might think that I freely choose to support Tom, but others will argue that I could not have done otherwise; i.e., that I my support of Tom was determined by a causal chain of events and conditions that I did not control.

The proposition that, for any act (A) that I do, I could not have done otherwise, is supposed to follow from the fact that act A (like anything I do) is determined by prior causes, which I could not control or alter in any way. Hence, we have the conclusion that any act (A) that I do was inevitable, despite my belief that I freely chose to do A.

Many discussions then become discussions of whether it was possible that, all things being equal (i.e., conditions being the same or nearly the same), I could have done otherwise. I chose a cup of coffee to start the morning, but I could have chosen to have a cup of tea instead, couldn’t I? No, not if all conditions that led to your cup of coffee remain unchanged . . . so on an so forth, ad nauseam.

For a long time I have been skeptical about this entire line of argument purporting to show that we lack the basic freedom of choice that we think we have. The argument seems to involve an invalid move from the factual premise that many of our actions can be causally explained (e.g., you chose the teddy bear over the dump truck because not too long ago you had a very bad experience with dump trucks) to the theoretical premise that this action (like all our actions) is causally determined. This is an invalid inference. It does not follow from the fact that I can give a causal explanation of your action that your action was causally determined or inevitable. Furthermore, any viable claim that A determines B has the implication that on the basis of A we can predict (or could have accurately predicted) B. For example, knowing that you once had your puppy injured by a dump truck, I can predict that when faced with the choice — teddy bear or toy dump truck — you will select the teddy bear. But is this true? Can we make such accurate predictions about human behavior? I submit that in most cases (maybe as high as 95% of the cases) we cannot make accurate predictions. Hence, the proposition that A determines B is even more suspect.

In short, it does not follow that the action B is determined by causal chain (C) just because a causal explanation of B in terms of C is given. Causal explanation is one thing. Productive causation (sufficient causation) is another thing altogether. Productive causation applied to all human behavior is at best a theoretical or metaphysical claim that needs to be scrutinized. Hence, the whole line of argument that states that for anything we do we could not have done otherwise is not an effective strategy for demonstrating the truth of determinism.

Another implication of the “could not have done otherwise” argument is that everything we do is inevitable; i.e., could not have been avoided. Of course, nobody can sustain this view on a practical, real-world level. It is nonsense; most of what we do is not inevitable! We avoid things all the time. Had we not been avoiders, we could not have survived the first threat to our well-being. But we have and we do. However, the determinist will claim that on a theoretical level, once we understand the “science” of causal accounts for all our behavior, we shall agree that everything we do is inevitable. It seems to me that, even at a “theoretical level,” this claim is very questionable; it is not obviously true. In fact, it strikes me as the type of sophistry that too often gains a foothold in philosophy.

C Rulon: Elective abortions will remain common

By Charles L. Rulon
Emeritus, Life & Health Sciences
Long Beach City College
([email protected])

(Elective abortions will remain a significant post-con­ceptive birth control method regardless of our contraceptive efforts, our anti-abortion laws and our conservative religious beliefs)

Can abortions ever become rare?

Globally, supplying all sexually active fertile people with excel­lent birth con­trol remains a critically impor­tant goal, since half of all preg­nancies in the world are still unplan­ned and mostly un­wanted. About half of these unplanned pregnancies will be aborted, legally or not. But regardless of the world’s birth control efforts and regardless of its anti-abortion laws and religious beliefs, there are many reasons why elective abortions will continue to remain common:

a. Fallible humans: We are very sexual primates. We want sex all the time, not just when females can become pregnant. We are also quite fallible and careless. We make mis­takes. We are into denial, sexual guilt and embarrassment. Then there’s alcohol and other drugs which lubricate sexual behavior, while reducing respon­sibility. In addition, the world is filled with hundreds of millions of young sexually aggressive, deter­­mined, macho males.

b. Contraceptives fail: Some contraceptives that are implanted are close to being perfect. But most con­tra­cep­tives today are not. Any sex­ually active fertile woman who uses a con­tra­cep­tive method that’s 90% effective (which is better than the success rates for foam, condoms, the sponge, the dia­phragm, spermi­cides, withdrawal, and periodic abstinence) still has a one-third chance of an un­wanted preg­nancy after only four years.[1] Even women who use a con­tra­ceptive method that’s 97% effective have a 60% chance of at least one un­plan­ned preg­nancy by age 50.

c. Obstacles: There are also major political, relig­ious, patriarchal, educational and financial obsta­­cles to providing birth control services and education to every­one in need through­out our world. One major obstacle remains the Roman Catholic Church, which continues to block global birth control efforts. The Church has also made it clear that any official attempts to force any of its over 300,000 health facilities world­wide to provide con­tra­cep­tives would result in it with­drawing its vitally need­­ed financial sup­port from these facili­ties.

How about a global “miracle”?

Let’s assume that the planets align, that all major relig­­ious, patri­arch­al, social, finan­cial, and educational obsta­cles to contra­ceptive use suddenly vanish­, and that all of the one and a half bil­lion sexually active fer­tile women worldwide had easy access to birth control. Let’s further assume that this birth control had only a 3% human failure rate/year (much lower than most methods currently in use). Would abortions finally become rare? Hardly! Three per­cent of one and a half billion women still trans­lates into about 45 million women every year with unplanned pregnancies. If his­tory is any guide, roughly half will choose to abort, legal or not. Now 20+ million abortions/year is cer­tainly a big improve­ment over our current 40-45 mil­lion, but hardly rare. And this is only with a worldwide “miracle”!

Western Europe’s effort to reduce unwanted pregnancies

Most countries in Western Europe remain determined to lower their teen pregnancy rates, fight poverty, increase the health of their women and child­ren, and promote strong families. Con­tra­­cep­tive services (often free of charge), plus in-depth sex edu­ca­tion are pro­vided to all. Early abor­tions are mostly viewed as a health issue (certainly not a sinful or criminal act) and are often paid for by the state. But they are also viewed as a last resort to be prevented if possible. To minimize the financial pressure to abort, many West­ern Euro­pean coun­tries also provide consid­erable finan­cial aid, child-care services and job security to pregnant women. The result is that, although European teens are as sexual as American teens, they are much more responsible when it comes to using excellent birth control. Teenage preg­nancy rates in West­ern Europe range from one-fourth to one-tenth of ours.

Still, with all their efforts, unwant­ed pregnancies and abor­tions are not rare in Western Europe. France, for exam­ple, still has roughly 340,000 unplanned pregnancies and over 170,000 abortions a year. Contraceptives are not perfect and humans are still….well, human. So even if the U.S. copied France with the same success rate, this still translates into over 700,000 abortions a year. Now, 700,000 elective abortions a year is certainly an improvement over our current number of around 1.3 million, but hardly rare. And this is only if we did everything France is doing.

Now if we also aggressively promoted the “morning-after pill” ( which conservative religious/political powerful men continue to try to outlaw), the U.S. could potentially cut its number of un­inten­ded pregnan­cies in half. But that still means, at best, sever­al hun­dred thousand abortions a year, hardly rare.

Is the U.S. effort a disgrace?

With our wealth, science, educa­tional oppor­tunities and excellent contra­ceptive options, un­want­ed preg­nancies should now be at least as low as in W. Europe. Yet, instead, about half of all preg­nancies in the United States are still unplan­ned. This is as bad as the global average. So every year over one fifth of all pregnancies in the U.S. are electively termi­nated. That’s roughly 1.3 million abortions. The abortion rate for Black women is five times higher than among White women; for Latinas it’s three times higher. Poverty is a major factor.

So, why is our teen pregnancy rate and birth rate so much higher than in other developed nations? Mostly because ever since the marriage of the Christian Right to the Repub­li­can Party in the late 1970s, conservative Repub­li­cans in the U.S. Congress and the White House have consist­ently and effectively oppos­ed sex education and the distri­bution of con­tra­ceptives to teens. Funding for contra­ceptive re­search was dra­ma­tically reduced and birth control ads on television have been blocked for decades. Teens were (and continue to be) taught to “Just Say No” — an approach repeatedly proven to have a high failure rate.

Birthrate per 1,000 girls ages 15-19
U.S. 42.5
Canada 13.3
Spain 11.5
Germany 10.1
France 7.8
Italy 7.0
Sweden 5.9
Japan 5.1
Switzerland 4.5
Netherlands 3.8

(TIME, March 30, 2009)

Some concluding thoughts

Elective abortions continue to be one of the most common surgical procedures in the U.S., terminating over one in five pregnancies, not count­ing miscarriages. Over one-fifth of all women in the U.S. have had at least one abortion by age 48. Pro-choice politicians refer to their goal of making abor­tion safe, legal and rare by greatly improving birth con­trol educa­tion, plus the availability of contraceptives and emer­gency contraception.

Yet, because humans are quite fallible, because contraception is far from perfect, and because power­ful patriarchal, anti-birth control religions continue to exist, abortions are not going to become rare in the foreseeable future anywhere on our planet. Instead, short of something like a reversible anti-fertility vaccine administered to all girls before puberty, abortion will remain a significant post-con­ceptive birth control method — a method essential for insuring female equality and the birth of only wanted children. As mature adults, we must learn to deal with this reality.

Now for the first time ever in our extremely long evolu­tionary history, more and more women through­out the world are finally able to control their own repro­ductive futures instead of having fate, or patri­archal/religious forces decide. In many ways, this reproductive control is as impor­tant for the survival of the human species as our learning to control fire.
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[1]0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 = 0.66= 2/3rds chance of not becoming pregnant in 4 years = 1/3 chance of becoming pregnant.

C Rulon: Anti-choice efforts are almost entirely driven by men

By Charles L. Rulon
Emeritus, Life & Health Sciences
Long Beach City College

HUMAN FEMALE (def.): A recently evolved homi­nid who, through no discern­ible divine plan, inherited two X-chromo­­­somes in life’s genetic coin toss and thus was destined for unwanted pregnan­cies, sexual oppression & servitude to human males.

Introduction

Even though a sizable minority of (mostly very religious) women oppose abortion choice[i], the overwhelming majority of anti-choice voices in power (in our pulpits, media and political machines) have always been voices that will never have to experience an unwant­ed preg­nancy — powerful male voices — voices from cardinals, bishops, priests, televangelists and ministers — voices from U.S. congressmen and state assemblymen — powerful male voices coming from thousands of religious radio stations, mega-churches and television stations. These are the same male voices that one hundred years ago opposed suffrage for women and outlawed all birth control information. In fact, throughout history women’s repro­ductive rights have been legislated, adjudicated and religious­ly controlled by men.

Throughout history men justi­fied their control of women by promoting the belief that males were in­her­ently superior, more intel­li­gent and more capable of running the world than were females. It was in their nature to be more political, aggres­sive and moti­vated. To survive, we’ve been told, societies needed both dominant, pro­duc­tive men and depen­dent, nurturing and reproductive women. Women served best in the home. It wasn’t natural for women to com­pete with men for jobs, money and power. By referring to both the biblical god and to our perceived bio­logical natures, the Reli­g­ious/Political Right has brought in both religion and science, (society’s two deep­est sources of authority about human nature) to justify patri­archy.

Today, women make up less than 20% of the U.S. Congress and 25% (on average) of state legis­latures.[ii] Furthermore, the large majority of politicians opposing choice belong to the Republican Party, the same Party which supported the Equal Rights Amendment back in 1972 before the Catholic Church became actively involved and the Party became “born-again”. The weapons used by these powerful anti-choice men include nomi­nating conservative judges, introducing endless anti-Roe legislation, quoting selected biblical passages to “prove” that God is on their side, and threatening excommu­nication and hellfire for those who are pro-choice. Truck­loads of dishonest incen­diary propaganda, written and printed by men, elevate mindless, sense­less embryos to almost demigod status.

These powerful men are aided by millions of American males who want to “keep women in their place” and by a woefully inadequate educational system, which grad­uates tens of millions of scientifically ignorant male and female biblical creationists and “end-times” true believers.

“Our nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discri­m­ination rationalized by an attitude of ‘romantic paternalism’ which in practical ef­fect puts woman not on a pedestal, but in a cage.”

—Supreme Court Justice Wm. Brennan, 1973

Patriarchal motivations

Why are these powerful men so intent on overthrowing Roe v. Wade? Do they really believe they are God’s soldiers doing His work, even though tens of millions of Christ­ian pro-choice Americans disagree and even though the biblical silence regarding both elective abor­tions and the time of ensoulment has been called “deaf­ening”?

Do these men really “anguish over the murder of innocent pre-born babies,” given that they oppose all attempts (except abstinence) to reduce the abortion rate and since very few actually want to imprison women who abort? Do these men really support strong families, given that they often oppose government supported child care services and strive to pass laws that trample on the bodies of women — the same women who actually hold families together?

Or, as has been the case historically, is this strong male opposition really more about men with awe­­some politi­cal and religious power using “God & Nature” arguments to increase their power? Is it more about the Roman Catholic Church refusing to relinquish its power over women’s wombs? After all, the Catholic Church still opposes all “artificial” birth control based on ancient theo­logical arguments and “reveal­ed truths”.

Is it also more about fundamentalist Protestant churches run by powerful men who are trying to prevent any further weak­ening of antiquated relig­ious dog­mas already devastated by hundreds of years of scien­ti­fic and ethical advances? Is it more about fighting against the spread of secular humanism and the teaching of “atheistic” evol­u­tion? Is it about wanting to turn the U.S. into a Christian theocracy, with the anti-abortion effort being the key-stone, an essential cog in their movement?

And finally, is it more about men wanting to punish “loose, nar­ci­ssis­tic, irrespon­sible women who are trying to avoid their natural roles of motherhood” — more about men wanting to keep women subservient and at home where “God wants them”? After all, disapproval of women’s sex­uality is a historical constant. (Punishment and suffering are very important to the conservative Christian mind, especially the punishment and suffering of “loose” women.)

“No nation has established democracy and ensured human rights without overcoming conservative resistance from men clinging to their power. No traditional religion has supported the change.”

—Robert Tapp, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, University of Minnesota, 2009

Men don’t get pregnant

Since men don’t get pregnant, but merely aggress­ive­ly inject sperm and write anti-abortion laws, they aren’t personally forced into reproductive servitude.[iii] However, if men could get pregnant — if they knew they would have to undergo many months of considerable discomfort and even danger just because of one careless night or because a condom broke, I wager that the right to excellent birth control and to elective abortions would be written into our holy books, our laws and our constitutions and would likely be no more controversial than having an appendec­tomy.

“A system that enforces the agenda and value system of a 65-year old male legislator onto my young patients is cruel.”

—Michael Berman, MD; Why I Provide Abortions.

In closing

We have not yet adequately docu­mented the extent of human suffering caused by con­ser­vative religious teachings about wo­men and sexuality. Attitudes derived from cen­turies of male Christian influ­ence have been driven deeply into our collec­tive uncon­scious and into the structure of our in­stitutions in ways that make it very dif­fi­cult for us to grow up with our sexu­ality in­te­grated in a healthy man­ner with the rest of our personality.

Contra­cep­­tives are far from fool-proof and humans are depressingly fallible, superstitious and irrational. Thus, in spite of our best efforts, abor­tions will remain relatively common into the foreseeable future — legal and safe in those countries that value science, rationality and women freed from reproductive enslavement . . . or illegal and danger­ous in those patriarchal relig­iously fundamen­talist countries that don’t.

“The anti-choice concern is not for the zygote, nor the blastocyst, nor the embryo, nor even the fetus. The concern is for the continued health and well­being of the patriarchy.”

—Sherry Matulis, a survivor of an illegal abortion and a national spokeswoman for abortion rights
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[i] Women’s groups that oppose abortions include Con­cerned Women of America (CWA), Feminists for Life (FFL), the Eagle Forum, and the American Life League (ALL), with a total combined membership of roughly one million members.
The CWA opposes all abortions except to save the life of the mother. They also oppose emergency contraceptive pills, even in cases of rape, most forms of birth control, and sex education except to teach abstinence. The mission of CWA is to protect and promote biblical values among all citizens – first through prayer, then education, and finally by influencing our society.
FFL is opposed to all forms of abortion, including cases of rape, incest, birth defects, or to preserve the mother’s health. FFL believes that basic human rights, including the right to life, start at conception. It does not take an official stance on contraception.
The Eagle Forum is anti-choice, anti-same sex marriage, anti-vaccinations, anti-sex education in the public schools and anti-Equal Rights Amendment. The ALL, a Catholic organi­zation, opposes birth control, embryonic stem cell research, and all abortions without exceptions.
Unlike the tens of millions of pro-choice Catholic, Protestant and Jewish women, these anti-abortion women mostly grew up being taught that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and the final authority on faith and practice, that only God can give or take life, that abortions are opposed by God, that the “Will of God” takes ultimate prece­dence over all else, and that to do “God’s Will” is to devote one­self to out­lawing abortions.

[ii] Eighty-four nations have a greater percentage of female legislators than the U.S., including Canada, Mexico, Vietnam and Cuba. The U.S. also insisted that 25% of the seats in the new Iraq legislature be held by women.

[iii] Of course, one could also argue that 18 years of child sup­port pay­ments because a girl lied, or was careless, or the condom broke is a form of male enslavement.