In the past, I have quite frankly been unimpressed by Ms. Herzog's columns. I have a sinking suspicion that, for several quarters when first hired, she followed Ann Coulter a little bit too closely. (I hesitate to say that she plagiarized, but it was certainly suspicious when Ms. Coulter's columns the previous week shared topics and sources with Ms. Herzog's columns.) Frequently, I was outraged that she did not consider the wider implications of her moral stances.
Past frustrations aside, I think she hit the nail on the head in her column about conscience clauses. Is it only for the sake of expediency that hospitals and clinics hire doctors who reserve the right to refuse treatment? Is the shortage of doctors in this country really that terrible, or was the Hippocratic oath really so offensive when it fell into disfavor in the 1970s? Being a Johnny-on-the-Spot savior is no easy task, and the oath was designed as much to protect the doctor as to protect the patient.
It boils down to this: so-called pro-life activists want to see goodness in terms of black and white. This is bad
they imply, and if you do it you are a bad person and we don't want bad people in America. But intention is just as important as action; otherwise, why would God have given us free will? While I agree in principle that abortion is murder (hence why I have consciously chosen not to participate in activities that might result in me wanting one, such as binge drinking or promiscuity), I have to wonder: where does this moral watchdogging end? Is the end resulting goodness really the same if people do not choose to be good but rather simply do what they are told by the federal government? Or are we transforming Americans into sheep and stripping away their freedom by making morality legally required?This is not to say that liberal lobbyists are any better; see California Legislature for other ludicrous examples of so-called Brother's Keeper Laws. (Many of these legislative gems either encourage strongly or require state residents to act in a certain way. One example is the transportation initiative
which aims to reduce the state's impact on global warming by encouraging high-density urban growth via zoning changes in areas deemed desirable for suburban expansion. Talk about Big Brother.)
I'm still glad that there is hope for even the most blindly conservative mouthpieces. Perhaps now that she understands a little bit more about how tyrannically imposed morality affects real people, Ms. Herzog will consider both sides of policy issues more carefully. Though I doubt it.
Elizabeth Nalepa is a senior studying mathematics.
-
17
Archives
Letter to the Editor
