Religion & Law

In the ongoing conversation about the health-insurance-reform debate and abortion, Bob responds here to my post (here).  Bob writes:

[T]he phrase 'abortion subsidies' that occurs therein is ambiguous as between intended financing of abortion on the one hand, and collateral effects on the disposable income of people who might seek abortion on the other -- precisely the distinction that step one of a double effect inquiry aims to keep clear.  (That is in view of the decisiveness, for purposes of moral evaluation, of intentions in individuating morally evaluable actions -- including those actions which are votes on legislation.) . . .

I had intended (but failed, obviously) to make it clear that I was not addressing the "intended financing of abortion."  I have said -- enough time to bore regular MOJ readers to death, I fear -- that I am not particularly interested in the double-effect analysis of legislators votes.  I assume that some legislators *want* to fund abortions, others don't care if they fund abortions or not, others are willing to fund them for the sake of achieving what they regard as another good, others really, really hope they are not indirectly funding them, etc., etc.  Like Rob, I am "thinking about collateral effects."  Like Rob, I think it makes sense to ask "how a legislator ought to factor intervening choices into the inherently probablistic 'cost benefit analysis' that is a double effect stage 2 inquiry."  I would say, though, that this "inherently probabilistic 'cost benefit analysis'" must include, not only considerations relating to the number of abortions that are committed, but also the effect on the current legal / constitutional regime -- and on the public's support for such a regime -- of including, in an alleged health-care-reform measure, even indirect financial support for abortion, and even implicit endorsement of the notion that (elective) abortion is health care.