No, this isn't about Joni Mitchell and I'm not going to talk about Bows and flows of angel hair, just about stunning hypocrisy. How many ice cream castles have been built upon the idea that a fertilized human egg cell is a human being possessed of human rights? It would be hypocritical enow that those rights are allowed by Church doctrine to foetuses when they have been so often denied to adults by religious authorities, but that's not what this is about. It's about, as I said, hypocrisy; about arguing both sides when needed to avoid guilt, or at least to avoid prosecution and penalty.
Catholic Health Initiatives, with assets estimated at around 15 billion dollars, operates a chain of hospitals and as a response to a wrongful death suit involving twin foetuses who died before birth, their attorneys argued that in cases of wrongful death, the term “person” only applies to individuals born alive, and not to those who die in utero, says Raw Story today.
Perhaps that will be a precedent that plagues them in future when they try to argue otherwise according to Roman Catholic doctrine regarding abortion and birth control, but looking at this cloudy argument from both sides now is pretty entertaining, don't you think? And of course we remember all the adages telling us that when they argue principle, what they mean is money.
Feather canyons everywhere, indeed.
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It does smack of hypocrisy. However, I suspect the church would say that they are making a theological distinction, not a political one. That gets very messy, since the Catholic Church does think abortion should be illegal. We really need to get past this myth that religion is not politics. (I sure would like to tax all the property of churches! It is amazing how much undeveloped land the Catholic Church has in Southern California. Much of it is zoned "industrial." Not exactly a future church site!)
I can't help noticing that this is the same game we play when it comes to corporations. And in both cases, "whatever" is not a citizen when it would cost the rich and powerful any money.
Religion and politics are inseparable and perhaps identical since I read most of the Bible as having a political backstory at the very least. Perhaps I'm being a cynic for thinking money is behind every appeal to principle, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
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