The voters of Florida will decide on a strange proposal in a few weeks. It is a proposed amendment to the state constitution that is touted as being a vehicle for protecting Florida taxpayers and parental rights. But, in fact, it does neither.
The fundamental subject is abortion. But the language of the amendment is about a whole lot more—including disregard for human rights and sloppy intentions. The language starts out on the right track, suggesting that public funding for aborting a child should be prohibited. All well and good. But then it descends into the murky waters of compromise, political manipulation, and accommodation of evil. We’ve seen it over and over again, but it never ceases to amaze those of us who have battled for more than 40 years to protect the innocent.
Florida’s Amendment 6 is not a prohibition of anything, but rather an accommodation of some funding of abortion or, as the press describes it, a restriction on the types of abortion taxpayers should fund.
While Faith Voices Against Amendment 6—a group of Jewish, Unitarian, and Methodist clergy—describes the language as an imposition of religious beliefs on the electorate, and subsequently women’s reproductive rights, the fact of the matter is that the proposal is sorely lacking in any sensible arguments.
A pro-life proposal is one that sets forth the principle that intrinsic human rights are never subject to the will of the state by law, judicial fiat, or otherwise. This is so because an action “intrinsically incompatible with human dignity” is always and in every case wrong. Abortion, which is such an action, kills a human being and therefore must not be acknowledged in any law or proposal as acceptable.
Amendment 6 violates this principle in the same way Roe v. Wade and all of its progeny have done. Sanctioning the intentional killing of even one human being eradicates the meaning of intrinsic human rights and replaces it with a sliding scale on which some individuals are deemed to be expendable. Such policies, when put into law, denigrate justice and defy logic.
Amendment 6 is not irrefutable because the language agrees that taxpayer funding of abortion in cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother are legitimate expenditures. The amendment therefore contradicts the premise that every act of abortion is unjust and can never be legitimized.
By acknowledging that some abortions are acceptable, the unthinkable becomes acceptable. This is why Amendment 6 should not be voted into the constitution of the state of Florida.
For too many years many self-described politically savvy pro-life tacticians have argued that taking incremental steps toward success is a legitimate strategic exercise. Sadly the fact is that, after 40 years of staying on the course, the babies are still dying and the mothers and fathers are still suffering the sad effects of aborting their own children.
It’s time to stop pandering to public opinion and it’s time to begin defending intrinsic human rights without exception.
