From around the blogosphere and the news: one of Patterico’s “Jury” bloggers poses an abortion hypothetical; and, in the face of the Freedom of Choice Act, Catholic clergy are thinking about shutting down their hospitals, rather than perform abortions.

The hypothetical at Patterico’s is one that has been thrown up on occasion.  The question: if we could develop an artificial womb that would move back the point of foetal viability to the beginning of pregnancy, would women still have a right to an abortion, or just the right to deliver?  Some pro-choice advocates maintain that a woman would still have the right to kill the child in the womb, for reasons too various (and ridiculous) to mention on this blog.

As for the FOCA: currently, recipients of Medicaid and Medicare funds do not have to perform abortions, and the legislation that Obama has promised to sign into law would eliminate that conscience clause exception.  Catholic hospitals would be forced to either perform abortions (in direct contradiction to religious prohibitions on the murder of innocents), close down their OB-GYN wards, or not accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.  (While the latter would be possible, it would affect the poor and the elderly much more than it would the Catholic Church.  Given the extraordinarily low reimbursement rates, hospitals rarely make money off of those patients, and they often have trouble finding high-quality medical care.  Ultimately, this reduces the choices available to charity hospitals, and makes it more difficult for them to give medical care to the most downtrodden in our society.)

In the name of “choice, ” we see people who do not want to give humanity the choice to support a viable foetus, at no additional cost or harm to its mother, and also want to remove the choice from doctors to act within their moral boundaries.  The FOCA would also remove one of the most fundamental negative rights from Americans: the right to not act. (Oddly, the latter is endorsed by the same individual who did not want to require doctors to provide pallative care to born infants, under the theory that it would interfere with their medical judgment.)

It is extraordinarily rare that we impose a positive duty upon someone (i.e. a mandate to act in a particular manner).  Doctors who don’t want to treat particular patients or diseases, or with a particular method, may refer the patient to another provider.  What we don’t do is to enslave them by requiring that they act in a particular manner, especially when that is inconsistent with their professional duties.  “Thou shalt not kill” is not just a Biblical mandate (although, being one, it brings up First Amendment issues with FOCA); it is the foundation of every civilised society and, not coincidentally, of the medical profession.

Thus, the moniker of “choice” becomes nothing more than a fig leaf to cover a tyrannical usurpation of liberty and dignity - one which mandates the dehumanisation of millions of members of our society, and the enslavement of those who would fight for their rights.

Update: As Neil points out, the liberals are rather anti-choice themselves; they just don’t like to tell you what choices they want to make for you.