CONNECTICUT AND THE TOTALITARIAN IMPULSE
April 12th, 2006 by Peter
Why do pro-abortion legislators keep trying to force Catholic hospitals to provide chemical abortions and what is truly at stake in this battle? The answer involves more than abortion and religious freedom, as Chris Powell notes in his April 8 JI column:
The big question is the degree of state control that should come with state licensing in all respects. That is, the big question here is the scope of government.
Since these days the government licenses nearly everything, advocates of the pill legislation are arguing for a much more pervasive government and thereby are yielding to the totalitarian impulse that the government should control everything not because of necessity but because of OPPORTUNITY, because government CAN control everything.
By contrast, while they may not recognize it, opponents of the pill legislation are defending not just religious freedom but the entire private sphere, the right of individuals and institutions to be different, diversity.
This is yet another instance where the loudest proponents of “tolerance” and “diversity” actually threaten the very things they claim to uphold.
