Kevin Williamson does me the favor of providing a broader context for something I came across last night.  Writing about the fact that a YahooNews journalist was completely surprised to find that National Review has long held an editorial position in support of marijuana legalization (see the correction at the bottom, here), Williamson suggests:

Most people who haven’t taken the time to learn about the issue (which is to say, most people) believe that conservatism is either a largely Christian fundamentalist movement or principally informed by Ayn Rand or, if you listen to the geniuses at places like Salon or MSNBC, both.

As Glenn Reynolds explains, “knowing more would interfere with the demonization. And the demonization is the point.”

Last night, Providence Journal health care reporter, Felice Freyer, tweeted a seemingly approving link to “calm but clear words” on the paper’s opinion pages by Brown Professor Herbert Rakatansky.  Rakatansky summarizes (as if it is unbiased reportage) a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed against the Roman Catholic Church in America, essentially alleging complicity in medical malpractice.

A Michigan woman says that a Catholic hospital kept her in the dark and turned her away because she was having pregnancy complications that might require the sacrifice of her unborn child to correct, and, asserts Professor Rakatansky:

Mercy Hospital acted as it did because of a directive from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) prohibiting a pre-viability pregnancy termination under any circumstance.

This is simply an ignorant untruth.  Looking at the USCCB directives, number 45 does say that “every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion,” and therefore not permitted.  However, even a passing familiarity with Catholic theology (or basic moral philosophy) is all that’s needed to see the relevance, here, of “double effect,” or the principle that allows such things as self-defense and “just war.”  As directive number 47 goes on to explain:

Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child.

So, if saving the mother’s life requires premature removal of the child from the womb, such a procedure, though highly regrettable and bringing with it a requirement to do everything possible to save the child’s life, would be allowed.  What’s more, directives 26 and 27 require Catholic hospitals to ensure “free and informed consent” from patients, which means provision of all relevant information about the doctor’s suggested course of action, defined to include “no treatment at all.”

If the ACLU’s presentation of the case is accurate, the hospital should have advised the woman about all of the facts of her condition and ensured that it did nothing to increase her likelihood of harm without her knowing consent.  As the case unfolds, we may find that the doctor violated both the directives and his secular responsibilities as a professional, but that’s on him or her and the hospital, not the USCCB.

Of course, filing the appropriate lawsuit wouldn’t allow the ACLU to grab the same national headlines or to demonize one of the more stalwart voices for traditional morality in the United States.  Returning to the theme of Williamson and Reynolds, Progressives’ views and morality are more extreme than most Americans would accept, so they must promulgate the general sense among the people that their opposition’s views are (in the term of one Providence Journal commenter) “reprehensible,” rather than, if anything, a slight bit more stringent than most people would think is obviously moral and reasonable.

If the public’s gut sense can be made to be that conservatives and traditional Christians have beliefs that are simply unacceptable, without anybody’s having a real understanding of what those beliefs entail, then the only way to turn is toward the truly extreme radical views of Progressives.

That’s to be expected from an activist group like the ACLU, but it’s disappointing to see an Ivy League professor and experienced journalist joining in without skepticism.