Excellent point Kent.
I don't like mushrooms on my pizza, and if not given the option, I'll even pick them off!

But isn't saying "I don't want my tax dollars to go toward X" one way of saying "I don't think the government should spend money on X?"

It's not the same, but it does personalize the issue.

Substitute something else for abortion, something that would probably be closer to the hearts of OS members. For example, had someone in the early 80s said "I don't want my tax dollars supporting Salvadoran death squads," my guess is that people here would see that in a very different light from abortion.

Very logical. The problem is that ardent abortion foes have convinced themselves that putting any of their money towards abortion is like giving a grant to Ted Bundy to help him on a killing spree. A better analogy might be if someone in the pizza ordering group was a canibal and wanted human heart on his or her pizza. Then what reaction would the group have? (I don't agree with them that all abortion = murder, but I think that IS their main - albeit inconsistently made - argument.)

I think a check box to pay an extra amount on tax returns for those who want to fund abortions would be the thing to do.

Spotted, sometimes it is indeed one's responsibility to just ignore what one doesn't want. When trying to come up with a public option for pizza, it might not be possible to tailor every plan to every citizen's personal taste in fungus.

Karin, maybe they've been watching to much American TV.

Will, thanks! Good to see you around still.

Paul, no, I think that's not the answer and here's why: There are other things that other people want money spent on that I don't. I'll bet the same people saying this want health care to cover injuries due to drunk driving, even for the driver, and even though they think the driver is doing something immoral. For that matter, drinking and smoking cause all kinds of health problems that I don't personally need because I don't drink or smoke. But I'm not asking that they check boxes about that. And there are people who think red meat causes problems. Shall we have boxes about that? What about meat at all? What about things with artificial hormones or pesticides? What about people who climb mountains and fall? Life is full of choices and risks, things that each of us would never elect though we let our fellow citizens do so because freedom requires it. If we make a checkbox for every such thing, we start to marginalize freedom and we make ourselves into cookie cutter copies of one another even more than we're already doing. No, I think a checkbox is absolutely not the answer.

Mishima, people do sometimes say such things as you suggest. (And I'm mindful of the fact that you and I probably disagree on this political matter.) But, and this applies to a great many things in pluralistic societies, the morality of one person cannot be legislated as the morality of all. That's just a practical meta-truth. To say otherwise is to bring free society to a halt. We can't say the only public funding for art will be for that which offends no one, we can't say the only things taught in school will be the intersection of topics that offend no one.

Nor is this a fringe matter. A lot of people are pro-choice and believe it must be kept a safe and legal option.

It would be much more complicated for a war, which we must either be all in or all out of, because it's done nationally. (A country is either at war or it is not... or used to be... before these weird undeclared wars we have lately.)

But in this case, regarding public health care and the abortion option, which triggered me to write this, if you want to take a stand personally and convince others to, I say: convince them individually.

There are plenty of taxpayers who want to see family planning done and are paying taxes and willing to see the taxes go to abortions on occasion. Certainly I am. And so it's my tax dollars, not yours, that are paying for this. (You know—the tax dollars I don't want to see spent on some other thing that I think is immoral and others don't. It all cancels, if we have some sense and realize that each of us is a little different and none of us can rule all of us. )

But solving this problem by fiat on a claim that “your tax dollars must not be used that way” is what is overextending. Not because of any moral issues. Because it is a bad argument, seeking more to cut off debate on an almost-procedural ground than to really make a persuasive case that changes how people would vote given a choice.

That doesn't mean there isn't a discussion to be had, it means the particular claim “not with my tax dollars” is not a fair description of the problem. It's just a tool to preclude discussion by claiming an indignity is occurring in the apportionment of taxes; if there is an indignity afoot, that is not its locus.

Blue, I think you have a problem in this case because cannibalism is not well-established so the analogy is biased in a non-realistic way.

My point is that there exist situations—hard to accept but true situations—in which a baby will be born horribly deformed, and people legitimately disagree about the morality. This corresponds to some people saying you must always have tomatoes on pizza because it's moral and some saying you must never have them because having them would be immoral. How does one resolve this? By letting people order it how they like it. And if government is buying lunch? Government should just pay for both pizzas and assume it will balance out.

Kent,
I suggest that because it is such a hot button issue. Those others you mention aren't the source of extreme controversy.
Those in favor either put up some of their own money, or affirm they don't object to their regular tax contribution being used, in part, to fund abortions.
I don't see it leading to tax referendums on a menu of issues, although that would be closer to representation than we're getting now. Few care about red meat or sugary sodas, for example, so I don't see it as slippery slope. Those against abortion are de-linked, those for either put their money where their mouths are, or simply affirm support from their share of the general fund.
That would shut a few worm cans, not open more.
However, the overall argument will never end.

Paul, euthanasia might come closer, where I can imagine a segment of the population getting to the place where they don't want their tax dollars going to killing “innocent Americans” while another part of the population doesn't want their tax dollars going to “prolonging agony.” There can't be a clean uniformly accepted solution to this, and it will have to be that tax dollars will go to both because there will be people on both sides of it. The fact that it will be implemented some ways by some people and other ways by others will not be fair in every case, but will be as close to a fair system as we'll get.

Hi, Kent,

You ask, “Why do people say silly things like “I don't want my tax dollars going toward abortion”? Why aren't they laughed out of town for such a ridiculous statement?”

Well, as you might have figured, I’ll bring the religious element into play, because that is a key element here. Consider how many other RIDICULOUS things are said that are not laughed at. C’mon (pat on shoulder), does the question really have to be asked? Religious apologists are the reason for this.

Mishima, for whom I have much respect, presents a comparison that is not accurately comparable. The concept of death squads running around assassinating people is not exactly comparable to “abortion”, but regardless of a person’s stance on either subject, the clearly distinguishable difference, between the two, is based in a religious pretext that “abortion is murder”. While I have some mixed views regarding abortion, it is not clearly known that we should compare it to murder.

Another major consideration is the ability to suffer, which is a consideration that religious apologists too often ignore in their assessments of right and wrong.


I think this is a difficult (and perhaps unfortunate, for the sake of discussion), combination of topics you’ve presented: democracy and religiosity. The two do not typically mix well, in the first place.

Rick, I guess I'm not utterly surprised by your remarks. But again, I emphasize—I didn't even mean to get as far as discussing the morality. The silliness I'm referring to is just the conclusion that they ought be in total control of anything they did totally pay for. One is drawn to influence what one can, and yet clearly one cannot be responsible for things one cannot control.

Almost by definition, if you can't control the outcome, it isn't your fault. There have been some Presidents of the US that I wouldn't have chosen, but I take solace in the fact of that. Surely my friends abroad know it wasn't me that chose the President. I don't instead mount a political campaign that says the outcome must be different because I can't morally abide an outcome other than the one I choose. That isn't democracy, that's dictatorship and tyranny.

Hi Kent,

Really great analogy: simple, clear and appropriate.

I wonder, though, if it might not actually be feasible to implement some kind of taxation "opt out" system. It would definitely be a democratic and ethical goal.

I am imagining some kind of mechanism whereby individuals can indeed stipulate that they do not want any of their tax dollars to go towards specific budget items or categories of items, examples of Salvadoran death squads and abortion funding are already on the table.

If ever so many people said no to a particular thing that there was not enough willing money around, the gov't would be required to defund said thing. One the one hand, all it would take is for one person with a hefty enough tax bill to let an item through and one the other, perhaps there would need to be constraints on the percentage of total budget individuals are entitled to refuse ("I don't want to pay for anything!"). The devil is in the details, but I am liking the concept.

Getting back to pizza, we don't as individuals have a right to say "no, you can not have a cannibal special" but we can say none of my 5 dollars better go towards that. Then if there are not enough people ready to contribute, the cannibal is out of luck (but we had better all watch our backs!)

Just thinking out loud here....

to a large degree, government exists to allocate public money. also called "the tragedy of the commons".
re: pizza. I want mine in 5 slices, because Im not hungry enough for 6.
(--yogi berra)

I would add that if there is to be a constraint on using public funds for abortion, then there should likewise be a constraint on using public funds to pay for erectile dysfunction treatments. But I heard no such call for equity today when I watched the Senate committee debating.

Coby, I think you're on the right track with the idea of polling people for their preferences. I think it's very useful to know what people like and don't. In fact, just knowing how many people self-identify as pro-choice and how many pro-life would be a useful statistic, since I'm not sure there are well-accepted numbers on that. But often we elect leaders to do those things we wouldn't do ourselves, because it's easy to be against something when you haven't the responsibility of saying what to do instead. So I think such things should usually be advisory, to inform leaders who I think would naturally care what people thought. But to say that it was about opting out is a bit strong. One might wish one could opt out of war, for example, yet some wars must be fought. I oppose pollution, yet there is no practical way to shut down every polluting device today and still get to a non-polluting tomorrow; there would be riots in the streets, and mobs would turn things back on. The reason we elect leaders and we don't just directly govern by real-time populism, with everyone just calling a 900 number to vote every time there's an issue, is that leaders have a sense of coherent responsibility that is tricky to muster and to master from any of our individual vantage points.

vzn, not 100% sure how the tragedy of the commons creeps in to this specific discussion, though I agree it relates to the system as a whole. I liked your pizza quote.

Coyote, I personally have different concerns when it comes to inequities but that underscores my point. We all do. And I think it's impractical to say "make a list of the items you want to be insured against". That's a huge gamble for people to be in alone and I think a system that was turning people away by saying “sorry, but you forgot to put this one on your list” would not long stand; indeed, it's very similar to what we have now. So we each need to tolerate that the system will pay for things we wouldn't just so we can have it pay for things we care about that others might not have wanted.

Mishima has a point, but I think it confirms your point. I don't want my taxes going to support Salvadoran death squads nor a foolish war in Iraq, but they do anyway. As I wrote in my piece Stem Cells and Sophie's Choice I did want my tax dollars going to stem-cell research, but they didn't.

The simple truth is that in a representative democracy my only say in the matter is to vote periodically for the people I think best represent my views -- and we see how well that's working out, don't we?

It would be interesting to see what would happen if America really was a democracy and Americans got to vote on issues. Polls tell us we would all probably be paying for abortions and nationalized healthcare, and the boys would be coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. So much for democracy.

If you want another glaring example of the issue you pose, Hatch, Conrad, Lincoln, et al, on the Senate Finance Committee just pushed thru an amendment restoring $50 million for Abstinence Only education in spite of the fact that every study of AO shows it doesn't work -- ask Sarah Palin. In fact, Texas, of all places, is dropping AO because it doesn't work, as evidenced by the fact that TX has the highest rate of teen pregnancy of any state in the country.

In short, can I check a box that removes AO funding from my taxes? Please?!

Tom, for what it's worth, I don't support such a checkbox either, even though I probably am aligned with you politically on the point you raise and I agree with the bulk of your analysis. The checkbox thing just isn't how we do things, whether it's a thing I'd like to see the government do or something I'd like to see it not do. I might like to see public referenda on various topics, binding or even non-binding just to gather some data. But we don't have even that. So I don't like the way this issue is played now because it seems to assert a right (in the anti-democratic way that rights in the bill of rights are intended to work, allowing one person to stand up against the tyranny of the majority) but without that particular right being codified, and offered more as a procedural way of bypassing public process than as a form of proper democratic participation.

Kent,

You write, “That isn't democracy, that's dictatorship and tyranny.”

This actually reaffirms the final statement in my initial comment; religion (as practiced and promoted by most mainstream Christian/Abrahamic religious apologists) and democracy do not mix well, which was the main point in that comment. The most vocal anti-abortion advocates base their opposition in religious dogma, so it seemed that the religious element, not necessarily the “morality”, would be essential to this particular discussion.

You write, “One is drawn to influence what one can, and yet clearly one cannot be responsible for things one cannot control.”

That is what I perceive as the main point of your post. What about issues like making “reparations” for slavery, or for the genocide of Native Americans? I’m not opposed to affirmative action, but I have been victimized by it during my lifetime. I’m not responsible for what was done to slaves or Native Americans, but I have suffered the expense of repaying those wrongs several times in my life. Regardless, I’ve never refuted the value of those actions in creating a more equal playing field within our society.

Essentially, it has always been the same right-wing, “values-voters”, to whom you refer here, who have spoken out against such measures, also.

You say, “I didn't even mean to get as far as discussing the morality.” I don’t know that we can really separate the morality from this discussion.

I'll pay someone else's share of abortion since I consider that they pay my share of faith based initiatives. We each pay double for what we believe is important, and are absolved of paying for something of which we want no part. It may be a mind game, but it's one giant pot, and one man's junk is another man's treasure.

Travellini, faith-based initiatives are a complex matter because they also bring into question the establishment clause, which has to do with favoritism, not use of government funds. A neutral example might be the use of a public building for a religious meeting, which I think is allowed as long as there is no special preference for that religion (or for religion at all) in assigning the room's use. That's a case where funding is out of the picture, since presumably the room exists and its schedule is not so piled up with requests from organizations that it has to choose winners and losers. (The case of public displays of religious items in a town common at Christmastime is a more interesting one since real estate gets exhausted.) In the case of abortion, the number of options for a pregnant woman are irritatingly finite—keep, put up for adoption, abort. So the government isn't exactly picking winners and losers in a political debate by trying to make any of these options palatable and leaving it to individuals. As such, I don't think the issues of faith-based initiatives and abortion are perfect analogs, but I do think analyzing other such issues to make sure what I'm saying (and what the government does) stands up to consistency checks, and I certainly appreciate your raising the matter.

In fact, religious charity tax deductions are another. In effect, any time there is a tax deduction, it means someone's share of the national debt is being compensated for by others, and in those cases there is a bias to give religious organizations deductions while organizations that operate in good-faith "just because it seemed like a good idea" may well not get a deduction in all cases. 501(c)3 status is often a pain to acquire. That's my tax dollars going to a religion, then, any time anyone gives a charitable donation to a religion, and surely no religion would want a checkbox to let me opt out of that.