Conscience

Shakespeare's Sister links to a great column (by Colin McEnroe) on Lieberman's follies. Included in the litany is Lieberman's solicitude for the tender consciences of hospital administrators:

Lieberman said the Catholic hospitals shouldn't have to hand out the pills and that transportation should instead be provided, for the rape victim, to some other hospital. He said, "In Connecticut, it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital."

....

That's taking better care of the administrator than of the rape victim. And the former is generally having a better day than the latter.

Shakes' response is excellent:

Lieberman’s reducing the trauma of being redirected to a hospital which is willing to provide you the care you need after being raped to “a short ride” is not amusing. He’s yada-yadaing all the things upon which McEnroe deliberately elucidates—the emotional devastation, the fear, the humiliation, the invasiveness, all of which are exacerbated by the implied shamefulness of wanting to prevent a possible pregnancy caused by a sexual assault.

Besides the callousness of the stance, though, the thing that gets to me is the way they use the word 'conscience'....

To me, conscience is an individual thing. Conscience applies to my own actions, not to somebody else's. Nobody can regulate my conscience, and I can't regulate anybody else's.

That doesn't seem to be a universal definition. For Catholic hospitals (and people like Lieberman who support them), for the 'conscience clause' backers, for those who oppose adoption by gay parents, 'conscience' is something you can apply to other people. For all of them, it isn't about whether or not they sin; it's about preventing somebody else from sinning.

So sorry, but my conscience won't let you take Plan B. My conscience won't let you marry the man or woman you love. My conscience won't let you give a needy child a loving home.

If there's one thing I hate more than bigotry, it's abuse of the language. Applying the word 'conscience' to the desire to regulate the behavior of others is a first-degree crime against English. Conscience is too important a word to abandon to the barbarians; we need, above all, to restore it to its true meaning.

We do, in fact, need to protect the right of conscience. We need to protect the rape victim's right to exercise her conscience, to do what she believes is right. We need to protect the right of every individual to exercise his or her conscience in matters of sex and reproduction. We need to protect the right of couples to exercise their consciences, to marry if they believe it is the right thing for them, to raise children if they believe it is right. We need to take back the word 'conscience' and start really protecting it.

And when that happens, then I'll be able to hear the word 'conscience' without gagging.

[That's all, folks]