Getting back to basics: we live in a community, a holistic community. We are not mere individuals. We come together in society to undertake collective actions that further the common good. Most of the time, this coordination comes in the private or subsidiary domain, but in the many instances where the market is not synonymous with justice, the state also has a role to play. Either way, the aims are the same, and both are subject to the moral law. But in America today we see signs of radical dichotomy between morality in the private and public sector. I’ve seen the argument numerous times – private companies are in business to make profits and reward shareholders, so they can do as they like, but anything that uses taxpayer money must conform to exacting moral standards (this is a slight exaggeration, but only slight).
Except that this is nonsense. Consider the arguments during the health care debate. If a country decided to collectively provide health care through a single payer system, where every person pays a dedicated social security tax into a health fund, it would be seen as a huge problem if this health care funded abortion. But if society decided to achieve this aim differently, where a private premium replaces a dedicated tax, the moral restrictions are suddenly loosened. Sure, nobody will support abortion in private health care, but they don’t make a fuss. When was the last time the NRLC committee launched a campaign on this issue? It’s not even on the radar – remember the furore over the RNC funding abortion in their insurance for almost two decades? And even though the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act went to great lengths to restrict the relationship between funding mechanisms and abortion, opening up an ever-wider chasm with the more liberal private sector, all attention focused on the (real or perceived) flaws with the former, and ignored the latter. We even saw some ludicrous arguments. For example, reform opponents acknowledged that everybody on the individual market will have a pro-life option, but they insisted that this was insufficient, as families might be better suited by other choices. These opponents remained strangely blind to the problems with the private employer-based insurance market where the stark choice is between taking whatever is on offer and forsaking insurance.
While the healthcare debate shone a light on this area, it is far from the only example of this double standard. Think about embryonic stem cell research. While Bush was banning federal funding for ESCR, he was simultaneously supporting private funding. And while the Church quite rightly takes a strong stand against IVF clinics, where is the outrage against the embryos created and destroyed to aid pregnancy? There is none. I used to think this was largely narcissism, where having a child is seen as such an absolute right that nothing can stand in its way. But now I think it’s something else – it’s safely located in the private sector, beyond the watchful eye of our moral guardians.
Of course, there are many more examples. Just consider the appalling spread of pornography that accompanied the internet. This is now all-pervasive and has fundamentally altered the way younger generations think about sex. But of course, this is the private sector, and a very profitable part of the private sector. Nobody supports pornography, but there is very little initiative in terms of hurting its economic bottom line either. Fr. Sirico of the Acton Institute was at least honest when he came out against government regulation over pornography.
We need to come back to a more holistic or integral view of the morality of our public choices.
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