Subsidiarity and Unpleasant Realities
Something that was left out in Kyle Cupp’s recent post on a proposal to limit abortion funding to certain instances of rape was the relative novelty of having medical professionals act in a law enforcement capacity. I’m feeling a little lazy at the moment, but I seem to recall mandatory reporter laws going into effect only within the last couple decades. Mandatory reporter laws compel some professionals to report crimes to the police. Nurses, doctors, and teachers are often the professionals cited, and crimes are typically domestic violence or crimes against children. Some folks like Lila Rose have exploited these laws to entrap abortion counselors.** I’m not sure if the evidence shows that these measures have protected children or domestic violence victims, but they made us feel better and added to the liability insurance premiums of professionals, and that is what is important.
Particularly in relation to the priestly abuse scandals, much mention has been made of how we in the first world have faith in law enforcement and the court system to do the right thing. Worries over judges and police perpetuating injustices are basically reserved for hyperbolic expression or at least the worries are of a more temporal nature where we expect resolution of any injustice within a finite period. The idea that bishops should be eager to turn investigations of abuse over to police can only be understood in such a context, and the idea that the professional should be compelled by law to act as an extension of law enforcement can only be contemplated by such a context. Likewise the idea that any employer, which likely is inclusive of everyone in the nation at some point, has as a first obligation to aid in the enforcement of immigration laws comes from an idea of the role of government that would be foreign to our ancestors.
In fairness to the law’s proponents, the status of being a rape victim in order to receive funding was an issue before they came along. Once the decision has been made to provide services based on status, other parties are necessarily implicated in the policy choice or at least have the potential to be implicated. And there certainly is nothing unreasonable about seeking to effectively enforce policy prerogatives chosen. If we were discussing a preamble like “So as to ensure that rape victims have adequate access to help, we authorize…”, there would be no need to have the discussion, because everyone’s understanding would be that we weren’t seeking to discriminate; rather we would just be excuse making. That happens all the time in law making, but we aren’t trying to do so here.
Finally, the idea that society has an obligation to attempt to make victims whole is hooey, to get technical. If Bill steals $200 from Bob, the State isn’t obligated to give Bob $200. About the only thing worse than being victimized itself is the realization that no matter what your next step is, you lose. If you report the crime and cooperate with police, you lose your time, have your integrity questioned, and are not even guaranteed a guilty verdict. If you don’t report, you face the guilt that someone later is likely to be victimized, and you don’t have the ability to at least make the perpetrator suffer. Yes, you could sue the perpetrator for damages, but that more often than not is an attempt to bleed a turnip, and even then you are likely going to have to pay an attorney up front except for the most highly probabilistic and recoverable judgments. None of that is fun, but that doesn’t mean the State owes you. And yes this effectively means that victims share in the responsibility for their victimization, something for which crime victims come to realize. If a guy is beaten in the street, he is billed for the ambulance and billed for medical treatment.* That is reality. Rape victims aren’t any different, and there really isn’t a good reason why they should be treated differently.
* Yes, there are some expenses born by prosecutor’s offices and investigative agencies, but this is typically under the guise of evidence collection. Some places have charitable trusts to aid victims, but they are charitable in nature and not an attempt to reconcile an injustice.
** Minor update: Lila Rose is in the news again. I composed this before becoming aware of this latest sting, so obviously my commentary isn’t consciously reflecting those events. Like most people that have an expansive view of entrapment, I don’t support efforts to treat these situations criminally.
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I am trying now to remember if there is another crime where the victim can conceive a child during the commission of the crime. Perhaps car theft, but only if the vehicle is moving at a very low speed, but give me more time to think on this and I shall report back to you.
In Milwaukee there was an old man beaten so badly that he lost his eye. Medicare would have covered it, his personal insurance. There are people left permanently disabled in crimes and no longer able to work in their fields. There are people murdered, and their heirs have to bury them. Becoming impregnated by a rapist is certainly an awful thing, but it is not the worst thing imaginable, and it still does not create an obligation for society to make the victim whole.
I think my rather tart remark was more focused on how the issue of abortion is singled out and dangled as red meat in front of a ravenous but slothful crowd eager for a government to do the work they do not desire for themselves. That way they can spend more time venting their spleens on blogs about where they stand on this issue, without having to actually consider any new thoughts or approaches.
In a way, what I am saying is if we all spent more time working on this issue within our communities our politicians would not be able to use this as a wedge issue to divide and distract us from problems that we as individuals are much less likely to be able to resolve on a local level.
Maybe then we would would focus on what a lousy job our elected officials really are doing with regard to those matters. Oh well.
Now having said that I was wondering if you are suggesting that it is okay for medicare to cover injuries from a beaten man, but not a violently raped woman. Or a were you just saying that a pregnancy resulting from a rape is not what you consider to be an actual injury to the woman.
Medicare is not injury insurance. It is medical insurance primarily for the elderly.
Medicaid is medical insurance for poor people. In principle, it should either cover abortion as a medical service or it shouldn’t. The status of being a rape victim should be irrelevant to the calculation.
Thank you for that fine clarification. I mixed coverages, a mere oversight, and my sincerest apologies.
It appears that you are suggesting that under no circumstances does society have the responsibility to make anyone who is a victim of a crime (regardless of the type of crime) whole.
I will take this to mean that we have now rescinded the concept that we are our brother’s keeper in favor of a fatter bottom line.
A free society, which includes governments both local and regional, as well as national, is a cooperative effort. It is not an “us against them” situation, with government cast in the role of The Enemy. Physicians are charged with reporting gunshot wounds to the authorities, as well as probable assaults, whether sexual in nature, or otherwise. This is for the good of all. A large percentage of the population is not obsessed with the issue of abortion. It can’t be assumed every move made by the government with regard to insurance regulation and policies, or with regard to what you’ve called “reporter laws” has been devised for the purpose of enabling Big Government to conduct a slaughter of the innocents. I assure you that when Big Government enforces the first mandatory abortion, I will be leading the protest.
During America’s agarian period, if the man on the next farm over had his barn burn down, his neighbors came together and there was a barn raising. By what was participation in this activity made obligatory? Society most certainly DOES have an obligation to make whole the victims of any misfortune which renders them helpless, be it crime or natural disaster. This obligation is born of brother-love and its name is “charity.” We have too little, not too much, of that kind of thing going on in our selfish, consumer oriented, quasi-libertarian society.
This isn’t quite the history. On the frontier, there was some solidarity between settlers due to skirmishes with Native Americans. In more established areas, a not so subtle hint that you weren’t wanted was to burn your house (or barn) down. There was no barn raising then. Additionally, in more established areas, extended families were doing the barn raising, not strangers.
By the way, traditionally what we would call date rape would have resulted in marriage to the rapist or the victim’s family killing the rapist, more often the former. Rape generally would have resulted in these choices although occasionally there would be prosecutions, keeping in mind that rape was far more difficult to prove in prior times. I’m not claiming we should go back to this. However if we are going to make arguments about going back to the good old days – even if fictional – we might as well go whole hog.
I think what you are saying to Rodak here as well as what you said to me above:
“Becoming impregnated by a rapist is certainly an awful thing, but it is not the worst thing imaginable, and it still does not create an obligation for society to make the victim whole.”
does not match up with church doctrine.
For example in the compendium of the social doctrine of the church chapter 4 (principles of the church’s social doctrine) I have copied this portion in it’s entirety:
VIII. THE WAY OF LOVE
208. Social and political charity is not exhausted in relationships between individuals but spreads into the network formed by these relationships, which is precisely the social and political community; it intervenes in this context seeking the greatest good for the community in its entirety. In so many aspects the neighbour to be loved is found “in society”, such that to love him concretely, assist him in his needs or in his indigence may mean something different than it means on the mere level of relationships between individuals. To love him on the social level means, depending on the situations, to make use of social mediations to improve his life or to remove social factors that cause his indigence. It is undoubtedly an act of love, the work of mercy by which one responds here and now to a real and impelling need of one’s neighbour, but it is an equally indispensable act of love to strive to organize and structure society so that one’s neighbour will not find himself in poverty, above all when this becomes a situation within which an immense number of people and entire populations must struggle, and when it takes on the proportions of a true worldwide social issue.
It is quite obvious we are called by our Church to in fact “make the victim whole” whether it is just one of our neighbors or even when the proportions of suffering are massive.
I think that the history of barn raising provided by this wiki article is a bit more supportive of the point that I made above than it is of the rather bleak comment that follows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_raising
I would add that there is never any reason to “go whole hog” simply for the sake of being consistent. We (hopefully) learn from the past. What we learn helps us to maintain or enhance that which worked for our ancestors; it also helps us to avoid repeated their failures and mistakes. Today, when women are actually or potentially capable of providing for themselves and their children, if necessary, forced marriages would be a cruel absurdity.