March 2012

The Slippery Slope of Regulating Perceptions: Stand your Ground

Published on March 27, 2012

5.9K views

As I write this post, there are two, seemingly mutually exclusive, events rocking the nation and a third about to re-ignite; the Trayvon Martin tragedy, the battle over women’s health rights and the Supreme Court hearing on healthcare. I can’t help but thinking somewhere in the depths of these events there is an important point missing from the conversation.

On the one hand, a child was shot and killed as he walked home from the store. His killer remains free and protected by a poorly written law giving the shooter justification by self-defense. The killer believed the child was a threat to him and that is all that was needed under the NRA supported Stand Your Ground Law, recently enacted in Florida and other states.

“The Stand Your Ground Law acts as an immunity to both criminal and civil liability once it is successfully raised at or before trial by somebody who has been accused of using deadly force. See Peterson v. State, 983 So.2d 27, 29 (App. Ct. 2008) (holding that “[t]he [Florida] Legislature finds that it is proper for law-abiding people to protect themselves, their families, and others from intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others.”). Once a person raises this self-defense, “the trial court must determine whether the defendant has shown by a preponderance of the evidence¹ that the immunity attaches.” Id. Once the immunity attaches, it is then the prosecution’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt² that the self-defense should not apply and that the person is guilty of the crime. Montijo v. State, 61 So.3d 424, 427 (App. Ct. 2011).” (The Urban Politico)

On the other hand, we have a series of laws, proposed and enacted, that give a physician the right to withhold medically relevant information to a woman, if that information can be perceived as leading to an abortion. Furthermore, should the withheld information cause injury or death to the mother or child, which is inevitable, additional laws have been enacted protecting the physician from medical malpractice in these ‘wrongful birth’ cases.

In both cases, the fundamental questions of guilt or innocence, and the personal responsibility for the life or death of another human being need not be based upon the actual facts of the case. Rather, these laws allow defendants protection based upon what they believe or feel about the circumstances. The aggressor has legal justification to act if he/she believes a threat exists or a possible future action might occur. Feelings and beliefs are trumping facts and reality. This is a slippery slope.

Perhaps, even more insipid is the underlying assumption that it is OK, even justified, to harm another individual, a woman, a child, if doing so accords with one’s religious, political, economic or racial beliefs; that those organizational ideologies somehow supersede the basic human ethic and make the harming or even killing of another individual, whether by force or by bad policy, OK so long as I/my group believe it to be OK.

Enter this week’s Supreme Court hearings on the individual mandate aspect of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Although unconnected on the surface, this too has the air of succession of belief over reality. Only in this case, the courts will decide the value of human life versus the value of economic gains or loss, under the auspices of state’s rights and individual liberties versus federal power. Admittedly, legal scholars frame this decision differently and the pundits on both sides of the aisle have their opinions, but at its core, this decision will determine whether basic access to health care is a right determined by the presupposition that human life has value above economic or political gains worth protecting at the federal level or whether it is simply a commodity in a very screwed up political economy.

The facts of this case are that the American healthcare system is inefficient, has poor outcomes compared to other industrialized nations and is way too expensive. To boot, 30 million Americans do not have the insurance that provides them access. Every one of these 30 million Americans will become ill at some point and many will die without access to care. Do we as a nation think this is acceptable? Apparently, many do. And the fact that many people are suffering or dying doesn’t appear to have bearing when compared against the perceived economic gains or losses of certain industries or the political power many seek to retain. What some feel they will lose, should the healthcare act survive, has primacy over reality and facts. Indeed, if facts and reality mattered, there would have been a host of other solutions to presented, that address the actual costs to a nation that doesn’t provide its citizens healthcare. As we all know, this was not the case.

Yes, there will be economic consequences if healthcare is provided to all (perhaps some positive). And maybe the individual mandate is not the solution, but the arguments before the courts are not about whether the mandate is the right solution. These hearings are about whether facts trump feelings and whether the value of human health trumps state power and the economic gain of a few. Let’s hope the collective wisdom and ethics of the Supreme Court is greater than what has been observed in local legislatures and courts across the nation.

Subtle but fundamental changes in discourse: is anyone listening?

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on March 14, 2012

5.3K views

Discourse Matters

What happens when we change the definition of a person to include everything from a corporation to a barely fertilized female egg? What happens when the corporate person and a collection of cells have more tacit and actual rights afforded than actual sentient beings? Though the loud and often offensive debates over a woman’s manifest right to make decisions about her health have led many to declare a ‘war on women,’ these same trends will serve to erode human rights in general- even for male humans.

Perhaps more of a philosophical question at this point, but when the definitions of words within a language dissociate so radically- person no longer means a human- it is difficult not to wonder what ramifications are before us; the law of unintended consequences will most certainly be at play here.

The Subject in Discourse

Language, and by association conversation or discourse, follow some very specific rules. At the most basic level, a sentence contains a subject, verb and object and, for the most part, words describe something about reality. (We’ve long since dissembled language and reality with mega marketing, political expediency and spin- but that is another topic altogether).

Subjects are usually, he, she, it, they etc., a person or thing. Although the definition of person has evolved over the course of history, it is generally allied with some underlying concept of sentience or thinking. Even though animals can think, we have never defined animals as persons (try as many dog lovers might) and there has always been a clear demarcation between human and everything else. Over the course of two years, however, cultural forces have rendered that definition virtually obsolete. And we have yet to settle on a new definition.

Corporate Privileges in Discourse

By law, corporations are now afforded some of the same (often more) rights than human persons. A corporation is comprised of human persons, but is essentially a contrived legal entity that allows business to transact. What does it mean when a legal contrivance becomes a person? Because corporate persons often have more power and money, there is the very real risk that their market goals will supersede basic human rights. (As a countervailing force, however, the millions of people within corporations connected socially online may overturn this overstep- see my last post).

The Risks of Anti-Abortion Discourse

Similarly, local anti-abortion supporters aligned with local government entities have pushed legislation across multiple regions of the US that grant a fertilized egg, person status; often affording the cell person more rights than the human person. Along with these trends, legislation that either forces women to undergo unneeded medical procedures and/or prevent physicians from providing medical information to women supersede the rights of the human-sentient person in favor of cells. No matter what you believe about abortion, this is a fundamental shift in discourse with significant policy ramifications.

Aside from the potentially life-threatening position a woman can now be placed in legally, aside from ethical quandaries these laws place a physician in and the very real medical malpractice suits that these laws open the physician up to, this shift in language, motivated by narrow political goals, removes the notion of human rights, human persons, from policy discussions. And although, these policies currently target women specifically, they will ultimately erode rights for all humans. Who is to say other cells or other legal or object entities don’t indeed deserve to be protected over the rights of humans.

Sperm cells for example, are core constituents of human life and until we master asexual reproduction, why shouldn’t all sperm cells be considered sacred and merit the same protective caveats as the female egg? Or to its absurdity, the male penis, testicles and the like, containers of this life-giving force, why shouldn’t they be enshrined and protected until the moment of copulation- a chastity belt perhaps?

Laugh as we might, redefining personhood to include everything from non-human, legal entities to a collection of cells that may or may not evolve into a human being, dismisses the role and rights of actual humans. This change in discourse is a dangerous slope.

Why Citizens United, Feckless Politicians and Misogynist Radio Hosts are good for Women’s Rights

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on March 6, 2012

6.2K views

Yes, you read that correctly. The current diatribes and debates about women’s health and our rights to health care are a good thing. We are seeing, perhaps for the first time in a very long while, what many individuals and organizations really think about women’s rights. For this we have the Supreme Court and Citizens United to thank.

Citizens United, the infamous Supreme Court decision that decreed corporate personhood, cemented a long brewing trend in American political conscience favoring the rights and goals of corporations and institutions over those of individuals. More than simply allowing organizations or the super-rich to buy politicians of their choosing and do so entirely unencumbered by messy citizen-based fundraising or even approval, Citizen’s United capped, like an exclamation point, the corporate and institutional priorities of the last half of the 20th century.

Unhindered by legality, or even the good sense to mask a blatant trampling of the rights of human citizens, organizational power, under the corporate personhood decision, can now progress to its logical absurdity, which it is doing with astonishing alacrity. And women’s rights are in the cross-hairs.

Nothing but the pure hubris that comes with the unbridled power of corporate sponsored politicians can explain the all-male congressional hearings on women’s health, the Blunt Amendment or the continued political capitulation to the vile diatribes of a male radio host who debases women with every breath. Did they really think these events would go unnoticed by the female population? Obviously, they did. How else does one explain such a huge strategic error in political engineering? Even a neophyte political operative, if asked, would have suggested at least giving the appearance of inclusion of women or paying lip-service to those with differing opinions, if only to manage the optics.

With corporate personhood and corporate sponsored politicians, many politicians, it appears, believe that managing the optics is no longer necessary. Forget about working for the citizenry that the politician was elected to represent (that was lost long ago) it is much more expedient to manage the ‘corporate persons’ that sponsor one’s political longevity. In many ways, politicians in this post-Citizen’s United world are freer to behave in accordance with their actual beliefs. This includes favoring the prerogatives of the corporation or large organization over those of individuals; and as we’ve seen in recent weeks, throwing women’s health under the bus.

I would argue, however, that this is dire mistake, because despite the apparent victory that Citizen’s United granted corporations and other large organizations, it was rooted in 20^th century trends (and even earlier ideological foundations). Romney’s ill-fated “corporations are people” bespoke a critical truth, too quickly ignored. A corporation is not a unified entity, with a monolithic point-of-view, no matter how much money those at the top decide to throw at their chosen politician or desired political goals.

Corporations are comprised of millions of actual citizens (>50% are women) who are technologically connected and capable of launching powerful movements for or against their corporate or political leaders. Indeed, corporations and politicians are far more dependent upon the goodwill the citizenry than most realize. Consider the social media onslaught that befell proponents of the heavy-handed, industry-sponsored legislation to curtail online piracy (SOPA/PIPA) or the more recent attempt to block public access to tax-payer funded scientific research (HR3699/RWA). Both bills were blocked by internet activism. And these were relatively arcane bills. Imagine the power of millions of angry, connected women? Talk about a countervailing force to Citizen’s United, corporate shenanigans and feckless politicians; yes, this war on women is a good thing. It is awakening a sleeping giant. What this giant will do is anyone’s guess, but I’d hate to be the wrong side.