Lessons from the January 6th hearings

NBC

Watching the January 6th congressional hearings has brought back a rather vivid memory from my youth. I was in my last weeks of high school when the Senate Watergate hearings began and a first-year undergraduate student when they ended. I had declared a major in music at Bethel College (now University), but I was glued to the television throughout the successive months as Senator Sam Ervin presided over the hearings. I was angry at the so-called Saturday Night Massacre in which an embattled president fired the special prosecutor responsible for investigating the misdeeds of his own administration. Along with many other Americans, I was incensed at the spectacle of Richard Nixon abusing his constitutional authority in the interest of staying in power amidst credible charges of wrongdoing. Indeed, the Watergate scandal was one of the precipitating events that moved me to change my major field of studies from music to political science.

Reflections on Dobbs v Jackson

My six-part series on the US Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v Jackson has been picked up and republished as a single essay by Kuyperian Commentary: Reflections on Dobbs v Jackson. An excerpt:

[W]hen a particular group asserts a right not contained in a written constitution or previously unacknowledged in the unwritten constitution, such a claim must be adjudicated by a generally recognized authority. At the outset such a claim to a right is only that: a claim. Those making such a claim must make their case in the proper forum along with those who might have legitimate reasons to contest the claim. Justice requires, not simply acknowledging the claim, but hearing all sides, weighing the issue according to recognized principles of justice anchored in the law, and deciding whether the claimed right, either in whole or in part, should be recognized as positive law. In the vast majority of such cases, a representative body is the most appropriate authority to weigh such a claim, either by enacting a new statute or initiating an amendment to the Constitution. If a given polity is divided on the claim, neither side is likely to obtain the entirety of what it is seeking. But such outcomes are in the very nature of democracy, in which compromise enables some measure of conciliation in the midst of disagreement.

Read the entire article here.

July newsletter

 My Global Scholars newsletter for July is now posted here: July 2022 newsletter.

Reflections on Dobbs: complete series

In recent weeks I have undertaken to analyze the US Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v Jackson, with a final excursus on Canada. Here are links to the entire series:

• Reflections on Dobbs, part 1: creating and overturning precedents 
• Reflections on Dobbs, part 2: 'rights talk' and partisan polarization 
• Reflections on Dobbs, part 3: Planned Parenthood v Casey 
• Reflections on Dobbs, part 4: the Court's reasoning 
• Reflections on Dobbs, part 5: was it rightly decided?
• Reflections on Dobbs: An excursus on abortion in Canada

If you begin reading the first instalment, you can simply move to the next one by clicking on the link at the bottom, without needing to return to this page.

Reflections on Dobbs, part 6: an excursus on abortion in Canada

As in many things, Canada and the United States differ with respect to abortion policy. As noted earlier, unlike the US, Canada has a unified Criminal Code for the entire country. For the first century after Confederation, abortion was banned as a criminal offence. Under Pierre Trudeau's Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69, also known as the "Omnibus Bill," abortion was allowed under certain circumstances, provided it was performed in hospital under the supervision of a therapeutic abortion committee. If the life or health of the mother was at stake, the three-physician committee was authorized to approve it. In 1970, this provision was numbered section 251 of the Criminal Code, the first two subsections of which read as follows:

Reflections on Dobbs, part 5: was it rightly decided?

As we noted earlier, the English common law treats established precedents as binding on current and future court decisions. The ancient doctrine of stare decisis, or stand on what is decided, is a fundamental principle that guides the courts in common law jurisdictions. The common law is often said to be "judge-made law," as distinct from law made by a legislative body. But to say that judges make the law may not be altogether accurate. According to Cicero,

Revista Fé Cristão interview

I recently had the privilege of engaging in an online conversation with Natanael Pedro Castoldi, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Universidade do Vale do Taquari (Univates) in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The resulting interview has been posted at Revista Fé Cristão: Conversando com… David Koyzis – em inglês e português (BR). As the title indicates, it is in both Portuguese and English. Here is an excerpt in English:

Reflections on Dobbs, part 4: the Court's reasoning

Now we come to the ruling itself. The case began after the state of Mississippi enacted a law in 2018 banning most abortions after the first fifteen weeks of pregnancy. The state's only abortion provider, Jackson Women's Health Organization, sued State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs on the grounds that the law violated the constitutionally-protected right to abortion guaranteed in Roe v Wade. Mississippi in turn asked that the law be upheld and Roe struck down. As the case was being argued in the lower courts, these courts had granted injunctions to suspend enforcement of the law. Near the end of 2021, the case was heard by the Supreme Court, the highest court of appeal in the United States, with the decision expected this year. At the beginning of May a draft copy of the Court's ruling was leaked to Politico, in an unprecedented breach of confidentiality. The Court released its decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization on 24 June 2022, and, as expected, it struck down Roe v Wade. Here are the key paragraphs of the decision:

An era of good feelings

Christian Courier has published my latest column here: An era of good feelings, with the subtitle: "Happiness vs. joy: what's the difference?" Here is an excerpt:

The concern for human happiness is by no means new; Aristotle affirmed it as the proper end of human life. Aristotle, however, identified happiness with living a life of virtue, not with cheerful emotions.

What is new is the identification of happiness with feeling good about oneself. The slightest dip in one’s self-esteem is increasingly regarded as a crisis needing to be addressed and resolved, probably through some form of therapy combined with social approbation. Suffering, and even mere inconvenience, are rendered meaningless, regarded as the deprivation of a good life. Sadly, even Christians have imbibed this worldview. Many Christians effectively subordinate the authority of God’s word to their personal aspirations, diminishing the seriousness of our sinful proclivities and with them Christ’s sacrifice to atone for our sins.

Read the entire article here, and don't forget to subscribe to Christian Courier.

Reflections on Dobbs, part 3: Planned Parenthood v Casey

In 1992 abortion again came before the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey. The Encyclopaedia Britannica's entry describes the circumstances leading up to the case:

In 1988 and 1989 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, led by Governor Robert Casey, enacted new abortion statutes that required that a woman seeking an abortion give her informed consent, that a minor seeking an abortion obtain parental consent (the provision included a judicial waiver option), that a married woman notify her husband of her intended abortion, and, finally, that clinics provide certain information to a woman seeking an abortion and wait 24 hours before performing the abortion. Before any of these laws could take effect, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania brought suit against the governor, protesting the constitutionality of the statutes.