Using Religion to Justify Anything and Everything is Quicksand

Two women, one a Baptist, say their religion finds a human being begins at birth. Indiana law says, no, the fetus is a human being. This latter view requires that hospitals and clinic hold a funeral and appropriate ceremonies when a miscarriage happens. The hospital is prevented by law from tossing this medical waste into its incinerator. A woman has the option of taking the bloody mess home and flushing it. This is going to court. 

If this Supreme Court is like others, the ruling will be that the woman who holds the religious view life begins at birth, which is stated clearly in the Bible, will prevail. This will prevail over Indiana's law with holds that a fetus has "personhood." Of course, it will not prevail in all cases, the court will try to thread the needle between the fetus as personhood and the Bible passage used by the woman which says a human life begins at birth. Both views will be upheld even though they are opposites.

I'm not a follower of the legal world to know who or where the term, "sincerely held belief" came from. Wherever that was, it was a recipe for folly. When two parties hold opposite "sincerely held beliefs" what will courts decide? Will the one prevail that comes from the religious background of a majority of the court? Will it be the one held by a majority of the public? Most people today expect, I am guessing, it will be the "right one," i.e., the one each person holds. 

I'm not a historian nor a religious scholar, but when I read our constitution and comments and letters written by our founding fathers, I get the impression they understood mixing up the country's religious life with its laws and government was something to be avoided. That is, it would lead to unresolvable conflicts. Over the last many decades, however, courts and lawmakers have done exactly what the founding fathers said should not be done. Religion and government have become hopelessly entangled.

By overturning Roe, courts and state governments have dived headfirst into a rabbit hole, never to escape. It baffles me that judges and lawmakers would charge full speed ahead with a religious argument, abortion is murder, without understanding they were following a religious dictate and that other religions would claim the opposite right. 

Conservative judges and politicians are not the brightest porchlights on the block. Yet, when the sun comes up one would think they could see where they were headed.