Sorry y’all, taxes don’t actually work like that
(Originally posted at Attackerman)
In the midst of going gangbusters on the Democratic leadership for sacrificing women’s reproductive health to political expediency, Katha Pollitt makes a point that I wish were made more often:
President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help him out by sacrificing your denomination’s tax exemption. The Catholic Church would be aa good place to start, and it wouldn’t even be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes support something they dislike? You don’t want your tax dollars to pay, even in the most notional way, for women’s abortion care, a legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in her lifetime? I don’t want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and sour-old-man hierarchies.
This is easily one of the most frustrating things about the abortion debate. In a debate about whether or not the federal government should fund abortion services, abortion opponents almost always point to the substantial, trenchant opposition to abortion as a point in their favor. “X number of Americans oppose abortion, and so it’s not fair that their tax dollars should have to go to a procedure that they oppose.”
Tough shit.
A key part of living in a democratic society is accepting the fact that a majority of your fellow-citizens might favor a policy that you’re opposed to, morally or otherwise. Hell, a key part of living in a democratic society is accepting the fact that the government will grant certain rights – like reproductive freedom inclusive of abortion – that you find deeply immoral. Now, as a full person within said society, you can work and lobby to restrict the extent to which that right can be exercised. But what you can’t do is force the government to abandon rights or responsibilities that you find distasteful. For instance, I’m not a huge fan of bloated defense budgets or open-ended imperial adventures, and ideally, I would not want my tax dollars to support said projects. As a society however, we’ve agreed that I am not allowed to not pay taxes because I don’t like a particular action. Instead, I have to convince my fellow citizens that my stance is the correct one, and watch it go from there.
The simple fact is that there exists a right to abortion (a legal medical procedure, mind you) that a large percentage of American women aren’t actually able to exercise. And since we’ve generally accepted that we can use the force of government to promote certain rights, it stands to reason that we use federal funds to give women the choice of obtaining an abortion. Unless we – as a society – agree that abortion ought to be outlawed, or unless we’re prepared to say that any moral objection is grounds for federal restriction, then I think it’s fair to say that we should put an end to this ridiculous “pro-lifers don’t have to pay for things they don’t like” double-standard.
*And as a note to the more theory inclined readers, I know there’s a deeper point that could be made, I just don’t have the time or inclination to make it.
