The Huffington Post took a bit too much sensationalistic license when it characterized Mike Huckabee as comparing abortion to slavery in a recent speech at a fundraiser for an anti-abortion group. Per the article, what was said was:

…when it abolished slavery, the U.S. debated and decided it was immoral for one person to have complete, life-or-death power over another.

While Huckabee is trying to reuse the logic and argument behind the abolition of slavery for abortion, it’s pretty clear he’s not saying abortion is slavery. Nor do I think he was trying to characterize the relationship of parent to child as analogous to that between slave owner and slave. Although that’s a more direct line of reasoning than the sensationalistic one the article chose to go with.

It’s certainly hard to argue that one person should have complete life or death power over another. But that statement is predicated on two things. First, that both parties involved are people. Prior to the abolition of slavery there were already laws against murder and such that cemented the notion of one person not having life or death control over another into law. The legal transition that abolished slavery was the recognition of slaves as people rather than property. This is essentially what Huckabee is proposing, and he says as much later on. He thinks that fertilized eggs are people, and wants that codified into law. The rest just follows.

The trouble with fertilized eggs being people, as opposed to slaves, is that slaves are autonomous. When slavery ended, there was no requirement for owners to educate and endow slaves with anything as they left. They just cut them loose. But this is not possible for eggs and embryos. Even if it were medically simple to transplant fertilized eggs and embryos out of the mother, to where are they sent? Do we raise them in labs? Do we employ surrogate mothers?

What if this were two adults with such a dependent relationship? What if I’m identified as being one in a million who has a particular tissue match with a person who will die without one of my kidneys? Should the law obligate me to donate the organ? I suspect most of the pro-life lobby would say no. Yet I think this is a way more analogous situation than slavery.

Curiously the political camp that seems the most determined to garner persondom on cell clusters is also the group that is most adamant about dismantling the social safety net pushed by more progressive politicians. They oppose any form of government subsidy (medicine, housing, welfare, etc.) that confers a minimum environment for a person to live. Why then does it make sense that they want the government to mandate that a woman must provide a minimum environment for a fertilized egg, but the government shouldn’t require that once that baby is born that any taxpayer should be obligated to provide for its welfare?

If pro-life is really about celebrating and preserving life, shouldn’t it be worried more about improving the quality of life for existing people rather than just increasing the number of lives born and allowing them to fend for themselves on the streets?

So far it’s a good news / bad news story. The Texas Board of Education did vote to drop the requirement that weaknesses of scientific theories be taught. This is good news. Students will no longer be taught that Intelligent Falling is an alternative to the Theory of Gravity because gravitons, while predicted, have never been observed. Oh yeah, silly me, this clause was only used to teach that Creationism was an alternative to evolution.

However, several amendments have been introduced and tentatively passed, including one the board agreed to which states that students shall “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell.” That rather opens up the anti-evolution rhetoric. A second amendment provides for teaching that there are different estimates for the age of the universe. While this is true (currently science says the universe is 13.7 billion years old, give or take 0.12 billion years), I suspect the intent is to allow the introduction of biblical estimates closer to 10,000 years old.

So while the general science guidelines have been tightened up, there are still some intentional holes poked in the lid to allow religion to be taught as science.

Dan Quinn of the watchdog group Texas Freedom Network put it well. He said the board “slammed the door on creationism, then ran around the house opening up all the windows to let it in another way.”

The final votes on these amendments are today, so there’s still some hope that sanity will prevail. The board is pretty evenly divided. Seven of the board’s 15 members are closely aligned with social conservative groups and have openly voted and advocated for teaching Creationism as science. Therefore, the remainder of the board has to unify against them for the amendments to fail. Personally, it seems that the mere notion that people’s social convictions are driving science education policy should be a wake-up call to somebody.

Stay tuned…

UPDATE: Quoted from a press release issued by the Texas Freedom Network

TFN President Kathy Miller: Texas State Board of Education Adopts Flawed Science Standards

The word “weaknesses” no longer appears in the science standards. But the document still has plenty of potential footholds for creationist attacks on evolution to make their way into Texas classrooms.

Through a series of contradictory and convoluted amendments, the board crafted a road map that creationists will use to pressure publishers into putting phony arguments attacking established science into textbooks.

We appreciate that the politicians on the board seek compromise, but don’t agree that compromises can be made on established mainstream science or on honest education policy.

What’s truly unfortunate is that we now have to revisit this entire debate in two years when new science textbooks are adopted. Perhaps the Texas legislature can do something to prevent that.

This just sucks… I guess I’m supposed to feel good that it could have been worse. But somehow it seems that ignorance shouldn’t be what you’re fighting when you’re talking about school curricula. So much for leaving no children behind.

FINAL UPDATE: For further analysis of what the implications of the outcome in Austin are, you should read this and this.