{"id":2899,"date":"2009-10-07T18:28:15","date_gmt":"2009-10-08T02:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2899"},"modified":"2009-10-08T08:14:18","modified_gmt":"2009-10-08T16:14:18","slug":"its-better-in-europe-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/its-better-in-europe-again\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s better in Europe (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker<\/em>, A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC SIGH<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Furthermore, it\u2019s not as if German conservatives are a bunch of crazy far-right nihilists. This is not the Republicans we\u2019re talking about. Both the CDU and the FDP recognize the urgency of global warming. Neither of them has a problem with gays. (The FDP\u2019s leader, soon to be foreign minister, is the country\u2019s other openly gay political bigwig.) Nor do they have a problem with allowing a woman to end a pregnancy<\/strong> if she feels she must, or with telling kids to use condoms if they can\u2019t resist having sex, or with the theory of evolution, or with gun control\u2014or, for that matter, with \u201csocialism.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People have “schema”<\/a> which they use to organize their models of the world. In many ways conservative parties in Europe, in particular on the Continent, are oriented in what to an American would seem to be a socialist direction. Social insurance<\/a> famously began under the Prussian junker Otto von Bismarck as a pragmatic measure. But life is more complicated than simply shifting the political spectrum to the Left. Note that the dominant conservative parties in Germany are called the Christian<\/i> Democratic Union and the Christian<\/i> Social Union. Their basis of support are among Catholics and conservative Protestants, and their connection to religious sentiment goes back to the old Catholic Centre Party. Therefore, it should not surprise that Hertzberg’s glib assessment is a bit misleading<\/a>:
\n<\/p>\n

\nAs a result, in 1976, West Germany legalized abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy for reasons of medical necessity, sexual crimes or serious social or emotional distress, if approved by two doctors, and subject to counseling and a three-day waiting period. In 1989, a Bavarian doctor was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and 137 of his patients were fined for failing to meet the certification requirements.<\/p>\n

The two laws had to be reconciled after reunification. A new law was passed by the Bundestag in 1992, permitting first-trimester abortions on demand, subject to counselling and a three-day waiting period. The law was quickly challenged in court by a number of individuals – including Chancellor Helmut Kohl – and the State of Bavaria.<\/b> The Federal Constitutional Court issued a decision a year later maintaining its earlier decision that the constitution protected the fetus from the moment of conception, but stated that it is within the discretion of parliament not to punish abortion in the first trimester, providing that the woman had submitted to state-regulated counselling designed to discourage termination and protect unborn life. Parliament passed such a law in 1995. Abortions are not covered by public health insurance except for women with low income.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, note that there was resistance from German conservatives in the 1990s toward perceived liberalization of the abortion laws. Second, it is a fact that the people who reside in the former GDR have seen a rollback in terms of the right to an abortion in the united Germany. Third, German abortion laws are still more restrictive than in the United States.<\/p>\n

American liberals often chide conservatives on their one nation parochialism. But the reality is that everyone is shaped by their own local lens, and the Left can’t help but project their own categories and dualities onto Europe.<\/p>\n

H\/T<\/b> Matt Yglesias<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker, A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC SIGH: Furthermore, it\u2019s not as if German conservatives are a bunch of crazy far-right nihilists. This is not the Republicans we\u2019re talking about. Both the CDU and the FDP recognize the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9,26,15],"tags":[55,354],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2908,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions\/2908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}