Just for the record ...

In response to Rick's post:

My suggestion that the situation at OHSA should be of concern to all of us for whom the life of every human being is precious--is that a controversial proposition?-- was not an effort to link the controversy over OHSA policies to the controversy over partial-birth abortion.  (I still don't know where Rick stands on the OHSA policies.)  For the record, and as I explained to my students this week:  I think Justice Kennedy got it right in the partial-birth abortion case; that is, even given Roe v. Wade, I think the decision in Gonzales v. Carhart was right.

Just as I think that Justice Kennedy got it right in the death-penalty cases.  On the reasonableness/unreasonableness issue:  Reasonableness in this context is, I think, a matter of degree.  I invite MOJ bloggers and readers to read the three death penalty cases and then decide how a Cathoilic justice--or indeed any justice for whom the life even of the most depraved criminal is precious--should have voted, all things considered--not least, that in each case the life of a human being hung in the balance.  (Which opinion(s) would you have joined or concurred in, Rick?)

About the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys:  To say, as Rick does, that the White House is entitled to dismiss them is ambiguous.  Surely Rick doesn't think that the White House is entitled--either morally or legally--to dismiss them for certain reasons.  And to say, as I did in my post, that Rick's position is complacent is to say that Rick gives no indication, in his (shoulder-shrugging) comments, of having taken seriously enough the possibility that the White House dismissed at least some of the U.S. attorneys for  morally and legally objectionable reasons.