Public Reason and Political Conflict: Abortion and Homosexuality

Abstract

Is it possible for people who sharply disagree about important questions of morality, including those pertaining to abortion and homosexuality, to constitute a stable political society whose basic constitutional principles can be affirmed as just by all reasonable parties? This question is not about the possibility of political compromise; rather, it concerns the possibility of a certain type of moral agreement. This type of moral agreement is not agreement about whether abortion or homosexual conduct, for example, are right or wrong. Instead, it is agreement about basic principles of justice for a society composed of people who disagree about such issues. One possibility is for people who disagree about the morality of particular acts or practices to agree upon fair procedures for the political resolution of moral disagreements. For example, people who disagree about the morality of abortion might, as a constitutional matter, agree upon democratic procedures for setting public policy on abortion. However, people of strong and settled conviction on either side of the debate over abortion cannot reasonably be satisfied ofthe justice ofthe fundamental law of their country simply because the procedures used to arrive at a resolution were democratic. From the pro-life point of view, any regime of law (including one whose pedigree is impeccably democratic) that deprives unborn human beings of their right to legal protection against homicide is gravely unjust.1 Similarly, from the pro-choice viewpoint, restrictions on a woman's right to abortion are seriously unjust even if they were put in place by democratic procedures. From either perspective, the question of abortion is viewed as a matter of fundamental justice whose proper resolution is essential to the full moral legitimacy of the constitutional order. In this respect, the social conflict over abortion closely resembles the conflict over slavery. Of course, pro-life and pro-choice advocates may, for