The State as a mirror

I was reading the transcript of the debate on Victoria’s new abortion laws in the Upper House (downloaded via Mr. Schütz’s Sentire cum Ecclesia) when I came across this revealing little thought from pro-abortion Member Mr. Shaun Leane M.L.C.:

I think some people who want to maintain these provisions in the Crimes Act want to say to women who want to have an abortion or are thinking of having an abortion, ‘Thou shalt not’. That is what they want to say. It is not the state’s role to do that. The state’s job is to reflect modern-day conditions and to reflect what real people are actually doing and what is acceptable for the majority.

Now in the traditional Catholic theory of the State, the State is the juridical and moral person that exercises God-given temporal authority over a given populace in a given territory. The State’s proper end is the building-up of the common good, and with it the upholding of justice—it must legislate in accordance with the eternal moral law, discernible by the light of natural reason. ‘Thou shalt not’ is exactly what the State should be saying sometimes, perhaps even most of the time. But for Mr. Leane, the State wields not a sword, as St. Paul put it, but a mirror—it simply serves the populace directly rather than serving God or serving the common good directly, and the populace only indirectly. Thus the very meaning of the State’s authority is subverted. What Mr. Leane is advocating here is a naked positivism whereby the State simply indulges the populace in whatever debauchery takes its fancy, so long as a majority can agree on it.

One can hardly be surprised at this sort of madness taking root in the corridors of power, though, when many of Mr. Leane’s electors no doubt would agree with him. One suspects that this sort of positivism and utilitarianism is rampant among Westerners, and one wonders, then, whether universal suffrage is really the best way to choose a government. Look at the recent comment of MgS when I begged her to give me some clue as to what she understands by justice:

justice is largely a part of the broader social contract that is the society in which one lives.
(http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-revenge-and-retribution-plus-request.html)

So justice, far from being a virtue on which all other goods hinge (hence its status as a cardinal virtue), itself hinges on the whim of society. Justice becomes whatever the majority (or whatever decision rule is used) wants it to be; there is no longer any question of trying to discern unchanging moral standards against which to evaluate right and wrong. Positivism, utilitarianism and relativism are the order of the day, even to the extent of forcing people to disobey their consciences. This is what we are up against.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Callistus, Pope, Martyr, 2008 A.D.