Facts and Simon Bridges
New Zealand’s National Party Leader Simon Bridges said of the abortion debate, “The reality is, one person’s misinformation is another person’s fact.” To say so reveals a deep misunderstanding about what reality is, and what facts are.
“NZ is an island” is a fact. “You can walk to Australia” is misinformation. If you act on the fact, you will come to no harm. If you act on the misinformation, you will surely drown.
It is ludicrous to pretend facts don’t matter, or that facts can be different for different groups of people.
Beliefs are not like facts, because beliefs are not provable. Everyone can have their own beliefs.
Certain beliefs can lead to harm, however. I just read a harrowing account of a daughter who watched her father slowly succumb to gangrene, because as a Christian Scientist he believed prayer could cure his infection.
She and her siblings did not, could not, interfere with his decline, because his right to live by his own beliefs is sacrosanct. You don’t need to justify the beliefs you live by to anyone but yourself.
This is the difference between beliefs and facts.
“One in three people capable of becoming pregnant receive abortion care in their lifetime” is a fact.
“The abortion rate is the same or higher in countries where abortion care is criminalised” is another fact.
“Human personhood begins at conception” is a belief.
Anyone who wished to live by that belief is welcome to do so. But they are not welcome to use the law to force their beliefs upon those who do not share them.
