The Divisive Nature of Social Justice
One of the main features of social justice is its divisiveness. To get a sense of just how divisive it is within AOTA, the reader can visit the OT Connections website where there is a discussion forum titled “Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice” (see here: http://otconnections.aota.org/public_forums/f/79/t/9285.aspx?pi239031353=1).
This forum has had over 600 posts since its inception in February of 2011. Upon casual inspection of other forums, one will conclude that this social justice forum is by far the most posted to forum on OT Connections. What is odd, considering the long and heated debates in this forum, is that many supporters of the social justice requirement still believe that social justice can be a value for everybody, regardless of political beliefs. What is even more odd is that this is the position of the intellectual leadership – that social justice can be a value for everyone despite political views. They believe this despite an internal AOTA poll of the membership showing that 60% of the respondents supported the motion to get rid of the social justice requirement in the AOTA Code of Ethics.
Because the divisiveness of social justice is something its supporters try to ignore or minimize, many people, especially in the field of occupational therapy, may not be aware of it. This article seeks to inform the AOTA membership on that aspect of the term. As will be shown, social justice’s divisiveness is something evidenced throughout all aspects of intellectual life, not just within AOTA. Its divisiveness is evidence in the writings of accomplished linguists, philosophers and economists in academia, in the writings of award-winning journalists and fiction writers, and in the broadcasts of the top radio and TV talk show hosts in the country, whose words enter millions of homes on a daily basis.
A. Social Justice in the Oxford English Dictionary
A good place to start to get a sense of social justice’s divisive nature is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which is the most prestigious dictionary in the English language. The OED explains that:
“Much of the debate surrounding social justice has been concerned with the precise nature of fair distribution, and to what extent this may conflict with individual rights of acquisition and ownership.” (OED entry for “social justice”).
Notice what feature the OED explains as being of central importance about the term: that social justice is a debate, a debate dealing with how the values of social justice conflict with individual rights.
A useful feature of the OED is that it provides sample sentences from professional writers so that readers get a sense of how experts use a word. The two most recent sample sentences on social justice in the OED are (1) from the philosopher Roger Scruton (1982) and (2) in reference to the Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick (2002).
From Roger Scruton we get the following:
“Robin Hood acts unjustly (by taking what he has no right to take) in order to bring about social justice (through redistribution).”
In reference to Robert Nozick, who had recently died, one British newspaper noted his influence as a philosopher, stating that:
“[Nozick] forced the philosophical advocates of egalitarian social justice onto the defensive, by showing how the state cannot be justified as the redistributor of wealth without violating the rights of the individual.”
What these excerpts demonstrate is the highly divisive nature of social justice debates. In the first excerpt we have reference to social justice as taking property “unjustly.” In the second we have a reference to how egalitarian social justice requires the violation of individual rights. The OED then, by (1) describing social justice as a debate, and by (2) giving examples of professional usage dealing with the violation of individual rights, provides a powerful foundation for the claim that social justice is a divisive term.
B. Accomplished Scholars on Social Justice
In addition to the OED, the divisive nature of social justice is also evident in the work of accomplished linguists. One of these linguists is George Lakoff, a Democrat Party activist and professor at U.C. Berkeley. Lakoff has written on the issue of how each side of the political spectrum thinks. His book, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (1996), describes how conservatives have what he calls a Strict Father view of government, which is modeled on how conservatives believe they should be strict with their children. In this model, the government is supposed to be the father, and the people are the children. After examining the conservative Strict Father worldview, Lakoff wrote:
“In such a worldview, the concept of social justice does not make sense” (Moral Politics, 1996, p. 203).
In other words, Lakoff views social justice as a concept of the left/progressives/liberals, and incompatible with the views of those on the right/conservatives. This passage gives the reader an insight into one of the themes often expressed by those on the left of the political spectrum in the debates over social justice: the theme is that those on the left are caring people because they believe in what they call social justice, whereas those on the right are not caring because they are against it.
Whether there is any reality to the claim that those on the left are more caring just because they say they believe in something they call social justice is a separate issue for another time. Readers are invited to read chapter two of Beware the Googlers, titled “The Social Justice Morality” (found at socialjusticesyllabus.org), which presents some research on the matter. Nonetheless, the “I am caring because I am for social justice and you are uncaring because you are not for social justice” is part of the dynamic of social justice debates. It’s part of what makes social justice so divisive.
The retort from the right in this dynamic is that those on the left are either hypocrites or childlike in their naiveté about how the world works. One of those on the right to respond in this way is Paul Postal. Postal, like Lakoff, is a giant in the field of linguistics. Although his political views are the opposite of Lakoff’s on many issues, he shares a similar view of social justice: that it belongs to those labeled left, progressive or liberal.
One piece of evidence showing that Postal sees the term social justice as reflecting leftist/progressive/liberal views is that he signed a petition titled “Warning Regarding Use of the Term Social Justice.” This warning states that:
“Words are intended to reflect ideas. They have no meaning in and of themselves, but depend on the idea being expressed, the purpose of the expression, and the context in which they are spoken. Words can also have various meanings at different times in history. On a college campus today, the term Social Justice is typically meant to signify a set of political values and a political agenda associated with those who are termed left, liberal, or progressive”(see: http://uscotindoctrination.com/mynewscmt.php?beid=34&b4pid=1).
Another piece of evidence indicating that Postal sees the term social justice as belonging to the left can be found in his article, “Noam Chomsky and the Quest for Social Justice” (see: http://theanti-chomskyanredoubt.blogspot.com/2006/03/noam-chomsky-and-quest-for-social.html, accessed Aug 20, 2013). There he criticizes fellow linguist and left-wing icon, Noam Chomsky, for Chomsky’s endorsement of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Those unfamiliar with the political debates over what constitutes a “right” may find it odd to hear someone argue against something with the benevolent-sounding title Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But people with different philosophical foundations will have different conclusions as to what can be legitimately called a right. (For a discussion on two different views of rights and how the notion of rights applies to AOTA’s Code of Ethics, please see chapter seven of Beware the Googlers, titled “Cherry Picking a Right to Health Care”). Something like the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (U.N. Declaration) contains a long list of things that many thinkers find illegitimate, immoral, or unworkable when considered as a “right.”
Postal is one of these thinkers. That is why he agrees with the conclusion that the U.N. Declaration is nothing more than a child’s “letter to Santa Claus,” meaning it is unrealistic wishful thinking. And this child’s “letter to Santa Claus” is what Postal has described as central to the political left’s vision of social justice. These are his words:
“the [U.N.] declaration serves as a global roadmap toward what the Left often refers to as the concept of ‘social justice’. The driving principles of the ‘social justice movement’ are:
[1] the view that poverty exists because wealth does, so that the rich are responsible for the poverty of the poor; [and]
[2] the idea that the way to deal with poverty is for the wealth of the wealthy to be transferred to the poor” (see previous citation).
Postal adds that this left-wing view of social justice can only work “by seizure and redistribution” of money by the government. He states that this view of helping the poor is not based on “reality.” It is important to emphasize that Postal is one of the most influential linguists in the profession and is, in this article, writing about the views of another influential linguist, thus demonstrating the divisive nature social justice.
Another accomplished scholar who shares Postal’s views on social justice and the U.N. Declaration is the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Friedrich Hayek. One of Hayek’s most famous books is The Mirage of Social Justice (1976). As to the U.N. Declaration, he thought that those who accepted the Declaration’s view of rights displayed “a sorry lack of critical acumen” (The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976, p. 105). And as to social justice, Hayek found the term controversial and divisive, arguing that the:
“prevailing belief in ‘social justice’ is at present probably the gravest threat to other values of a free civilization” (The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976, pp. 67-68).
He found that use of the term social justice was:
“intellectually disreputable, the mark of demagogy or cheap journalism which responsible thinkers ought to be ashamed to use because, once its vacuity is recognized, its use is dishonest” (The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976, p. 97).
Furthermore, Hayek said:
“I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term ‘social justice’” (The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976, p. 97).
It is clear, then, that Hayek finds the term social justice incredibly divisive.
One of the most accomplished scholars on the right to take up the subject of social justice is the economist Thomas Sowell. Sowell has degrees from Harvard and Columbia, and is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He has published roughly 40 books and is thought of as one of America’s most important intellectuals.
Sowell finds the idea of social justice so foolish and its goals and assumptions so outlandish that he says it should be called “cosmic” justice, not social justice. He says the modifier “cosmic” is more apt than “social” because he believes that those on the left are trying to use the power of government to correct not just problems rooted in social relations, but problems established by decades, if not centuries, of history, including problems originating in natural circumstances of geography or biology over which no one had any control. He finds the social justice approach to public policy dangerous because it requires exploiting the innocent to make up for failures that belong to history or to nature and to no one in particular.
The threat social justice poses to a free society was a theme taken up by Sowell in The Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999). Sowell argued that social justice is really “anti-social” justice because, as social justice advocates focus on addressing some disparity for one group, they ignore the costs to other groups and to the rest of society, which leads to other injustices:
“In its pursuit of justice for a segment of society, in disregard of the consequences for society as a whole, what is called ‘social justice’ might more accurately be called anti-social justice, since what consistently gets ignored or dismissed are precisely the costs to society. Such a conception of justice seeks to correct, not only biased or discriminatory acts by individuals or by social institutions, but unmerited disadvantages in general, from whatever source they may arise” (The Quest for Cosmic Justice, 1999, p. 10).
The result of pursuing social justice is leading to what Sowell calls “The Silent Repeal of the American Revolution.” The goal of the American Revolution was to set up a government of laws, not of men, where the laws were set up to leave people free from government interference and abuse, which are things that have haunted humanity since its earliest times. With social justice, however, the goal is to get government back into people’s lives so that it can orchestrate what are deemed the appropriate statistical results in various outcomes by those with government power.
Anthony Giddens is one of the most accomplished sociologists in the world, and has published about as many books as has Thomas Sowell. Giddens is of the political left, and, accordingly, has a different view of the value of social justice. Where Sowell sees a danger posed by social justice, Giddens sees beneficence. In The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (1999), he wrote the following:
“Although it can be interpreted in quite different ways, the idea of equality or social justice is basic to the outlook of the left. It has been persistently attacked by those on the right. . . . Those on the left not only pursue social justice, but believe that government has to play a key role in furthering that aim.” (The Third Way, 1999, p. 41).
The divisive nature of social justice is emphasized by Giddens when he noted that social justice has been “persistently attacked by those on the right.” The reason it is attacked by the right is beucase, as the OED mentioned, when the left uses the term social justice, it is referring to a politcal agenda involving the government's violation of individual rights in the process of seizing the money of some for the purpose of distrubuting it to others.
It should be evident at this point that social justice is recognized as a divisive term among scholars. But academia is only one segment of our intellectual life. The next section examines accomplished writers outside of academia to further demonstrate the divisive nature of social justice.
C. Accomplished Writers on Social Justice
One of the features of social justice that make it so divisive is that, in its modern manifestation, it is predominantly aligned with the political agenda of those who are labeled progressives, liberals or left-wing. This was acknowledged by left-wing writer and activist, Susan Sontag. Sontag wrote dozens of books, plays, novels and movies. She won awards for her writing as well as for her political activism. In the passage below, she laments the fact that social justice is seen as a left-wing concept:
“I think that it’s a shame that the fight for social justice should be completely identified with the left; such that, if we decide that the left has betrayed us because the left is no longer what it should be, or because the left no longer exists, you can’t have social consciousness” (Conversations with Susan Sontag, 1995, p. 164) (emphasis added).
Another accomplished writer to discuss social justice is David Mamet. Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who has been nominated for an Academy Award twice. He is a former liberal who renounced the politics of the left after reading authors such as Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman and Shelby Steele. The passage below is from his non-fiction work and refers to (1) the “obscenities” of social justice such as the racial preferences entailed in Affirmative Action and to (2) social justice as cronyism, a process whereby the government’s forced redistribution of wealth is used to buy off political supporters:
“To the Left it is the State which should distribute place, wealth, and status. This is called ‘correcting structural error,’ or redressing ‘the legacy of Slavery,’ or Affirmative Action, or constraining unfair Executive Compensation; but it is and can only be that Spoils System which is decried at the ward level as ‘cronyism,’ and lauded at the national level as ‘social justice.’ It is nothing other than the distribution of goods and services by the government for ends not specified in the Constitution; and in response to pressure from or in attempts to curry favor with groups seeking preferments or goods not obtainable either under the law, or through those practices of mutual benefit called the Free Market. What obscenities are created in the name of ‘social justice?’ What could possibly be less just than policies destructive of initiative and based upon genetics?” (The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, 2010, Kindle Locations 697-702) (emphasis added).
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and famed conservative George Will made the same point regarding the cronyism entailed in social justice when criticizing President Obama’s economic agenda. That agenda entailed using taxpayer money and the administration’s authority to select favored companies and favored industries for favored treatment by the government. Here is Will’s description of the crony capitalism and spoils system entailed by the Obama administration’s agenda.
“The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of ‘economic planning’ and ‘social justice’ that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption” (“The Obama Administration’s Economic Lawlessness,” Washington Post May 14, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/13/AR2009051303014.html, accessed Dec. 10, 2011).
Another prominent right-wing writer is Andrew Klavan. Klavan is a prolific novelist who also writes screenplays. Some of his novels have been turned into films, with one of them directed by Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood. His novels have won various awards, including the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. This is how Klavan answered a question about social justice in an interview:
“Social justice is really the opposite of justice because it doesn’t mean anything but what the elites want it to mean. . . When you put the powerful above the concept of justice, which is what social justice does, you don’t have justice at all, you have injustice” (“The Injustice of Social Justice,” an interview by Bill Whittle of Andrew Klavan, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op23h_bAURc, accessed Dec. 8, 2011).
If Klavan believes social justice is the opposite of justice, he must also believe social justice is inherently a divisive subject.
Another accomplished right-wing writer who is critical of social justice is Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart was initially left-leaning in his politics, but exposure to contrary views, reportedly listening to Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, persuaded him to alter his political views. Breitbart, who passed away in 2012, was a commentator for the Washington Times and various other outlets. He was also an author and website publisher, creating several websites with a conservative perspective. Until his death, he was seen as a rising star on the political scene. In his book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World (2011), he wrote that:
“America is the beacon of freedom and liberty. That understanding is my lifeblood, the thing that motivates me and that motivates the Tea Party. I don’t have a hard time saying that these notions of social justice and economic equality that sound so lovely to the left are the enemies of freedom and liberty. The Tea Party says it, too—and that’s why the Complex wants to destroy it” (pp. 206-08) (emphasis added).
Breitbart, like the other accomplished authors mentioned in this section, would agree that social justice is a divisive term, one that divides people along political lines.
So far this article has addressed the divisiveness of social justice from the perspective of academics who are giants in their respective fields and accomplished writers. The next section will examine a third realm of our intellectual life, TV and radio talk show hosts.
D. TV and Radio Talk Show Hosts on Social Justice
Janeane Garofalo is an actress and comedian, and for a short stint from 2004 to 2006, she was a co-host for a show providing the progressive point of view on the now defunct Air America, a liberal radio station. Her statement below was made after she left Air America, but the point here is to show how accomplished TV and radio talk show hosts understand the term social justice. Their views are no different than the previous views we have examined: they see it as a divisive political term that divides people along the right and left side of the political spectrum. This is what Garofalo said:
“Being liberal is something to be very proud of. Over the last 30 years or so, the right wing of this country has managed to bastardize the word. They think it's something to be feared because liberalism equals progress and social justice, and Republicans and conservatives hate progress and social justice” (“Q&A with Janeane Garofalo,” http://www.inkedmag.com/article/q-janeane-garofalo/, accessed Dec. 14, 2011) (emphasis added).
Garofalo equates social justice with a specific political ideology: “liberalism equals … social justice,” she says. And she doesn’t think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on social justice because “conservatives hate … social justice.” Conservatives and liberals are diametrically opposed on the issue of social justice according to Garofalo. Recall that this was the same conclusion drawn by the liberal linguist from U.C. Berkeley, George Lakoff, in his book Moral Politics (1996).
Greg Gutfeld is another accomplished writer who is critical of social justice. Gutfeld is the author of five books, a former magazine editor, and has two shows on the Fox News Channel. During one broadcast on the show The Five, Gutfeld said:
“The term social justice, whenever you hear the term social justice, run the hell away because it means – because that translates into ‘you owe us something, we want something from you because you were bad to us’” (From July 15, 2011 Five - a program on Fox News, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xDWcx-rUeQ, accessed Nov 7, 2011).
In one of his books, Gutfeld wrote the following:
“Because progressives have no prescription for economic growth, all they have in their arsenal is income redistribution. Therefore, they see your paycheck as something they own, not you. They call this social justice— more code for ‘you’re screwed’” (The Bible of Unspeakable Truths, 2010, Kindle Locations 790-797).
Bill O’Reilly is one of the most popular TV personalities living today. He hosts The O’Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is regularly the highest rated cable show in his time slot. His show has been ranked number one or two for nearly a decade, reaching millions of viewers on a daily basis. How this influential speaker views social justice is of particular importance precisely because of his popularity.
During one broadcast, O’Reilly blamed America’s decline on social justice:
“Unfortunately I have to be Paul Revere and tell you that the country is in decline. . . . In 1984 about 85% of Americans paid federal income tax. Now about 51% pay income tax. A decline of 34 percentage points. Why? Because of social justice. Because the feds are allowing Americans who don’t make much money to pay no income tax. Some may say that’s just fair. But the reality is that America doesn’t have any money. We’re broke” (video published July 6, 2012 on a segment titled “The Country is in Steep Decline,” available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/06/oreilly_the_country_is_in_steep_decline.html, accessed Aug. 23, 2012).
On another program, O’Reilly identified President Obama and the Democrat Party with social justice. Here is a portion of that segment:
“As you may know, the President and the Democratic Party in general want tax dollars to be redistributed in order to impose social justice on the nation. Republicans oppose that, supporting safety nets but not cradle-to- grave entitlements” (“Bill O'Reilly: Personal generosity and social justice” on April 16, 2012, retrieved April 23, 2012 from http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2012/04/17/bill-oreilly-personal-generosity-and-social-justice).
O’Reilly is not just a popular television talk show host, but also the author of about a dozen books, most of which became New York Times best-sellers. One book to reach number one on that list is Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama (2010). This is what he wrote there:
“President Obama wants the feds to impose ‘social justice.’ He wants Washington to amass as much power as it can, so states that do not embrace the entitlement culture will be forced to do so by the federal government. That’s what Barack Obama’s true mission is” (O’Reilly, 2010, pp. 98-100).
On his October 1, 2012 broadcast, O’Reilly said:
“When Americans vote in November, they will be voting for one of two things. The free marketplace, capitalistic approach espoused by Mitt Romney, or the social justice, spread the money approach championed by the President” (see “Talking Points Memo” video titled “It’s all About the Money” Oct. 1, 2012http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/10/01/talking-points-memo-its-all-about-money/#more-96202, accessed Oct. 8, 2012).
These are all statements by Bill O’Reilly, the biggest name in cable news, in his bestselling book and his top-ranked television program, saying that President Obama and the Democrats want to use social justice to amass power and redistribute wealth with the consequence that it will bankrupt the country; furthermore, he said that voting for the Republican Mitt Romney was a vote against a social justice agenda. It is obvious where he stands on whether social justice is a divisive concept.
The most notorious TV and radio personality on the right, and the source of the most recent national controversy over social justice, is Glenn Beck. Beck had a highly rated radio show, and TV shows on Fox and CNN Headline News. In addition, he is the author of seven books that have reached number one on The New York Times best-seller list.
Beck ignited a controversy over social justice when he stated that the term was just a code word for Communism and an excuse to have the government interfere in people’s lives. He also told his viewers to leave their churches if their ministers were preaching social justice. He defined social justice as:
“Forced redistribution of wealth with a hostility toward individual property rights, under the guise of charity and/or justice” (see Glen Beck, “What is Social Justice,” March 24, 2010. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/38320/, accessed Oct 12, 2011).
Many may discount the views of Beck and O’Reilly, but why should their voices be discounted? They represent some of the most influential speakers and writers in the country today. Furthermore, the copious citations above have just demonstrated that their views are essentially the same as those presented by world-class scholars and accomplished writers. The views of O’Reilly and Beck were also in line with the ideas of social justice as presented in The Oxford English Dictionary: that social justice is a debate dealing with how the government will redistribute wealth and status, and how such a process can conflict with individual rights.
D. Conclusion
Evidence-based inquiry leads to the conclusion that social justice is a divisive term. As demonstrated in the discussion above, it is a divisive term in the debates among scholars, it is a divisive term among accomplished writers, and it is a divisive term among the most influential TV and radio talk show hosts in the country. And, of course, it is a divisive term within AOTA, where the topic has been one of the most heated and debated issues on OT Connections and where an internal poll of members showed 60% supporting a motion to get rid of social justice in the Code of Ethics.
What has not been addressed in this article is the issue of how various groups with different political and philosophical identities support something they all call “social justice.” A common error is to see people who call themselves Republicans or Democrats or whatever else and who all use the term social justice, and then conclude that they are all for the same thing or have something in common. But when the contents of what each of these groups calls social justice is examined, it becomes obvious that these different groups are giving different, conflicting and incompatible content to the term social justice.
Part of the problem has to do with the term social justice itself. Many like to say that what they are for is social justice. They do so because the term sounds like something positive. Many are persuaded by the intentions they attribute to the term and it is a useful term when trying to persuade others of your cause. The problem is that such a promiscuous use of the term leads to endless contradictions and confusions.
For example, promoting legalized abortion is considered a social justice issue by Planned Parenthood and The National Association of Women. The problem is that preventing legalized abortions is considered a social justice issue by other groups. The most interesting website on this point even had a heading titled “Social Justice Begins in the Womb” (see http://genocidemi.org/, accessed July 8, 2012).
This website contains the following statement against Planned Parenthood, accusing it of genocide against Blacks for the large numbers of abortions it performs on Black women:
“Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn’t that genocide?” (http://genocidemi.org/, accessed July 8, 2012).
That is the irony of social justice: the anti-abortion social justicers such as Fred Hammond feel that they are being targeted for genocide by the pro-abortion social justicers in Planned Parenthood.
What should be obvious is that these different groups are using the same term, social justice, but that they are filling this term with radically different content. The same conflict arises with uses of the term by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and the left-wing Green Party. Both say they are for social justice, but one group uses the term to refer to a society based on a constitutionally limited government where helping others is largely the responsibility of individuals engaged in charity and volunteer work, free of government interference, whereas the other group uses to it mean the opposite.
The same conflict arises over the issue of same sex marriage. The Catholic Church, for example, which promotes a set of values it calls social justice, believes that justice requires prohibiting same sex couples from getting married. Other groups who value social justice would disagree with that, because they view legalizing same-sex message as necessary for social justice.
And then this poses a dilemma for what counts as “achieving justice in every aspect of society” and encouraging others to “abide by the highest standards of social justice” as the AOTA Code of Ethics now requires. Does justice in every aspect of society mean legalized abortions funded by the government if need be as demanded by the Green Party, or does it mean fetuses are rightfully considered unborn babies who should be protected from the procedure. Does encouraging others to abide by the highest standards of social justice mean permitting gay marriage or prohibiting it? How are we to follow the Code of Ethics if we do not know?
All of these issues are implicated by the social justice requirement in the Code of Ethics. And requiring occupational therapists to promote one view or the other in order to be considered ethical practitioners would generate a great amount of divisiveness. All of this is inherently part of the divisive nature of social justice.
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