What would Thomas More do?

There’s an interesting debate going on over at First Things Magazine’s blog concerning the FDA’s decision to allow the general over-the-counter sale of Plan B.

Robert T. Miller engages the debate over what scandal the FDA Commissioner and the President have brought about by this decision with his own deliberation:

Now, perhaps someone in the position of the Commissioner of the FDA or the Secretary of Health and Human Services, faced with these circumstances, ought to resign rather than approve Plan B. Perhaps, but I think not. People in the pro-life movement need to keep their heads and realize that there are legal and political realities that limit an officeholder’s freedom. 

But beyond the merits of the points made in this discussion, I’m most fascinated by a marvelous quote Miller takes from the great Sir (St.) Thomas More, which adds nobility and eloquence to the debate.

“In a commonwealth and in the councils of princes,” St. Thomas More writes in Utopia, “if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not therefore abandon the commonwealth, for the same reasons you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds. … You ought rather to cast about and to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that if you are not able to make them go well they may be as little ill as possible.”

We are in sore need of a Thomas More today. The closest I can think we’ve had has been the Honorable Henry Hyde. Please God, let us not lose the art of arguing well, and from a moral foundation.