On Sunday afternoons, during the lazy time after dinner, the old folks sat around the living room in comfortable chairs and discussed the sorry state of the world. “Discussed” isn’t the proper word for it; “groused about” or “commiserated over” might be closer. They were staunch Republicans of German descent, made all the stauncher by the powerful and long-lived O’Connell machine then in charge of Albany’s politics. Thus they abhorred, in order: Democrats, Roman Catholics, and Irishmen. The sins of the flesh came in for some criticism, too: smoking, tippling, and drug addiction (Granddad was a pharmacist). There was no mention, that I can recall, of other carnal sins of which I would later become aware.

What also didn’t become obvious to me until later was that for every event and phenomenon, they had an opinion ready at hand; and they were sure they were right. If they’d been a little less certain of their ground, I might have found my personal Age of Enlightenment, beginning in my teens, less startling than it was. It was also a lifelong lesson in offering opinions. We’ve all got ‘em, of course; and they generally pop out with very little stimulation. But what’s the evidence for them? Do we ever test them before promulgating them – in, for example, enacting or enforcing laws, or making important personal decisions?

We all, doubtless, agree that alcohol abuse is not a good thing. We even have laws prohibiting certain activities while under the influence. But our personal responses to it range all the way from jocular acceptance (think fraternity parties) to teetotalism. About two hundred years ago, people sometimes signed their names and added a “T” at the end to indicate their total abstinence. In 1920, just after the First World War, the temperance lobby prevailed, and the United States actually amended its constitution to prohibit the sale, possession, or consumption of alcohol. The amendment may have gratified the bluenoses, but was an almost unmitigated disaster. The Mob was born from the wars over the distribution of illegal booze; many otherwise law-abiding citizens became miscreants; and the dumps of old logging camps (which I have occasionally scoured) became depositories of Lydia Pinkham’s and cough medicine bottles.

My point in this is that Prohibition, like prohibitions everywhere, was a law based primarily on principle, with little regard for its consequences. It’s far too easy for us to ban practices that we ourselves don’t engage in, even if the bans make no difference in subsequent, illegal, practices. Somewhere short of turning over public policy decisions to algorithms or robots, there must be somewhere a recognition of the need to base public policy upon data and facts, rather than pure principle.

A perfect example of the dilemma is the current rising tide of challenges to the Supreme Court’s controversial 1973 decision in the matter of Roe versus Wade, which affirmed under the Fourteenth Amendment a woman’s right to decide for herself whether to have an abortion, without the interference of the government. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t agree that abortion was regrettable, if not tragic. But it’s certain that a blanket prohibition will be not only ineffective, but counterproductive or even deadly.

The solutions proposed – besides prohibition – include abstinence and a “pledge” to eschew premarital sex (which fails to deal with unwanted pregnancies after marriage). Yet the areas of the country where the rate of abortions (already down everywhere) has dropped most dramatically where schools teach the biology of procreation and (anathema to believers) provide free contraceptive products. It thus appears that if we truly want to reduce the practice, expression beats suppression hands down. But my point is that decisions based on data and facts make a lot more sense and are far more effective than those based purely on personal feelings. Calling someone with whom we disagree “pro-abortion” (there’s no such category) or “baby-killer” does nothing for anyone trapped in the quandary, and only exacerbates the situation.

None of our problems are going to go away. Denying them – as, for example, warnings of global warming – or prohibiting what will happen anyway seems a bit silly. Is it too much to expect that we begin to lobby for legislation and leadership based on facts, data, and science?