There is a lot of discussion in these here comboxes as well as all over the ‘net about the “failure” of the pro-life movement’s strategy over the past 35 years and the need for a new “strategy.”
Sometimes this assertion is made of the pro-life movement in general, other times of the Catholic bishops’ approach to the issue.
“Prioritizing the overturning of Roe has failed,” it is said. “There are still a million abortions a year in this country. It is time to rethink this strategy of putting criminalization at the center of the pro-life movement.”
Let’s talk about that. And once again, school-marmish-like, I will slap down a rule.
You have to be specific. If you’re going to say that the US Bishops have put overturning Roe at the center of their efforts, you have to give evidence that shows that this is true. If you’re going to say that the pro-life movement in general has wasted time and resources on this at the expense of other, more directly helpful, measures, show us the money. Break it down and show us how that happened.
My initial thoughts:
*The anti-abortion movement has many facets, some of which are in intense disagreement with each other. ALL exists for a reason – Judie Brown didn’t like the NRLC approach and started her own group. Operation Rescue and the Pro-Life Action League are, to say the least, not beloved by all other elements of the movement. Crisis Pregnancy Centers that try to take a non-sectarian approach are queasy about other CPCs that count how many decisions for Christ have been made alongside how many ultrasounds have been performed. Secular state Right-to-Life groups have, on occasion, conflicted with Catholic bishops and state Catholic conferences on legislation.
My point? I’m not sure I even see a “strategy” in all of this at all.
Perhaps there is an “assumption.” The assumption that abortion is the taking of an innocent life and should be illegal in most, if not all circumstances.
But the “strategy” I see when I look at when I consider the movement is one centered on trying to save lives, both short and long term.
*So what I am asking then, is for some sort of evidence-based description of a cohesive pro-life “strategy” and what would be an improvement. Specifically. What’s wrong and what should be changed?
*Those who say “the political/criminalization strategy hasn’t worked” – does that mean you believe that abortion should be completely unregulated, that law has no role to play in the matter?
Because I really do think if you say, “Well, no, abortion should be regulated to some extent. 13-year olds shouldn’t be able to get abortions without their parents knowledge or permission. George Tiller should be shut down. Yes, tighter and more-regulated system that many European countries espouse would not be ideal, but would be better…”
…well, if you say those things, you have immediately flung your hat back into the political ring. You’re back looking at laws, which are made by people who are elected and enforced by other people associated with political parties and so on.
I would really appreciate addressing this issue. Because it is one thing to say “abortion politics has failed” and another thing, it seems to me, to specifically explain what the alternative is.
Because if you even suggest that “Well, sure parental consent is reasonable..” then, as I said, you are back on the floor of your state legislature talking about this, fighting over it, associated with some politicians and battling others.
(Not that something like parental consent breaks down on GOP/Dem lines, especially in the states. But the point is – start talking law, you’re talking votes, lobbying, meetings and elections.)
*A commentor made what seems like a reasonable point about working for consensus before attempting law. The counter-arguments include the Civil Rights movement, but that goes without saying. The argument includes Prohibition (on the general failure of an unsupported, unwanted law) and, more recently, and more specifically on the consensus-building issue, no-smoking laws. I want to take that last one.
It’s not a perfect example because it’s not true that no-smoking laws have been uncontroversial or generally accepted where ever they have been proposed. But it works, to the extent it does, because today, in 2008, it would be unimaginable to get on a plane in the US and encounter cigarette smoke – or sit in a stadium or walk through an airport or sit in a restaurant. Attitudes have changed a great deal.
But how did this happen? Did it happen simply because no-smoking zone advocates quietly made their case, unsupported by other institutions or forces?
No.
Smoking has attained this level of social unacceptability -
(Wait – I don’t mean a general level of social unacceptability. Plenty of people still smoke, including young people. The unacceptability, I think, applies to smoking in public places and does not extend, any more than it did 40 years ago, to the personal choice to smoke. )
- this level of stigma because:
-health professions, ranging from physicians to fitness advisors have defined smoking as a Very Bad Thing. For decades, cigarette packages have been labeled with warnings. Patients are advised not to smoke, and physicians do not hesitate to list the perils of smoking. It is assumed that smoking is an unhealthy act, an assumption supported by every conceivable authority, disputed by none.
…Is that is the attitude of health professionals, both individually and joined in professional associations, about abortion? Is the health profession united in warning patients against abortion? Is abortion presented as a negative choice?
No. Fewer and fewer doctors are performing abortions, it is true – and I have heard it said that if abortion ends in this country it will be in large part because there will hardly be any doctors to perform them.
(Ah, but by then it might not matter, if legislation is passed in more states permitting physician’s assistants and nurse practioners to perform surgical abortions and prescribe Mifepristone. But then…we’re back to the law again. Politics.)
I digress – Specific doctors might not want to bloody their hands in abortion, but there is absolutely no widespread movement among health professionals to discourage abortion as a medical procedure.
-Smoking has also been stigmatized, to some extent, by health education in schools, although the impact of that is always questionable, as it is with drug and sexuality education. But - the point is, the ethos is there, in the schools, that smoking is a negative and hurts you.
When can we hope that the anti-abortion perspective, which includes not only presenting the immorality of abortion as well as its dangers as well as emphasizing the personhood of the unborn child – will find a place in health textbooks?
-Smoking’s negative cred has been highlighted by numerous lawsuits against tobacco companies, not just for health impact but for advertising issues which have had the important effect of revealing the dishonesty of the industry and its disregard for truth and safety (which should go without saying…). The media – both the news media and popular media – have presented these cases in ways sympathetic to plaintiffs, demonizing the tobacco industry.
(Deserved, btw, imho!)
Does the abortion industry bear this same scrutiny by the news media and popular culture?
My point is not to completely blow of the “build consensus” model. It is simply to ask – given that most institutions that work to shape consensus in this country are arrayed against the pro-life perspective…what does that mean?
What – specifically and realistically – can the pro-life movement do that it doesn’t already?
(I’m not saying there isn’t room for change and growth. I’m saying that I think it’s one thing to say, “Well, we need to educate more” and another to look at the realities of a culture in which mainstream institutions make it very difficult to do exactly that. )
I think that’s enough to get you going.
I am not saying that the pro-life movement is perfect, by any means. (No one in the movement would tell you that) I am not saying that it doesn’t need development, creativity and outside-the-box thinking.
-A change in strategy, it is said, should naturally involve more support for women and children, including structural changes in the way health care is delivered and paid for, parental leave policies and so on.
I agree, to some extent. But again..I also see some easy assumptions and vague ideals being tossed around. So let’s talk strategy.
A great number of abortions occur among women in college. Walk around a campus of 20,000 people and tell me how many pregnant students you see and then tell me that they’re all incredibly successful contracepters.
What would it take to discourage women in college from aborting their children? Would it take better health-care plans and access? Perhaps, for some. Parental leave? Can’t really see the impact there. Day care services? That would probably help for some. A few..
But honestly. Are any of these reasons – lack of health care, parental leave and day care – the most frequent reasons that an unexpectantly pregnant college student turns to abortion?
Of course not. The most frequent reason is, “There goes my life, shot to hell. What do I do now? And do I really want to be tied to that guy by a baby?”
The answer to that young woman’s dilemma will be multi-faceted, dependent on her family, her own values and flexibility. But, as pro-lifers aware of this problem, a decent strategy would be to do what we can to establish support systems for pregnant college students, offering concrete support both before and after birth, support that is offered by the Nurturing Network and promoted by Feminists for Life and others.
Such places do exist. But the strategy can only be piecemeal unless a college or university makes space in an explicit sort of way, for the idea that carrying a baby to term is an acceptable or even praiseworthy choice for a college woman.
How soon is that going to happen?
And then – read Dawn Eden’s piece, based on the blog of a med student who spent a day at Planned Parenthood. There is something at work here beyond concerns that social programs address.
I’m not saying those matters aren’t important – I say at the beginning of this section that they are. But I do think that anyone who has spent serious time in a CPC knows that the concrete assistance we can give changes some minds, it can’t budge others, because none of that is the issue anyway. All I’m saying is that it’s not “the” solution.
So. strategy. I’m particularly interested in those who assert the failure of politics here. My problem with your assertion is:
1) I disagree that political concerns have determined in a dominant fashion, how the resources of the pro-life movement have been spent over the past 35 years.
2) When it comes to talking about the reality of abortion, its present and future in the US, you can’t get away from political considerations. If you don’t want teen-age girls having abortions without permission, if you don’t want your tax dollars going to pay for abortions, if you don’t want all health-related institution in the country to be required to provide or refer for abortions or abortifacients, if you think that the US should try, even a bit, to rein in the abortion license…how can you avoid “politics” as a part of your strategy?
3) The issue of the GOP will come up – as it should. If we’re going to critique pro-lifers “yoking themselves” to the GOP , we might want to realistically explore the alternatives.
Excellent and thoughtful article. I doubt you will get much response from those who are supporting abortion rights with anything specific. I think the answer is that this is above their pay grade.
For our further consideration, from Rigali and Murphy on the USCCB Website (emphasis mine):
Third, Roe itself enormously increased the annual number of abortions in our society. The law is a teacher, and Roe taught many women, physicians and others that abortion is an acceptable answer to a wide range of problems. By the same token, even the limited pro-life laws allowed by the Court since Roe have been shown to reduce abortions substantially, leading to a steady decline in the abortion rate since 1980. Bans on public funding, laws requiring informed consent for women and parental involvement for minors, and other modest and widely supported laws have saved millions of lives. Laws made possible by reversing Roe would save many more. On the other hand, this progress could be lost through a key pro-abortion proposal, the “Freedom of Choice Act,” which supporters say would knock down hundreds of current pro-life laws and forbid any public program to “discriminate” against abortion in providing services to women.
Providing support for pregnant women so they choose to have their babies is a necessary but not sufficient response to abortion. Similarly, reversal of Roe is a necessary but not sufficient condition for restoring an order of justice in our society’s treatment of defenseless human life. This act by itself would not automatically grant legal protection to the unborn. It would remove an enormous obstacle to such protection, so the people of the United States and their elected representatives in every state could engage in a genuine discussion of how to save unborn children and their mothers from the tragedy of abortion. Both approaches to opposing abortion are essential. By protecting the child’s life to the maximum degree possible, improving life-affirming support for pregnant women, and changing the attitudes and prejudices imposed on many women to make them see abortion as an acceptable or necessary solution, we will truly help build a culture of life. [end quote]
My point in posting this is to counter the idea that we’ve got to change hearts and minds, that we’ve got to change the culture first, and that political action is fruitless until we do so. For “[t]he law is a teacher”, the law indeed shapes culture; the relationship between law and culture isn’t a one way street. Changing the culture involves changing the law.
[Amy, if this is too long, feel free to edit.]
I don’t have the hard data at my fingertips, but I’ve seen figures that indicate that the pro-life movement puts most of its “time, talent and treasure” into concrete assistance to pregnant women and into education.
People (even those supposedly pro-life) who say that we’ve lost the abortion issue remind me of Tokyo Rose. She exemplified a cardinal principle of psychological warfare: Convince your enemies that they have already lost the battle.
I think that, in fine Catholic tradition, we should take a both/and position: Let’s fight to put restrictions on/outlaw abortion while we provide concrete help and education.
As part of this, I think we need to do our own “march through the institutions” and make efforts to education the medical community, the text book publishing industry and the news media about the abortion issue.
Step one: Preach about the culture of life and about abortions and their causes at times other than election years.
Step two: Challenge Catholics to be examples of the culture of life in the most positive sense and in both words and deeds.
Step three: Accept that we are currently a minority in a democracy. Concentrate on building a consensus, not on drawing lines in the sand.
Step four: Take a short term view on the parish level and a long term view on the national level.
Amy:
A truly excellent post. You ask the right questions — questions that Cafardi, Kaveny and Kmiec (the latest nay-sayers concerning legal challenges to the abortion regime) have not asked.
I have addressed many of the questions you raise in an article available here:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol31_No1_Breenonline.pdf
In the piece I rebut the fatuous claim that legalization of abortion did nothing to increase the frequency of the procedure. Thus, I also address effectiveness of the laws prohibiting abortion in place prior to the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade and the state liberalization efforts in the 1960s.
Much of the piece focuses on the fact that law is indeed a teacher (especially in a pluralistic society such as ours) and the complex, mutually informing relationship between law and culture. Because of this relationship, with respect to strategy, it is important for the pro-life movement to continue to press the issue on all fronts. Law and culture work in tandem in shaping the attitudes and behaviors of people, and so the issue must be addressed both in terms of the values and norms that people absorb from the social context around them, and the specific values and norms that enjoy the coercive power of the state behind them.
Your example of the change in cultural and legal norms concerning smoking is an excellent one. In the article, I explore a similar change that took place with respect to drunk driving — how beginning in the early 1980s a change in the laws on the books and practices in enforcement combined with cultural messages and practical strategies for changing the behavior led to a dramatic drop in drunk driving fatalities. There are of course differences between this example and abortion (as there are with smoking, as you point out). For example, no one denied that drunk driving resulted in the deaths of innocent people, that the practice had victims. Still, I believe that the great (though not perfect) success enjoyed by this cultural and legal approach in reducing drunk driving deaths is instructive in terms of how the pro-life movement should proceed.
In the piece I also critique the claim that increased public assistance to women in crisis pregnancies can solve the problem of abortion. Although such measures should be supported, they are not a panacea for the plague of abortion since, as you note, lack of resources is often not the reason why abortion is sought in the first instance.
Finally, with respect to politics once more, nothing focuses the mind like a concrete proposal. Roe has precluded the vast bulk of legal measures that would curtail the practice. As a result, a national conversation concerning abortion has yet to take place. Although some ostensible supporters of the pro-life movement have grown weary of the on-going controversy, the real fight — the fight by way of argument and persuasion for the hearts and minds of the American public — has yet to take place. In order for this conversation to occur we need concrete political proposals. But for these proposals to grab the attention of the electorate they must be more than simply theoretical. This is impossible while Roe remains good law. Indeed, if such a conversation is to take place, Roe must die. To accomplish this, the pro-life movement must remain engaged in both the poltical arena and in legal challenges to the status quo.
Thanks again for your post. I hope that it gives rise to a fruitful discussion.
You know, if pro-life organizations recruited for college girls (and guys, too) to come help out at pregnancy centers, it would also get the word out that:
1) pregnancy centers exist and provide lots of different kinds of help (so that’s a place to go if you need help, also).
2) pro-life people don’t “only care about the baby, and the baby only until it’s born”
3) women in crisis share a lot of the same needs and worries with those college girls. People aren’t all that different, contrary to the crazy ideas some colleges teach.
It might also provide a nucleus for on-campus activism against abortion, while being very difficult for anybody to oppose.
We never saw anything anti-abortion at my public university, unless it was some lone loon. (And that includes the university parish, sadly.)
Amy, great post. I wish I had more to add to the conversation, but am looking forward to the comments continuing.
I will offer a current example that supports one of your points. You said “Secular state Right-to-Life groups have, on occasion, conflicted with Catholic bishops and state Catholic conferences on legislation.” We are dealing with that this year in Colorado. We have a constitutional amendment on the ballot (amendment 48) that defines personhood as beginning at the moment of fertilization. I know our parish was active in collecting signatures to get it on the ballot. But now the Colorado Conference of Bishops (Chaput in Denver, Sheridan in Colorado Springs, and Tafoya in Pueblo) have come out against the measure, as being imprudent, given the makeup and expected rejection by the Supreme Court (back to politics!)
I also like Jim’s suggestions. We need to not hide our light under a basket, but rather make Catholics an example of Christ in our world.
I do think we have to try and change the law as much as we can. What has happened is that some people who care more about the Republican party than they do the abortion situation have tried to use abortion as a tool for winning elections. Similarly, some people who care about the Democratic party more then they do about abortion have tried to prevent this. It confuses things greatly.
We need to get back to basics. Why is abortion wrong? Why do most people who support abortion do so and how can we respond? If we can get back to those questions we can change hearts and minds. If we do that then Republicans, Democrats, judges, media, etc. will all follow suit.
So we need politics but we need it for more than laws. We need to use the political forums to try and persuade. To make arguments aimed at pro-choice people. I don’t see that happening. Politicans will argue economic theory. They will argue military strategy. They will even argue morality on issues like health care and immigration. They don’t argue the pro-life case. They simply take a position and hope the people who already agree with it show up to vote for them.
Lincoln argued endlessly that slavery was wrong. Politicans argued the morality of smoking too. Same with drinking and driving. The pro-life cause has been trying to get it done without really making the argument outsdie churches. They need to make the case in the public forums without explicitly referencing the bible.
Here’s a telling observation about the biases of mainstream social science research re abortion. As part of any long term strategy one hopes that Catholic universities might vigorously encourage research along the neglected lines that are highlighted below:
“A policy is established that has implications for the most profound questions of what it means to be human, to be a woman, to be a member of a community. What is the most obvious topic for research after such a policy is instituted? To me, a leading candidate is the psychological effects on the adult human beings who are caught up in this problematic behavior. There are ways to study these effects. Quantifiable measures of psychological distress are available–rates of therapy or specific psychological symptoms, for example–not to mention well-established techniques for collecting systematic qualitative data. And yet it appears from Levine’s review that the only thing that social scientists can think of to study are outcomes such as pregnancy rates, abortion rates, birth rates, age of first intercourse, and welfare recipiency. …
“Is the tunnel vision a result of political correctness or of the inherent limitations of quantitative social science? …it remains a fact that the overwhelming majority of academics who collect data on the effects of abortion policy are ardently pro-choice. The overwhelming majority of their colleagues and friends are ardently pro-choice. To set out on a research project that might in the end show serious psychological harm to women who have abortions or serious social harm to communities where abortions rates are high would take more courage and devotion to truth than I have commonly encountered among today’s academics.”
Public Interest, Winter 2005
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0377/is_158/ai_n8680977/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1
Let me start by saying that I think this is a fruitful discussion, not because it is fun, but because it helps sharpen the argument. If nothing else, we can make sure that we’re all making sense to each other – since we’re basically on the same side.
And, let me say before I embark, that it is early and I haven’t had coffee. (So much for sharpness, I guess, but right now, I have the time.)
Let’s go back to the anti-smoking example. Which I take to heart, because my mother died at an early age from smoking, and because the amount of her smoking led to fairly serious pulmonary diseases in her children. It isn’t abortion, I’ll grant you, but she’s dead, and the chances that we’ll die of respiratory complications are way high. So, it seems a least a blip of significance in my book.
Yes, doctors got pulled around to say that smoking is bad, but that didn’t happen overnight. I think that a whole generation of doctors had to retire (or die) before that was common among them. (Like my mom’s doctor. One of her lines was, “Well, he won’t tell me to stop smoking. He does!”) That is generational change and it takes time. (Actually, from the first inklings in the early 60′s until now, almost two generations of doctors.)
And, it took a lot of time to get the anti-smoking message into the schools. Trust me. I sat in faculty rooms thirty years ago where you could not see across them due to the smoke. I don’t remember ever addressing it with our students, except to tell them that it was unseemly to smoke in uniform at the bus stop. (Out of uniform was out of our purview.) In the school where I work now, it has only been in the last two years that we finally got the staff to agree to not smoke outside the building where kids could see them. (Which was legal and their choice, but we finally could convince them it was wrong.)
So, we are talking generational change here. Nothing cultural happens overnight.
I am NOT making a moral equivalence between smoking and abortion. What I am saying is that a major cultural shift occurred in about 50 years. How did that happen? How did the medical profession get on the anti-smoking side? How did the schools? We should study it. Take it apart. Learn from it.
To tell the truth, I think that one of the reasons for the success of that campaign was reasonable discourse and the sense that ‘we truly have YOUR best interests at heart.’ Sure, smoking is a free choice. But the rhetoric was always about asking people to make a different choice. (And what people hear in the abortion debate is “We are taking your rights away.” Trust me. That is what they hear. Period. And that is what they fight. I’ve heard people say, “I can’t imagine that I would ever make that choice, but it is my choice to make.”)
Now, of course, choice in smoking is very much restricted, almost to one’s own home. With public applause. That is a cultural shift that led to legislative change. Why not study how it happened?
Second, there was a tremendous amount of money on the other side from Big Tobacco. Who gave a lot of it to politicians. So, weaning politicians off that money – and stigmatizing them for taking it – also took a lot of time. It also can happen again. For example, how can we get money to pro-life Democrats? Not because they are Democrats. But because it would be to our advantage to have this stop being a politically polarizing issue. And, it would be to our advantage to have pro-life political choices when one party or the other does something that will lead to an electoral defeat (an unwise war, a crashed economy.) Those things are going to happen. When they do (and this is a prime year for it), it would be nice to have another political choice that doesn’t threaten to invalidate everything one has worked for.
Third, I am not saying that we should abandon political action entirely. I think that the incremental steps that can be taken should be taken. PBA, parental notification. Why I am sick to my stomach about the FOCA. Political means are legitimate and they do work. They have worked. People who thought that they were for ‘abortion on demand’ recoiled at PBA. Fine. Step by step.
What is not working politically is to assert that the law can change before minds do. Sure, the ‘Law is a teacher’ in a philosophical sense. But rarely in a practical sense. I return you to Prohibition. Is it good for a man to drink his paycheck and then beat his wife? Of course not. But that moral crusade enshrined in law without popular support didn’t teach. It backfired. That is one specific example. Can someone give me one to the contrary? (Which, if it exists, we could also learn from, as we can from the anti-smoking example. I just can’t think of one.)
Fourth, I think that the bishops should take the lead, but that they have to do it in their own dioceses by saying that “We will do what it takes to prevent each abortion.” I work in a very large diocese. I said to one ordinary, once, “Couldn’t we say to every woman who was looking for help, ‘Come to us. We’ll make sure you’re housed, fed, supported and have medical care. Tell us what it will take to bring that baby to term.’” He said to me, “I guess we could, but that would be expensive.” Under his successor, I tried once to get concrete help from Catholic Charities for a desperate, homeless, pregnant woman and got nothing. (The most concrete help we got was from an avowedly pro-choice group who couldn’t believe I was calling from a Catholic church.) So, I repeat the question I asked months ago in a com box – Can anyone point me to a diocese that can and does offer that kind of help? Not so that I can play ‘gotcha’ but so that I can say to the folks here, “Look, they are doing it in XXXX. How can we make it happen here?” I really do think that the bishops would have a lot more ‘street cred’ in their political voice if they could point to their own specific diocesan policies that ensure women support. They should literally put their money where their mouths are.
I am also not discounting all the work that has been done by other groups and organizations. But the bishops have a large public voice and they should be able to say that they are doing this work, too. I am also of the opinion that their job is to preach the gospel and it is the role of the laity to live it in the public square. No quarrels. But that isn’t how the media sees it. So, if we are to change public perceptions, perhaps we need to compromise on that point.
Fifth, thanks for the shout out to Feminists for Life. I love their perspective. I belong. I give them money. I think that there should be more like them.
It is very important in this conversation to stress that pro-life efforts to oppose abortion through changes to the law have not “failed.” That is a false premise.
If changing the law relating to abortion were a simple legislative matter, and the people could not convince their legislators to enact pro-life legislation, then I think one might draw the conclusion that there was a lack of consensus, and therefore failure of a sort.
But as most of you know, changing the law relating to abortion is NOT a simple legislative matter. Having been accorded constitutional protection, abortion laws cannot generally be changed by the state legislatures or by Congress. Legislative efforts are routinely ruled unconstitutional, though on a rare occasion a legislative regulation—such as the ban on partial birth abortion—squeaks through.
It is very important in this discussion to remember that because of Roe v. Wade and its progeny abortion law is not subject to change through the democratic process.
It follows, then, that pro-life citizens cannot be accused of “failing” to do that which they are powerless to accomplish.
I would also like to address the false premise of “working for consensus” before trying to change the law relating to abortion.
Roe v. Wade, by according constitutional protection to abortion, generally removed the issue from the democratic process. State legislatures largely lost their power to regulate abortion. Even state referenda, like South Dakota’s, became infused with arguments about whether the proposed changes to state law would be struck down as unconstitutional—distracting citizens from the merits of the law.
How does consensus develop as it relates to a controversial issue like abortion? Well, one ingredient is the “investment” of the public in the issue because they understand that they, collectively, can make a difference. So, for example, those who wanted to ban smoking in public places worked together to develop a consensus, and then took that consensus to their local governing bodies, and in some cases their state legislatures, and enshrined that consensus in the law. The democratic process—the ability to change the law through grassroots efforts—acts as fuel (or a petri dish, if you will) for developing consensus.
What’s the opposite of this? Does the public become “invested” in discussing an issue, deeply and rationally, when it knows, in advance, that virtually nothing can be done to change the law on that issue through the democratic process?
There is “chicken/egg” problem as it relates to abortion law and “consensus.” There is a superficial appeal to the idea that “consensus” should develop on abortion law before changes to the law should be pushed. But the problem is that “consensus” cannot properly form because abortion has been taken out of the democratic process.
Would a consensus have developed against smoking in restaurants (in certain areas of the country) if there were a Supreme Court decision on the books granting citizens the fundamental, constitutional right to do so?
Thus, I submit that it is a false premise to suggest that developing a “consensus” is an alternative path to seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade.
As Justice Scalia said in his dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey:
“by foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish.”
Even Justice Ginsberg has criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade as terminating a nascent, democratic movement [concerning] abortion laws which might have built a more “durable consensus”—albeit, in her view, in support of abortion rights.
I just don’t know how to respond to this. Are these people armchair quarterbacks who are using the “I’ve been watching you people for years, and you’re doing it all wrong” excuse for not getting involved? I’ve been involved with the prolife movement since I was a teenager in 1980 or so; I helped my mom run a “cute baby” contest at the county fair for the local RTL affiliate; I’ve prayed at David Haskell’s late-term clinic in Kettering, OH, and others; I’ve walked in the annual March for Life in DC and stood for the annual Life Chain; done leaflet drops at churches at election time; my kids collected baby items for Gabriel Project in lieu of gifts at their birthday party, and I’m raising eight kids, all pro life and willing to speak up at school.
I think it’s all important and that YOU should get involved in the way YOU think YOUR skills and time and inclination allows YOU to do so. Let us all know if YOU find something that YOU’RE doing that unexpectedly saves lots of babies from being aborted. But don’t expect me to buy your lame excuse for voting for the most pro-abortion, pro-death candidate we’ve yet seen. (“You” of course not being Amy or the other usual cast here, but the critics), which is what I suspect is going on here. Or trolls, trying to stir up the pot.
But changing hearts is something that every one of us is supposed to be doing, all day, every day already! telling your ob-gyn, “No, there are two kinds of contraceptives: the stuff that doesn’t work, and the stuff that’s really bad for you” and see if he sheepishly realizes that he really should have been the one to tell you that. (And it’s a shame that no one ever pointed that out to all those college girls mentioned in the article.) When you’re expecting, find out what you’re having, name him/her and let the kids introduce your belly to every stranger they meet “And this is my baby brother Tommy!!”
I have been studying this very question for the last two years. I am interested in the countries who have low abortion rates. Why are they low? Guttmacher is my main source here. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/ib_0599.html
1. Abortion in those countries with low rates tend to have restrictive laws, meaning abortion is allowed in the first 3 months basically without question. The restrictions for other trimesters vary after that. Of course, this means we need political outreach and it will mean the pro-lifers are going to have to work with Democrats and crossing across the aisle.
I have received so much hate mail since telling people that I have quit the Republican Party and am starting a Dems for Life group. The really ironic part is that pro-abortion Dems have been VERY open to me whereas pro-life Repubs have expressed nothing but disdain. We are not going to win any friends with such hatred. Period.
2. Countries with low abortion rates tend to have high usages of contraception (Germany, Israel). The biggest difference between the US rates and the low abortion rates countries, is that in the US most people only use one method of contraception. The other countries begin strict sex education in junior high and encourage more than one form of birth control. When you look at the numbers of women who got pregnant and then aborted while using 1 form of birth control, they are extremely high. If you were to eliminate the numbers of women in this country who abort more than once, the abortion rate would decrease 48%! And most of those women who abort more than once got pregnant while using only one form of contraception.
Now, from a Catholic perspective this solution is highly problematic. I have no idea from a moral theological perspective how it would be discussed of swapping one evil for another, but it seems to me, that if we are to have evils, let us choose the one where hundreds of thousands of children don’t have to die.
3. Social system: Health care health care health care health care. Look at who is aborting in this country. College students are 40+% of the abortion population. Who is the 60%? Poverty and abortion are sisters. You cannot talk about abortion without talking about poverty. Look at who has the highest rates of abortion in this country, Hispanic women, Black women, AK Natives, poor people. According to Guttmacher, most of these women have very sketchy access to reliable health care which affects their continuous birth control options.
Another question that HAS to be asked. Who has the lowest abortion rate in this country? Jewish women! They also tend to be highly pro-abortion, but VERY effective contraception users.
FFL’s and Mom’s Rising’s goal of changing the culture to have more socialistic support for women and families is another major need. Let’s change our laws for more pro-family aspects. A single mom working to support her family, has no paid sick leave, no paid maternity leave, no breast-feeding breaks support for low income women, no on-site daycare facilities, etc.
From my 19 years of experience, pro-lifers have worked hard on number 1. But on 2 and 3 tend to be the people who fight it.
Michael in ArchDen:
Just a quick correction. The bishops did not come out against Prop 48. They took a nuetral stance of not supporting or opposing it and said that individuals were free to vote as their conscience directed on it. It is not full fledged support but they are not against it either.
Actually, the example of smoking is one that struck me before.
Do schools apply a policy of “Well, obviously the ideal is that they shouldn’t smoke, but let’s face it – kids will be kids, and instead of an unrealistic blanket ban on all smoking, it’s better if we provide them with education about the effects of smoking and tell them that if they want to smoke, at least to only smoke low-tar cigarettes and only five a day”?
Do they heck!
Amy. What a great post. Thank you for starting this discussion. The problem with such a broad-ranging discussion is that it becomes either too broad or too partisan. I think some more guidelines within the discussion might help. For instance, where should we focus the discussion first? Should it be the cultural aspects, the legal, the political, the catechetical, etc.?
Radical Catholic Mom:
Get back to us after you talk to Democratic party leaders and politicians about restricting abortion to the first trimester.
We’ll be interested to see how interested they are on reaching across the aisle and working for the common good.
Colorado Catholic, I stand corrected. Here are the bishops words, which show that you are more correct that I was.
“While the Church respects those promoting this personhood amendment, the Catholic Bishops of Colorado decline to support its passage because it does not provide a realistic opportunity for ending or even reducing abortions in Colorado.”
I wonder if abortion might be addressed similarly to human rights violations of foreign nationals, eg, the slaughter in Darfur?
US policy recognizes the rights of the Darfuri, and condemns their slaughter. It calls for the Sudanese government to treat the Darfuri justly. It takes measures to discourage attacks.
But: In the end, the US government has not used coercive force to prevent the slaughter of Darfuris. It does not act to protect Darfuris as it would its own citizens — not because the Darfuris are not human, but because they are outside US jurisdiction… and because the US cannot compel the Sudanese to cease attacking without provoking new evils.
I think governments are obliged to do something when the rights of foreign nationals are violated. But I resist the notion that they are required to treat such violations as equivalent to outrages against their own citizens. That’s just an impossible mandate that would lead to a constantly warring world.
So, too, it seems to me the demand that governments provide equal protection to the unborn from the moment of conception is an impossible mandate.
It’s not that the unborn are unworthy of protection.
But demanding that limited human government assume them under its jurisdiction from the moment of conception may be asking too much.
“Get back to us after you talk to Democratic party leaders and politicians about restricting abortion to the first trimester.
We’ll be interested to see how interested they are on reaching across the aisle and working for the common good.”
Sigh, I know Ellen. We have to try and thus far I have had nothing but support from the Democratic community in my State. I have to say I am really shocked because of the assumptions I had. I get the sense many on the other side are as frustrated with the polarization as we are.
If Senator Obama is truly a “transformational” leader, if he wins the election why doesn’t he convene a week-long meeting of both parties to discuss abortion. Even if nothing was accomplished, it would be a substantive educational experience for the country and a specific way for citizens to see where their leaders stand on the issue.
The financial crisis shows how quickly the leaders of both parties can be called to assemble around the conference table.
OK, back to earth.
On the cultural level – The argument against smoking was aided by the fact that we know and see the victims, and were rightly horrified. I think the image of the Marlboro Man with his oxygen tank and the folks I knew who withered away with lung cancer did more to discourage my smoking than any lecture. How can we show the world the victims of abortion? The Silent No More folks try with respect to the women wounded by abortion. But images of aborted fetuses are off the table for polite folks. Think about how the images of torture in Iraq focused the mind. Abortion ends with a human baby, the image of God, in a bucket. How does one present this horror to a world that refuses to look?
I know that I feel overwhelmed by the issue. Long storey short…I had a medically neccessary abortion(ectopic pregnancy). So to me the thought of illegalization is scarey. How far the swing of the pendulum returning….
So let’s resort to quoting Crosby, Stills, etc…Teach the children well.
It’s wrong, have faith in God’s protection(which I lacked at the time), and most importantly, what you do with your body is not just 20 min of sweaty exercise.
Radical Catholic Mom
A major problem with contraception is that the hormonal forms kill even more children than the surgical abortion does! Implantation of the newly conceived human being is interfered and hindered with hormonal contraception. Yes, oveulation does still occur. The old high dose BC pill had a low ovulation rate of 2%. It also killed lots of otherwise healthy women by stokes and blood clots.You call that a solution?
Also, contraception has major failure rates, especially the low dose birth control pill. Carol Everett who ran 3 abortuaries in Dallas admitted to putting the teenage girls on the BC pill right after the abortion so that they would be back pregnant in 6 months ready for their next abortion. It was good for the killing business. Planned Parenthood makes huge profits selling birth control and then profits again when sooner or later that birth control fails by providing abortion. I just talked to a good Assemblies of God lady who conceived twins while on the birth control pill!
Promiscuity and thus the venereal disease infection rate goes up with contraceptive use because the users wrongly believe that pregnancy is not possible and thus they can take risks and give into temptations. They also wrongly believe that contraceptive use protects them from such diseases.
Also, you may never do evil that good may come of it according to St. Paul.
It’s silly to say that we can’t advocate changing laws until some sort of societal consensus is reached. That’s like living in Nazi Germany and saying that there’s nothing we can do about those death camps until the German people’s attitudes about Jews change. We can never forget that there are human lives at stake here; thousands of people are being killed by abortion each day in this country. Simple justice demands that we do everything reasonably possible as soon as possible to end the killings. That means working for life from the top down and from the bottom up.
1. I used to be a 3 pack a day smoker. I remember very well when Senator Durbin pushed through the legislation that ended the ability to smoke on a plane. Then I went on a trip to Spain and couldn’t smoke during the 3 hour lay-over in Belgium. Yikes!! Nearly 10 hours without a cigarette. Within the following year I quit – with the help of medications and patches. Sure got my attention.
By the way, there was no consensus about smoking on planes being a bad thing for other passengers at the time. Durbin’s father died from smoking when the senator was very young and it was his first political crusade – to begin the war on cigarettes with banning smoking on planes. Nobody petitioned him to do it.
2. There is also, as stated, a teaching aspect to law. From being something everybody does, over the years as laws got tighter, you got the message that something really was wrong with smoking. It also enabled non-smokers to speak up about the issue and increase the pressure on smokers. It seems to me that the consensus on smoking followed legislation and not the other way around.
3. “Criminalization” is a scare word that is working well for pro-choice advocates. However, there are many gradations in penalties for things that are not legal or are legally restricted. First-time DUIs are not punished with prison sentences. People can be fined, doctors can have licenses suspended or revoked. A hospital can lose its accreditation temporarily or permanently.
We need to give some serious thought to how a scared young girl should be punished for having an abortion in a commensurate way – or should she have a legal penalty? What should be the actual punishment or penalty for coercing an abortion or just aiding and abetting one?
There are already things that doctors and lawyers and other professionals cannot do under the law. Let’s check to see how those infractions are handled. We need to be able to give concrete examples of how making abortion illegal would work in the real world.
4. These are the kinds of things that would and should be addressed at the state level. We haven’t failed politically. Reagan and both Bushes tried to put folks on the S. Ct. whose judicial philosophy was amenable to returning the abortion issue to the states. The Freedom of Choice Act is another attempt to keep this decision at the Federal level. Political fighting is still necessary along with trying to change hearts and minds
5. For those who don’t know: the Guttmacher Institute is an offshoot of Planned Parenthood. Keep that in mind when you read their statistical studies.
Radical Catholic Mom,
There are a couple of things that irk me about your suggestion. First, one of Hitler’s first acts as Fuhrer was to allow abortion. This numbed the people into thinking it was okay to eliminate the poor, the feeble, etc. Once we allow the arbitrary murder of a particular group of people, we are all at risk. We CANNOT compromise!
Secondly, is the “need” for socialized laws/care/etc. The Church has explicitly condemned socialism. One of things we must at least recognize now, after 40+ years of the welfare state and witnessing what has happened in Europe and Soviet Russia, is that socialism kills responsibility: people assume the state will fix their problems when they screw-up, so they cease caring and keep screwing up.
Thirdly, The problem, as already noted before, with contraception is that it increases frequency of intercourse…which increases frequency of pregnancies. This will ultimately increase the number of abortions.
The issue with abortion is one of understanding what sexuality really is. Teach chastity (not this “any-thing-goes, but be safe” sex-ed stuff). If you are told not to do something, you are more likely not to do it. Stress the value of sex within marriage. Stress the fact that kids are a joy, not a problem. Eliminate the push for gay-marriage. While divorce rates may be lower in European countries that allow gay “marriage”, that is primarily because marriage rates are abysmally low (and abortion is high). Marriage and sex are sacred. This must be taught.
I cannot and will not compromise on murder. When we give some people the right to determine rather arbitrarily (like “health of the mother”, or unrestricted abortion in the first trimester), we se the stage for some authority figure to say that us Catholics are useless, or dangers to the state.
Curmudgeon –
The Van Domelen Center in Kalamazoo takes care of pregnant women, and provides residence, medical and psychological support during pregnancy and beyond. The center has a beautiful building with apartments for each mother. All of this is supported by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Kalamazoo.
Now if a little diocese like Kalamazoo can do this, in an economically depressed state such as Michigan, why not other places? Sure it is expensive; but it is worth it, and more important, charity demands it. The presence of institutions such as the Van Domelen Center does reduce the number of abortions — it provides mothers with a choice for life. This is one of the most important ministries in our diocese, and yet it gets so little attention, scant publicity, and so I am most happy to publish this information here.
Thank you, Amy, for your most thoughtful challenge to the rest of us.
What can the pro-life movement do that it doesn’t do already? One idea is to find new means to “work for consensus”.
How? First, we know that if the voices which speak for life in the womb went silent, a great light would go out of the world.
Imagine a world in which an abortion was seen as equivalent to removing a wart.
The voices which encourage us to keep seeking and struggling to make sure the light doesn’t go out are fortunately many, including our Catholic bishops.
Grateful for that spiritual support and encouragement, we need to find new ways to go forth to engage the culture with wit and grit.
For instance, it has been said here that college students account for 40% of all abortions. We know what a confusing, chaotic culture of casual attitudes toward sex and the glorification of alcohol abuse marks many college campuses these days. (and is certainly a factor on some high school and even middle school campuses as well). And we know that campuses are, as they always have been, places where so many of the young come so desperate to find ways to “fit in”.
Most thoughtful writings about the “sanctity of life”, the “sanctity of marriage” or “family values” will not reach many of these young people directly nor perhaps speak directly enough to many about what they perceive as their
immediate need to fit into a particular environment. This is especially so for those who have no specific spiritual nurturing, background or exposure, which is very many of them.
And it is expecially so as well for those whose own parents may be able to provide few clues as to what the “sanctity of marriage” or strong, positive “family values” look like, which is also very many of them.
So how do we translate these ideas to them?
Popular culture, most notably movies, music, and TV led us down the long, winding road from the days when abortion was illegal and virginity until marriage was not only the ideal but also often the practice.
We are perhaps fortunate right now, though, that recent developments mean that expensive, corporate media ventures aren’t needed to communicate widely and popularly to the young.
The Internet offers us UTube and many other means to communicate directly and inexpensively.
Who can come up with clever, funny, satiric, appealing UTube creations about the drastic limitations of the free sex and alcohol culture, for example?
And who can further tie such creations to web sites that offer strong and relevant support to young people
who are seeking ways to resist that culture?
And who can use such web sites to help create and support on-campus groups that continue to “counter-culturally” question this culture of narcissim and hedonism and self-destruction, to call it what it is, in strong and decisive ways?
Who can devise ways to make such things which are truly witty, truthful, relevant and attractive to the young?
And who can extend that “counter-cultural” questioning further and naturally to include the idea of supporting life in all its stages?
Who can do this with wit and grit, with a clear eye for truth that speaks to and nurtures the common instricts in these matters of people of all faiths and of no faith?
This is no time and no place just to repeat some favorite long-used phrases and platitudes. And it’s certainly no time to resort to polarization, side-taking and labeling. It’s time for some heavy-duty creativity and honesty and energy and a mountain of sensitivity. Who’s up for it?
And for a good percentage of non-college students and people past college age who have abortions, the situation is often similar, resulting from casual attitudes about sex outside of a state of married commitment and the attitude that unintended pregnancy is for females to deal with and males to run from.
To build pro-life consensus is a challenge and an opportunity. I believe that it is possible to change for the better the way our culture in general looks at pro-life issues,
but I think it will take many new ways of doing things.
What I am sure does not work for me or really for any of us is polarization, name-calling, and considering one political party to be virtually the “party of God”, no matter what. To me this is great vanity of a useless sort.
I appreciate, for example, the comments of Bishop Gabino
Zavala, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,
in an interview with E.J. Dionne Jr. printed in the Washington Post Oct. 21. Let us be thoughtful in our approach. I believe that we can be effective.
I believe a lack of unity within the pro-life cause continues to be a hindrance. One manifestation of this is the general acceptance of IVF in both Protestant, some Catholic and of course secular pro-life circles. How much is the ‘embryos are human life’ stance diminished when many pro-lifers are apathetic at best about IVF and the embryos that are ‘left-over’? Can we please have more dialogue within the pro-life community addressing this?
I agree with radicalcatholicmom that any restrictions that we could add such as only 1st semester, mother’s health etc… we should welcome. Why reject such measures in favor of all or nothing? If saving lives is the goal, not just philosophical and theological high ground than any small advances should be celebrated. I am honestly confused as to why that wouldn’t be the case?
This is no time and no place just to repeat some favorite long-used phrases and platitudes. And it’s certainly no time to resort to polarization, side-taking and labeling. It’s time for some heavy-duty creativity and honesty and energy and a mountain of sensitivity. Who’s up for it?
Thanks to Fr. Brian for the welcome info. I agree with you. If they can do this in Kalamazoo, it is crazy that we can’t do it here.
Kate, I couldn’t have said it better. Thanks for the good suggestions!
Thanks Amy, as well, for keeping the discussion going and moderated.
“Criminalization” is a scare word that is working well for pro-choice advocates. However, there are many gradations in penalties for things that are not legal or are legally restricted.
True. But if the unborn are entitled to equal protection under the law, wouldn’t abortion have to be penalized like any other homicide?
Wouldn’t law enforcement be obliged to achieve a parity between the abortion rate and the homicide rate? And what kind of enforcement regime would that require?
At minimum, penalties would have to be sufficient to deter abortion. It seems to me that such penalties would have to be harsh indeed, and targeted at mothers, if they were to deter early pharmaceutical or chemical abortions.
This is a great discussion. What is missing is that in the Catholic response we seem to be afraid to play our biggest card, Catholic Health Care. If our Hospitals, etc. were to stand up and say no doctor, nurse practitioner, nurse, etc. that performs abortion can work in that facility; that no partnership with other health care organization that perform abortions would be forged; that birth control would not be allowed to be prescribed and RU-486 would not be given even in cases of rape then the pro-abortion movent may think twice. As it stands, all of those things take place at Catholic Hospitals all across the country and, with every Hospital becoming part of huge health service conglomerates, are becoming more common place. At the very minimum, these orginizations should be lobbying for laws that would allow them preclude any of these things. As it is, we are too scared about losing money through taxes! Up until 1954, that’s right, 1954, Churches and other non-profits commonly spoke out because there was no tax penalty. Maybe we need to encourage those in power to give to Caeser what is Caeser’s and to God what is God’s. Otherwise, it seems like we are fighting the battle amongst ourselve.
As regards the pro-life strategy from a Catholic perpective, we have been fighting with at least one hand tied behind our back. Mostly because of the seemless garment argument started by, or at least popularized by, Cardinal Bernardin. This basically confused many Catholics and convinved many more that the Life issue could be regulated to just one of the many concerns that Catholics considered, like war and nuclear weapons. We continue to fight amongs ourselve in order to convince other Catholics that the seemless garment approach is not the true Catholic approach. Untill we jettison this crazy idea and expunge it from our prayers, the teaching releassed by the USCCB, etc., we will not have a united front and we will not win. Our strategy should be for all Catholics to stand together in saying we will not tolerate this evil. As it is, we losing the fight where it matters most, in the laws regulating health care.
Amy,
For what it is worth, this is what I think. I do not mean to be provocative, but it seems time for a reality check. These are just my personal stats and my thoughts from years of working at pro-life clinics. Every week I volunteer at a Catholic CPC giving free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, educating women about post-abortion syndrome and STDs. I also dispense whatever the women need from car seats, diapers, and formula to lovely gifts made by the hands of elderly women who are doing what they can to change the mind of a woman who thinks her life is ‘shot to hell’ because I have just informed her that her pregnancy test is positive. The woman’s life is ‘shot to hell’ already in many ways, although she cannot see it. She is more than likely post-abortive (and these women suffer terribly and in silence), she has had at least one STD, is unmarried, often having one child to support at home.
For me, the strategy must address the woman and her self-esteem issues. I ask women routinely what they think about sex and they NEVER say they enjoy it. I have rarely met a woman who was considering an abortion who had decent self-esteem. One woman does stand out, and she was a college girl who had decided on adoption even before she knew the results of her test. Another factor is that the very relationships these women should have been able to count on for support, such as parents and siblings, are fractured and damaged.
Since it is engaging in an activity the women I have met say they DO NOT enjoy and yet pay such a heavy price for is what brought them to the clinic where they met me, how about we start there?
To consider what the pro-life movement could do that we are not doing already is a hard question. How do we reach the heart of the American woman? That is where the battle is raging in my opinion.
Re: help for pregnant women. I should think this is something Catholic dioceses and evangelical churches could do together. Has it been tried?
Re contraception: I would tell my sons that they should keep their trousers buttoned. But human nature being what it is, if they fail in their resolve, a condom should be used. The greatest sin is not fornication, but bringing into existence a child they and the mother are not prepared to care for. I have mentioned this to the occasional priest. I get a silent nod, or, discouragingly, the remark that it may be sound enough, but they could not responsibly say so for fear of encouraging promiscuity. Frankly, I find the second response both irresponsible and insulting. Young men deserve a serious discussion of these issue, informed by a realistic understanding of humanity. And not the patronizing presumption that they are too stupid or morally obtuse to understand. St Thomas reluctantly supported brothels (if I recall correctly), but his approach is not often acknowledged nor his sympathetic intelligence imitated.
I’ve thought lately that abortion is a moral and spiritual problem rather than a political problem. You’ve convinced me that it’s a moral, spiritual, and political problem, and that politics is part of the solution.
I definitely agree that the pro-life movement is neither monolithic nor monolithically political. I know too many pro-life people preoccupied with prayer and with ministry to women with crisis pregnancies. And contrary to stereotype, many pro-life Catholics are more concerned with ministry to women and children in need than with politics.
Me, I think the priorities are (1) prayer, (2) ministry (to women, before and after birth; to children born of crisis pregnancies), (3) changing people’s hearts and minds about this issue, and (4) changing the law. I’m not 100% sure it should be in this order, but I’m pretty sure that # 1 must be prayer.
And when folks vote Republican (since voting otherwise is soon to be declared a mortal sin), what does one do about the despicable, hideous acts of this party and their enablers?
What is the responsibility of the Republican promoter for pro-life matters when it comes to the disgrace of this party’s other sins?
Or is it so important to promote Republican power full force to end abortion, that anything that weakens other issues this party embraces is off limits from discussing, questioning, or battling against?
And will the pro-Republican-voting promoters, these bishops, bloggers, pro-life leaders, do more than show up on NRO with Peter Robinson and sing the alleluia chorus praising nuclear weapons and allowing slams against the 1983 US Bishops message of peace?
So far the bishops’ witness on other matters this election season is lacking.
Pandering to Peter Robinson, brokering book offers with that gossip George Weigel, one becomes just another member of the First Things Party which has distinguished themselves as a group of folks convinced that supporting welfare is only a minor step away from promoting a pagan utopia. And that this President has a divinely authorized imprimatur on all acts of war. (I doubt they will put that message forward should a Democrat be elected.)
Here’s the message they need to send: “The party of anti-abortionism is despicable and evil-they led us to an unjust war, they have provided even less lip service than Democrats toward our poor, they have tried to make young, desperate Hispanic Catholics struggling to feed their families back home in Mexico an electoral football by fanning flames of xenophobia. But, hey, they are anti-abortion and despite these hideous, profoundly sinful faults for which heaven will seek divine justice on us all, being anti-abortion is the primary concern. May God save us from the awful consequences of this horrible decision, but vote Republican, please.”
I’d respect that.
The anti-abortion party is, like any party, a coalition of voters. They are imperfect, and have imperfect aims and means. They have chosen as their imperfect leader a man who knows the horrors of war, opposes torture, and had the courage and wisdom to risk his presidential ambitions by challenging the war strategies of the sitting president and championing strategic policies that have worked. You may have less lip service toward the poor in the anti-abortion party, but the actual results for the poor will not be substantial. No one is proposing the removal of the basic safety nets in our society. School choice is an issue where the anti-abortion party’s policies are far more promising for the poor. There may be some xenophobes in the anti-abortion party, but there are also business interests that depend on immigrants and folks that simply want a more rational immigration policy that doesn’t compromise security. McCain may pander on the campaign trail, but his moderation on immigration is well known. Do you really fear that “heaven will see divine justice on us all” because we believe that the economic and security policies of McCain are in aggregate better or not profoundly worse for people than the policies of Obama? I would more likely fear divine justice if I allowed those debatable concerns or my own bitter hatred of anti-abortion folks blind me to the consequences of voting for a pro-abortion extremist.
Could you have voted for a pro-slavery party where the differences on other issues between the parties was as they are today?
Sorry for the bad grammar – here’s another awkward try:
Could you have voted for a pro-slavery party where the differences between the parties on other issues were as they are today?
marie,
Actually, I made the case for the bishops calling for voting for Republicans, however, they need to come clean about all that one will vote for when one votes for the party that placed Delay, Bush, Rove, and Santorum on pedestals, propelling us to “where we are now.”
Unless of course, Republicans can’t quite own up to their complicity on where “we are now.”
That’s fine, but again, not going to convince many-just figuring a whole bunch of bishops think like George Weigel, Grover Norquist, Michael Novak, and Richard John Neuhaus. (Not to be interpreted as a good thing.)
marie,
Let me try to explain this another way, knowing that anti-abortion Republicans have been struggling with conveying their true anti-abortion desires across the aisle.
You obviously are going to vote Republican, you like their policies and their candidate. Nothing that you said would convince me to vote for the Republican. You have failed to communicate to me, except that the anti-abortion candidate also has a lot of agreement with you in lots of areas. You already like his party and him.
And hence you fail.
Could you imagine an individual who finds in their conscience that the war policies, the deregulation policies that have brought this economic mess to our door, the pandering to red state xenophobes with immigration are gravely immoral? Imagine someone like that.
Now, how do you convince this individual to vote so that pro-abortion policies aren’t advanced?
Do you try to tell me about this great candidate (who the party rejected and talked trash on-until this spring) attached to this morally soiled brand? Or do you just tell me the truth: it really sucks, this party is hideous, but we have to be willing to absorb more unjust wars, an economy in which the wealthy hold us hostage with their incompetence and their control, and put up with the frothing anti-immigrants who want to place over 10 million people in prison because they wanted a better life in the North. Because abortion is so much greater an evil.
But you have to convince me that you’re on my side, that you believe this, because if you don’t, you will sell me-and often enough, my “people” my work, everything away right after I vote, because you really don’t believe in any political end I do, except on the immorality of abortion.
Telling me the party line isn’t going to work in those geographic areas that Ms. Palin already defined as other than “pro-American.” Show me you are on my side-not on the side of political enemies like the First Things Party and the National Review.
That’s when one can discuss the street cred needed to deliver the anti-abortion Catholic vote currently not received.
But Republicans who are Catholic and truly honest about the real desire to end abortion remain blind about what is needed to get a vote from a lifelong Democrat, solely based on the abortion issue. Because nothing else is going to do it. That needs to be made clear.
It means talking loud and frankly about the disgrace of Rove, Delay, Bush, and Santorum. And how wrong the whole party was. And the need to just swallow it again and vote Republican, just because of abortion, knowing how absolutely horrid its been these past years. Knowing that the Supreme Court justices Bush advanced are pro-life by accident, really installed and nominated by Bush to advance some medieval War on Terror policies. This is the beginning of talking the language to voters committed to ending this horrible, sinful disgrace that the Republicans have wrought.
Those desiring anti-abortion candidates to win have to convince folks that they want to win on the anti-abortion “thing,” not just the Republican “thing” (which honorably includes the anti-abortion thing) if they want non-Republicans (even those dedicated to ending Republicanism for all its evils) to vote Republican.
Does this make any sense? Spewing the grand conservative attributes of the Republican candidate isn’t going to win the heart of an anti-abortion liberal.
Try using my formula, it may bridge the great divide that the grand Catholic conservatives dug deeply. And eagerly.
Cardinal Egan has never been my favorite, but someone directed me to this today and it is impressive. “Just Look”:
http://www.cny.org/archive/eg/eg102308.htm
Those who think that laws against murder (infanticide or otherwise) are needed ,but believe that abortion should not be against the law, are simply in denial that a foetus (or embryo) is a human being. It is a new being with a different genetic make-up from its mother and is a human being; It is simply developing naturally into one that can survive outside of the womb. Killing it is just as murderous as killing it after it is born. This seems very, very obvious !!
Daniel,
If you can only be convinced to vote for the pro-life ticket by someone who hates republicans as much as you do, you’re right, I can’t do it because I don’t hate (or like) republicans or democrats. That’s not what politics is about for me, and I have never been registered in either party and have often voted for candidates from both parties. My heritage is mixed, and I don’t feel a particular allegiance to either of the obviously corrupt parties. I understand politics instrumentally, and don’t expect politics to deliver some kind of cosmic justice against players I don’t like (although I admit that I don’t like some in both parties, but that is not really relevant). We can match republican scoundrel against democratic scoundrel, but I don’t think that gets us very far. I reject the hysteria on both sides about the candidates with regard to most issues. Abortion is rather unique because of its court-made constitutional status that can only be modified by a change in court personnel. I desperately want that issue back in the hands of the people. Many argue that overturning Roe would be terrible for republicans because they would lose their national wedge issue. Fine with me. Time to focus on the state houses then. I don’t have a lot of brand loyalty. If Obama and Biden were pro-life running against a pro-choice ticket, I’d vote for them. For reasons having to do with folks on the left, they’re not. Why don’t you direct your anger at those folks? Maybe with your progressive cred YOU can persuade them that abortion is a violent and cruel human rights violation. I wish you sincere good luck.
Hello Mr.Conway,
Way to take the conversation off topic. We’re clear that you consider NR, First Things, George Weigel and Peter Robinson to be “political enemies,” in case we weren’t already.
Catholics are not morally obligated to vote for McCain (who is not even perfect on just the strict life issues), obviously.
But to vote for Obama, one must do so in spite of his radical position on abortion, and must have a very grave reason for doing so. Maybe Iraq fits under that category, if you really believe that consequences of delaying our withdrawal would be worse than pulling out as fast as possible. Of course, that is to some extent a prudential decision. Both Obama and McCain have come out in favor of intervening to stop genocides, and it would be the crowning irony if our precipitous withdrawal triggered same in Iraq.
Otherwise, there is no reason one can’t vote third party. Catholic moral teaching does not require us to vote tactically.
But if you want to be part of this conversation, maybe it would be easier for us to find common ground if you actually showed you believe that abortion really is, as the Church teaches, “gravely contrary to the moral law,” incurring the automatic penalty of excommunication. So far I haven’t got a clear sense of that. Maybe I missed it.
I think a lot of Catholics would like to vote Democrat if they gave even an inch on abortion. SO to those pro-lifers who believe that law does (as Amy noted) have a pedagogical function, and that restricting abortion through the law has to be part of the equation, what can you point us to to suggest that the Democratic Party is in any way open to such restrictions? Or must we content ourselves with no possibility of ever changing the law or challenging the mentality of sex-without consequences demanded by the regnant zeitgeist, hoping that generous state support and crisis pregancy clinics do all the work?
I was going to avoid posting because of a lot of work (but I’ll smoke just one more cigarette, and then I’ll quit…).
1) I’m not sure I indicated that I am supporting the Dems. If I did, that is an error, and may be due to my poor writing skills. I am giving the left-wing view point. Lets get it straight: the pro-life movement wants Northeastern Catholic Dems and Californian Catholic Dems to vote for someone who calls them elites, not in the “pro-American areas” of the country, not real Americans, and on and on. Fine. Its all about the babies. I get this. But all the other problems, all the other evils, all the other ways in which the Dem concerns never even got close to “common ground” discussions over the past 8 years will be sacrificed, will be surrendered. (And, face it, Republicans Presidents only “get it right” on pro-life justices about 50% of the time, if we’re just talking Supreme Court justices.) This is what the pro-life movement, and the bishops are asking of pro-life Dems, and the outcome may promote more injustice anyway (should more justices agree with the pro-medieval legal theories of Scalia), and not even pan out for anti-abortionism. I’m not saying pursuing these liberal votes is wrong or shouldn’t be done, but the burden of convincing these folks is now on the pro-life movement, and one should not be so proud as to fail to acknowledge all the difficulties liberals may have with the Republican party as correct and true.
2) Which comes to one of the reasons for the need for explicit communication. The culture wars come at a price. The division of our church into two camps is one, and its inability to communicate with the other arm is another. At all. This was a clear price, but shouting down folks as heterodox and apostate and talking all “excommunication” stuff, yeah that’s the language of the culture wars. So, Richard, if I’m giving keys to discussing with liberals how to vote against everything they stand for, outside anti-abortionism, then its time to start thinking that I’m on your side when it comes to abortion. Even though I think Bush is a war criminal. Whatever formulation or pledge of allegiance or whatever you’re using to get folks to be on the side of anti-abortionism is a wee bit intolerant. Alienating. (Now, lets figure how to talk to millions like me-picture me as one of the open-minded folks, all of whom are orthodox.)
3) I dislike the term “common ground.” I think the pro-life folks will want to use the terms like “respect” and “dignity” (when referring to their efforts) when approaching those folks embracing pro-life aims, but who never voted for a Republican. The pro-life folks want full respect and dignity for all they do and stand for in the pro-life cause. After that, though, all issues are fair game. Which brings the question: if the cost of anti-abortionism is socialism, or conceding to war crimes trials for the Bush administration, then the pro-life side would want to be willing to concede these issues (as extreme examples). “Common ground” denotes some sort of negotiation, compromising, a possibility that the culture wars of the last 2 decades have burnt away. This possibility was thrown out with the “seamless garment” language that was pitched with the first shovel of dirt on Bernadin’s grave. The pro-life movement deserves respect and dignity; productive “common ground” discussions between liberals and conservatives in the Church are a decade away, at least. Thank the culture wars for this.
4) And I am somewhat on topic. I’m talking strategy. What may work for pro-life Dems who may state proudly they never voted for a Republican. Or anti-abortion independents who are disgusted by the Republican party, its treachery and lies. And I’m pointing out, in clear and unambiguous language, the political views of folks the pro-life movement needs on their side. But who haven’t been approached properly or been paying attention properly (both most likely). I’m suggesting a strategy for reaching them, acknowledging their fears, their anger.
There’s more, but I haven’t the time or the skill to communicate it well.
one should not be so proud as to fail to acknowledge all the difficulties liberals may have with the Republican party as correct and true.
Heck, there are plenty of conservatives who have acknowledged their own difficulties with the Republican Party (the unjust Iraq war being one of them).
Hello Daniel,
I’m going to bracket out the discussion on divisions in the Church – not because it has no impact on this debate (it does), but because I am extremely averse to casting those divisions in conventional political terms, even when there’s considerable overlap. I will only note that you may not fully appreciate the skepticism many of us have for Cardinal Bernardin’s Seamless Garment approach and how it too often has been employed to diminish the grave and intrinsic evil of taking of innocent life to just one issue among hundreds. In other words, when every thread in the garment is important, none of them are really important. Yet none of these other rights have any value if you are not alive to enjoy them. But I digress.
The narrative I would present, and there has been some interesting work done on this, is that the increasing identification of religious conservatives – indeed, religious at all – with the Republican Party was essentially a reaction to, not cause of, the takeover of the Democratic Party by secular cohorts beginning decisively in 1972′s “abortion, amnesty and acid” platform and delegate rules changes. It was then that the large migration of Catholics in particular, who had been mostly Democrats (including, God knows, virtually my entire family), into the “Reagan Democrats” of the 80′s and 90′s began in earnest. Many felt and still feel more affinity to the Democrats on many economic issues but felt increasingly alienated by a party which seemed increasingly hostile to traditional religion and very insistent on abortion on demand and related sexual liberties (and let us be frank: the two are, I’m afraid, linked).
IN other words, if there’s bad blood in the water, I suggest that it cuts both ways. Do Democratic elites really know how bad their stock remains with many people of faith, how it got that way (beyond Ralph Reed startegems) and are they really interested in doing anything about it? Because most of the most energetic cohorts of the Democratic coalition, when I interact with them, or overhear them thinking out loud (and I am not just talking about DailyKOS or HuffPost here), express something between bemused contempt and outright hostility to anything religious now. And it seems to go far beyond whatever Pat Robertson may have coming to him.
I wonder about your audience here, and why you seem to assume that all of us are Bush operatives or somesuch. I think a lot of us are genuinely frustrated by the current situation – we know the GOP has been a disappointment, that they too often seem to give the cause of life lip service, but then on the other side of the aisle the alternative is actual disservice. I think it goes without saying that the cause of life will never truly succeed until it becomes *bipartisan* again. But given the hammerlock the feminist lobby has on the Democrats, it is hard to think of what approach by pro-lifers could possibly persuade the other elements of the Democratic coalition that it’s worth alienating the pro-abortion lobby, which at times seems to be the one indisputable sacrament of the Democratic Party, to really compromise at all on life issues.
“Whatever formulation or pledge of allegiance or whatever you’re using to get folks to be on the side of anti-abortionism is a wee bit intolerant. Alienating.” Well, I’m open to ideas so long as they don’t compromise the uncompromisable. As Amy says, I think many are just…unpersuadables. But again – I think we’re all ears as to what you have in mind here.
P.S. I didn’t say it before, but thanks to Amy for an enormously thoughtful post on this subject.
Daniel,
I do respect your struggle, and better appreciate the great level of sacrifice a pro-life vote involves for you. I don’t share most of your political assumptions, but given that you earnestly believe them, I must admire your willingness to still face the injustice of abortion despite its sacrosanct status on the left.
Lee Gilbert said…
One thing I have never understood. In the chain of causality that leads up to an abortion, we have chosen to focus all our efforts on saving the baby, who is at the very end of a long chain of events.
In addressing this, the left says that contraception is the answer. We disagree and propose abstinence.
Notably absent, however, is any serious effort to lower considerably the sexual temperature.
Of course, it would be marvelous if Roe vs Wade were overturned and we need to work and pray toward that end. Given the cultural forces at work, however, imagining that this will stop abortions is like thinking that the Supreme Court can stop Niagara Falls by decree.
Until all the elements that contribute to the hyper-sexualization of our society suffer the same public scorn now visited upon pedophiles, abortion and out of wedlock pregancy will continue to be a huge problem.
Playboy, Abercrombie and Fitch, Sex and the City, strip joints etc all need to fall under the same scorn now reserved for smoking in public places and not picking up after ones dog.
Pornography in all its many forms needs to be seen and treated as a public health threat. For that to happen, the same sort of campaign has to be waged against it as was waged against smoking. It probably cannot originally be attacked by means of laws. Neither was smoking. A decades long, relentless campaign was undertaken that changed public perceptions and eventuated in laws, but law is not the place to begin.
Perhaps I may be naive, but here I think we may have the co-operation of those who are now our cultural foes, or at least many of them. The feminists argue for more sex education and and contraceptives, but perhaps they can be brought round to supporting the idea of lowering the sexual tension and commercial exploitation of sexuality so that so much sex education and contraception is not required (in their view of things) in the first place.
This approach, it seems to me, offers the only real possibility of long term success in reducing abortions.
Senator Biden made a connection in a a 2007 interview with the News Journal
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(http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20081019/LIFE/810190304/1006/NEWS02)
News Journal Washington Bureau reporter Nicole Gaudiano conducted a one-on-one interview with Sen. Joe Biden on April 27, 2007. The first half of the interview dealt with Biden’s now-ended presidential run. The second half focused on abortion and is printed for the first time below.
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The article including the following statement by Biden,
“This really isn’t much about Roe v. Wade for me. What it’s really about, it’s about the moral dilemma that on all critical issues relating to the culture of life, you have to make those decisions. One of my avocations is theology. I actually have a real interest in this, I always have, having nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with Roe v. Wade.
The same moral dilemma exists in euthanasia. When do you conclude that there’s human life and being that no longer exists? Under what circumstances can that occur?”
When the questions are not obvious to politicans what happens when they make laws that affect and effect life-beginning and life-ending decisions?
Are the “artists of the possible,” the community to make such profound decisions? Without a national debate?