Pro-life Dems done in by pro-life “friends”
David Gibson has these observations up at Politics Daily:
“There’s been a lot of complaint across the political spectrum that American politics is too polarized on issues like abortion,” John Green, a political scientist from the University of Akron and a leading expert in religious voting patterns, told Christianity Today on the eve of the vote. “And yet the results of this election may be to polarize it even more in Congress because the pro-life voices are likely to be less common in the Democratic caucus and more common in the Republican caucus.”…
“The presence of pro-life Democrats was the product of a decision by Democratic leaders after the defeat in the 2004 presidential election. They wanted to broaden the party to welcome pro-lifers and more conservative Democrats. Success in recruiting such candidates, such as North Carolina’s Heath Shuler, went hand in hand with the party’s successes in winning Congress and the White House.
“But many pro-life groups that were either ideologically tied to the GOP or so used to having only one party — the Republicans — did not adjust easily to the bipartisan possibilities, and when the debate over abortion funding in health care exploded, they quickly turned on pro-life Democrats.”
Read the whole story.
“Moreover, many of those pro-life Democrats, including such stalwarts as Rep. Steve Dreihaus of Ohio’s 1st District and Kathleen Dahlkemper from Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, were in fact targeted for defeat by major pro-life organizations like the Susan B. Anthony List, which argued that those Democrats had betrayed their cause by backing health care reform and so deserved their fate.”
David G. –
This apparently irrational behavior begs the question: whose money is actually behind these so-called pro-life groups? And why?
This is so Byzantine it’s starting to remind me of John LeCarre’ novels of betrayal. Who are these “pro-life” people working for anyway?
“They don’t want two pro-life parties because most of them want a Republican majority.”
This is the truth which no Repulican pro-lifer wants to admit. It is a political prerogative just as McCarthy chose communism to win votes. Even W Bush and Laura are pro-choice while Chaney is for same sex marriage.
It is a shameless hypocrisy which somehow is allowed to continue.
Whoops, I see there was a dropped phrase … “or so used to having only one party — the Republicans — TAKE THEIR CALLS THAT THEY did not adjust easily…” (Damn editors!)
These pro-life groups would say they are justified because they say these so-called pro-life Democrats (their phrase) are pro-life in name only, so better to have “real” pro-lifers. In fact they supported a couple pro-life Dems, and did not oppose others, as long as they advocated against the final HCR. But that HCR funding issue is of course debatable, to say the least, and there is the obvious political problem of using one party to advance all your goals rather than having leverage in both.
As for funding, it comes from lots of folks, and lobbies. Just like every group.
Locally here the pro-lifers were papering windshields as usual.
The same folks who gave us big money FOCA warning letters.
I think Mornings Minion here has argued correctly for deep ties of the Right to Life Movement and the gOP.
The extreme in that movement waves its holier than thou approach and the rest tend to collapse, and, as I’ve said before then, the inmates run the asylum.
“…those Democrats had betrayed their cause by backing health care reform” ” In fact they supported a couple pro-life Dems, and did not oppose others, as long as they advocated against the final HCR.”
In other words, it’s not actually about partisan support for the Republican Party by pro-life groups, but rather a principled (if debatable) position that a vote for ObamaCare was a vote for abortion. As David Gibson writes: “But that HCR [abortion] funding issue is of course debatable”, and it seems the pro-life groups discussed here have decided in that debate that support of ObamaCare was a pro-abortion position.
No Republicans voted for ObamaCare in its final version, yet it is revealing that the one Republican member who voted for it at least in its preliminary form, Joseph Cao, was ALSO rejected by pro-life groups in his reelection bid. This would seem to be further proof that the stance of pro-life groups under discussion is not partisan, but principled.
It is fascinating that the Catholic left chastises pro-lifers for being one issue voters when they vote for Republicans but insist that they act like one issue voters when it comes to pro-life Democrats.
Perhaps the reason they support pro-life Republicans in preference to pro-life Democrats is that pro-life Democrats have proven to be extraordinarily ineffective in doing anything to support their cause.
We keep hearing about the necessity of keeping pro-life Dems in the game so that they can work their moderating influences. What evidence is there that they have? Saying that, “They wanted to broaden the party to welcome pro-lifers and more conservative Democrats.,” is an awfully generous characterization. They wanted to win seats. These same conservative members continued to support radical pro-abortion leaders, so what did it get the pro-life movement?
Sean, HCR itself is certainly argument for a very pro-life piece of legislation, if one doesn’t buy the argument that it contains massive funding for abortion. Moreover, it’s not clear what the pro-life movement has gotten from Republicans, really. Seems like a better strategy is needed.
“We keep hearing about the necessity of keeping pro-life Dems in the game so that they can work their moderating influences. What evidence is there that they have?”
Whatever you think of the outcome, is it your position that Stupak et al had no impact on the debate or its outcome?
“Moreover, many of those pro-life Democrats, including such stalwarts as Rep. Steve Dreihaus of Ohio’s 1st District and Kathleen Dahlkemper from Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, were in fact targeted for defeat by major pro-life organizations like the Susan B. Anthony List, which argued that those Democrats had betrayed their cause by backing health care reform and so deserved their fate.”
P. –
Cao did not vote for the health bill in its early form. What he voted for was to allow the bill to be debated by the House. Cao is apparently a man of highest principle, which is why I voted for him — the Republican Party desperately needs such people. Pity he lost to a Democrat who is known to have lied under oath to the LA Supreme Court.
David,
The abortion issue aside, saying HCR itself is “very pro-life” is conclusory. You have absolutely no evidence that this is the case. If the result of HCR is more expensive and less effective health care, is the possibility that it may be more broadly dispersed make it pro-life? Here in Massachusetts we already have a version of the national plan and its effects have not been universally beneficial. Many people had better coverage before than they do now even though slightly more people are covered. In places with universal, single payer health care does the fact that many more people die waiting for life saving treatment make them pro-life? Is the Danish approach to end-of-life care pro-life?
As for the what the pro-life movement has gotten from republicans, that would include things like a partial birth abortion ban, parental and spousal notification laws, waiting periods, and medical disclosure requirements. Moreover, it is hardly fair to blame them for failing to deliver when so much of that failure is from judges (illegitimately in my opinion) overturing or limiting those measures they do try and enact.
So maybe the strategy ought to be more judges like Scalia and Alito. Ooops, that means more republican senators.
“(P)ro-life Democrats have proven to be extraordinarily ineffective in doing anything to support their cause.”
Ah yes, the narcissism emerges. It’s all about the political pro-lifers’ cause, not any sort of public good. We also have the show-me-the-money meme. We’ve had any number of Republican-appointed justices deny restrictions on abortion, some nominated by Mr Reagan, and some by Mr Nixon. We’ve had Republicans occasionally in control of the White House and Congress in the past thirty years, and even both at the same time sometimes, and we’re still harping about abortion.
So tell us, Sean: which pro-life Republicans have dropped the abortion rate from a million a year to a few thousand?
I think we know this is all about winning seats, especially since politics has taken over the public face of the pro-life movement. Why, can you tell us, would we ever be inspired to save a baby by voting for an ALL-endorsed candidate when the cause has turned out to be more about electing your people than addressing the root cause of abortion? You people lied from the get-go in 2008 to expand your political coffers. The bottom line is this: a million American women a year could stop having abortions tomorrow and it won’t be against the law. If the pro-life case was persuasive enough, compassionate enough, we wouldn’t even need a political or judicial solution.
My sense, Sean, is that you and the political pro-life movement are feeling the powerlessness. The people playing y’all like fiddles are happy to have your money and your anger. Crybaby Republicans wrapping themselves in the mantle of the Gospel. A nice fashion statement for wool-loving wolves.
Is it my position that Stupak et al had no impact on the debate or its outcome?
Lots of impact on the debate – absolutely none on its outcome.
The bottom line is this: a million American women a year could stop having abortions tomorrow and it won’t be against the law. If the pro-life case was persuasive enough, compassionate enough, we wouldn’t even need a political or judicial solution.
BS
How can you persuade someone that unborn life is worth protecting if the ultimate means by which you protect innocent life does not apply to them. Following your logic, we ought not to make murder illegal if we are persausive enough. The legal prohibition is an expresion of belief – it’s part of the persuasion.
The fact is – the fact, not opinion or fanciful belief – is that the number of abortions in this country doubled in the five years after Roe. That’s 3 million more abortions than would have been performed otherwise.
If anyone is still sanguine about the sagacity of the American electorate or its political class (leaders and functionaries and lobbyists and big money donors, etc. attached to both parties), heoor she would do well to read Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s review of the recent books by William Pfaff and Peteer Beinart in the Nov. 11, 2010 issue of New York Review of Books. Our foreign policy has been as dimwitted as our domestic politics, so dimwitted that people can’t call our policies into question without risking ostracism as “pessimists” or “elitists” or some other species of low life.
I don’t know how to post the link to Wheatcroft’s review and would be grateful if some one of you would do so. Thanks.
Wheatcroft’s review in NYR: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/voice-unconventional-wisdom/
We ignore the Sermon on the Mount yet talk about anti-abortion always. It is a fraud issue because it is clear that those who use this as a political weapon think differently in their private life.
Here we go. Another 100 posts without one mention of the Sermon on the Mount. Let’s bomb the vietcong, the Iraqis, the Afghans, excuse torture, etc. and keep talking about abortion since that is not a prudential judgment but an infallible one.
“Following your logic, we ought not to make murder illegal if we are persausive enough.”
Sean, murder is legal if you’re on the right end of the gun in a foreign land. No persusaion necessary.
But I take your point. Human morality is so frail that every moral transgression must be legislated against in order to keep people on the straight-and-narrow. I can dig it. We have to guarantee insurers don’t drop sick people from their rolls, they have to disregard pre-existing conditions in some circumstances. You’ve just made the Mart Stupak case and alienated a few thousand libertarians. Not bad. Want to try to mix another pack of GOP Kool-Aid?
Ack. Pardon my one typo above on Bart Stupak. Also forgot one point: glad to know Sean has forgiven the GOP for those three million abortions in the mid-70′s. Let’s come back in thirty more years and see if the political pro-lifers are schmoozing at socialist cocktail parties.
An alternative interpretation is that the pro-life groups, by demonstrating their strength in this election, will encourage 1) a more sympathetic approach on the part of remaining endangered Democrats regarding life issues and 2) therefore less polarization across parties. In another tight race these incumbents will scramble for any support they can plausibly solicit.
See Machiavelli on the comparative effectiveness of fear and love. Or consider the argument of Fred Barnes re nervous Senators:
“Ten Democrats whose seats are up in 2012 come from right-leaning states or saw their states scoot to the right this week: Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida …
“It’s a good bet that some or all of them will be sympathetic to cutting spending, extending the Bush tax cuts, scaling back ObamaCare, and supporting other parts of the Republican agenda.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703506904575592690262053182.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Following your logic, we ought not to make murder illegal if we are persausive enough. The legal prohibition is an expresion of belief – it’s part of the persuasion.
Sean,
There is a difference between prohibiting murder and prohibiting abortion. Prohibiting murder is done almost entirely by deterrence. There is nothing stopping me from committing murder except the fact that I may be caught and punished for it. However, with abortion, what the pro-life side wants to do is make it difficult or impossible for women who want abortion to get them. It is not deterrence. It is prevention. The message the pro-life side wants to send is that it is understandable to want an abortion, and it is understandable to procure one. Women are the victims of abortion. What is to be punished is performing an abortion. This is different from the message laws send about murder. The pro-life idea of success is 1.3 million women a year wanting abortions that they cannot get.
Thanks much, Margaret.
Clearly, the health care bill is a critical aspect of how Democrats define themselves in regard to pro-life principles.
Setting aside the actual content of the bill, I don’t think it’s far-fetched that pro-life groups have concluded that the *process* of passing the bill showed the Democratic Party’s true colors with respect to pro-life issues.
Specifically – the pressure brought to bear upon Stupak’s bloc of pro-life votes by the House leadership and various pro-choice organizations allied with the Democratic Party in the days leading up to the final vote suggests that, when push comes to shove, the Democratic Party still can’t be trusted to deliver meaningful pro-life measures. (Again, I’m setting aside content; I have no interest in rehashing, yet again, the merits or demerits of the bill). “Get it done with pro-life protections” took a back seat to “Get it done for the sake of the party”.
The public stance of the Catholic Health Association and that group of religious sisters was widely seen in pro-life circles as “giving political cover” to the members of Stupak’s bloc who flipped in the final days – a phrase that implies that there was really something else, presumably less admirable and principled, going on behind the facade.
In the view of pro-life organizations, when the chips were down, the Democratic Party behaved very much like a pro-choice party. Pro-lfe organizations learned that lesson and reacted accordingly in the recently-concluded election cycle.
I think Kristen Day, executive director of DFLA, got the election results, and the hope for the future, just about right.
November 3, 2010
Dear Pro-Life Friend,
Like many of you, this morning I was reflecting on the devastating Democratic losses across the country – particularly our pro-life Members. Yes, it was a bad day, but this is not the time to sit down, this is the time to rally. Our biggest challenges lie ahead. We should not be discouraged, but look toward re-building a Democratic Party that respects and includes pro-life Democrats as equals.
[chart not copied]
We need to work even harder now to make sure that, as we rebuild our Democratic Majority, our new candidates share our pro-life position. We can use these losses as an opportunity to work within our Party to set forth a new mission and Platform for the Democratic Party – one that respects life from conception to natural death.
It has been proven that a Democratic Majority relies heavily on the inclusion of those who support a pro-life position. In the 95th Congress, we had a 292 seat majority with 125 pro-life Democrats. As you can see from the chart above, as we lose pro-life Democrats, the Republicans are more likely to take control as they did in the 104th Congress. We picked up the majority again in the 110th Congress following 2 elections cycles where our Party actively recruited and supported pro-life Democratic candidates like Joe Donnelly, Kathy Dahlkemper and Brad Ellsworth.
The Republican Leadership understands this and waged an all out war against our pro-life Democrats as the means to take the House this election cycle.
On a personal note, I am grateful for the kind words of encouragement that many of you sent these past few months. It has not been an easy road and your friendship and support for our mission has truly been appreciated.
Before we begin our work to rebuild, I would like to recognize the contributions of the pro-life Democratic Members who have been good friends to DFLA. Many of these Members were on target to win, but the on slot of money from the Susan B. Anthony List and other Republican organizations overcame many of them. Their leadership and commitment to protecting life at all stages will be sorely missed in the 112th Congress and we hope many of them will run again.
We thank and appreciate the following Members including those who retired and those who put up a good fight:
Congressman Alan Mollohan (D-WV);
Congressman Marion Barry (D-AR); Retired
Congressman Barry Bright (D-AL);
Congressman Chris Carney (D-PA);
Congressman Travis Childers (D-MS);
Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA);
Congressman Lincoln Davis (D-TN);
Congressman Steve Dreihaus (D-OH);
Congressman Brad Ellsworth (D-IN);
Congressman Barron Hill (D-OH);
Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA);
Congressman Jim Marshall (D-GA);
Congressman Charlie Melancon (D-LA);
Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN);
Congressman Ike Skelton (D-MO);
Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI); Retired
Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS); and
Congressman Charlie Wilson (D-OH).
Again, we thank the above-mentioned Members for their friendship and we thank you for your support of DFLA.
With Hope For the Future,
Kristen Day
Executive Director
Democrats For Life of America
What David Nickol says above is, I believe, a crucial point: that the current pro-life position is to create obstacles that deter, or prevent, abortion, not out law it. Presumably, this is because Roe v. Wade inhibits any other course of action.
My question is this. Does anyone (Sean H, perhaps) here wish–at some future moment when Roe v. Wade has been overturned–that the procurement of abortion become a criminal act punishable by imprisonment? And if not, why not? I am trying to understand what the policy objective in pro-life activism should be beyond electing or defeating particular candidates. Should we, as pro-lifers, wish for abortion to remain legal but very difficult to obtain through legislative efforts to restrict access? or seek to encode our moral position into law such that abortion is a serious crime, one subject to appropriate sanctions under the courts? Is it too early or impolitic to be specific about what kind of penalties and for whom we are working towards?
When I bring up the possibility of jail time for women seeking abortion and, of course, comparable punishments for medical professionals and abettors, my pro-life friends and family seem unwilling to entertain this possibility. I don’t see how we can pursue a pro-life agenda and not move toward criminalization at some point. I wish pro-life activists and politicians were more forthcoming on what our ultimate goals should be. If they were, I would be clearer on which candidates for state and national office to support.
William Collier, thanks for that reference.
And like always if we are to throw women in jail for aborting their children it will be the Native Americans, African-Americans and other minorities who will be the biggest showing in the prison system.
This was one of the reasons I left the Republican pro-life movement. I realized there HAS to be bigger social issues going on impacting the abortion rates. Yes, there does need to be changes in the law, but so far, how is that working for us?
“Perhaps the reason they support pro-life Republicans in preference to pro-life Democrats is that pro-life Democrats have proven to be extraordinarily ineffective in doing anything to support their cause.”
Well, Democrats say they want to make abortion safe, legal and rare. What do Republicans say? And what do they do?
I think the Democrats’ slogan reflects pretty well the moral high ground of the American people. Prolifers who want to make abortion illegal, unsafe (and probably not rare) are generally perceived as extremists, even when they wear a mitre.
Most politicos treat abortion as a political football, nothing more. They really don’t believe it should be their concern at all, but they want to keep in with the rival lobbies on the issue.
Voting for health care reform, despite the exec order/promise not to use federal funds for abortion, seems to be the new litmus test of whether a candidate is truly pro-life.
Right to Life Michigan yanked support for Stupak within hours of his cutting a deal with Obama re the executive order. It did endorse the Democrat running for Stupak’s seat, Gary McDowell, who has never served in Congress–and McDowell was the only Democrat it endorsed. But it also endorsed Dan Benishek, Stupak’s opponent.
I realize the pro-life movement is comprised of many different PACs, crisis pregnancy centers, and advocacy groups that run the gamut from Feminists for Life to those folks in the Virgiinny hills who believe shooting abortion doctors dead is justifiable homidide.
But if I were an investigative reporter, I would be interested in looking at endorsement patterns and criteria of major groups to see how “pro-life” politicians are being defined. Moreover, I think there are ways to support the pro-life movement without becoming embroiled in politics. The center near me puts its efforts into helping pregnant women find alternatives to abortion, and doesn’t get involved in politics, and that’s why I continue to support them.
To Radical Catholic Mom,
Is there anyone within the network of persons associated with an abortion who you would be willing to have “thrown in jail” for their involvement? I am fully aware and profoundly sad to realize that criminalization would fall hardest upon those who, desperate enough to seek abortion regardless of the risk, were also least likely to do so under the radar and least likely to defend themselves in a court of law. But does that mean criminalization should be off the table for the pro-life movement?
For another aspect of “pro-life” politics, namely peace, see the piece by Lara Friedman in today’s Haaretz.com
“Does anyone (Sean H, perhaps) here wish–at some future moment when Roe v. Wade has been overturned–that the procurement of abortion become a criminal act punishable by imprisonment?”
Yum, thanks for that delicious red herring. One need not speculate, but simply return to the days of pre-Roe v Wade: the laws against abortion were never directed against the mothers who procured the abortion, and no one intends to do so if Roe v Wade is overturned. The legal penalties were always, and would in the future always, be aimed at the direct actors, the abortionists themselves. And there was no philosophical hand-wringing needed to affirm the right to punish abortionists but not the poor women who are (after the killed unborn children), the deeply wounded victims of an abortion.
Your attempt to fearmonger the consequences of the legal issue is seen more and more from abortion supporters, but it is a false dilemma. You even see this in the “trigger laws” passed by many states already, which will automatically outlaw abortion in those states in the event Roe v Wade is overturned: not one of those laws does anything to punish the mothers.
I have difficulty seeing as “deeply wounded victims” those women who, after all, want to kill their unborn child and who would presumably do the deed themselves in secrecy if that were possible. In what sense are they victims of the abortion itself any more than someone who steals is victim of the theft or, more germanely, one who kills another human being are themselves a victim of that act? On some level that may be true, but we do not believe that those who kill another human being, directly or through the solicitation of another agent, are entirely innocent
I would say these women may be victims of poverty, of fear, of ignorance (and in some cases of violence) such that they are desperate in their desire to terminate a pregnancy; but as soon as they seek an abortion they are no longer an innocent victim, not entirely, but a morally culpable agent in the act for which they seek assistance. After all, the abortionist is acting as an agent on behalf of a client/patient, no? I cannot see why only one party to this action should be punished and not the other. Even deeply wounded victims must accept the consequences of their actions. What am I missing here?
” What am I missing here?”
Compassion, for starters.
The legal penalties were always, and would in the future always, be aimed at the direct actors, the abortionists themselves.
P Flanagan,
I agree that it is very unlikely that if Roe is overturned, states will enact laws that punish women, and I think your pointing to trigger laws is good evidence. I have never seen a discussion in which pro-lifers advocated punishing women for having abortions.
However, as I have pointed out before, the basis on which many in the pro-life movement want to criminalize abortion is actually quite new. Never before were abortion laws based on the idea that the unborn child had moral standing as a human person, and so abortion was not murder. It is true that the push by the medical establishment dating to the 19th century to criminalize abortion was partially motivated by moral considerations, but a large part of the argument that abortion should be illegal was to protect women from what was, at the time, a dangerous medical procedure. Now, it is statistically safer to have an abortion than it is to bring a baby to term. So that justification for criminalizing abortion is no longer valid.
Not to go on at great length — since we have had this discussion many times before — but I for one find it bizarre, especially for Catholic pro-lifers, to claim that women are the victims of abortion when the Church excommunicates women who procure abortions and looks on the abortionist as an accomplice. (Canon 1398 A person who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.)
So the laws that will be passed (in the very unlikely event that Roe is overturned) will almost certainly not punish women who procure abortions, because they will not treat abortion as murder. They will be the old laws that predated Roe and predated the insistence of the pro-life movement that abortion is murder. But it is certainly inconsistent of pro-lifers who insist that abortion is murder to maintain that women who procure abortions are not culpable. It is not how the Church approaches the issue.
Why does the Church excommunicate women who procure abortions and not, say, women who drown their (“post-born”) children or serial killers? I have never heard a definitive answer. But I have heard that one reason is to make a clear statement that abortion is murder, because it may not seem like it, and so many argue it is not. So it seems to me that pro-lifers who believe that abortion is murder, and who do not object to the Church using excommunication as a means of reinforcing that alleged fact, are being strangely inconsistent when they proudly announce their position that civil law should not punish women for abortion.
Mother Teresa said, “But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child – a direct killing of the innocent child – murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” So the question is, if abortion is murder, and women who “murder their own children” are not held accountable for it, how can we hold anyone else accountable either?
Pro-lifers are always implying, or asserting, that those who are pro-choice know in their hearts that abortion is murder, and they are either deluding themselves or lying. It does seem to me on this one particular point, the question is raised by the fact that those who claim abortion is murder yet don’t want to see women held accountable, whether the pro-lifers truly believe their own rhetoric about murder in the first place.
Pro-lifers often tend to be politically conservative, and conservatives are opposed to “coddling criminals.” Which other class of murderers have conservatives ever wanted to pardon in advance for any crime because they were operating under job pressures, or school pressures, or pressures from parents or boyfriends?
After all, the abortionist is acting as an agent on behalf of a client/patient, no?
William,
I started writing my mega-message above before yours was posted, so I didn’t see it. But I agree with what you are saying — if and only if abortion is murder — and wanted to point out what I said above in response to what I have quoted from your message. Canon law looks upon the procuring of an abortion is the offense worthy of excommunication. The fact that an abortionist is also excommunicated is due to other provisions in canon law regarding accomplices. Those who insist that abortion is murder and want civil law to prohibit it take a very different approach. They want the abortionist to be considered the perpetrator and the woman who procures the abortion to be treated as a victim. Of course, they would probably respond that nobody ever said canon law had to be written into civil law. Nevertheless, it seems to me a glaring inconsistency.
“One need not speculate, but simply return to the days of pre-Roe v Wade: the laws against abortion were never directed against the mothers who procured the abortion, and no one intends to do so if Roe v Wade is overturned.”
P, you are wrong. There were laws on the books that provided penalties for women who procured abortions, and these could be used to prosecute or jail women for between one and 10 years (state laws vary).
However, it seems to be true that, despite the fact that laws existed to punish women who had had abortions, few states enforced them. The American Center for Bioethics sheds some light on this:
“There are no documented instances of prosecution of such women for murder or for any other species of homicide; nor is there evidence that states that had provisions enabling them to prosecute women for procuring abortions ever applied those laws. The vast majority of the courts were reluctant to implicate women, even in a secondary fashion, through complicity and conspiracy charges. Even in those rare instances where an abortionist persuaded the court to recognize the woman as his accomplice, charges were not filed against her.”
It is possible, then, that, were Roe v. Wade overturned and state laws reinstated, that prosecution COULD occur against women. Moreover, states would be free to change their laws to suit the prevailing view about abortion, which could include harsher penalties for women and doctors who perform abortions.
I think William Collier has and continues to be a voice of sanity for the pro-life cause on this blog.
If he were running for office, I’m sure many in the pro-life camp would (virulently) oppose him.
That’s the nub that underscores this thread and just another of the fundamental divides that go on in our Church.
How sad.
Jean,
One thing to consider is that many abortions now are not surgical but pharmaceutical. The drugs could be banned, but if a woman manages to get her hands on abortifacient drugs and use them, there is no abortionist to punish.
David,
Prohibiting murder is done almost entirely by deterrence?!?
You could not possibly be more wrong. What stops people from murdering is first and foremost moral abhorrence. That’s the point exactly. We no longer have moral abhorrence for abortion. Progressively we have less and less for things like infanticide and euthansia.
I am not naive in my understanding of the legal prohibition. I understand that making abortion illegal wouldn’t eliminate the practice and that it is fraught with difficulty. I was responding to the idea that the legal regulation and prohibitions are meaningless. They aren’t. If you look at the history of abortion in this country, the numbers, legal and illegal steadily climbed throughout the century, but they exploded after 1973. Why?
We are at the point that the legal regulation of veterinary clinics is more stringent than abortion providers. An underage girl can more easily obtain an abortion than get her ears pierced in most places. What does this tell us about what moral weight abortion has on society’s scales?
Radical Mom and William Fitzgerald –
Nobody thinks women should be jailed over abortions. That is a red herring, and an old one at that; it has been waved around by pro-choice folks for years now.
Pro-lifers hold that abortionists should be jailed, not the women who, finding themselves in a difficult circumstance, are duped by our culture’s pro-death propaganda into “choosing” an abortion or who for whatever reason, succumb to peer (family or societal) pressure and submit to an abortion.
The abortionist, a so-called doctor, is the one with blood on his hands; he knows better but is all too willing to capitalize on the situation, he grubbily takes the money and shamefully keeps his abortion mill grinding away, day after day, year after bloody year.
Women deserve better that what we (American society) currently offer, and it is part of every pro-lifer’s mission (responsibility) to help as we are able, to improve matters in this regard.
Some women need material support, others need emotional support. Some need to know that if they really are not in a position to care for or raise a child, that t is no shame to put the child up for adoption. There are many loving couples that for various reasons cannot have children and who are in a position materially to provide for a child and who want to adopt.
A not-too-often mentioned part of being pro-life is to welcome back to the fold women who have already had abortions. These women often feel terrible over the whole ordeal and sometimes need reminding that God forgives and is merciful. Rachel’s Vineyard does good work in this regard; bringing much healing and consolation.
Our parish pro-life groups periodically holds a baby shower drive, where we ask parishioners to leave things for babies; blankets, formula, diapers, food basics, clothing, etc., for the group’s storehouse. These items are then given to women who need material help. There are other ways to help mothers-in need, and we all need to keep our hearts and minds open to them and keep them in our prayers.
^
^
Some women will need time machines to go back to before they were raped or developed life-threatening complications stemming from pregnancy.
Also, your characterization of abortionists is so absurd that nobody but people who already share your polarized views would accept your terms. Better rhetoric: get into it.
Well, well, well. I never knew that women who aborted were victims until today.
So, if and when Roe gets overturned, and bus loads of women come up to Canada for a Morgentaler clinic abortion, they will be able to return to the USA and be completely free of any legal sanction.
If abortion is murder, then the women is the murderer, the Dr is just an accomplice. The women has contracted the death.
Sean,
I can always be more wrong if I put my mind to it.
If you are saying the law is a tool to invoke in people moral abhorrence for certain actions, I am responding that with the kind of laws pro-lifers say they want to pass, the message to abortionists will be that what they are doing is so abhorrent that they will be thrown in prison for it. The message to women will be that if they can procure an abortion, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t.
If the law is a “teacher of virtue,” and there is absolutely no penalty for women in anti-abortion laws — not even a penalty that is rarely if ever enforced — the law will not be teaching anything to women who want to, and do, seek out and have abortions.
The Louisiana trigger law specifies a penalty of 1 to 10 years in prison at hard labor and a fine of $10,000 to $100,000 for an abortionist, but exempts the pregnant woman from all provisions of the law. Is there any other law that imposes such harsh penalties on someone who provides a service but no penalties at all to a person who makes use of the service?
I have always assumed that the goal of the pro-life movement as a political agenda was eventual criminalization with laws that would recognize the reciprocal nature of the abortion-seeker and the abortionist and parallel to other forms of complicity in homicide. (Is that too strong a word in the context of abortion?) Perhaps it is incumbent on politicians and activists to make clear that abortion would be treated differently from other homicide under the law, and that only the abortionist would be subject to imprisonment, not the woman.
However, it doesn’t seem fair to dismiss the possibility of criminal sanction against the procurer as a “red herring.” I do think David Nickol is correct in observing that the “abortion is murder” claim strongly suggests that the abortion-seeker is to be regarded as something other than a victim, “duped” by the culture and manipulated by others.
Pro-lifers hold that abortionists should be jailed, not the women who, finding themselves in a difficult circumstance, are duped by our culture’s pro-death propaganda into “choosing” an abortion or who for whatever reason, succumb to peer (family or societal) pressure and submit to an abortion.
Ken,
I once knew a guy who told me his young niece (still a teenager, I think) had just had her fifth abortion and couldn’t care less.
I think it speaks volumes about how pro-lifers regard women that they believe mothers can be duped into “murdering” their own children, or that they can be pressured into it.
If a woman had, say, a 2-year-old who was a hindrance to her finish school or hanging on to a good job, and she succumbed to societal pressure to drown the kid to solve her problems, would you be so sympathetic? Part of the message of the pro-life movement is that a fertilized egg has just as much right to life as a 2-year-old or an adult. Many people who commit murder do so under extreme pressure, yet I don’t see pro-lifers saying they shouldn’t be prosecuted.
Pro-lifers are massively inconsistent when it comes to this issue, and somehow they are able to blissfully ignore what for others would be a crippling case of cognitive dissonance.
In high school I knew a young woman who was deeply offended when the nuns taught her that God could not do self-contradictory things like draw a square circle or make a weight so heavy that he couldn’t lift it. She had a deeply held belief that God could do anything. The conversations used to go like this:
Me: Can God make a weight so heavy that he can’t lift it?
D: Yes, he can.
Me: Then he can’t life the weight.
D: Yes he can!
Me: Then if he can lift it, he can’t make a weight so heavy that he can’t lift it.
D: Yes, he can!
It is very similar to the way I feel when discussing the culpability of mothers who procure abortions with people who maintain that abortion is murder, yet consider the mothers to be victims.
Mother Teresa: “But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child – a direct killing of the innocent child – murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”
Now, I am very dubious about the claim that abortion is murder, so I can’t claim to endorse Mother Teresa’s statement. But I thought pro-lifers held her in the highest regard.
In the chain of reasons that lead to a decision to abort, the ultimate cause is usually left out — that in most cases the woman and her partner voluntarily had intercourse, including many who used contraceptives knowing that contraceptives don’t work rathar often. In other words, risky consensual sex led to babies, and most women know the possible consequences of their voluntary acts. So to go on and on about women being victims of abortion doesn’t make a great deal of sense.
Yes, yes, yes, many young ones don’t really realize it could “happen to” them (note the passive verb for an active act). Adolescents can be totally irrational at times. It is also a fact, I think, that many, many women who have abortions honestly do not believe that they are carrying fully human beings, at least during the first months of pregnancy. And those women feel no guilt, nor *should* they. (This is my biggest gripe with many pro-lifers — calling people “murderers” who thought they were not killing a person). To be guilty of sin/crime one must *know* it is a sin/crime, and some do not think abortion is sinful, at least not in the early months.
There are many other reasons to have sympathy with many women who have abortions. But as I see it, at least after the first week or so, there are indications that there is a person in the womb and if we are to be consistent, then we cannot treat those little people any different from their born siblings.
Why do people find abortion acceptable but infanticide abhorrent? I think it’s the Harry Lime effect again. Those little dots in their mothers’ wombs don’t look like people, so they’re disposable to many people’s way of thinking.
“[. . .] Democratic strategists said this fall’s campaigns against pro-life Democrats showed that the major groups that oppose abortion — the National Right To Life Committee, the Family Research Council and the like — are more concerned with promoting the Republican Party than the pro-life movement.
‘They put all their eggs in one party,’ said Kristen Day, executive director for Democrats for Life of America, which has been pushing a pro-life agenda in the Democratic Party. ‘They don’t want two pro-life parties because most of them want a Republican majority.’” (David Gibson)
Please note that West Virginians for Life, an affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, endorsed both Democratic Governor Joe Manchin and his Republican opponent, John Raese.
Can we then agree that procuring an abortion is not a murderous act, but providing one is? I feel as if I was being chastised (and accused of lacking compassion) for equating these two sides of a transaction.
If I have understood P Flanagan, Sean Hannaway and Ken, correctly, a dissociation between procurer and provider is a sensible policy position on abortion, whatever the moral dimensions. It is, in fact, the position I heard from my soon-to-be Senator Toomey, who has stated that penalties should be attached to the abortion providers. Does anyone have a sense whether such a distinction under criminal law between two willing parties–the solicitation and the performing of an act that results in a death (especially if there’s an exchange of money involved)–would stand up to judicial scrutiny? At the very least a prosecution of abortion would require the seeker/procurer of abortion to testify against the provider whose assistance she sought, would it not? Wow. The complexities abound.
David
No – I am not saying the law is a tool to invoke moral abhorrence, I am saying the law is one expression of moral attitudes.
The ambiguity that so bothers you doesn’t bother me at all. That’s life. Life’s difficult and ambiguous. Just because a thing is understandable, or even sympathetic, doesn’t make it right. And saying something is the wrongful taking of life doesn’t even mean that every wrongful taking of life is the same. I personally don’t use the term murder because that’s a legal term.
The man who shoots his neighbor for sport or to steal his money isn’t the same as the man who kills his painfully terminal wife – but they are both wrong, and the both violate sam commandment. Just like the person who steal food to eat isn’t the same as Bernie Madoff, but they are both theives.
Sean,
I am not sure which side you are coming down on, especially because you say you don’t use the term murder.
For those Catholics who say abortion is murder, and who have no problem with the Church excommunicating the woman who procures an abortion, are you saying you have no problem with them saying civil law should not prosecute the women because those women are victims? You see no contradiction between people, on the one hand, approving the penalty of excommunication, and on the other, saying so many women are not culpable for having abortions that there should be absolutely no provisions in the law for any women who have abortions?
The position is not just a pragmatic one that realizes it would be politically difficult to get lawmakers to say women who procure abortions are criminals. It is presented as a moral judgment that women who procure abortions are not, as a rule, morally culpable.
“Nobody thinks women should be jailed over abortions. That is a red herring, and an old one at that; it has been waved around by pro-choice folks for years now.”
NOBODY? You’re wrong there, sir. My Baptist sister-in-law believes it should be a capital offense. Others on this blog have, on other threads, discussed what they consider fair jail times for women who abort, though many do not believe there should be any punishment for women whatever.
While I believe it would be very difficult for my sister-in-law to persuade people in my state (Michigan) to make abortion a capital offense, I think the mood and willingness to levy punishments on some women who abort is there, at least among some on the pro-life side.
Decades ago, when abortion was illegal and rare, women who aborted were seen as hysterical, frightened, or just stupid, more to be pitied than prosecuted. Women who abort now are seen by many in the pro-life camp as callous and spoiled, unwilling to interrupt their educations, jobs, or lives to bother with a baby. Both notions are facile, to say the least. But I think that the new notion indicates the likelihood that women would be prosecuted to the extent that the old state laws allowed were Roe overturned.
Can we then agree that procuring an abortion is not a murderous act, but providing one is? I feel as if I was being chastised (and accused of lacking compassion) for equating these two sides of a transaction.
William,
No.
For those who claim abortion is murder, it would be grossly inconsistent to say that a woman who arranges for an abortion, delivers herself and her unborn child into the abortionists hands, lies passively while the abortion is performed, and pays the abortionist for the service, to say the woman does have the same degree of culpability as the abortionist. She is, in effect, hiring someone to kill her child and bringing the child to that person to be killed. A woman of subnormal intelligence was executed in Virginia last month for hiring gunmen to kill her husband and stepson.
The difficult position many of us (including me) are in is that while we disagree that abortion is murder, we believe that if it is murder, the woman who procures an abortion must be held responsible for that murder. So it sometimes appears we are arguing that women who procure abortions are murderers who should go to jail. We are merely pointing out that the Church calls abortion murder (or at least John Paul II and Mother Teresa did), and places a penalty on abortion that it places on no other murder, no matter how heinous, and yet somehow the pro-lifers in the United States do not see a contradiction there.
Well, I do see a contraction there, too, David. I was surprised that people who are more politically informed than I about pro-life politics found me to be tossing a “red herring” into the discussion when I asked what the ultimate goal should be. I did not realize that for many who post here it was off the table to imprison both procurers and providers who refuse to obey laws making abortion illegal was something off the table. I confess that logically I cannot get to the place where the abortionist is subject to radically different charges and sentences than those who seek his or her services. Perhaps it’s a non-starter politically, in the sense that few voters are likely to be moved in a pro-life direction if they see as the consequence of their commitment the resulting imprisonment of women seeking/obtaining an abortion. My query here is whether that possibility needs to be ‘on the table’ if we are to make a compelling case for the sanctity of life.
I confess that logically I cannot get to the place where the abortionist is subject to radically different charges and sentences than those who seek his or her services.
You do recognize the differences in mens rea between a medical expert and a layperson, do you not? That there are differences in knowledge and, therefore, intent?
It’s not “off the table,” William; people have discussed on this very blog what they would consider a fair punishment for a woman who has an abortion.
The problem is that if, like my sister-in-law, you want to equate aborting a two-month old fetus because you have pulmonary hypertension and are about to die with strangling a toddler for not eating his peas, well, you aren’t going to get very far with a lot of people.
In God’s eyes, the two acts may be equally heinous. A lot of people just aren’t there yet.
Bender: Of course, I do. But if the implied argument is that the medical expert (or some other non-licensed abortionist) should know better and the abortion-seeking woman does not, I find that too simplistic a distinction. I cannot imagine that, abortion being a crime punishable by serious jail time, the procurer bears no responsibility and the provider bears all. If I hire a crooked accountant to help me cook my books and get caught, the fact that the professional expert had greater responsibility to act ethically does not get me off the hook. Yes, the analogy is imperfect, but I am trying to take the measure of your expert-layperson distinction and see how it applies in this case. I can imagine some distinction in the criminal code, though perhaps not radical differences. To conclude otherwise is to tacitly believe that any woman has the right to abort the life in her womb provided she can do so unassisted. Is that a legal resolution we should be prepared to accept?
You do recognize the differences in mens rea between a medical expert and a layperson, do you not? That there are differences in knowledge and, therefore, intent?
Bender,
If you mean that an abortion doctor knows he’s murdering a baby, but the pregnant woman doesn’t think so or is doubtful, then of course I disagree with you. Medical knowledge does not answer the question of whether abortion is the killing of a person or not.
I wouldn’t worry Mr Cowtan, with Canada’s medical system, the waiting time for an abortion (or a pregnacy for that matter) is probably 10 month.
Ha, ha – You must admit that was a good one!
;-)
In the conversation in this thread, I get the distinct impression that some believe that assigning criminal responsibility to the procurer of an abortion is merely a pro-choice political tactic. Others no doubt think that singling out the doctor is a tactic that avoids the hard choices encoded in pro-life rhetoric. If abortion is to be a crime for reasons that have to do with protecting and preserving the fetus I cannot see how the assignment of non-culpable victim status to the pregnant woman can, as a general rule, be realistically maintained.
Are there ways to ban abortion without making it a crime? Perhaps that’s a way to go, a way to seek compromise.
On behalf of the National Right to Life Committee, Dave Andrusko has replied directly to David Gibson in “Grossly Misrepresenting the Role of Single-Issue Pro-Life Organizations”:
http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Nov10/nv110510part2.html
QUESTION: When do the provisions of the HCR act kick in that would, according to many pro-lifers, allow the President to go back on his word and order the federal government to pay for abortions?
It would be funny Ken, except you probably believe it. Strange as it may seem, Our most famous abortionist is a Holocaust survivor, and received the order of Canada. Your “The abortionist, a so-called doctor, is the one with blood on his hands; he knows better but is all too willing to capitalize on the situation, he grubbily takes the money and shamefully keeps his abortion mill grinding away, day after day, year after bloody year.” just doesn’t fit with Morgentaler or Tiller for that matter.
I guess we are back to screaming at each other over the barricade.
“I guess we are back to screaming at each other over the barricade.”
Collectively speaking, I guess that’s true. However, I have said before and will say until someone tells me to shut up, that I have found many of these threads about abortion very helpful, informative–and formative of my own views.
I have gone, incrementally, from a hands-off pro-choice proponent when Roe v. Wade was handed down, to someone who shares a good deal of common ground with many aims of those who oppose abortion.
I hasten to add that I am not wholly in the pro-life camp, see many gray areas on this issue, and am not a practicing Catholic largely because I realize my views would not pass muster with the Church or probably with most people here. And I do not see abortion as the biggest problem facing society right now.
But people do listen, do consider, do pray about this issue, and continue to do so.
Before the election I received a letter from a local pro life group supporting a candidate for state senate. The only thing it said about the candidate was that she was uncompromisingly pro life. That is wonderful, but what about the other pressing issues?
http://historywasneverlikethat.blogspot.com/
Per Michael Cowtan: “..Our most famous abortionist is a Holocaust survivor, and received the order of Canada.
Ken – Wow Mr. Cowtan; that is a mouthful. Actually it speaks volumes doesn’t it? That Canada has a “famous” abortionist is really quite notable. Is he also the nation’s favorite abortionist?
Being an abortionist & Holocaust survivor is either all the more damning, or is indicative of some serious and unrelieved emotional-psychological damage. Hopefully it is the latter and hopefully he will change his heart.
As for screaming and barricades; yell all you like. I don’t holler about this and nobody I know does. It is too serious an issue for screaming and bumper stickers.
Jean made some important points regarding this. Those engaged in this debate have an opportunity for expanding their worldview. In Jean’s case that meant arriving at the point of allowing for the possibility that abortion is wrong. In my case, engagement in this issue has also meant a slight shift in my view.
Politically I tend to the Right, and on social matters and mores, I tend toward being more traditional, more doctrinaire. However as part of working with pro-life groups, I began to see-understand the importance, both of corporal and spiritual works of mercy (material charity, per St. James) and emotional charity; listening, trying to understand (e.g. the good work of Rachel’s Vineyard group).
And so it best to leave the screaming and hysterics to others folks who worry about other, less important, less long-term issues.
I often remind pro-lifers that legal slavery was around long before there was a USA and that is was legal in the US for about a century (1776 to 1865) before it was finally abandoned.
Like old Twain said, a lie makes it half-way round the world before truth gets a chance to put its boots on. These sorts of deeply wrong-headed ideas, once allied with pride, money & vested interests, and the current real politic, are really tough weeds to pull, and so we need to be patient, trust in Truth as God gives us the ability to see it, and understand that we are in this for the long haul.
——————————-
Last week I opined and queried about the complexities involved in moving from abortion as a legal choice to one in which the moral and punitive force of law was directed against abortion. I would still like to hear from others whose pro-life perspective (which I share) leads them to work toward a day when abortion is a criminal act (which I remain deeply conflicted over). When that day finally comes, what does pro-life look like at the level of policy, statute, and enforcement? What is the goal? What are the acceptable compromises to be made in pursuit of that goal?
This piece by Sean Higgins in Catholic World Report walks over some of the same ground David G covered in his report at Politics Daily, albeit with a somewhat different angle. A good reiteration of the importance of the pro-life movement being bipartisan. Interesting stuff, too, on Stupak and other pro-life House Democrats, the health care bill and the executive order.
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=216:the-coming-realignment&catid=53:cwr2010&Itemid=70
Of course it is easy for those who do not participate in the pro-life actions to criticize the pro-lifers.
Most of us are not professionals and are not medical people, but instead are just volunteers and we regularly make mistakes. We muddle along however, and try our best.
With all the political babbling and mailings, and rummage sales and clothing and food drives, the fact is that in the struggle to end abortion, prayer is the most important tool we have available.
Please pray the Rosary every now and then, with specific intention to help end abortion in our land, and when you think of us rank-and-file pro lifer types, please pray for us too.
William F, I think you’re pressing a fair point, but I don’t think you’ll get an answer because many pro-lifers feel it’s counterproductive to discuss penalties; the main concern is to stop or, barring that, curtail abortions as much as possible. They know they’ll lose sympathizers if they start talking about penalties.
If Roe v. Wade were overturned, the reigning notion is that whatever state laws were in place before RvW would be reinstated and tweaked to suit the prevailing views in specific states. That means many states would still allow legal abortions on demand, and that’s where I think you’d find various pro-life factions very divided about where they’re willing to draw lines and where they fall regarding penalties.
I think there’s some existential and very primitive problem of fairness involved in this issue. It is an iron-clad biological fact that only women produce babies, which is unfair in the extreme, and even these days women often have to undergo terrible pain in childbirth. Add to that that if a parent deserts a child it is usually the father, leaving the mother to raise it. So women generally elicit a deep sympathy in both me and women. It’s not a fully rational sympathy, but it is real and based on unfair facts. No, it doesn’t compute that women who abort should always be let off scott free, but our sympathy is usually with her, and on a deep and primitive level, rightly so.
Hi, Jean and William F., I agree that the pragmatic considerations Jean mentioend are part of the reason that pro-life activists are reluctant to be specific about punishments.
Perhaps to an even greater extent, though: the pro-life activists I know have little or no interest in punitive measures. Their motivation is to stop the killing.
Having sat on a jury that needed to come up with a fair monetary award, I can attest that it is extremely difficult to reach a consensus on what constitutes justice and fairness. I’d gladly outsource the decisions regarding whether, who, and how much to punish the principles to people with more wisdom and expertise than me. Ultimately, as Jean noted, it will be our elected state legislators.
FWIW – my observation is that notions of punishment, especially of the pregnant mom, almost invariably are floated by those who are pro-choice, generally for pragmatic reasons of their own. To the extent such questions are asked in good faith, they seem to presume that pro-life people harbor an animus against a pregnant teen-ager or pregnant single mom. My experience is that the truth is 180 degrees different, but that this misperception exists is an indication of how many bridges still need to be built between the two sides.
Jim Pauwels wrote: “Perhaps to an even greater extent, though: the pro-life activists I know have little or no interest in punitive measures. Their motivation is to stop the killing.”
True up to a point, since I have heard on this blog that the doctor (and other abortion providers) would go to jail, among other punitive measures. I have been asking here why the disparity. Is this situation akin to the drug dealer in contrast to the drug addict? Is the argument that few pregnant women in their right mind would do such a horrible thing, so that only the provider is culpable to the full extent of the law?
To be clear: I entertain no belief about the animus against the pregnant teenager or single mom on the part of pro-lifers. I didn’t read anything about the married woman, perhaps already a mother, who elects abortion. It is clear that the abortionist must be portrayed as a moral monster in a melodramatic morality tale to the extent that the pregnant woman is also ‘his’ victim. (One need only read above for that view.) So I am struck by the wide disparity between compassion and vituperation.
Beside making abortion a protected constitutional right under privacy grounds no longer, what would be an appropriate benchmark for success? Seventy-five percent reduction and no complicity– because most abortions would be illegal? Would we celebrate each sacred life saved from elimination? Again I ask: what is the goal?
William F: perhaps a comparison to torture would help illustrate my thinking on your questions.
Many people believe that torture is never okay – that it is always wrong to torture.
When this topic is discussed, predictably enough, a issenter to that simple, straightforward principle will bring up the “ticking time bomb scenario”, i.e., should I torture the terrorist who possesses knowledge of where and when the bomb will go off that will kill dozens or hundreds of innocent people? It’s a difficult question, to be sure. Reasonable people of good will might conclude that, while torture is a terrible thing, it is conceivable that there are exceptional circumstances – rare circumstances – in which torture might be justifiable, as the lesser of evils.
Now — suppose that our government institutes an entire *structure* of torture: issues legal opinions to build a legal framework within which waterboarding is permitted; sets up training programs to teach government employees to waterboard; assigns doctors, guards and other government employees in ancillary roles in support of waterboarding; erects facilities for it, including contracting out the construction of the facilities and the supplies needed to waterboard; puts into place the whole administrative framework – human resources, accounting, clericl support, etc. – for waterboarding.
Were that to happen, such a structure of sin might fill us with revulsion; we might say, ‘while I can understand that in exceptional circumstances we might torture someone, I can’t countenance this entire social structure that involves thousands of people and happens with the full approbation of our government that is supposed to be of, by and for the people.’ And we might say, ‘while we can never stop rogues in the military from torturing, and there might even be rare circumstances where I would approve of waterboarding, we need to at least tear down these social structures that facilitate it on a wide scale.’
That’s where I am on abortion. That would be my measure of success – let’s tear down the structures.
The analogy between abortion and torture has a seductively simple logic, and I am reluctant to challenge its on particulars lest I be understood as justifying either practice. Yet saying “let’s tear down those structures” doesn’t even begin to address the complexities involving the power of the state to regulate a practice that is not performed by the state in its capacities as the agent of the people’s will.
Tearing down structures is one thing; it’s another thing to enact procedural impediments and legal prohibitions and to say under what circumstances, if any, we (collectively) will allow a woman to terminate a pregnancy or decline to prosecute medical professionals who act on her agents of her will.
So which embryos and fetuses should we–would you–permit to be killed without bringing the punitive power of the law to bear on those who will and perform the termination? It seems to me that in tearing down the structures something may have to be left in place. I have long maintained, perversely perhaps, that to allow for exceptions in the case of rape and incest is particularly objectionable, for it concedes the very grounds on which arguments for the sanctity of life are made. It seems like a compassionate compromise; but as soon as one maintains that certain abortions are legally acceptable because of the circumstances by which life came into being, the moral principle against abortion has been effectively avoided.
I don’t understand how pro-life politicians and activists cannot see how cynical this reasonable position is, how it essentially gives away the store. Is it fair to say that those who would allow for choice in certain circumstances could be fairly accused of having blood on their hands just as pro-choicers are now accused?
“Again I ask: what is the goal?”
I think the pro-life groups will tell you–glibly, I think–that it’s to stop abortion by making it illegal. As has been noted earler, you won’t eliminate abortion by making it illegal; you will simply have put in place the means to prosecute it as a crime.
Certainly, the abortion rate would drop if abortion were illegal. I expect some social ills associated with unwanted children–abuse, neglect, poverty, family stress due to a child with a severe handicap, more children in foster care and adoption–would also rise. Unless the pro-life movement is not so entrenched in a political/legal solution to abortion that it would dust its hands off if Roe v Wade were overturned, pat itself on its collective back for a job well done, and leave all those families and babies on their own.
I like to think that pro-life groups would advocate just as hard for social safety networks for babies and families as they have for the lives of those babies. But, being a cynic, I have my doubts.
We would be a more moral, God-fearing country were abortion not a constitutionally protected “right” and, going further, were it illegal. The frequent analogies to torture, to slavery, to the Holocaust are invested in this belief: that there are collective, national sins that taint us all by virtue of our passive assent. We invite God’s judgment, the withholding of his blessing, so long as the right to an abortion is the law of the land. The goal of the pro-life movement is not a particular policy but to be right with God, to be cleansed of the national stain. My sense is that a theology of nationhood is deeply implicated in pro-life rhetoric.
The questions I have been asking in this thread, though they come from a genuine pro-life sensibility, do not embrace this paradigm of collective responsibility, even as I am sympathetic to it. Perhaps that’s why my utilitarian perspective on goals, trade-offs, cost-benefit analysis draws little interest; that’s not where the battle is. Those are matters to be negotiated after we have destroyed the idol and begged forgiveness.
“The goal of the pro-life movement is not a particular policy but to be right with God, to be cleansed of the national stain. My sense is that a theology of nationhood is deeply implicated in pro-life rhetoric.”
That’s very insightful, William.
“The questions I have been asking in this thread, though they come from a genuine pro-life sensibility, do not embrace this paradigm of collective responsibility, even as I am sympathetic to it. Perhaps that’s why my utilitarian perspective on goals, trade-offs, cost-benefit analysis draws little interest; that’s not where the battle is. Those are matters to be negotiated after we have destroyed the idol and begged forgiveness.”
Again, I suspect you’re right. For my part, I’m reluctant to specify policy because it’s just not my area. At the same time – were the Roe v Wade legal regime ever superceded or significantly altered, we’d quickly be facing those questions you’re asking, and it would be incumbent on *someone* to have good answers to them.
Jim and William, I’m chewing on these ideas of yours, and I thank you for them.
But I have to say that my first reaction, as a very bad Catholic, however, is to wonder whether those who want to overturn Roe v. Wade to expunge their own part in collective national guilt come risk seeming more insterested in their own fire insurance than anything else.
Moreover, once the “idol” is overturned, forgiveness is begged, and fannies are no longer hanging over the flames, is there any sense of responsibility to help those who abort because children will be born with severe medical problems, because of poverty, or the families of those who die in childbirth from relatively rare but fatal obstetrical conditions?
Or has the pro-life movement managed to persuade itself that all women who have abortions are either just selfish or temporarily deranged?
Bad editing: But I have to say that my first reaction, as a very bad Catholic, however, is to wonder whether those who want to overturn Roe v. Wade to expunge their own part in collective national guilt risk SEEMING more insterested in their own fire insurance than anything else.
I’m too young to remember a time when abortion did not enjoy constitutional protection. However, my sense of things is that abortion is the worst thing in the world when it is allowed and only one among many bad things when it is not allowed.
William, I don’t believe abortion is the worst thing in the world, though I would agree that some reasons for having abortions are.
One of the many attitudes that makes me a very poor Catholic, I’m sure. I see many gray areas, and not just the ones on my head. I’m not persuaded that Church leaders, even those led by the Holy Spirit, always get things right.
I don’t believe that humans can plumb the ways of God or his mercies.
Am off, but have found this discussion thought-provoking and full of much food for thought.
Peace out.
In order for abortion to be “the worst thing in the world,” it must be made into an ideological abstraction to the extent that abortion violates a principle far more than it does violence to a specific individual. Roe v. Wade allowed for this elevation of abortion to the top of a hierarchy and the assignment of its role as the epitome of political liberalism.