Guttmacher Abortion Study in the Lancet
Here’s a link to a new Guttmacher-WHO study on worldwide abortion rates in the most recent issue of the Lancet. (And here’s the NY Times story on the same.) According to the study (via the NY Times):
abortion
rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those
where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to
deter women seeking it. Moreover, the researchers found
that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous
in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. … In
Eastern Europe, where contraceptive choices have broadened since the
fall of Communism, the study found that abortion rates have decreased
by 50 percent, although they are still relatively high compared with
those in Western Europe. . . .In Uganda, where abortion is illegal and
sex education programs focus
only on abstinence, the estimated abortion rate was 54 per 1,000 women
in 2003, more than twice the rate in the United States, 21 per 1,000 in
that year. The lowest rate, 12 per 1,000, was in Western Europe, with
legal abortion and widely available contraception.
More thoughts on this over at the Mirror of Justice.
Wow. Does the Lancet do a pro-choice issue every year?
I think Mirror of Justice is asking the right question. I am not sure how reporting the results of a study makes Lancet pro-choice (unless to suppress evidence is considered part of what it means to be pro-life), but for whatever it’s worth, when I’ve tried to look at this as to individual countries, it seems consistent. In Chile, for instance, which absolutely bans all abortions, even those to save the mother’s life, every estimate I’ve seen puts the rate of abortion at close to 50% of all pregnancies. I find that staggering.
Three cover articles about how bad childbearing is for women–pro-choice is putting it mildly.
Quite apart from the fact that the subject of the article is how deadly illegal abortion is, child bearing was the single most common reason for early death in women in the western world until the 20th century. In those countries where women face high hurdles to obtaining medical care, such as, blood clotting drugs and antibiotics, or who continue to give birth in suboptimal surroundings (without access to antiseptic conditions or surgery) it is still quite deadly, all things considered. This is actually a scandal, because it is well-known how to reduce these risks. Should Lancet not care about the risks of childbirth?
To pick up on Eduardo’s questions, and to add a couple:
IF this survey data is correct, it seems to argue, in effect, that focusing wholly on overturning Roe v. Wade (e.g.) would result in a victory of legal and moral principle, but not of the practical effect of actually reducing abortions.
So again, IF this data holds, would it 1) push the church to reorient its pro-life energies toward domestic policies that would encourage child-rearing rather than abortion and 2) would it raise any questions about the church’s teachings on contraception?
I’m not a moral theologian and parsing the principle of double-effect and such makes my head hurt. But if allowing contraception would save the lives of millions of children each year, then would these findings raise debates akin to those surrounding the use of condoms to prevent AIDS?
David,
It’s not just the data; it’s the interpretation of the data.
How many Western European women live in abject poverty, compared to Ethiopian women? What social programs support them?
How many face continual threats of violence? How many of their sons face conscription?
How many other children do they have?
That’s just one way (among hundreds) in which this data could be questioned.
“IF this survey data is correct, it seems to argue, in effect, that focusing wholly on overturning Roe v. Wade (e.g.) would result in a victory of legal and moral principle, but not of the practical effect of actually reducing abortions.”
I don’t see how cross-country comparisons can possibly show anything of the sort. It should be obvious that Uganda differs from Western Europe in many ways. You can’t just compare the abortion rates in those two places without controlling for all of the many other factors involved (Eduardo has pointed out elsewhere, in regards to Arthur Brooks’ study on giving patterns, that it’s important to control for all the factors that affect the overall results).
The country to look at is South Africa, where policies changed much more quickly than other economic and social conditions (like violent crime, female equality, and poverty). The death rate from abortion has decreased by 90% since it has become legal.
It’s true that Europe is vastly different from Uganda, and somewhere in between are places such as Indonesia or Thailand. It’s also true, however, that most studies show that women who are unable to choose when or if to become pregnant are far more likely to be nutritionally and economically compromised, as are their existing children.
It seems to me that one question to ask is whether the abortion rate in South Africa increased when abortion became legal.
O.K. It is Friday, I have taught my four courses for the day, and I am halfway through a glass of wine (call me Joe the lush), but am really confused about something. If Eduardo and others are focusing on this claim:
“outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it”
What is the relevance of whether or not cross country comparisons are helpful? If the conclusion were to hold in any country, why is it not a very important point to make in any country?
I have long thought that a solid case could be made on Thomistic grounds that abortion is one of the cases where it is not possible to legislate morality. If this were true, or even if one could make the claim in good conscience, then it seems to me that a politician who refuses to support a ban on abortion would not obviously be failing to protect unborn life, or to affirm its dignity. Such a politician may be acting contrary to the wishes of certain Christian leaders, but the politician would also have a strong case to make that such leaders were simply wrong to conclude that the only proper Christian response is to support a ban on abortions.
The point of questioning the validity of cross-national comparisons is that non-supported conclusions are apparently being drawn, by some who assume they are valid.
Kathy,
Which conclusions? Are you challenging this claim?
“outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it”
At least to my simple eyes, this seems to be the claim on which Eduardo and others are focusing, and they are advancing arguments based on this claim.
I agree with both Joe and Stuart. I agree with Stuart that the cross-national data does not by itself support the conclusion that “outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.” On the other hand, I agree with Joe that my question on MOJ is the conceptual one. Setting aside the facts for the moment, if it were the case that outlawing the procedure would not deter it, what would the significance of that be for Catholic teaching on abortion’s legality. Contrary to Kathy’s claim, I am not trying to draw any conclusions from this data. I’m just using it as a reason to ask the conceptual question.
Looks like we’re well on our way to the standard dotCommonweal discussion of abortion, expect that we haven’t yet received our customary declamation that prolifers are ‘frauds.’
Full disclosure: I think that legislating against abortion is a losing proposition in an individualistic society. In any case, the battle to outlaw abortion has been lost and it is time to move on to other potentially more effective methods of addressing the issue of problem pregnancies.
But, gee, I can understand how other, less pesimistic…perhaps even idealistic…people might think otherwise.
Here is what I *don’t* get:
…the apparent inability of we enlightened folks to understand why other Catholics might actually think the fetus worthy of legal protection.’ Bad form, I guess. One can almost feel the sighs of exasperation at ‘those people.’
…the cerebral and sanguine nature of the discussion. Clearly fetal death is #11 on our top ten list. Somehow I get the impression that the ‘dominant discourse’ hereabouts frames prolife advocacy as more disturbing than abortion. What’s wrong with this picture?
…the absence of seamless garment voices. It is well known (and accurate) that many Catholic conservatives were (and hostile) to the consistent ethic of life. It is less well know (but certainly my observation and experience) that many Catholic progressives are somewhere between indifferent to hostile themselves and often employ the concept merely as a way of hammering prolifers on their ‘hypocrisy.’
What am I missing here?
correction to penultimate paragraph:
…It is well known (and accurate) that many Catholic conservatives were (and are) hostile to the consistent ethic of life.
Sorry!
Isn’t “data” a plural noun?
Mike, why do you think that is?
Mike:
My goodness, you certainly are out of line here. Perhaps you have some bad experiences in the past, but, at least so far, no one on this thread has ridiculed antiabortion folks, nor accused them of hypocrisy. There may be cerebral discussions of the topic, but I find them to be better than the absence of clear thinking. Your suggestions regarding how some at dotCommonweal feel about unborn life are just downright appalling.
Of course disagreement on this matter is to be respected, but there is not a stitch of respect in your post. Your final question can best be answered with, “a willingness to engage the arguments of those with whom you disagree, rather than simply to bluster.”
I agree with Fr. Komonchak. Data are a plural noun.
Eduardo, because of the way your MOJ post is framed, your conceptual questions aren’t being considered here without assuming for the sake of argument that two big IFs are true. Neither of them can be assumed true; both are misleading.
This is a very complex hypothetical that you’ve asked us to consider. First of all it’s based on what is sorta scientific research, based on what the researchers themselves admit is in many cases estimation. This is viewed through what seems to be a certain lens, not imho entirely free of a certain agenda, by the esteemed editors of the Lancet. Collaterally we are directed to see the NYTimes treatment of the situation. Now whatever one may think of the NYTimes, a simple peek at the stylebook on pro-life, oops, sorry, anti-abortion-rights issues, suggests that there might possibly be an editorial tendency to want to influence the readers of the Times towards pro-choice positions. (I know, I know, “we report, you decide.”)
In hypothetical thought experiments whose premises don’t matter much one way or another, it seems perfectly legitimate to just pretend for a moment. But to admit a premise like this: “making abortion illegal would most likely only drive it underground, without having much effect on its actual incidence but making it far more dangerous for women to have an abortion” even for the sake of argument, would subtly make an unsubstantiated idea seem plausible.
I’m not saying that you’re intending to mislead. But I wish that the legal questions could stand alone, without the unnecessary complications of this study.
I would argue that one of the factors that needs to be considered is the availability and quality of social services in the countries surveyed. There is no way that Uganda has the same degree and quality of social services that the US has and Western Europe has more comprehensive social services than the US. By laboring to increase access to quality social services for women with unintended pregnancies AND simultaneously forcing both the further development and use of those services by eliminating the option of abortion, the social curse of abortion would be virtually eliminated.
Again, using Guttmacher’s own data, it would appear that social service quality and access is the driving factor. Western Europe has the lowest incidence of abortion per 1000 followed by the US then Eastern Europe, then Africa. What would happen if these services continued to improve and be used BECAUSE the frankly (socially and personally) easier choice to abort was eliminated?
The problem is, social service quality and access will never improve as long as abortion is an option. Why? Because strictly speaking, it IS easier and more cost effective (for both society and the individual) to abort a baby than it is to provide wraparound services for mothers and infants. As long as abortion exists, everyone has an excuse to NOT provide the services women and infants need.
Those who argue against legal restrictions on abortion in favor of better services are, in my estimation, simply displaying their ignorance of the politics and economics of social service delivery and selling the greater application of CST to the social welfare of women and children down the river.
I am glad for the first time to be able to say one thing with certainty in a debate on abortion. “Data” is technically a plural noun (being the plural of datum), but it may function as either singular or plural depending on how it is used in a sentence.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data
Isn’t anybody going to bring up contraception? Does anybody really feel the practical way to reduce the abortion rate is to teach the women of the world how to use Natural Family Planning, and persuade the men to go along with it? Good luck!
Gregory,
You say: “By laboring to increase access to quality social services for women with unintended pregnancies AND simultaneously forcing both the further development and use of those services by eliminating the option of abortion, the social curse of abortion would be virtually eliminated.”
Isn’t it basically the case that, in America at least, the political left is in favor of increased social services but not restrictions on abortion, and the political right is in favor of restrictions on abortion but not increased social services? And furthermore, if the political left (or the middle) proposes trying to do something involving social service to try to decrease the number of abortions (without a ban), the political right calls it a scam.
All right David, I’ll play ball.
NFP is the only safe, reliable, and ecological solution to child-spacing.
You appear to be arguing for chemical contraception. A study released by the British Environmental Agency found that a third of the male fish in rivers near water treatment plants were changing sex because of elevated levels of contraceptive hormones in the water supply (it doesn’t get removed in water treatment). Also, in a ten year period, male sperm counts decreased in the UK by a third because of the levels of HRT in the water. Infertility rates are skyrocketing for the same reason. Of course, I’m not even going to mention the health risks of hormonal contraception, which are frankly, staggering.
Furthermore, the efficacy rate for NFP is higher than condoms. Also, there is a strong argument to be made from interpersonal neurobiology that condoms actually inhibit the chemical bonding process that normally occurs during the exchange of bodily fluids during sex. This leads to decreased attachment and increased risk of marital and familial instability.
So yes, with proper instruction and support–and without even raising the moral argument at all–NFP is a safer, more efficacious, and ecological alternative to immoral, environmentally hazardous, unhealthy, and relationally damaging chemical and barrier contraceptive methods.
While we’re at it, you didn’t respond to my previous post about the politics and economics of social service delivery necessitating the irradication of abortion as a public health option.
David,
I see our posts passed. Please disregard my last comment in the previous post.
In response to your question, personally, I don’t care what the right and left want. The question I care about is what should the Catholic position be?
I think we Catholics are totally ineffective because we line up along those political distinctions you outlined. Neither party reflects the Catholic social imagination. We need to advance an authentically Catholic solution to the powers-that-be. Unfortunately, because most Catholics have accepted the polarized way the debate has been framed(social service vs. legal restrictions) by secular political organs, we have been hamstrung.
That said, while I agree that conservative and progressive Catholics do break down along the lines you describe (because they are more conservative or progressive than Catholic) what you said is not true for those “dynamically orthodox” Catholics who, like me, think the answer lies in consistent support for both Catholic social and moral teaching.
Thank you again for your thoughts.
I wrote an article, recently, that might help frame the problem. “Erastian and High Church Approaches to the Law: The Jurisprudential Categories of Robert E. Rodes, Jr,” Journal of Law and Religion 2007 (22)(2). It’s an article in a symposium honoring the work of my colleague, a pioneer in law and religion, Bob Rodes.
Assume the statistics are true, for purposes of argument. There is still a legal and philosophical issue here because, as Rodes argues, the law has several functions them 1) a pedagogical or didactic function–to communicate the appropriate values (to lead people to virtue, according to Aquinas), and an instruental, ameliorating function (to make bad things better in an imperfect world) These two functions come into tension in many circumstances; it’s not self-evident how to balance them.
At one extreme, you can have a law that proclaims the perfectly ordered society; but it has no bite and no effectiveness because it doesn’t latch on to people’s motivations and opportunities. At the other extreme, you can have a law that is extremely instrumentally effective in providing carrots and sticks, and incentivising the right behavior. But it doesn’t propose a moral vision of what people ought to choose to live as responsible members of a particular society.
We have arguments about the two purposes of law when we discuss, for example, legalizing and regulating prostitution ( versus prohibiting it. We argue about it when we get into arguments about whether drugs should be legalized and regulated or prohibited.
So the question is what do you want to achieve in a legal prohibition of abortion? And if you have to choose between the didactic and instrumental purposes of law, which is more important.
David:
It’s good to see, however, that some publishing houses are standing fast. I’ve heard people speak of “this criteria” and of “several criterias.” I’ll have to write some memorandas about it, as soon as I can collect some datas about it.
O tempora! O mores!
Assuming about half the data(s) to be iffy at best, and assuming the interpretations offered by various leftist publications to be tendentious, this is still a very good question:
“So the question is what do you want to achieve in a legal prohibition of abortion?”
To answer my own question to Mike, I think at least some of the arguments between Catholics has to do with tacit assumptions on the relative importance of the didactic and instrumental functions of law, to use Prof. Rodes’s terms. T
Late to this party, and I already posted this in Joe’s new thread above, but “data” can be used as a mass noun taking a singular verb. “This data” in that context means “this data set.”
Cathleen: I think there is something to the didactic/instrumental distinction, but I think we might get more out of it if we place each on a different axis and then plot from low effectiveness to high on each. That way, one can have laws that do both well, one well and another less well/poorly, or both poorly.
My inclination is that a ban on abortion in the United States would fall somewhere close to the “both poorly” section. It will not serve well didactically because most people in the United States would not move much from where they are now on the issue of the value of unborn life. Most will remain seeing it as having some value, and more value as it gets closer to term, but most will also not equate early stages of a pregnancy with a person, even after such a law were passed. I also doubt that the law would be particularly effective in reducing the rate of abortions, especially if done on a state by state basis. One cannot compare numbers of pre-Roe days to post-Roe days because there is now an assumption of access, an assumption that abortion is a legitimate option.
If I am correct in my analysis, then the case for clasifying abortion as one of those instances where it is a mistake to try to legislate morality would be strengthened. One of the problems for Thomas with bad laws is the threat such laws pose to the general respect for the law and therefore to the rule of law.
Obviously, I could be wrong on both accounts, but I just wanted to clarify how I would go about interpreting the relevance your didactic/instrumental distinction.
What the Guttmacher study shows is that legal restrictions are poorly correlated with incidence of abortion. Availability of contraception is positively correlated with a low abortion rate. There are many factors bound up in these conclusions: Countries that restrict abortion also tend to restrict the availability of contraception. They also tend to be inegalitarion de facto or de jure.
So to test the thesis of this study you could come up with an index that classifies legal restrictions on abortion and availability and accessibility of contraception, including stigma associated with using it. So let’s say that Western and Northern Europe are probably a 10 when it comes to accessibility of conraception and an 8 or 9 when it comes to abortion (legal, but perhaps something in the way of counseling required). To make it even more illuminating, you might try to establish an index of egalitarianism (based on lots of factors, such as average education attained by women compared to men, wage information, death rate, etc.), with Northern Europe probably being a 10. So my hypothesis would be that the higher a score is on the index of 30 (10+10+10) the lower the abortion rate.
When I think about what the “answer” is to keeping the abortion rate and the death rate therefrom low, my inclination is find the NGO in the country in question that works most closely to raise the legal status of women therein and ask what they think and follow their lead. And if they tell me that NFP is a load of crap, as a Kenyan woman did to a friend of mine who was working with a Catholic health group in Nairobi, I would stop trying to waste her time with it. Women should not have to rely on the cooperation of men to control their fertility if they don’t want to or can’t get it.
I agree with Joe (!) on the merits of an x-y graph.
However, isn’t there a Z? Don’t we have, on certain issues, a kind of law that isn’t only results-oriented but also principle-oriented? There are some issues (like torture) about which the first question is not, for example, whether it’s an effective means of gathering information. The first criterion that must be met is, “Do we, as Americans, think it’s right to do this sort of thing?” And if it isn’t, we legislate against it.
I am not going to wade into the morality/law debate further than this: Outlawing torture does not impose any countervailing loss of rights or liberty. Torture is something done by the state for a state related purpose; outlawing it fetters the discretion of the state because the people would prefer, at some level, to be at higher risk of some criminal event than to know that their government resorts to abhorrent tactics in the name of protecting them. It is particularly appropriate to prohibit violence that is imposed on others by a state if it is held to be morally objectionable by the people.
Providing for the common defense is among the first-listed reasons for our national union, according to the Constitution. Torture is something done by the state to secure the safety of its citizens.
The argument never gets to the point, though, of effectiveness, deterrence, reliability, collateral evidence–the x-y graph. We don’t do it because (z) we think it’s wrong.
And how does the constitution begin:
“We the people . . .”
Can reject the legitimacy of torture when carried out by the state (which is our agent, not the other way around) in our name. A pretty simple concept in comparison to compromising the liberty of our fellow citizens in the name of our own religious predilections.
And “We the people” can (or should be able to) reject the legitimacy of the deliberate destruction of human life.
(I’m willing to start by discussing federal funding, if the concern is really whether or not the state is involved.)
Cathleen has proposed this question, and Kathy has reiterated it: “What do you want to achieve in a legal prohibition of abortion?” I might rephrase it slightly and ask: What do you want–and realistically expect–to achieve in a legal prohibition of abortion.” It would be interesting to actually see some answers!
I think the reason some of us are skeptical about the “pro-life” movement is that we suspect a number of “pro-lifers” would prefer many illegal abortions to few legal ones. Probably the vast majority of Americans (I among them) would prefer for abortions to be “safe, legal, and rare,” whereas it looks like many “pro-lifers” would prefer to see them unsafe, illegal, and common. My feeling is that a true pro-life position would be one that actually saved more lives rather than one that frequently and loudly affirmed the value of life but did not actually save any.
TEST QUESTION: Which government approach would you prefer to see in the United States, one that
A. Strictly prohibited abortions and as a consequence reduced them by 20 percent?
B. Did not legally prohibit abortions but decreased them by 40 percent?
Kathy, I’m not going to debate further. I think it’s very difficult for the pro-life movement to acknowledge the distinction I’m making, or to see abortion in terms of trade-offs in individual liberty, and the role of permissible religious coercion. I don’t want to hijack this thread further.
Barbara, pro-lifers’ views of these questions are actually taking a much wider view of abortion, by considering the rights of the party who has the most to lose, who is least capable of defense, and towards whom the pro-choice movement turns a conveniently blind eye.
Whatever.
“Whatever” is the individual liberties of an unborn child. Obviously I can’t speak for the pro-life movement as a whole. But for myself I can honestly say that I don’t care if people vote Democrat or Republican but actually I’m all for social welfare programs and I hate threestrikesyou’reout and I certainly don’t want the law to convert people, but I do care about the protection of the unborn.
As I have said bring it to a vote. Abortion will never be declared legal because neither Republicans nor Democrats want that. And if it were, there would be few Republicans left. That is why it is a _____ issue.
One of the exercises that you go through if you are ever in a serious debate (whether for prize money or in front of a court) is to argue, as persuasively as you know how, the other side’s case. It is often quite illuminating and it often lets you sharpen your own thinking and hone your own arguments. I’ve done this many times with abortion and I’m still kind of astonished that most of the arguments I hear from pro-lifers are of the “rah rah I am on the side of babies and I’m better than you” variety.
You should consider that “whatever” directed to the quality of your argument not your position overall.
I hope that’s not too ad hominem.
In answer to your question David, I don’t think that the proposition is knowable, anyone might be forgiven for saying that they would prefer to stick with where they would end up given what they believe about the gravity of the various interests. I mean, in theory, if you sterilized women, or men, you could prevent 100% of abortions, but at an unacceptable cost. Avoiding undesirable outcomes (in this case, more abortions) is only one consideration in weighing the interests involved.
You also might say that it raises a similar dilemma to the prohibition of drug laws and the imposition of jail time. Wouldn’t treatment be more efficacious? Do we really want non-violent offenders in jail because they use drugs? People do grapple with this and there are states that have changed their laws as a result. However, the difference in the “drug wars” is that the amounts expended to combat them are extremely high, therefore, the trade offs are a lot clearer to states and taxpayers.
How’s that for a non-answer?
Joe, thanks. I think your point about respect for the rule of law is a good one. You might be interested in an article I wrote called “Toward a Thomistic Perspective on Abortion and the Law in Contemporary America,” The Thomist 1991.
We tend to go in circles when we speak about the unborn. The reality is that it is a low cost self righteous freebie for those who will never face the problem. I do not favor abortion for anyone who summarily decides s/he does not want children because they would tie her/him down.
Yet there is a passion for the rights of the unborn in numbers that you do not see for other causes. The assumption is that the motivation is love of neighbor. Right? Well why does not that love of neighbor also translate into adopting children of color who are our brothers and sister and who are certainly the most “unprotectected” and with the lowest advocacy?
Love of neighbor meets the rubber on the road when it involves one personally, when it affects one’s life.
Barbara,
If your remark had been longer and less adolescent in tone, in might not have been ad hominem.
I could make your best case. I don’t want to do it in public, because it is potentially scandalous. And then I would put in the scales against the rights of the unborn and there were would be no contest.
I don’t rah rah about this, by the way, nor about anything that involves the collapsing of skulls. And I am not actually concerned about besting you. It’s not a game at all.
My own view, from admittedly very limited conversations on the ground, is that there is a growing backlash against the pro-life movement — even among people who are sympathetic to concern for unborn life.
I don’t think it’s merely that the Republicans are casting off the pro-life movement for selfish reasons; I think the pro-life movement turned a lot of people off by its behavior in the Bush years. (Sciavo, the weeping and gnashing of teeth over the failure to pass a law that would not allow abortion to save the life of the mother).
I have a lot of family and friens who “held their nose and voted for Kerry” despite the view on abortion; now, my impression is many of the same people have evolved further –it’s not that they’re pro-choice in the abstract, but that they don’t want anything to do with the social conservatives period.
And if that means beging governed by social liberals, so be it. It’s better than being governed by James Dobson or Apb. Burke or Apb. Chaput.
Now this isn’t a scientific poll–but I’d sure like to see one to see if my impression is anomolous or correct.
“And if that means beging governed by social liberals, so be it. It’s better than being governed by James Dobson or Apb. Burke or Apb. Chaput.”
The choice is not between theocracy and Democrats. There are social liberals who would vote a very Catholic record of legislation, on all issues, if the one non-negotiable plank in the DNC platform weren’t the pro-choice plank.
There is one method, and it works, for getting the Democratic party to back pro-life candidates. If the voters of a particular area show a stubborn unwillingness to vote for any pro-choice candidate, the Party will back a pro-life candidate.
If religious moderate/ liberals would change their stance on this one issue, they would dominate the political landscape.
When I lived in NC there was always a subset of people who were certain that Democrats would make a come back if only they would stop “pandering” to Blacks. It wasn’t true then, and it wouldn’t be true now if Democrats all of a sudden “saw the light” and started embracing restrictions on abortion. The political landscape isn’t that cut and dried.
My take on almost all of the social liberals on this blog is that they are interested in compassionate government, and in claiming the moral high ground. Neither of which will hold, given the pro-choice mandate of the DNC.
In racial issues liberals held the moral high ground. That has changed. Dismemberment of fully viable infants–without sedatives, of course, because to admit their pain would be to legally acknowledge who they are and what is happening to them–cannot be part of the moral high ground.
Kathy,
According to Catholic teaching (as I understand it–and I think this is what Gregory Popcac is getting at) the political party that holds the moral high ground on the issue of abortion would be the one that does BOTH of the following:
A. Works for a legal prohibition of abortion, and
B. Works for laws “to pursue a reform of society and of conditions of life in all milieux, starting with the most deprived, so that always and everywhere it may be possible to give every child coming into this world a welcome worthy of a person. Help for families and for unmarried mothers, assured grants for children, a statute for illegitimate children and reasonable arrangements for adoption – a whole positive policy must be put into force so that there will always be a concrete, honorable and possible alternative to abortion.”
Which party is that?
David,
Potentially, the Democratic Party.