Culture War and the Barriers to Cooperation
January 23, 2009, 4:58 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
A discussion of the possibility of cooperation between pro-lifers and moderates, centered around Doug Kmiec’s article, got started on Bob Imbelli’s thread below. So as not to interfere with Bob’s thread, which is dealing exclusively with the press coverage of the march, I am moving the question of the tactics and strategy of the pro-life movement, and the possibility of cooperating with “moderates,” up here.
I put one of my comments, and one of John McG’s comments, up here too. But I don’t want to mess around too much with copying because–you know.
ook John,
Doug didn’t start the hate. If you say, “You’re a demon,” and I say, “Your breaking down the civility -or even, you’re being hateful, by calling me a demon,” then we’re not equally responsible for the breakdown in civility.
The playing fields are not and were never level. I never, and Doug never, said that anyone who voted for McCain was in danger of going to hell, was a liar, etc., The accusations have all been one-way.
Moreover, these aren’t one-off things. I think this rhetoric is a strategy, not a heat-of the-moment argument.
What’s to be gained by adopting a more nasty tone? The hard core prolife and prochoice sides are fixed.
It’s precisely for being moderate that you get demonized. That’s the problem.
Rhetorical excesses–sorry, I don’t view them that way. I have a fundamental rule: I don’t keep talking with people who insult me. There’s no point. There’s no room to even discuss things if people aren’t at least committed to the rationality of the other (Robby George continually describes people who disagree with him on controversial issues as “unreasonable”).
There are also ideological excesses. If you try to say, “Hey, maybe you could think about the Shiavo case in another way,” it doesn’t go anywhere. If you try to say (and I have)–well, there is a real controversy about the status of the early embryo, and the arguments are hard),” it doesn’t go anywhere. One is, by definition, a a traitor.
So my view, is that the middle needs to get politically organized. Leave the extremes to their extremes.
[This is John McG.'s comment.] I moved it here, by copying it.
First, I am thankful that you were specific in your criticisms targetted the specific rhetoric and individuals you found to be offensive. I think the failure to do so was one of the weaknesses of Prof. Kmiec’s piece, and would lead a sympathetic reader to the conclusion that all criticism that Prof. Kmiec has received over the past year was hateful name-calling. This was hardly the case.
I agree that the people you name let their rhetoric get away from them a bit, though I’m not sure calling someone a “decadent Catholic,” really needs to disqualify someone from polite company. I would also think that Weigel’s support for the war should be more damaging to his status as an opinion leader than his rhetorical excesses.
I could cherry-pick some words form Prof. Kmiec’s piece if I wanted to find a reason to swear off dialogue with him — “sore losers,” “hate-filled blogosphere,” “missiles of hate,” “venomous right-wing blogs” are hardly the basis for bridge-building. My point is not to criticize Prof. Kmiec, merely that it would be wrong to judge a movement by the worst rhetoric coming from it.
I’m quite sure my wife and I have called each other things we regret in discussions over much more trivial matters. I am glad we do not see that as a reason to forswear dealing with each other.
And I think the constant drumbeat of criticism like Prof. Kmiec’s article, and the constant analysis of the pro-life movement do more harm than good by feeding the notion (one which th culture is all too willing to accept) that the pro-life movement is populated by zealots and wing-nuts, not the 100,000 peaceful marchers that were there yesterday. And it also gives movement pro-lifers the message that those who favor more moderate rhetoric are already aligned against them, so there is nothing to be gained by adopting a moderate tone. I think such a thinking informed my bishop’s pastoral letter on the election, which I don’t think was terribly helpful, peppered as it as with the phrase “so-called Catholics.”
If we wait for the pro-life movement to shed itself of all excessive rhetoric before giving it our support, we will be waiting forever. Same goes for requiring every pro-lifer to adopt a completely consistent “Seamless Garment” pro-life view to all issues, as desirable as that might be. I think that standing on the sidelines and critiquing the movement’s savviness will only drive it further to extremes. Why not add our more moderate voices to the chorus? Wouldn’t that make the movment more difficult to dismiss as a vehicle of right-wing hatred?
Responding to one post in the other thread, I think someone of Prof. Kmiec’s stature in a publication with the profile of Commonweal should address the best arguments against him. For him to take on right-wing hateful blogs may be emotionally satisfying for him and some of his readers, but ultimately does little to move the conversation forward. It would be like the Los Angeles Lakers beating a small college team. They demonstrated they were better, but so what? Do we think any such bloggers read Prof. Kmiec’s piece and reconsidered their choice of words? Probably as unlikely as a Catholic planning on voting for Obama was swayed by being called a “so-called Catholic.”
I do like Prof. Kaveny’s idea of a more organized middle, or a pro-life movement that had a guiding principle the avoidance of divisive rhetoric. The point isn’t that the middle doesn’t care about abortion, but rather that it cares so much that it must be approached with the utmost seriousness of mind and spirit, and an uncompromising commitment to truth and charity. I’ll have to think about it some more, because such an organization would have to walk several fine lines.
I do think it’s quite possible that much of the leadership of the organized pro-life movement is more extreme than the main body of members/followers. Perhaps that phenomenon is found in many causes.
It’s striking that nobody self-identifies here as being pro-abortion, and yet the divide on the issue is palpable. And it seems that we’re all of good will here.
I remember during the ’90′s (or maybe even the ’80′s), PBS used to show a documentary mini-series on the civil rights movement, “Eyes on the Prize”. It was outstanding. One take-away from it is that the leaders of the movement weren’t always of the same mind – in fact they disagreed sharply. Yet for a number of years they were able to set aside their disagreements about approach, starategy and tactics. They worked and marched together in the midst of, and despite, their disagreements. Is that an example for us?
The election is behind us. Ultimately, the Gospel of Life must be proclaimed, and the Kingdom built, regardless of who is in power. I hope we can continue to disagree about politics and yet be united in our words and deeds to make abortion more rare.
Though I may be considered an insulter and all those other bad things, I will try to say something not insulting (which may well come off as insulting anyway, but in advance I apologize for that).
What is a “moderate” Catholic position on abortion, on which human beings we as a society may properly label as non-persons whose killing is not murder? Is it a problem for us absolutists to even ask the question?
It seems to me that the moderate Catholic position on abortion is the dominant position of the movement: believing that all babies are persons but being willing to do what we can now do in politics to protect them, by incremental limits like parental notification and informed consent and partial birth abortion bans and born alive infant protection and taxpayer funding restrictions, not to mention a massive, monumental pro-life pregnancy center movement many times more numerous than the abortion clinics themselves that directly funds pregnant women in difficult circumstances, and an effort to educate the young to be pro-life. It is truly moderate in the context of a holocaust. It is only not moderate if we must deny that abortion is a holocaust. But once we must deny that, we’re not asking for cooperation anymore–we’re asking pro-lifers to become moderates.
But we still don’t know what it means to be a moderate on abortion, to adopt a middle ground between the idea that all human beings are people and some are not according to some as of yet unspecified standard. And the moderates are defined by their support for a candidate and party who opposes all those moderate measures I just mentioned. Every single one of them. To the extreme. Mexico City anyone? And don’t forget, Roe and Casey claim to be moderate positions.
So what is the moderate position? Reduce abortion? All the measures I mention above do that. But the Democrats supported by the moderates define abortion reduction by giving billions of dollars to Planned Parenthood–the largest abortion chain in the world. Is funding Planned Parenthood the moderate suggestion?
I would really like to hear what the moderate Catholic abortion agenda actually is. So far the only thing we know it to be is from their endorsement of Obama and the Democrats in this last election. And their agenda on abortion, well if that’s “moderate,” I think you need to at least identify that that is your concept of moderate. If that is not your concept of moderate, I think you need to identify that too, and explain what the moderate ideology and agenda is.
John I can’t speak for Doug. But Doug’s a real live, flesh-and-blood human being. With feelings. But I think you underestimate the effect that that kind of email has on a person. I have received some too. Really nasty stuff. Mainly for my article on what intrinsic evil means, incidentally, which tried, as best as I could to clarify a technical term of moral theology.
So you keep doing your job. You keep trying to say what the truth is, in your little corner of the world. But the possibility of cooperation–collaboration? That’s harder to envision. Weigel, George, and Gallagher aren’t small time. They are very big time. And they set the tone of the discourse for the little blogs, too–who consistently cite them.
Now, sometimes we do try to address the issues head on. My article on FOCA was not on my “to do” list for the fall. But someone on this blog said, “What do you think about FOCA?–You have a responsibility to address FOCA” And you know what–I did. But not in a tossed off blog post. It took at least 10 days to do the research, check the facts, consult with colleagues, etc.
As a result of the FOCA and intrinsic evil articles, I am far, far behind on a project that Joe K. probably has already finished his paper for. So, Joe K., if I’m not in LA, that’s why.
What would forming a coalition of the middle look like?
I’m seeing moderate more as a disposition than as a point on some continuum of policy perscriptions.
I think a moderate position that is nevertheless true to orthodoxy acknowledges both the evil of abortion, and that people arrive at pro-choice or pro-embryonic research or pro-euthanasia (or, on the other side, pro-capital punishment or pro-war) positions from a genuine (though incorrect) interest in the common good. That favors persuasion over name calling.
I also wanted to echo @Jim Pauwels’ words — that is the spirit I hope will animate us in the coming years.
Matt, my attempt to come up with a Catholic “moderate position” was in my Thomist article, which I’ve cited ad nauseam here.
I think that if the goal is to drastically limit abortions, pro-lifers should try to understand the pro-choice position so that they can resolve some of the causes of abortion. That doesn’t just mean financial support for single mothers but also a look at why unwanted pregnancies happen in the first place. Many pro-choice people see gag rules, conscience claises that make it hard to fill contraceptive prescriptions, and harrassing of women’s health clinics as damaging a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. If pro-lifers dismiss this aspect I don’t think they’ll be able to really change minds. Of course, maybe they don’t care about that if they believe they can force their opinions via the law.
“Robby George continually describes people who disagree with him on controversial issues as “unreasonable””
Isn’t Prof. George being literal when he uses the phrase “unreasonable”? By that I mean, he is a Scholastic and subscribes to the classical Greek a priori and deductive methods of inquiry while many who disagree with him tend to be post-modernists (nominalists and anti-essentialists and the like) in their reasoning? I would argue that is at the heart of the “culture wars” actually and I believe Prof. George would say something fairly similar.
My point being, I am not sure he means it as an attack on one’s character so much as a description of their method of inquiry. Although I reckon someone will be able to find some crazy quote(s) on Google.com or something.
@Crystal Watson
I think you’ve hit on one of the major disconnects.
The goal for many pro-lifers, including myself, isn’t just to reduce the number of abortions, though we would acknowledge that as a worthy goal. Rather, it is the fundamental injustice that there is a class of human persons whom it is legal to arbitrarily kill. Even if increased access to contraception and social services reduced the demand for abortion to zero, this injustice would remain.
Think of something like torture. If we stopped torturing people because we consider the war won and there’s no longer a reason to do it, I, as someone vehemently opposed to torture, would not be satisfied. While I would be happy we were not doing it any more, I would still want to see us explicitly reject the practice rather than merely seeing it as no longer necessary.
I think a major misstep the pro-life movement made in the 2004 election was emphasizing the scale of abortion as a reason why it was a greater evil than the Iraq War, and thus a reason to favor Bush over Kerry. This led many to conclude that remedies that aimed at reducing the scale would be a sufficient response, and are now somewhat surprised that it isn’t.
Allow me to suggest that you have a number of associations/organizations that have tried to put the “moderate” or “middle ground” in this debate.
Good example: Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good….http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/
Agreement that there needs to be a full and comprehensive ethic for life; from conception to death. But, they seek ways of persuading folks taking in the differences in the church; between public law and the church; the role of politician even Catholic politicians. They try to encourage seeking agreement on those points that they can; supporting life step by step, not painting or using black and white – good and evil language.
What was that Franciscan site someone mentioned?
I like Franciscans.
John Mc G. I agree with you. The pedagogical function of the law is important.
Mat, On Robby’s use of unreasonable, here’s my problem. He does use it in a technical way, like Finnis, like Grisez, and in academic writings, where that way is defined upfront, I have less problem with it.
In common parlance, however, “unreasonable” means lacking sense and basic concern for others. The “reasonable person” standard is the standard for avoiding a tort. Moreover, in common parlance, you don’t talk with the unreasonable, you manage them.
So in more popular writings, I think it doesn’t work.
John Mc G,
I see what you mean. The thing is, I believe it unrealistic to think you can force a whole nation in which not everyone is Christian, much less Catholic, to accept conservative Catholic ideology as their own (I say conservative, because even Karl Rahner said he thought birth control pills were ok). To cling to that hope is to kiss goodbye practical steps that may actually save lives in order to be “right”.
What should moderates think about? Conscience. The hard work that needs to be done, in my view, is thinking about the scope and the respect for conscience in an increasingly liberal democratic society. Whose conscience do we respect and why?
You don’t want to force a Catholic doctor to perform an abortion or leave his job. But do you want to force a Muslim doctor to examine a woman who’s dying or leave his job? You want parents to be able to consent to or refuse some procedures. But what about Jehovah’s witnesses and blood transfusions. We have rules. But the justifications are shaky.
This is a hard theoretical question. Someone rich ought to fund a conference on it. Somewhere warm.
Look at some of the comments above….they reveal the wide gap between numerous groups: those who are completely pro-choice, those who are completely anti-abortion, those who may see some type of middle ground.
If your starting point is: life begins at conception and anything less than that is wrong; that life is the highest good and thus must be protected in law completely. Then, it reminds me of some of Prof. Kaveny’s comments months ago about equating slavery and abortion. For some it is the same; and some, like the abolitionists, are willing to take the fight even to the extreme of a “civil war”.
If these are the positions, can a middle ground be found?
First, let me say that the fact that even this conversation is taking place is a wonderful thing. Thanks, Cathleen, for making a new thread.
It seems to be that the most important thing the pro-life movement needs to change–and this would certainly help in cooperating with moderates–is its language, tone, and symbolism that the media and others use to pigeon-hole it as a bunch of right-wing and/or religious nut-jobs carrying around statues of Mary or going to purity balls and tent revivals. Do we REALLY want more coverage of the March for Life? This is where these kinds of people come out to play.
Crystal, above, wrongly thinks that protecting the most helpless members of our species with government power is a ‘conservative’ or explicitly religious or ‘catholic’ position…but is that really her fault? The pro-life movement, not just the leadership, has aligned itself with people, symbols and language which send out that message. The movement has to radically change this failed strategy…and this means attempting to build inroads into the democratic party (its true home), using language of social justice to describe the horror of abortion, and translating its thick theological language into something more thin so that those of any faith or no (explicit) faith at all can be on-board.
This is a tough task….and for several reasons. Many pro-lifers are not very good at this…or actually don’t believe it should be done at all. Some are blindly pro-life because of their religiosity. Some are conservative first and pro-life second. It also must be acknowledged that the media takes every opportunity to perpetuate this understanding as well…how many times are ‘abortion’ and ‘gay marriage’ mentioned back-to-back in a news story these days as if there is some kind of existential link between them? How often are ‘religious conservatives’ identified as the only ones who care about the dignity of fetuses?
Happily, though, the generation in school today is very interested in social justice…but doesn’t see that as connected to the right to slaughter fetuses…or not as much as their parents did. I’ll go ahead and say it even though the word seems to be overused today…that is reason for hope. :) Perhaps that generation will make the shift needed for the pro-life movement to be persuasive. In the meantime, it is up to us to try to clear the way for them by doing the hard work of dislodging the movement from its unhelpful tone, language and symbolism.
“Crystal, above, wrongly thinks that protecting the most helpless members of our species with government power is a ‘conservative’ or explicitly religious or ‘catholic’ position…but is that really her fault?”
This is an example of ways language is used to make a point, I guess. I do not think that promoting sex education and giving access to contraception in order to limit aboertions = not wanting to help the most helpless members of society.
The question, for many who are pro-choice, is whether fetuses are indeed members of society.
And no one will address the point that women and fetuses are being pitted against each other in the area of “rights”.
Pro-life people can change the way they say what they say, but if they do not actually speak to the real issues that divide them from pro-choice people, they won’t be able to change anyone’s mind.
But, Crystal, pro-lifers ARE speaking about these things…but virtually no one listens or pauses long enough to take what they say seriously. There are many pro-life thinkers who take on the very issues you highlight…and in a tremendous amount of depth. The problem is that few listen…or even take the time to discover such points of view…often because they are convinced that they only way someone could believe something like this is if they belong to a different ‘tribe;…one that is not worth listening to because they hold beliefs in other areas which are objectionable.
The idea that you somehow lump in arguments about sex education with whether or not we will protect the most helpless members of our species is more evidence of the confusion of tone, language and symbolism that I was talking about. It’s like lumping in abortion with gay marriage. We can have a conversation about contraception and whether more education about it actually reduces abortions (and there is a lot of evidence which suggests that, in certain contexts, it does not)…but that argument is actually a distraction from doing the hard work on the issues you suggest need to be addressed.
“Happily, though, the generation in school today is very interested in social justice…but doesn’t see that as connected to the right to slaughter fetuses.”
Charles,
You make a point to change the language, then you use the phrase “slaughter fetuses.” Shouldn’t that language be changed. Pro-choice people do not believe this is slaughter but rather a carefully considered decision to interrupt a pregnancy where a person is not yet created. Whatever you may believe is the truth here one should discuss and not declare.
As I see it there is also a serious question of science here. Further, a moral pro-choice person has to consider the great gift of life and not choose to terminate a pregnancy without substantial reasons.
Then there is the tremendous abuse of this issue by people who do not give a damn about children. Here the issue is used for political or monetary gain.
Why does everyone neglect the science here? Citing Catholic history is very precarious. Quite frequently, nowadays it is becoming increasingly clear that we are learning that we have been
told too many lies about church history.
Good thread, building on Cathy’s excellent, non-binary framing of FOCA in the analysis shared a couple of days ago. Were we to agree that criticism of the bishop’s anti-FOCA impetus does not constitute endorsement of FOCA we would achieve real progress indeed.
Cathy asks what a moderate prolife initiative might look like. Fortunately, there are data. Unfortunately, they aren’t very promising.
For a short while in the ‘80s the seamless garment had some traction in Joe Bernardin’s Chicago. There emerged here a quirky network called Peaceful Solutions: A Network of Women and Men Supporting Nonviolent Alternatives to Abortion and Nuclear Arms. The focus was deliberately nonpolitical…and, as witness the title, not exclusively focused on any one life issue. We were resolute in encouraging changes in hearts and minds, not laws. Among our number were some few absolutists on each side of the legal remedy dilemma but many more of us were ambivalent. Many were progressive Catholics, but there were among us adherents of a variety of religious traditions and some allergic to religion altogether. We put out some pretty cool newsletters (if I do say so myself) and several conferences featuring luminaries like Tom Gumbleton and Sidney Callahan. We even got Joan Chittister’s endorsement. And then we dissolved after a few short years.
Our birth, life and death were captured by sociologist of religion Elfriede Wedam in her doctoral dissertation. Iis is presumably available through the University of Illinois at Chicago. There were many reasons for Peaceful Solution’s collapse. There was of course the predictable hostility of mainstream prolife organizations. We were less prepared for the hostility of mainstream peace organizations to any truck with folks like us. And most unexpected of all was the allergic reaction of many in Chicago’s large progressive Catholic community. The secular progressive zeitgeist was (and is) decidedly prochoice so seamless garment discourse created a great deal of cognitive dissonance for progressive Catholics. Anyone who has ever attempted prolife discourse in progressive precints has felt the rolled eyes and knowing glances: “You’re one of THEM?”
From this experience I learned that sensibilities and feelings matter enormously in any attempt to bridge cultural divides. Our process similarities are so much more remarkable than our content disputes. ‘Our’ stories are replete with slights we suffered at ‘their’ hands. They feel precisely the same. The disdain grows unchecked. ‘They’ are the culture warriors while ‘we’ are the misunderstood. We become masters at detecting others’ hypocrisy and remain blind to our own. ‘They’ resist nuance while ‘we’ embrace it. Better said, we define nuance as ‘our’ position and dogmatism as ‘theirs.’
There is no traction for reconciliation as long as one side cannot imagine the alternative view. In ‘Big Sort’ America with blue and red parishes to choose from, ‘they’ are pretty cardboard. How dare they impose their morality on those who disagree? How dare they advocate for legal protection for all manor of protected classes but not for our unborn sisters and brothers? There is no traction as long as one side frames the issue exclusively as ‘who decides,’ (e.g., imperious legislators or vulnerable women) while the other frames it exclusively as ‘what is decided,’ (e.g., killing fetuses). And there is certainly no traction when Bernardin’s seamless garment vision dissolves into one side’s ‘anti-abortion’ focus and the other side’s ‘anti-anti-abortion’ focus.
Hi Bill. By ‘change the language’ I don’t mean ‘watering it down so that pro-choice people feel comfortable.’ I suppose we could have a debate how about how the language should be changed, but I don’t think we should shy away from taking a prophetic tone…but should just do so with language and symbols with which those who disagree identify and feel comfortable.
I’m unsure what you mean by ‘without reasons.’ Could you say more about that?
I’m also unsure what your your point is about science. It seems to be that the people taking science seriously are the pro-lifers…and this would be yet another shift in language and symbol which needs to take place. Let us highlight the pro-science positions we have and invoke them at every opportunity.
The Franciscan site I mentioned is http://www.franciscanaction.org. For the first time ever, Franciscan friars, sisters and seculars have joined together to create the Franciscan Action Network. We invite all persons who are interested in a consistent ethic of life to join with us is bringing Franciscan values of life, justice, peace and integrity of creation to the American public square.
John McG: The goal for many pro-lifers, including myself, isn’t just to reduce the number of abortions, though we would acknowledge that as a worthy goal. Rather, it is the fundamental injustice that there is a class of human persons whom it is legal to arbitrarily kill. Even if increased access to contraception and social services reduced the demand for abortion to zero, this injustice would remain.
Cathleen Kaveny: John Mc G. I agree with you. The pedagogical function of the law is important.
I would have to say that I think this is a bizarre position, particularly since so many people in the pro-life movement seem to want little or no legal penalty for a woman who procures an abortion. What would a law teach that punished only an abortionist but not a woman who procured an abortion? What about a woman who performed an abortion on herself? What about a woman who got her hands on Mifepristone (formerly RU-486) and took it on her own? Laws that did not punish women who procure abortions would certainly not teach that the unborn are protected by the law.
Put me firmly in the camp that holds it is far more important to eliminate an evil than to outlaw it. I would far prefer to have no one tortured, with torture legal, than to have torture illegal but practiced. It is of no comfort when being tortured to know that it’s against the law.
The concept of life (in the sense of personhood) beginning at conception is Catholic doctrine, not empirical fact. Do Catholic pro-lifers insist the fight is not over until it is written into law? Must this “class of persons” be recognized as persons? That wasn’t the case before Roe v Wade.
Prof. Kaveny–the principles set forth in your article are broad enough that they can be said to be nearly embodied by the present multitudes in pro-life activity, and, apparently according to your own choices and those of Catholics in Alliance and Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy, they can also be said to be best pursued by campaiging to give political power to a regime that wants to totally decimate that same pro-life activity. This is not a comprehensible standard. Isidore and Thomas counsel clarity in law–clarity is helpful in discussion too. I would like to see a simple statement of what the moderate pro-life Catholic position is, what it actually amounts to, either from you or from those who have listened to what you say are innumerable statements of it. Without that, without clear self-description, you can’t even begin dialogue, because the two parties don’t know where the others are starting. If the standards of moderate pro-life Catholics can consider Richard Doerflinger’s agenda and Obama’s agenda to both be the pro-life choice, then the standards are insufficiently comprehensible for any dialogue to take place. If you really want dialogue, state your position.
Matt is correct, and if I may add another idea.
We are human beings discussing joining with other human beings for the sake of a cause. I presume that those of you who do not want abortion criminalized (which seems to be the fallback stance here) would then define your position as at least wanting to discourage the choice for abortion and make the choice for life easier and more supported.
Now, since we are real human beings talking about joining with these other real human beings in this cause, we should be specific. We are not talking about mind melding or signing a manifesto.
Abortion is real, abortion happens in our communities.
There are groups in our communities working to support the life decision, working to educate and so on.
This, in fact, is what the prolife movement *is*, on the ground.
Is there something in particular that is stopping those who seek a moderae pro-life position from engaging with the groups that are already active in your community?
Most communities have crisis pregnancy centers now. These centers have many needs, from counselers, to fund-raising, to networking clients with community resources.
Most Catholic diocese and regions have Rachel’s Vineyard ministries, offering space for post-abortion healing.
Most Catholic dioceses have educational efforts targeted at schools and parish programs, in which young people are educated on the sanctity of life.
I do not understand what stops anyone, even if you oppose criminalization, from getting involved in any of these activities and supporting them. This is the pro-life movement. What would keep a moderate prolifer from being directly involved in these efforts, which are specifically anti-abortion, in addition to other efforts to strengthen the social safety net in our communities.
I find wholesale and general concemnations and characterization of a ‘movement” unhelpful and inaccurate. I would like to hear why those who choose not to be involved in anti-abortion actvism *as it is*, which is mostly, day in and day out, crisis prenancy work and post-abortive counseling, make that choice. As far as I know, they don’t make you take an oath vowing to support a Human Life Amendment in any of these places.
Mike McG., your story encapsulates the problem.
I like what Elaine said and I agree with it. What does everyone think about Obama signing a bill approving the use of US funds to other countries for abortions as well as contraception? He did this yesterday, and if this has already been discussed, I apologize. I do not have time to read all of these good responses. Thanks….
Elaine is right–there is no reason moderates can’t get involved –personally and/or financially — in some on the ground stuff.
Where to begin.
1. Can we at least state that part of the so-called “moderate” position be that individuals who consider abortion the deliberate taking of an innocent human life not be forced to support that process with their tax dollars, either here or abroad? C an we at least be allowed to classify abortion as something other than a normal medical procedure so we are not forced to subsidize it in health care plans? That does not seem so radical to me.
2. All this handwringing over criminalization is a tool used by the pro-choice side. They like to educe the image of a teenage girl cowering in maximum security. First, most “moderates” at least support the banning of abortion at some point in the gestation-birth process. How exactly is that supposed ot be enforced? If this is truly an issue then abortion would have to be legal right up until the time the child is fully out of the womb and breathing on its own.
This whole criminaliztion argument is disingenuous. We have no problem discouraging practices we find less than beneficial in this country by varying levels of restriction and punishment. Even all murderers are not punished equally. Obviously, there could be financial sanctions, and different penalties for different situations. The point is that with the current regime (Roe v. Wade) it is almost impossible to even try anything to suggest abortion is anything more than a procedure like removing a callous.
I want to add to Mike McG. post of 1/23: feelings and sensibilities do matter and they shape perceptions and hence language is critical in formulating a position.
And language that’s used is not always the same in its formulation: how I appraoch political leadership, what I say to the(divided) Catholic community and what I say to the nation at large might all be different but should always be sensitive to whom i address my view.
Mike’s use of the word”disdain” struck me, as it was the word used in the article about the March that pro-lifers displyed about Obama.
Disdain runs across both sides and a moderate posture disdains disdain for the other and thinks about whom they are addressing.
I remain confused.
What would a moderate position have been in the discussion about the baby in court before Solomon? Was it the woman who wanted to split the difference?
Then there is the matter of how the woman / girl came to be pregnant. Are we to assume that the female person in question has no free will? Has no sense about the possible result of copulation?
Stanley Fish commented years ago that he had been captured by the image of the trembling defenseless black girl somehow made pregnant. He then recognised it for the cliche that it is. And he commented that the anti-abortion people argued from science, while the pro-abortion people argue from feelings.
I recall working with a Pregnancy Help Center in New York City. A young woman came into the center – distraught and unhappy, and somewhat disheveled. . She had been told by a Planned Unparenthood “clinic” that she was pregnant, and had explained to her how to apply for Medicaid to get the required $1500 for an abortion. At the Pregnancy Center. its was discovered that she was not pregnant. The change in her attitude was glorious. As was the change in the manner in which she held herself. She recounted that she went back to her neighborhood and was approached by the young man who got her into the position. He attempted to sweet-talk her. :Her reply; “Buzz off, Sam”.
Somewhat off topic. Nonetheless, let me propose the following thesis.
For the sake of the Church itself, Church authorities ought to avoid seeking, either directly or indirectly, to impose any specific piece of legislation on any political society.
I include in the scope of “imposing” the organization of or support for lobbying for or against any p[articular piece of legislation or political policy.
It is always right for the church authorities to proclaim the church’s doctrine, even to the point of declaring some piece of legislation or some policy immoral. It is not right for them to determine how or when to remedy the bad legislation or policy. That is for the lity to do, acting as it sees fit.
I’ve stated this thesis baldly and would invite comment. I’m not wholly wedded to it, but I do think it merits consideration.
If you believe that a fetus deserves the same rights as born human, I can understand where there could be no compromise. This would be like slavery or refusing basic civil rights to people. Non-violent resistance would be in order and people should be willing to go to jail for their beliefs. It is a wonder that this kind of activity is lacking in the pro life movement.
In fact there is an enormous disconnect, with the most adamant pro life people, at the same time, lobbying the government to invade Iraq and othe nations “threatening the security” of the US.
I believe that one should treasure life and not elect to have an abortion without reasons. I do think there are reasons, Charles, like not being able to properly care for the child. However, if you believe that the fetus has the same rights and is a person, then I understand where no compromise is in order and that dialogue can be very tricky. Further, I do think that pro life advocates have to “put their money where their mouths are” and do more active civil disobedience in what they believe is a definite wrong.
Matt –
I agree that the word “moderate” is a problem. But I think its ambiguity stems ultimately from the ambiguity of “pro-life” . The latter is used to describe:
1. Those who oppose abortion from the moment a sperm joins with an egg
2. Those who oppose abortion from the moment a person is presnt in the mother’s womb
3. Those who hold one of the above plus oppose authanasia
4. Those who hold one of the above pluse oppose capitol punishment
5. Any combination of the above.
There are more meanings — consider Albert Schweitzer and the Buddhists who would not even kill a bug. They are the ultimate pro-lifers. (At least that is what some Buddhists think.)
i would abandon the adjective and noun “pro-lifer” entirely. They makes us talk past each other. Discussion would be much better spent addressing the fundamental philosophical issues: what is a person? how do we know one when we find one? and which persons if any have an inalienable right to life?
There are, of course, ambiguity problems in those questions, but I think those are unavoidable.
I should have added that a “moderate” could be anyone who holds any of those views but not all of them. But as we know there are vast differences among such “moderates” as well.
I always assumed a moderate to be one who was uncompromising on principles but in dealing with such a political issue recognized the truth of the adage that “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.
I agree with Antonio; in the political arena we have to deal with the possible. To that end, I’ll take a crack at “how” to define a sensible stand toward abortion. To my mind it involves three things.
1) Recognize that the creation of life happens as an unbroken continuum, starting as an egg is produced and fertilized and nurtured and continuing as it grows through its various phases into babyhood. There are no handy markers along the way to tell us for sure when a cell turns into a person. We don’t know when a person appears, we just know that a few cells is quite a different thing than a baby. The reality is that life doesn’t fit our abstractions. Therefore the abstractions we apply should be applied with some humility and trepidation and mercy by all sides of the debate.
2) Commit to not abusing language when discussing the issue. Due to the high stakes, the temptation is to use language as a tool of power rather than as a tool of communication. As Josef Pieper says in his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, a language is well ordered when its words express reality with as little distortion and as little omission as possible. On the other hand, if speech is agenda-driven–to achieve a particular end rather than to discuss the reality of things–then the listener turns into an object to be manipulated. This is not communication, it is speech without a partner, speech as an instrument of power.
3) Place the abortion debate in the context of a response to other pro-life catastrophes: the legal slaughter of the already-born in many parts of the world; the sex trade; the soul-slaughter through violence and poverty of so many here and abroad; the soul-slaughter (and often physical slaughter) of so many women without basic human rights in so many parts of the world; the wasting of the lives and potential of so many innocent children who by everyone’s calculation have come into the fullness of their humanity.
I can only add that a clear an obvious way to reduce the pain of abortion is to promote effective birth control. The church’s stand on this is obvious but the church has been wrong before. It wasn’t all that long ago that it was against democracy, freedom of religion, bible studies, the importance of scripture and the early church fathers in understanding the tradition, etc. etc. etc. If any new abortion initiative wants to be truly intellectually honest, it needs to revisit this issue.
Thanks so much! I really like number 2. I’m going to have to get the Pieper book.
“Commit to not abusing language when discussing the issue. Due to the high stakes, the temptation is to use language as a tool of power rather than as a tool of communication. As Josef Pieper says in his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, a language is well ordered when its words express reality with as little distortion and as little omission as possible. On the other hand, if speech is agenda-driven–to achieve a particular end rather than to discuss the reality of things–then the listener turns into an object to be manipulated. This is not communication, it is speech without a partner, speech as an instrument of power.”
“Place the abortion debate in the context of a response to other pro-life catastrophes: the legal slaughter of the already-born in many parts of the world; the sex trade; the soul-slaughter through violence and poverty of so many here and abroad; the soul-slaughter (and often physical slaughter) of so many women without basic human rights in so many parts of the world; the wasting of the lives and potential of so many innocent children who by everyone’s calculation have come into the fullness of their humanity.”
What do you mean “in the context of?” If you mean equating it to these things, are you kidding? Do you think the pro choice side is going to accept such an equation? They think the “right” to abort IS a wpman’s rights issue and merely a medical procedure. And sorry, I don’t even know what “soul slaughter” means.
As far as the birth control issue, I don’t think that most people who consider abortion are generally hung up on Church prohibitions of artificial contraception. And the problem is that many forms of contraception are considered abortafacients by the Church. This is the current Church position, supposedly based on some sort of higher authority, as written about in Humanae Vitae. It isn’t likely to change soon, or by a vote of the laity. But of course, it is always the Church that has to change.
I also don’t even know what you mean “abusing language.” To me “soul slaughter” is abuse of language. Can you give an example of abuse by each side of the debate?
“The concept of life (in the sense of personhood) beginning at conception is Catholic Doctrine, not empirical fact.”
Actually,the concept of Human Life beginning at conception, is Catholic Doctrine that is consistent with empirical fact.
To me, the one thing that is particularly annoying is the attempt to frame the abortion debate as a “sexual” issue. That is tantamount to framing the debate over slavery as purely an “economic” issue. This is “language abuse” as far as I’m concerned. This tool is particularly useful to the pro-choice side as they use the argument about a puritanical Church to justify their position.
It seems obvious to me that a person’s position on the morality of this would have to come down to how they consider the pre-born child at various stages of gestation-birth. It seems to me the choices are -
1. Fully live Human.
2. Fully in-human.
3. Somewhere in between.
4. I don’t know.
Based on one’s answers to those questions, I think they should be able to develop a moral philosophy about abortion. Perhaps there are various options about the best practical way to proceed, but I suspect that for a person selecting #1, supporting the financing of killing that human would not be an acceptable choice. And I think we know what the current Catholic position is.
Ann, and others, correctly remind us of the importance of language. “Pro-life,” is, unfortunately laden with ambiguities.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson–abortionist (approx. 70,000 by his count), co-founder of NARAL, anti-abortion advocate, and convert to Catholicism–has recounted how in the late 60′s and early 70′s it was very important for the pro-choice movement to politically frame both its cause and that of its opponents. “Pro-abortion” and other movement names were discarded until “pro-choice” was hit upon. What could be more American than that? Americans love having choices, and the word “choice” contains a connotation of reasonableness, i.e., I’m not telling you what to do, and you shouldn’t tell me what to do. Like a general securing the strategic high ground in advance of an impending battle, Nathanson and his colleagues framed their movement in a powerful political and mediagenic way.
So what were the somewhat-late-to-the-fray opposing forces to do about framing their movement in a light that would resonate with the public and the media? “Anti-choice” would have been a very weak response. “Pro-life” is better, but unlike “pro-choice,” it comprises a broad spectrum of positions, and it’s difficult to tag pro-choice advocates as “anti-life.” “Anti-abortion” is perhaps the most unambiguous term for pro-lifers opposed to abortion to use, but even among those opposed to abortion there are gradations–e.g., those opposed to all abortions; those opposed to all abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or grave harm to the health of the mother; etc.
IMO unless and until pro-life advocates can put aside political differences and rally around a core position, the pro-life movement will remain splintered and weakened. Someone on another thread asked if there were a policy that could prevent 500,000 of the approximately 1,000,000 abortions that will take place in the U.S. in 2009, who in the pro-life movement would support such a policy? Some see preventing 500,000 (or even many fewer deaths) as a compromise and moderation of pro-life principles. I don’t. I’d grab at the chance to save the 500,000, and then immediately begin working on ways (political, economic, hearts and minds, whatever) to save the other half a million.
I find Jeanne’s crack at “how” to define a sensible stand toward abortion an excellent starting place for a conversation among moderates. Questions and comments:
1) “Recognize that the creation of life happens as an unbroken continuum, starting as an egg is produced and fertilized and nurtured and continuing as it grows through its various phases into babyhood…Therefore the abstractions we apply should be applied with some humility and trepidation and mercy by all sides of the debate.”
Agreed. I wonder if the invocation of the term ‘person’ isn’t itself an abstraction that deserves some deconstruction. I recognize its utility as a term of art in jurisprudence but I wonder if it doesn’t play too central a role in our analysis. Wouldn’t procuring the demise of a living human fetus be seriously morally problematic, absent a severe threat to the mother, even if it fails to meet our societal definition of personhood?
2) “Commit to not abusing language when discussing the issue. Due to the high stakes, the temptation is to use language as a tool of power rather than as a tool of communication.”
Point well taken. Cathy’s work on prophetic language is relevant here. What language avoids characterization as abuse but permits vigorous advocacy? Those for whom abortion is relatively clinical and abstract often opt for ‘termination of pregnancy.’ Those who passionately and viscerally oppose abortion often opt for ‘murdering babies.’ Which is abusive: the one that obscures the fetal death involved, or the one that highlights it, or both? Is there a middle ground that neither obscures nor inflames? ‘Procured fetal demise’?
3) “Place the abortion debate in the context of a response to other pro-life catastrophes.”
Exactly right, and yet resoundingly rejected by partisans. There is very little support for a consistent ethic of life that would appropriately include abortion in the litany, as of a piece with the slaughter of the already-born, the sex trade, the soul-slaughter of so many, the wasting of the lives and potential of so many born, innocent children.
Vigorous opponents of abortion believe that when their preeminent issue is contextualized, it is often contextualized out of importance. Vigorous supporters of abortion rights refrain from naming abortion as a catastrophe, preferring to encapsulate it within a zone of autonomy. A nuanced center hasn’t found its voice.
What doesn’t get said in frequently toxic abortion-related discourse is perhaps more telling that what does get said. Too infrequently do those of us with prochoice sympathies acknowledge how profoundly disturbing we find the death-dealing involved in the procedure, so we seem remarkably sanguine about the millions of abortions that occur each year. Too infrequently do those of us with prolife sympathies acknowledge how profound is the anguish and how often desperate the circumstances of a women with an unwelcome pregnancy.
Jean Follman and Cathleen Kaveny: RE “As Josef Pieper says… a language is well ordered when its words express reality with as little distortion and as little omission as possible:”
This standard sounds nice, but is it not in fact wholly empty as it stands. Whatever is said about any topic can only be tested for “well-orderedness” through further uses of language by a plurality of language users. There’s no way to establish what the topic is and then to say what “the reality is” except in more language usage, which in turn, has to be assessed for its adequacy.
All this does not lead to hopelessness. We are all born into a language community that deals well with a number of topics. This provides the unsurpassable base for extending inquiry into other areas and issues. In technical terms, this is what Gadamer refers to as “The Universality of the Hermeneutic Problem.” It is why there is no suchthing as “the last word” about any topic.
One addendum to my remark above. How could any discourse (any “language”) about any topic plausibly contain within itself the claim that it satisfied Pieper’s criterion?
A couple of thoughts on law, the political arena and dealing with the possible …
Here’s one from the big guy himself. When constructing human laws, Aquinas says that while it is easy to agree on the generalities, there will be many exceptions in the particulars, so laws that are too detailed can fail to be right. He also (wisely and refreshingly) thinks that to “insist on a degree of perfection that most people cannot manage would only cause them to break out into worse wrongdoing.” It is the mark of a good law that “nature and custom find it possible.” (Summa Theologica, 1a2ae. 96.2)
Another interesting point of view is the Italian sense of the law, which is very different than ours. “The law, according to such thinking, expresses an ideal. It describes a perfect state of affairs from which many people will inevitably fall short. This view is far removed from the typical Anglo-Saxon approach, which expects the law to dictate what people actually do. While Italians grumble about lawlessness, fundamentally they believe in subjectivity. … No law, most Italians believe, can capture the infinite complexity of human situations, and it’s more important for the law to describe a vision of the ideal community than for it to be rigidly obeyed. Italians have tough laws, but their enforcement is enormously forgiving.”
from John Allen, see http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/opinion/27allen.html
Not that our sense of the law is going to change anytime soon, but it does point to another approach to legislating. Is it possible to create a sanction for abortion (say after the third month) that doesn’t involve criminalization of only half of the two presumably guilty parties?
Good points, Mike McG.
When the Supreme Court decided in the Dred Scott decision that slaves weren’t “persons” under the Constitution, the legal decision didn’t make slavery any less immoral. Unfortunately, secular law and morality are not always congruent.
Your point (and Jeanne Folman’s) about avoiding abusive language goes to the larger goal of finding common ground. I found an organization on the Internet called “Compassion in Politics” that has developed a manual, six years in the development according to the web site, about how to facilitate dialogue on the abortion issue. I don’t really know anything about the organization, but the manual seems to contain a lot of commonsense suggestions for getting both sides to sit down and talk respectfully to one another. A key component of the dialogue would be that neither side has to compromise its principles. Obviously, with mutually respectful dialogue, demonization would hopefully disappear and common ground appear.
From the manual:
“The goal of the search for common ground is to transform the dynamic of the abortion
conflict, not to settle or resolve the conflict. The idea is to reduce polarization and hostility and promote a level of trust between the adversaries so that they can –
Gain a deeper understanding of the conflict over abortion and the motivations, interests
and values reflected in people’s positions;
Coexist within the bounds of civility, with debate focused on the merits of their
contrasting beliefs, not on stereotyped and dehumanized ‘enemies’;
Act together when it furthers overlapping interests and values. This is the area we call
the ‘common ground.’ Here people have found shared beliefs in such things as:
providing practical assistance to people facing crisis/unwanted pregnancies; preventing
teen pregnancy; renouncing violence as a means to further one’s position; building
dialogue and conflict resolution skills in the community; increasing knowledge about,
and access to, adoption; reducing the conflict between family and work; increasing male
sexual responsibility.
Changing the relationship between adversaries in this way contributes to a higher level of
discourse on abortion and related issues, one that can reveal the elements of truth in each
perspective (there are some) and the areas where working together might make a difference. In turn, this builds community, a recognition of mutual interdependence and an understanding of how people with profound differences can live and work together to make a better world.”
http://compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/whiter-abortion-in-american-politics/
(Click on “download manual” that is referenced in the text of the web page)
Kudos to Mike, Jeanne and William. Sounds like real respect for both sides and a willingness to arrive at phrases that both sides can work with. I am impressed. How can you continue with that and eliminate those who just use the issue for political or inflammatory purposes? Will the people at Common Ground take this up? What would the plan of action look like. Who will lead the way?
On a practical level, yesterday at church had the unpleasant experience of having to listen to the pastor during the announcements encourage (order?) folks to fill out and complete postcards that were being passed out to everyone.
These postcards were addressed to our local House of Representative person and both Texas Senators asking that FOCA not be allowed to reach the floor of the Congress. The pastor made a number of incorrect statements as if they were true – FOCA is pending in Congress; Obama will automatically sign it; it would forever change Roe v Wade; it would be the most damaging legislation ever; it would cause every catholic hospital to close, etc.
So, as we discuss “middle ground” approaches and language, understand that you have bishops and pastors that pride themselves on being – in the words of our pastor – fanatics for life.
Nothing like a captive audience. No balanced education; alarmist language; exaggeration and threats; fear-monering of the worst kind. At least within our parish, we have our own version of Charles Coughlin but he sees himself as a prophet fulfilling his mission to speak the truth.
My guess is that this was repeated in hundreds of other parishes.
Bill D. -same experience.
Great stuff drom Bill Collier -but Bill M.’s question is critical: “who will lead the way?” (to reasonableness, respect and interdependence?
I don’t have any really good insights to add to the good things that have been said here, but this has been a great thread and I hope the blog will keep talking about new ways in which we talk about abortion to those who don’t share the Catholic view of things.
As someone who comes from a non-Christian family, I think it might be worth pointing out the degree to which non-believers see abortion as a separation of church and state issue, and fear the pro-life movement as part of a larger package that seeks to enshrine conservative Christian doctrine into law. While many of them will concede that there are instances in which abortion is repellent, they believe, restricting abortion simply encourages militant Christianity to push laws concerning birth control, divorce, criminalization of gays, etc. etc.
Rightly or wrongly, they were deeply fearful of the Bush administration’s connections to Christian fundamentalism, and discussions about abortion were pretty fruitless.
Those of us on the front lines trying to have productive conversations with family and friends who see abortion as part and parcel of other legal issues may find that a shift in the political winds may make finding common ground easier.
Perhaps the laity could lead, beginning in our own parishes. Talk up in parish organizations. Insist the topic be put on the agenda of the next meeting, then bring your evidence for your position with you to that meeting.. Form committees and make appointments with psstors. If a pastor refuses to meet with you, report him to the bishop. If that doesn’t work, write to the archbishop in your area, on up the line. Form organizations of such committees , but be careful choosing a name for it, as Dr. Nathanson would advise. No, “the Rational Committees for Life” won’t do.
The problem with a “moderate” position on abortion is that personhood, as in a Human Being, a Human individual who exists, and the desire for the Mother to allow this Human Being to continue to exist , are two separate issues. The definition of personhood does not require that a Mother desires that person to continue to exist.
Ann said “Discussion would be much better spent addressing the fundamental philosophical issues: what is a person? how do we know one when we find one? and which persons if any have an inalienable right to life?”
Ann I agree with this completely.
I think the Catholic pro-life position tackles this head on, both magisterially, academically, and in popular writings. In other words, I don’t think there’s any ambiguity in what pro-life Catholic beliefs are as pertains to beginning of life issues–read Evangelium Vitae, the CDF, William May, Janet Smith, Robert George, Francis Beckwith.
When Prof. Kaveny raises the question, what common ground and common projects can pro-lifers and moderates work on, my natural question is that her question can’t even be explored until we define what it means to hold a moderate Catholic pro-life position. In terms of political action, it seems to mean endorsing Obama and calling him a pro-life abortion reducer despite him starting his administration by funneling millions of dollars into abortion organizations and filling his administration with NARAL alumni. Or maybe the moderate position just means that we should first try to pass laws against tax funding of abortion, and include the unborn in SCHIP, and make sure parents are told if their children are getting abortions, and providing real help to pregnant women. But the pro-life movement is already overwhelmingly doing that, and Obama’s agenda opposes all these things and more. So depending on what the moderate range is, the pro-life movement is already doing it (which makes pro-lifers wonder, do the moderates not know this, and if they know it why haven’t they already self-defined with all those efforts), or, the moderate position is that everything that the pro-life movement is doing must be categorically destroyed, or something in the middle, but what? Whether or not there is common ground, and how much, depends entirely on specifying the frame of reference of moderates. It can’t remain ambiguously somewhere in between near total support and near total demolition of the existing pro-life movement. The range is too broad. It must be defined if dialogue is really desired.
Likewise philisophically, judging by the posts here and elsewhere, the moderate position seems to include gradualism along the lines of believing that conception/fertilization is either not the beginning of a human being’s life or is not what we as a society choose to confer personhood upon. Whether people like it or not, this raises the question of why we don’t withhold personhood status from children after birth, or people with severe disabilities, or the comatose, or the sleeping. If you untether personhood from the scientific fact of being an individual being, tell us what you define it by. Common ground can’t be explored fruitfully until you state the different positions that are exploring it, and the pro-life Catholic position has done this already.
“3) “Place the abortion debate in the context of a response to other pro-life catastrophes.”
Exactly right, and yet resoundingly rejected by partisans. There is very little support for a consistent ethic of life that would appropriately include abortion in the litany, as of a piece with the slaughter of the already-born, the sex trade, the soul-slaughter of so many, the wasting of the lives and potential of so many born, innocent children. ”
Hi, Mike,
Regarding the fact that so many pro-life partisans are not particularly open to the consistent ethic of life:
I’ve asked some of these partiisans about this, and their immediate response is that the “seamless garment” notion has been used by politicians to justify their pro-choice views, i.e. ‘Well, despite my support for abortion, I support most of the other life issues, such as nuclear disarmament and abolition of the death penalty, therefore I am still a good Catholic’. For this reason, the entire onsistent-ethic-of-life approach is viewed with extreme skepticism by many on the Catholic Right.
One of the things to be reckoned with if we are serious about building bridges is that memories are long. Just as Operation Rescue and abortion clinic bombings continue to influence media and secular perceptions of pro-life activists, betrayal by Maria Cuomo, Ted Kennedy et al continue to color pro-life activists’ perceptions.
“Likewise philisophically, judging by the posts here and elsewhere, the moderate position seems to include gradualism along the lines of believing that conception/fertilization is either not the beginning of a human being’s life or is not what we as a society choose to confer personhood upon. Whether people like it or not, this raises the question of why we don’t withhold personhood status from children after birth, or people with severe disabilities, or the comatose, or the sleeping. If you untether personhood from the scientific fact of being an individual being, tell us what you define it by. Common ground can’t be explored fruitfully until you state the different positions that are exploring it, and the pro-life Catholic position has done this already.”
This seems to me to be a bit of a stretch. I think that it is at least equally likely that the “gradualist” position might derive from the fact that all people can accept the personhood of a newborn, but not all people can accept the personhood of a fetus. The question then could be going back from the full person that everyone can recognize, when does that personhood start, since for everyone it has to start somewhere.
This would be a pure political strategy along these lines. All voters would accept that a newborn is human. Most would accept that an 8 month fetus is human. Somewhat fewer might accept 7 months, etc. But within these groupings are a majority that can begin the legal restriction of abortions in the law. And that’s the first step we have to take in our democracy, where the majority of citizens do not want an outright ban on abortions, at least right now.
I’m not a “moderate” on the issue of abortion. (Despite my beliefs in the legitimacy of compromise in the pursuit of a long-term goal and in a consistent ethic of life that informs my positions on a number of other issues.) I fervently hope, pray and work for a day when abortion will be both rare and illegal.
However, I’ve had many opportunities (such as today) to engage with thoughtful individuals who do consider themselves “moderate” in their approach to this issue.
In my experience, a “pro-life moderate” means different things to different people. While I appreciate Matt’s point about needing to know the specific platform of pro-life moderates before the “absolutist” wing of the movement can consider joining them in common actions, it seems even from the discussion above that this is not definable.
Some moderates are such because they see aspects of the issue as gray areas; others because the issue doesn’t have the pre-eminent importance attached to it by more “extreme” pro-lifers; still others because of competing concerns that are sometimes hard to reconcile with pro-life advocacy that is often seen as part of a larger (or narrower) right-wing agenda.
Depending on what primarily motivates one as a pro-life moderate, one’s platform and even one’s tactics are likely to be different than even those of other moderates.
But, and this is really the point I want to make, I don’t think that really matters in terms of the efficacy of the pro-life movement(s).
When I was in my mid-20s, I was for one year the executive director of a state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee. As a still-impressionable young adult, I was dealing on a daily basis with a wide spectrum of different people and organizations on both sides of the abortion struggle.
That experience taught me some permanent lessons:
1. People with different gifts, personality types, worldviews and life experiences tend to gravitate toward different kinds and levels of pro-life activity. Whole organizations and even entire wings of the movement attract disproportionately people with certain personal profiles (think citizen lobbyist, preacher, clinic blockader, legal-defense counsel, sidewalk pray-er, pregnancy counselor, etc.).
2. To be truly comprehensive — to address all of the needs of an effective pro-life movement — you *need* to have this diversity of roles, and even of opinions. I remember hearing the venerable Molly Kelly describe us as a “perfect movement” in the sense that, somewhat analogous to the Body of Christ, all of the parts are there that are necessary to accomplish the divine plan.
3. The movement’s greatest weakness is not the lack (or presence) of this or that strategy or belief or outreach or group, but the difficulty that the people associated with our movement have in working *with* and not *against* each other. The pro-choice groups also have a multiplicity of organizations and tactics, but I found that they almost never sniped at or undermined each other’s efforts like the pro-lifers did (and still do). Our intolerance of our diversity and sometimes active attempts to undermine each other’s efforts have limited our effectiveness more than anything else.
I came to perceive the great spiritual warfare being waged on the battlefield of abortion as not just between those who accepted and rejected the sanctity of unborn human life, but as between those of us in our own “Godly” pro-life movement. The battlefield, indeed, was within each of our own hearts.
Satan, I believe, strikes us where we are weakest and where he can most effectively accomplish his objectives in ourselves and in the wider human landscape. For those in the organized pro-choice movement, it obviously doesn’t serve his purpose to try to inflame their malice towards each other.
On the other hand, for those of us who find it easier to affirm the duty to protect the life of unborn child, he so often uses the most universal of human defects — pride — to turn our just and good principles to his own ends, resulting in the crippling of our efforts on behalf of God’s children. It’s a shameful spectacle the way we fight among our selves, sometimes saving our greatest venom for other pro-lifers (whether “moderates” or “extremists” or just not the right kind of either).
If not pride, then other peccadilloes undo us, too. (Have any of us shied away from expressing our pro-life convictions to a colleague or a pregnant woman in need because of concern about damage to our standing in that person’s — or group’s — eyes? I know I have.)
The flip side of that is that seldom in my life have I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit at work in women and men as when among those motivated by their pro-life convictions. To be among people who are sacrificing often so much without the possibility of any personal gain or benefit is truly inspiring. It is so transcendent of our natural proclivities that it is a witness to the truth and power of our Faith.
I often felt, when navigating between some of the warring factions in my little corner of the pro-life movement, if they could only see the love and holiness radiating from some, usually many, of the members in the opposing groups, that it would be possible for them to better discern their own spirits and focus more intensively in the tasks that they were called to do in their own part of the movement.
If we all realize it is less about us and our knowledge, our righteousness, our plan, and much more about God’s plan to use us to save His precious children (and to save us in so doing), then I think we will see the day that we are not only more united in spirit, but also much closer to the goal that we seek.
Unagidon, if I may borrow from what Chris Curry said-
Regarding a Human Fetus v. a Human Newborn v. a Human Toddler… “it is somewhat analogous to the Body of Christ, all of the parts are there that are necessary to accomplish the Divine Plan.” What we are called to do is Nurture them.
and, what Matt Bowman said.
Nancy, I’m sure you are praying as hard as I am for the conversion of the United States to Orthodox Roman Catholicism. But I’m not sure that we can wait long enough for that happy day to occur before we try to do something in this democracy of ours within which are a majority of people do not want a ban on abortion.
Unagidon, one does not need to be an Orthodox Roman Catholic to understand that the unalienable Right to Life comes from God.
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
These Rights are listed in an ordered relationship because without Life, there can be no Liberty, and without Life and Liberty, there can be no Pursuit of Happiness.
Fine argument, Nancy, but not self evident at all unless one already believes that one is a human at conception. Since it is clear that most people don’t believe this (in the sense that the Church teaches, which includes its teachings on contraception) we have an impass that will require that we either convert everyone to Catholicism or that we compromise in the short term.
I know that you think that compromise in this case is a fatal compromise of principles. But I will put this to you.
Before Roe v Wade, if we polled the voting population of the United States, we may have found that most people were against abortion. Thirty years later most people are not against it. I have heard the argument among pro-life activists that one big reason for this shift is that legalized abortion got the public used to and therefore more tolerant of abortion as such. Also, over the course of 30 years, there have been very many people who have had or know people who have had abortions and compassion for those people may have translated into a tolerance of abortion itself.
It would be nice to turn the clock back in one fell swoop. But perhaps it would be more possible to begin with restrictions. Most people seen willing to support restrictions and with restrictions might come more thought about abortion as such on the part of the general public.
Unagidon, while it is true that supporting restrictions will help protect the Life of some Human Beings, it will not protect the Life of all Human Beings. According to Roe v Wade, if personhood could be established, Roe v Wade would “go away”.
Catholic Doctrine is consistent with empirical fact that at Conception, the Life of a new Human Individual, a Human Person, exists. The Right to Life opposes legalized abortion because The Right to Life requires that Human Life be nurtured, not destroyed.
True, but you seem to be confusing political strategy in a democracy, where we might have to support the gradual restrictions of abortion in the short term and our Catholic position on the question of abortion, which would not call a partial restriction licit.
You seem to equate the two and you seem to imply that a political position supporting a gradual restriction is the same as a religious position supporting partial restriction. But they are not the same at all.
You yourself have proposed compromises when you have stated that since abortion is a primary issue, being that it is about a right to life, one could compromise on other issues like torture, war, etc. (in the short term, I assume), since they as issues are secondary to abortion. But in fact, they are only secondary to abortion in the realm of political action, whcih in a democracy always involves compromise (among other things). It is neither Catholic doctrine or a fact that abortion trumps everything else, even when we weight the numbers of aborted children to the numbers of everything else. This is the thing. All are equally important to a Catholic. Or to put it another way, the one life and the many lives are equally important to Jesus.
Actually, democracy doesn’t support abortion, which is why abortion should never have been legalized in the first place.
The Right to Life requires that all innocent Human Life be protected from those who seek to do us harm.
As far as torture goes, I am against all acts of torture, including those gruesome acts of abortion that lead from torture to death.