Conscience and Culture Wars–and Lawyers
Here is link to an essay on “Clashing Consciences” I did for the Washington Post’s On Faith Section. Michael Perry of Emory Law School posted it on the Mirror of Justice, and in a flash, my colleague Rick Garnett had a reply up on that blog disagreeing with it. That man has too much energy!
But seriously, I found Ricks response quite interesting, because it allowed me to crystalize some thoughts I’ve been having about what are the elements of a “culture war mentality” –of which as readers of this blog know, I am not a big fan. My very smart former student, Matt Emerson pressed me on why in a prior combox–for which I am grateful.
Here are my three questions:
1. When Do the Merits Count and Why?
2. Do Religions Always Deserve Special Treatment?
3. Do Lawyers Make the Best Culture Warriors?
1. When do the merits count and why?
Is it helpful to frame legal and jurisprudential questions in a general way on hot button issues such as abortion and gay marriage, or is should one always allow the framing to be controlled by one’s own view of the underlying merits?
The point of my piece was to step away from the merits and to point out the structural similarity between the bishops’ approach on abortion, and the one hand, and gay rights activists with respect to benefits for same sex couples, on the other. The vantage point I was taking was more sociological–or political scientific. On different questions, they both have advocated a law of general applicability that a) tracks the current consensus; and 2) advances their own view of the way things morally are, really. They both are reluctant to grant exceptions to that law to people to act according to a different conscientious judgment precisely because the point of the law is to advance their respective moral view (pro-life, or pro-gay-rights, respectively).
Rick, as I read him, is uncomfortable with this sort of neutral framing. He says, the “merits matter.” My response: Yes, the merits matter –but they matter to everyone not just to you and me. Moreover, the problem in a pluralistic society is that everyone has a different view of the merits, and we have to figure out how to get along. So the pro-choice people pressing a claim of conscience will say, “Hey, wait a minute, abortion is a constitutional right. Just as the bishops in the Catholic Charities case say, “Hey, wait a minute, freedom of religion is a constitutional right.”
And if everybody pushes their view of the merits of the matter–without any regard to the conscientious views of anyone else, then we are moving toward culture war. In fact, one could argue that the very idea of the culture wars are born from the idea that the merits are ALL that matter about certain key issues, even in a pluralistic society where people disagree about the merits. In my view, overcoming the culture war with regard to a particular issue has to mean seeing the question from the other side–attempting to see how someone who is reasonable could take the position that they take–even if it is wrong. And that’s what my framing tried to do.
2. Are Religions Always Special in a Good Way?
Are the actions of religious groups deserving of special consideration when they break with the common morality? It is interesting in Rick’s reply that while, with respect to abortion, he wants to go to the merits, with respect to discrimination in the provision of benefits, he doesn’t–he wants to invoke a structural consideration. Merits on abortion, yes, but merits on discrimination, no. The discrimination is being done by a RELIGIOUS group, acting on deeply held religious beliefs, and therefore should not be scrutinized, or should be given less scrutiny. Religious groups, for him, have special claims to conscience protection.
Here I’m not so sure. Do we really want to commit ourselves to the view that religious groups –all religious groups– have special claims to violate public morality? Most people are not inclined to give special consideration to a religious group that doesn’t want to give equal treatment to racial minorities. So what are the alternatives: 1) Are we “peeping” at the merits here–we’re more sympathetic to discrimination against same sex couples than against race; 2) Are we tacitly acting on a distinction between “good” religious groups (ours) and “bad religious groups (“theirs”), and making ad hoc distinctions in argument to justify that?
One might argue that the fact that it is a religious group or belief that is justifying a morally question able action makes the whole act (in a Thomistic sense, which includes motive) better–or at least less bad. That was in fact, Las Casas’s argument about the natives doing human sacrifice–it showed deep honor to God. But one might also argue that the fact that the questionable act is done for religious reasons makes it worse -one could reply to Las Casas that murder in the name of God is a greater travesty.
Is the underlying idea that religion is good–but then how do we define religion? If we define it as broadly as the Supreme Court did in Seeger (pretty much any matter of absolute concern-Tillichean) then what difference does it make–it could include any secular charity. If we define it more narrowly, what are the criteria?
3. Do the Culture Wars Privilege Lawyerly Modes of Analysis?
It strikes me, and I may be wrong, that a hallmark of the culture wars is instrumental analysis and reasoning about matters of law and public policy Culture warriors make an argument because it advances their view of the way things should be –the merits — on an ad hoc basis–and make a different argument on a different issue. Arguments are simply tools to defend positions that are held on other grounds.
Lawyers do this all the time in litigation in an adversary system. But the public square isn’t a courtroom. And I have come to think this strategy is deeply misguided as a way to guide intervention in the public square. I think it threatens makes straightforward thinking and analysis impossible, and ultimately threatens to make all interventions in the public square purely strategic and ad hoc. A culture war mentality undermines public moral deliberation, because it treats public statements, and interventions as mere means to achieve an end that is not subject to deliberation–whether that end is outlawing abortion or promoting gay rights. There are culture warriors on all sides of the political spectrum.
So, here’s my example. One of the arguments used to defend Stupak Amendment is this idea that money is fungible. No amount of public funds, no matter how small, can go to any benefit plan that includes abortion, no matter how small a portion of the premium goes to abortion, because money is fungible. Leaving aside the merits of the Stupak Amendment, this argument has real legs –and I’m not sure where it’s going to walk next. If money is fungible here, it is fungible everywhere–and why couldn’t it be used, with the same effect, to stop students taking Pell Grants to Catholic colleges, or to stop the funding of faith based initiatives –or even to stop the funding of Catholic Charities?
As a scholar,and as a Catholic scholar, that inconsistency bothers me very much. I think it’s part of a Catholic scholar’s job to point that out, and to ask why? My sense, however, is that a Catholic culture warrior would say “Be quiet–Let’s get Stupak through, and worry about the rest later. Don’t cause problems now.”
Is that sense right?
I read this with great interest and profit, but I don’t find the link mentioned at the beginning.
Excellent reflection, Cathy. I look forward to the conversation it prompts. I find helpful your views distinguishing between process, which might identify style similarities between pro-life and pro-gay rights advocates, from content, which immediately divides them along sharp tribal boundaries.
“There are culture warriors on all sides of the political spectrum.” True…but does anyone self-identify as a culture warrior? Isn’t the culture warrior by definition ‘other.’ While ‘we’ are, of course, passionate and conscience driven?
So my question goes the labeling of those who are drawn to vigorous conversations around contended issues. What distinguishes ‘culture warriors’ from ‘fierce and principled advocates’ other than the resonance of the views advanced to the labeler?
Thanks for the links.
My sense, however, is that a Catholic culture warrior would say “Be quiet–Let’s get Stupak through, and worry about the rest later. Don’t cause problems now.”
Cathy,
On the issue of the fungibility of money, Kurt over on Vox Nova, who has an inside knowledge of the House of Representatives, has said:
I quote him approvingly, by the way, because he is a strong supporter of Stupak but does not attempt to defend it by arguing about the fungibility of money or by claiming it is merely the principles of the Hyde Amendment applied neutrally to health care reform.
There are some major inconsistencies in the way the “money is fungible” argument is applied, and I don’t believe I have seen any on the “pro-life” side attempt to answer them. Here are just three.
The Supreme Court has held that school vouchers given to parents who would overwhelmingly use them for religious schools does not violate separation of church and state, but rather supports “choice.” However, the “fungibility of money” argument used by pro-lifers in the debate over health care reform denies a woman a right to “choice” even if funds are carefully segregated so that no government money goes toward abortion coverage. That’s just an “accounting trick.”
Pro-lifers are appalled that President Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy, and even people who should know better (like George Weigel) say that the United States is funding abortion overseas. However, if the United States is funding abortion overseas without the Mexico City Policy, by the same logic it is funding abortions domestically to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year by giving grants to Planned Parenthood, even though (like the United States even without the Mexico City Policy) those grants may not be used for abortion. True, pro-lifers would like to see all government money denied to Planned Parenthood, but nevertheless almost no one in the pro-life movement who praised Bush for the Mexico City Policy excoriated him for the billions of dollars that went to Planned Parenthood during his two terms.
I have seen no suggestion by far that the argument about taxpayer dollars directly or indirectly funding abortion should be applied to individuals. It is impossible to quote statistics, but nevertheless it has to be the case that a great many people supporting the Stupak Amendment have employer-provided insurance, for which they pay some of the cost, that pays for elective abortion. If it is wrong to allow one’s tax dollars to even very indirectly contribute to abortion or abortion coverage, isn’t it even more wrong to allow deductions from one’s own paycheck to quite directly finance abortion coverage? Has there been any call from, say, the American Bishops to check your employer-provided insurance and refuse coverage if it pays for elective abortions (or for that matter, any abortions)?
The one argument I do hear is that pointing out inconsistencies is irrelevant. If what you are doing is right in a particular instance, it only matters that you are right in that instance.
Just for the record, I stand to be very angry with the pro-life or the pro-choice side if either pushes so hard that health care reform fails over the issue of abortion. It’s simply too important for either side to insist on “victory” at the expense of failure to provide more than 30 million uninsured individuals with health care.
2. Are Religions Always Special in a Good Way?
This question suggests a prior one: What is the definition of a religion? Or, is anything that claims to be a religion, simply because it makes that claim. a religion in the sense that counts under U.S. law? I suggest that this is a theological question that civil law is not competent to answer.
Thanks, Prof. Kaveny and to Dr. Page so we have the links. Compliment to Mr. Nickol’s commentary and thoughts – concise, to the point, and especially your:
“Just for the record, I stand to be very angry with the pro-life or the pro-choice side if either pushes so hard that health care reform fails over the issue of abortion. It’s simply too important for either side to insist on “victory” at the expense of failure to provide more than 30 million uninsured individuals with health care.”
Attended the Landregan Annual Talk at University of Dallas last nite – R. Gaillerdtz (sp) was the featured speaker on Eucharist and the Poor, Needs of the World. His central point was to review the history of the eucharist and how in the first centuries the connection between eucharist, mission, and the needs of the poor, world, etc. were intricately bound. In other words, it made no sense for someone to participate in eucharist and then go forth and turn his/her back on the needs of others.
That is why your final statement resonates with me (esp. my personal history with Vincent dePaul and his approach to ministry, mission). Gaillerdtz talked about the 1970′s theme masses – my experience is that over the last few years, too many of our eucharists have become theme masses – non-stop abortion, abortion, abortion with no mention of the needs of others beyond that single issue. He talked about the disconnect by dioceses and the USCCB in terms of pro-life committees separated from peace/justice committees and that most focus/money went not just to pro-life but pro-life defined as anti-abortion.
Some asked how we change this – basically by doing the eucharist within the context of the early church understanding that breaking bread/pouring wine only bears fruit if it directs us to the total needs of the community. He used Paul words to some of his communities about the danger of ignoring some folks because of class, because of cultural stratification, etc.
My concern, like you, is that a central gospel imperative via healthcare reform will be sacrificed on the abortion altar.
The key passage in the Pauline Corpus on the Eucharist and the poor is I Corinthians 11:17-34.
Thank you Prof. Kaveny for one of the most thought-provoking blog posts I’ve read all year.
In response to Mike McG’s good point “Does anyone identify as a cultural warrior?” I’d have to say 1) No and 2) that one trait I associate with cultural warriors is a siege mentality, a strong sense of victimhood.
Having grown up in a very conservative religious climate I knew very well that “they” didn’t care about babies, would gladly euthanize the elderly, and would prefer to erase every reference to God ever made — and that “we” had to fight hard at every moment because they had corporations and government officials and the media on their side and all we had to rely on was our moral rectitude.
Emerging into a very left-wing environment as an adult, I was relieved to discover that ACTUALLY “they” could care less about women’s lives and health, would deny the elderly basic healthcare, and wanted to turn the entire government into a theocracy, and that “we” had to fight hard at every moment because they had corporations and government officials and the media on their side and all we had to rely on was our moral rectitude.
it allowed me to crystalize some thoughts I’ve been having about what are the elements of a “culture war mentality” –of which as readers of this blog know, I am not a big fan.
A better way of putting this would be that you dislike people who are on the other side of the culture war from you.
Stuart, Stuart. Thanks for the suggested edit–but I think I will retain my own articulation of my own position. I’m opposed to funding abortion in health care. But that doesn’t mean I have to accept the NLRC’s analysis and justification of Stupak–the “money’s fungible” argument. I don’t think Catholic Charities should have to endorse gay marriage–but I think they should be allowed to adopt the the San Francisco compromise rather than leaving the business entirely.
I’m intrigued with Midwestmind’s comments. Have you found your adult reality to be the mirror image of that of your childhood…with the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ reversed and the right-wing playing the demon role while we progressives are on the side of the angels? Or have you found that your current ‘very left-wing environment’ every bit as inclined to demonize “them,” now characterized as the right? Has “they” don’t care about babies in one world morphed into “they” don’t care about women in the parallel one?
As for me, I see remarkably comparable intolerance among cultural warriors of both/all tribes. Now that so many of us are segregated into blue and red parishes it is even more difficult to see “them” as other than cardboard.
Contra Bill DeHaas’ experience “that over the last few years, too many of our eucharists have become theme masses – non-stop abortion, abortion, abortion with no mention of the needs of others beyond that single issue”, my experience has been almost the opposite. In the two progressive parishes that I have attended over the past 30+ years, abortion is very rarely mentioned from the altar unless an episcopal letter “must” be read. Among parishioners, mention of abortion has often been fraught with disdain for the issue and derision for its advocates.
I know you prefer a more neutral-sounding articulation of your position,, but when you endorse folks like Randall Balmer, it’s hard to see that you have much objection to culture warriors on your own side.
Religion should get no benefits or special funding from the government. For the most part relgion reeks of corruption and too often uses its privileged status to obtain money rather than earn adherents on its moral rectitude. Jesus and his disciples had neither government support nor funding. Yet look what they wrought. We should proceed with the awareness that religion is an empire and needs to merit rather than to qualify just on status that is conferred rather than earned.
Since no one in civil society is in a position to define religion why not simply treat so called religions as another instance of nonprofit corporations?
I’ve been trying to figure out what Cathy means by “culture warrior” and whether she regards it as a term of abuse, sort of like “fundamentalist” or “heretic” in perhaps different contexts. Here’s the closest I get to her notion: “It strikes me, and I may be wrong, that a hallmark of the culture wars is instrumental analysis and reasoning about matters of law and public policy Culture warriors make an argument because it advances their view of the way things should be –the merits — on an ad hoc basis–and make a different argument on a different issue. Arguments are simply tools to defend positions that are held on other grounds.”
Now is this a description of what people actually do, which classifies them as “culture warriors”? That last sentence Cathy has invoked before on this blog, as when she thought one of the tasks of a lawyer was to discover the “other grounds” on which people hold positions, other, that is, then the arguments they are actually offering. Lawyers, Cathy seems to be saying, may properly do this in litiigious disputes, but she thinks it should not be done in public discourse. I’m not sure that it should ever be done. I know I would always prefer to have people consider the reasons I advance for a position rather than go ferreting out the “other grounds,” as it might be suspected, on which I hold that position. I do not know how else to conduct a serious, intelligent dialogue. The alternative too easily becomes an excuse for not taking one’s partner in dialogue, and his arguments, seriously; instead one searches for “the real reasons” that are discovered by psychological or ideological analysis, of which, the presumption often is, one is oneself, of course, never in need.
I am truly puzzled by your unfamiliarity with the culture wars, Joe. There’s a book by Peter Kreeft of that name, Chaput has used that language, it was all around the last election. There’s even an article on wikipedia.
I think language such as the “culture of life v. culture of death” is prophetic language. I think it does good on occasion, but only on occasion. I think in our culture, it feeds into a dualistic strand which does not tolerate nuance –or casuistry, that’s my problem with it. Examples in the Catholic world past include: 1) the brouhaha over Terri Schiavo, which made all but impossible a careful, casuistical consideration of what the similarities and differences were between AHN and a ventilator and the passing of that quite questionable law on her behalf; 2) the idea that it was never appropriate to vote for a pro-choice candidate–and that the principles of cooperation with evil couldn’t be invoked by reasonable people; 3) the constant analogies between abortion and slavery and abortion and the Holocaust, with little attention to the disanalogies. But I could have stopped with Schiavo, and what that did to calm, reasoned, deliberation.
On the other point, your problem is with the adversary system. A lawyer who represents a client has to put forward sound, plausible argument for the client’s position–they aren’t attributable to her personally. The adversary system claims to work but it works only because there are two opposing lawyers, rules of evidence–rules against perjury, and neutral factfinders. The public square doesn’t have those benefits.
I’m not sure I said when a lawyer’s task was to “discover other grounds.” Certainly, lawyers put forward alternative grounds for the positions they advocate. Certainly, lawyers cross examine their witnesses to impeach credibility–and anyone who has ever been in a deposition knows that’s not a pleasant experience. But I’m not sure how that’s relevant here.
Prof. Kaveny – your above post is very helpful by clarifying with examples.
We had a former bishop (now retired) that had the usual “stock” confirmation homily in which he used the term “culture of death” over 50 times. There was no grey; no mention of conscience; no mention of the individual or communal struggle to figure out the common good – it was black and white; either/or.
Would suggest that there are any number of current catholic moral thinkers who would take your position/argument to heart when they try to redefine “natural law” or, at least, its application to ethical situations.
Cathy: Give me some credit. I’ve heard of the culture wars. I was interested in what you mean by a “cultural warrior,” and whether you think it a term of abuse.
On your last point, I misread your sentence above. Sorry.
I’m sorry. I was assuming knowledge of my prior blogging on this-in part because it was such a long post.
On the lawyer thing: a good citizen will say, listening to an opposing argument. “You know what: you’ve convinced me. I was wrong.” I’d bet a lawyer could get disbarred for getting up and saying: “You know what. you’ve convinced me. Your arguments are better. My client deserves to lose.”
True…but does anyone self-identify as a culture warrior? Isn’t the culture warrior by definition ‘other.’ While ‘we’ are, of course, passionate and conscience driven?
I don’t think so. Perhaps no one literally says “I am a culture warrior,” but people absolutely do identify themselves as participating in a struggle against what they define as the larger culture. (Google the phrase “the war against the culture of death” for examples.) Those same people see themselves as passionate and conscience-driven, of course. But they also see themselves as being at war with the (or ‘a’) culture — or at least they express their positions in that rhetorical framework.
Good post, Mollie!
The problem is that one is passionate about a single issue, what are the tools they’ll use in the war (hopefully of words?)
Intellectual honesty in the public square is much diminished, but I also think the adversarial sytem is often open to a lot of manipulation, even with the rules of court.
I am not one who would normally post a snip from First Things, but …..
“Culture is the expression of the identity of a community of people. It expresses their understanding of reality; of the truth about human life generally and themselves in particular. This expression is essentially political, that is, it takes the form of customs or laws that epitomize the community’s judgement with respect to what is true and false about life and there what is right or wrong, good or evil.
Custom governs the imagination and creativity of the community through the rules and limitations of its language, and thus language serves as an excellent analogy for understanding how culture works. That is why literature is such a good example of culture. A “culture war”, properly speaking, is a conflict over truth, over reality and its meaning.
But because culture is about how we live, what we do and not just what we think, a culture war is also a political war. Political stability depends upon agreement not about whether or not a particular action is right or wrong, but about how to judge it. Politics is always partisan, and there are always winners and losers. There can be considerable disagreement within a culture, but so long as there is agreement about what is real, so long as there is a common language, the culture remains intact and partisan conflict can be carried on in speech.
When the disagreement is about reality itself, however, language becomes a useless means of disputation and the only resolution is victory in combat.”
A book review by Sarah Baumgartner Thurow of Beyond The Culture Wars, First Things, August/September, 1993.
“. . . she [Cathy] thought one of the tasks of a lawyer was to discover the “other grounds” on which people hold positions, o ther, that is, then the arguments they are actually offering. Lawyers, Cathy seems to be saying, may properly do this in litiigious disputes, but she thinks it should not be done in public discourse. I’m not sure that it shpuld ever be done.she thought one of the tasks of a lawyer was to discover the “other grounds” on which people hold positions, other, that is, then the arguments they are actually offering. Lawyers, Cathy seems to be saying, may properly do this in litiigious disputes, but she thinks it should not be done in public discourse. I’m not sure that it should ever be done.”
JAK,
It seems to me that one assumption of the argument Cathy is presenting is that it is the function of a law suit to win money for the client, not justice based on fact. (I have actually had a lawyer tell me that.) Is it morally permissible to win a case based on false assumptions?
To accept this view seems to accept legal arguments themselves as being fungibles.
I should add that different arguments based on different non=greedy principles might lead to the same conclusion,and those premises might even be consistent. Further, just as a lawyer’s function is not to judge the innocence or guilt of his/her clients, it might be argued that neither is it his/her function to judge which of different sets of premises are legally salient and true.
Prof. Gannon –
It seems to me that so long as the courts and legislatures and religious teachers appeal to truths which can be known indeopendently of revelation that secular thinkers have no ground to object to the participation of those religious thinkers in secular matters. I find it frightening when secular fundamentalists object to such participation on the grounds that for some people the *origins* of those truths are clergypersons.
I suppose this issue also involves the issue that Cathy has raised: should it be morally permissible for one person to argue to one conclusion on the basis of *different* premises? Surely, when Rawls argues that murder is wrong on the basis of human judgment and Pat Robertson argues on the basis of Scripture that it is wrong we would not fault either of them. Why should it be wrong for a Catholic Aristotelian to argue on the basis of both Aristotle’s principle’s and Scripture?
Anpther possibility: Suppose I present two arguments for, say, using eminent domain to change the character of a particular neighborhood.. One of my arguments would be that the exercise of eminent domain would benefit everyone in the neighborhood. But suppose one of the premises in my second argument is morally reprehensible (if I argued, for instance, that the proposed law would eliminate the number of minorities in the new zoning configuration). I think that would be morally wrong..
In the enforcement of anti-discrimination law in Washington D.C., gay rights activists are not in the same position as the bishops are with respect to abortion. “Unborn” Children have the same Right to continue living their Life as “born” Children do based upon the fundamental Right to Life that has been endowed to each one of us by our Creator and is protected in our Constitution.
Marriage equality already exists since all Persons must meet the same standards to be Married. The Constitution does not provide for establishing a separate Personhood based upon sexual preferences.
There is an inherent, ordered nature in Marriage that can not be changed. For this reason, “Fathers and daughters are not demeaned, their equality is not rejected, their Love not denied, when they are barred from marrying one another.”-Hadley Arkes
Barring Fathers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons, children, same-sex couples, two men and one woman, one man and two woman, from marrying each other is not discrimination to begin with.
Concerning abortion, the category of “constitutional right” seems important. Cathy said above that pro-choice parties argue that “abortion is a constitutional right,” and therefore, I assume, not funding abortion along with other health services would be an unjust infringement upon a constitutional right. Now, Nancy also invokes the language of “rights” in her defense of the unborn. She argues, implicitly, that because a fetus is a person, he/she/it has the right to life which seems to be in direct competition with the right of his/her/its mother to abort. I imagine pro-choice people would want to argue either that a fetus is not a person and does not have the right to life, or that it is and does, but the “abortion right” trumps the “life right.” So, I guess the questions are: Is a fetus a person? If so, is there a hierarchy of rights in the constitution? If constitutional rights are non-hierarchical, do we have a constitutional contradiction, and does that undermine the legitimacy of the constitution? In light of these questions, the “life vs. choice” issue seems like a genuine dispute over the conditions of personhood and the interpretation of the constitution. This seems to become a “culture war” when the “form of dispute” finds each party unwilling to recognize the issues as genuinely disputed. Of course, the problem is that a decision has to be made, which forces a procedural and somewhat artificial end to the dispute, thus creating the resulting “culture war,” as the issue no longer appears disputed because one side has clearly been favored. In Roe, it was the pro-choice side, and the Stupak amendment seems to favor the pro-life side. So, maybe there is no way out…
A more general question would be: How far does the government have to go to ensure constitutionally enshrined rights? Is it just a question of making sure there are no barriers to their individual actualization, or should the government work to provide for their actualization?
I thought Rick’s response was entirely special pleading. Unimpressed.
Surely, when Rawls argues that murder is wrong on the basis of human judgment and Pat Robertson argues on the basis of Scripture that it is wrong we would not fault either of them.
Ann,
I think it makes a big difference where they argue. Arguments from scripture basically boil down to “God said so.” If lawmakers and judges accept an argument against murder based on “God said so,” why should they not accept an argument that pork is unclean because God said so? God’s very words are, “You shall not let a sorceress live” (NAB) or more colorfully, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (KJV). It is beyond dispute that God said witches should be executed. Should that argument be accepted in a secular society?
Arguments based on scripture in a secular society are acceptable only to the extent that what is being argued is already beyond dispute. “God said so” is not an acceptable argument in a legislature or a court of law.
Also, as I have noted elsewhere, the correct translation of the Fifth Commandment is, “You shall not murder.” Murder is, by definition, the wrongful killing of another human being. The Fifth Commandment does not establish that murder is wrong. It presupposes it.
Barring Fathers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons, children, same-sex couples, two men and one woman, one man and two woman, from marrying each other is not discrimination to begin with.
Many would have said that about the marriage of a man and woman, one of whom was white and one of whom was black.
Abraham was married to Sarah, who was his half sister. Was that wrong, and if so, why did God allow it? Why did God permit so many of the great men in the Old Testament to practice polygamy?
The arguments may be different on the merits–from a God’s eye point of view. But there is structural similarity from a human point of view. Both groups, when in the majority, are pushing a view that they hold to be right. Both groups, when in the minority, are claiming an exception based on another value explicitly recognized by the Constitution.
And that’s the whole challenge of living in a pluralistic society. Nancy can say what she wants–but there’s anti-Nancy who disagrees. So what do we do then? Just have a fight on the merits–suppose anti-Nancy wins?
Cathleen, then should I assume that you presume that Truth is merely a matter of opinion? Why then, would that not be relativism, to begin with? :-)
I’m presuming–no,noting there is actual disagreement about what IS the truth in a pluralistic society. What do you do with that?
Eric, according to our Founding Father’s, there is an inherent ordered heirachy of Rights. The Right to Liberty depends upon protecting our fundamental Right to Life, and the Pursuit of Happiness, depends upon protecting our Right to Life and Liberty. According to our Founding Fathers, “Governments are instituted by Men” to protect these fundamental Rights.
Nancy,
The key point is that there is nothing in the Constitution that says or implies an unborn child is a person. There is nothing we have from the Framers that indicates they had any intention of applying the right to life to a fetus. Since the Constitution is talking about legal persons, it is illegitimate for you to substitute your definition of “person” for the meaning intended by the Framers. Among those who believe Roe v Wade was wrongly decided, the vast majority believe the Constitution was stretched to cover something about which it was silent. They do not believe the Constitution either approves or disapproves of abortion. They believe it has nothing to say on the matter of abortion, which means the states can make their own decisions about it.
Citing the Founders or the Framers to try to bolster an anti-abortion argument makes no sense whatsoever and contributes nothing to the discussion.
David,, are you suggesting that our Life as a baby, toddler, teen, etc., is not the continuation of our Life as a fetus?
Actually, there is nothing in the Constitution that says or implies that an unborn child is not a person. The founders never addressed the issue one way or the other. The majority of the USSC justices in Roe based its decision not on an “enumerated” right set forth in black and white in the Constitution, but instead on what the justices said was a “penumbral” right, i.e., an unexpressed but implied right of privacy that was nowhere explicitly by the Founders. There are many pro-choice legal scholars who recognize the shaky constiutional underpinning for the Roe decision. Today, unborn children are not “persons” under the Constitution. That doesn’t mean the legal designation of “person” is written in stone and that it can’t change. Constitutional rights have both expanded and contracted in specific instances many times over the life of the Constiution, either by re-interpretation of the written language or by the enactment and adoption of amendments to the core document. Witness slaves, who were not persons in the eyes of the Founders; today it would be silly for anyone to try to even argue that slavery is constutionally protected. I don’t know when it will happen, but I have little doubt that “person” will eventually be extended to the unborn.
David Nickol –
Sorry, I did not make myself clear. I do not think that a court should accept a view BECAUSE it is found in Scripture, but neither should a view be excluded from a legal argument BECAUSE it is found in Scripture.
The origin of a view such as “murder is immoral” can be EITHER common human experience OR Scripture OR both. Because some theologians and others offer both sorts of evidence (both common experience and Scripture) their views are relevant in public discussions and court disputes.
“If money is fungible here, it is fungible everywhere–and why couldn’t it be used, with the same effect, to stop students taking Pell Grants to Catholic colleges”
I don’t think this analogy is as relevant as it could be. People on both sides of the culture war generally agree that using public funds to further education of the citizenry is a good thing. And that’s whether the money is used freely by the individual to attend a Catholic college or, say, to learn how to perform abortions as part of medical school training. On the contrary, the sides do not agree on using public funds for abortion, which more directly implicates the citizenry, so they use the democratic process (and blogs such as this) to make their case and order their lives. I really don’t see the big deal.
I agree with William that the personhood of fetus will likely become clear. But, of course, as he says, “legal personhood,” which is determined by democratic process, is always changing. So, while it remains disputed, there will be a genuine conflict between those who feel, from their “private” perspective that the personhood of a fetus is decided and the public status of the question as open. The problem is how to keep one’s “public” perspective open while not compromising one’s “private” perspective. This seems nearly impossible, given the gravity of the situation from the pro-life perspective, which involves nothing less than adopting a permissive public attitude toward unjust killing, and from the pro-choice perspective, which involves adopting a similar permissive attitude toward infringing upon one’s civil liberties. I don’t see how such a discussion could avoid at least a philosophical “war,” unless you can come up with some account of how to rank these competing constitutional rights (to “life” and to “liberty”). I guess the question is, if I believe that a fetus is a person and abortion is unjust killing, how do I keep an open mind toward one who says a fetus is not a person and thus, there is nothing to kill? I know you don’t like the analogy, Cathy, but this seems similar to asking the abolitionist to keep an open mind toward slavery while simultaneously believing privately that it is a grave injustice. I suppose you could stave off an overly violent social intervention, by encouraging one to trust the democratic process, but then you are saying that the democratic process trumps individual moral reasoning. Some of these dualistic choices cannot be avoided: democratic procedure vs. individual moral reasoning, life vs. liberty, person vs. non-person, and given that we have to make pragmatic and provisional judgments on which is to be prioritized in a given situation, it seems hard to avoid the “clash” between those for and against. I think we might be asking too much of people to avoid all “culture war” dualisms.
David,, are you suggesting that our Life as a baby, toddler, teen, etc., is not the continuation of our Life as a fetus?
Nancy,
I am suggesting nothing other than that the only remotely plausible argument against abortion based on the Constitution makes use of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), which the Founding Fathers had nothing to do with. The Founders and Framers are completely irrelevant to the issue of abortion.
Mark,
You seem to be saying inconsistency doesn’t bother you, as long as it’s the will of the people. If it is decided that school vouchers aren’t government aid to religion because the vouchers are given to parents, and the parents make the choice, and therefore it’s not government money, that’s okay. If it is decided that “insurance vouchers” are government funding to abortion, because the money goes to a woman, the woman makes a choice about what insurance she wants, but if her choice is insurance with abortion coverage, then that is government money paying for abortion and is impermissible, then that’s okay, too.
Why does government money in the form of school vouchers miraculously become private money once it is given to parents for education, but stubbornly remain government money when it is given to a woman who needs help to afford insurance? Because we all agree that education is good but many feel abortion is bad?
It seems to me it is not a government of laws when the exact same argument applied to two situations yields different outcomes.
Mr. Bugyis –
You seem to think that Philosophical war needs to be avoided more than anything. You also seem to think that because we *can* legally disagree that the problem of “what is the truth if the matter”? Os therefore insoluable in our system of law.
I must beg to differ. The system itself has certain epistemological presuppositions which are not spelled out in the Constitution, however the common law rules of evidence patently allow and do not allow sertain forms of inference (e.g., you cannot be foundcboth guilty and not guilty of murder in the first-degree. I have read onlybactiny bit about that great body of law, the rules of evidence of the common lae, but To me they are vastly more interesting philosophically than the Constitution itself as a system attempting to guarantee justice.
The system of evidence seems to presuppose both the rules of logic (the principle of non-contradiction holds, and you can’t have it both ways), pius recognizing that facts have causes, though we can never be sure that we can accurately discover those causes. These are philosophical inderpinnings which we de facto at least tacitly have agreed to. Further, there are many other philosophical principles embedded in tge rules of evidence, such as the acceptance of scientific method is ascertaining truth of contingent facts (e.g., Either A, B, or C murdered D. Neither A nor B did it, so C is the murderer).
I submit that reasoning which accepts logic and assumes the reality of a a world independent of human thought can legally at leastvattempt to discover what a person is and can discover how to know when we’ve found one.
David, is it true that since the time when you were an Embryo, there has been no switcharoo, you, have always been you, as in, the same Human Individual, a.k.a., Person?
“Why does government money in the form of school vouches miraculously become private money once it is given to parents for education, but stubbornly remain government money when it is given to a woman who needs help to afford insurance?” School vouchers are to be used to fund education, insurance vouchers are to be used to fund Health Care. Elective abortion is not Health Care, to begin with.
David, is it true that since the time when you were an Embryo, there has been no switcharoo, you, have always been you, as in, the same Human Individual, a.k.a., Person?
Nancy,
I have been discussing your ideas about the Founders and the Constitution. You are changing the subject. No matter what my answer, it will have no bearing on your previous arguments.
There is no switcharoo in going from an egg to a chicken, an acorn to an oak tree, or a caterpillar to a butterfly. However, an egg isn’t a chicken, an acorn isn’t an oak tree, and a caterpillar isn’t a butterfly. Just because thing A has the potential to grow into thing B, it does not mean that thing A is thing B. However, arguing about abortion for the umpteenth time is off topic in this thread, which is about the culture war. Until one or the other of us has an argument that is novel and relevant, to repeat old arguments here is just a distraction.
Elective abortion is not Health Care, to begin with.
That is a matter of opinion, but it has nothing to do with the argument that government money becomes private money when given to parents to spend on education, but government money remains government money when given to people to buy insurance.
David, you are not a chicken, nor are you an acorn, nor are you a butterfly- you are you, a Human Being, and that is the difference, to begin with.
I think the heart of Cathy’s thoughtful comments is the following sentence in her dotCommonweal post: “In my view, overcoming the culture war with regard to a particular issue has to mean seeing the question from the other side–attempting to see how someone who is reasonable could take the position that they take–even if it is wrong.”
Though the abortion issue is but one area of contention in the culture wars, it is a fractious and important issue, so I’ll venture one additional comment about it in the contxt of Gathy’s overall theme. Many pundits have said that abortion is, at its core, a hearts and mind issue. If that’s true, and I think it is true, then how will hearts and minds be changed if one side doesn’t attempt to see the issue from the other side’s perspective? This doesn’t mean compromising of beliefs, but it’s tougher to demonize an other if we at least try to understand what makes him or her tick on an important issue. There have been several common ground attempts by religious and secular organizations to bring pro-choice and pro-life advocates together for civil discussion. Even if tempers flare on occasion, and even if participants’ minds don’t change, there is often recognition that an opponent is not irrational, and that is a good result in and of itself in what would hopefully be further discussion.
I think most people can agree across the broader divide that abortion is regrettable. Polls vary to a degree in their numbers, but they consistently indicate that about 50% of all abortions in the U.S. are driven by economics. Attacking the economic cause of abortion would seem to be a place where both sides could find common ground, again with neither side compromising core beliefs about the issue. Each unborn child brought to post-partum status would be a victory each side could celebrate, albeit for different philosophical and/or moral reasons. I’ve always thought that passage of the Pregnant Women’s Support Act will go a long way in helping bridge some of the divide–I’m not naive enough to think that it would resolve the abortion issue in toto–but the PWSA seems to be languishing in this Congress, as it did in the two most recent Congressional sessions. On the PWSA at least, I hope the culture warriors on both sides of the abortion issue will decamp and work for the legislation’s passage.
“[A]n egg isn’t a chicken, an acorn isn’t an oak tree, and a caterpillar isn’t a butterfly. Just because thing A has the potential to grow into thing B, it does not mean that thing A is thing B.”
I respect you feel this way, David, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other rational ways to look at your statement. Under the natural law, an acorn and the oak tree that develops from it are of the same kind, as are a caterpillar and the butterfly that emerges from a chrysalis, and as are the fertilized egg that gives rise to the baby that then gives to the adult human. The adult form each in each of the examples has essentially been pre-packaged in the immature form, needing only the nutrients that all living things need in order to thrive. The fact that an acorn and an oak tree look different is irrelevant, just as it would be irrelevant as to the issue of human dignity, for example, whether a human was of one gender or another, or tall or short, or thin or fat, or disabled or unimpaired. I’m not trying to convince you that natural law is the correct way to look at the abortion issue, only that it is a rational alternative to the conclusion you’ve reached.
William,
Let’s end slavery not by making it illegal. Let’s reduce the incidence of slavery by working on the underlying economic reasons for it. With the country so evenly divided (circa 1862), this is certainly a common ground approach that everyone can agree with, though i guess the slaves and those who oppose slavery on absolute morals grounds might (just might mind you) consider this dicey common ground. Bottom line, we MUST see slavery from the point of view of the slavers! Above all, let’s not demonize the slavers. Slavery might be up for common ground, but let’s not ever demonize.
I have to say, I am baffled by the issue of “inconsistency” in the “money if fungible” argument.
It is exactly the same argument whether it deals with abortion funding or Pell Grants. The difference is that no one is making it about Pell Grants. If they did, I wouldn’t object to their position by saying money isn’t fungible, I’d just say they are wrong.
Let someone make the case the funds shouldn’t go to Catholic institutions on this ground fist, and then we can see whether the culture warriors are inconsistent. Otherwise it’s a straw man.
Ann,
I do not think that philosophical “war” ought to be avoided. In fact, I was trying to point out that the abortions issue is one that seems particularly hard to bring to a “ceasefire,” precisely because it cannot be settled legally. Of course, there are basic epistemic assumptions that drive legal reasoning, but my question, which I think lies at the heart of the abortion issue, has to do with the pre-legal definitions that get the whole thing going. One of those has to do with who is even recognized by the law. If you are not recognized as a “legal” person with “legal” rights, then the law doesn’t apply to you. So, it seems that the question of abortion, at least for those who think a fetus is a person, is a pre-legal question about recognition. Your suggestion that, within the law, empirical evidence can be marshaled to settle the issue seems to unduly favor scientific definitions of personhood, which don’t quite have the best track record. What scientific facts are going to define a person? DNA? Developmental capabilities? Intelligence? What level of intelligence? Etc… It seems to me that the very position that a combination of law and science can decide the issue encourages people to retrench in the abortion war because it short-circuits the communal process of discernment over who’s in and who’s out (and, more importantly, who’s a “who” and who’s a “what”). Law is a prudential science that determines what seems most reasonable for a polity at a particular time based on commonly agreed upon evidence. However, what counts as “reasonable” and “evidence” seems to change. For example, even for those opposed to slavery, the slave-owner’s position may have seemed quite “reasonable” and maybe even have been “supported” by certain kinds of “empirical” “evidence.” Was it science and law that changed the racist person’s mind, or was it something more fundamental? A shift in cultural zeitgeist motivated by passionate advocacy and empathy-building, inter-racial dialogue? It seems to me that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X must have looked like “culture warriors” to some, but that may be because legalese and science was not the grammar that would have advanced their causes. It seems to me that we are still trying to find the right genre in which to conduct the abortion discussion, but law and science (alone) don’t seem to cut it, and saying they do only seems to make the other side more frustrated. This is why I think Cathy makes a good point when she suggests that lawyers make particularly good culture warriors – too much epistemic certainty on either side means that neither sees any reason to talk to the other.
Eric–
As to the science, the first question is what scientific facts define a “human being.” The living offspring of human parents are human beings, including when the offspring are developing in utero. They are human because they have human DNA, and biologists would not classify them as anything other than homo sapiens. They exist; therefore, they are are beings. I happen to think personhood should attach to such human beings from the moment of conception simply because they are human beings and regardless of developmental stage, intelligence, etc. Others will disagree as to when the legal protection of personhood attaches, and there, of course, is the rub. Changing the hearts and minds of those who disagree with me will require advocacy (including political advocacy) and individual persuasion. I also realize that creating a paradigm shift on the issue of abortion will take time and, most disturbingly to me, the loss of more unborn lives, but the trench warfare approach of Eggloff will, IMO, cause even more alienation and will likely not reduce the number of abortions in and of itself. That is not to say pro-lifers should sit around and wait for the SC to do something, or that we shouldn’t work to put additional limits on abortion, but there’s a lot of grass roots work to be done before legislative majorities can be established in the Congress and in the 75% of states needed to eneact and ratify an amendment to the Constitution addressing the personhood of the unborn. Like Egglof, I’m also impatient for change, but the pro-life movement has to keep its eyes on the prize while it also works on short-term goals–e.g., passage of the PWSA–that will reduce abortions. Each and every decision by a mother not to abort is a victory, and, unlike Egglof, I’ll rejoice in them short term as part of a multi-pronged approach to the abortion issue.
It is exactly the same argument whether it deals with abortion funding or Pell Grants. The difference is that no one is making it about Pell Grants. If they did, I wouldn’t object to their position by saying money isn’t fungible, I’d just say they are wrong.
Sean,
But the argument has been made regarding school vouchers, and the Supreme Court held that giving tax dollars to parents who in turn use it for a religious education for their children did not violate separation of church and state. It is just giving parents more “choice.” So why can’t women who are given money to subsidize their purchase of insurance make a personal choice, and as a consequence, even if they choose a policy that covers abortion, why can’t it be considered a personal choice they make rather than being considered government funding of abortion?
Let’s end slavery not by making it illegal. Let’s reduce the incidence of slavery by working on the underlying economic reasons for it. . . . Bottom line, we MUST see slavery from the point of view of the slavers! Above all, let’s not demonize the slavers. Slavery might be up for common ground, but let’s not ever demonize.
Egloff,
This approach quite possibly would have worked had there not been the Civil War. I don’t believe it was Lincoln’s approach to demonize slave owners. Some of the people we revere most in the history of this country (for example, Thomas Jefferson) owned slaves. Slavery was a dying institution, and it would have been long gone by now had the Civil War never been fought.
Jesus not only did not demonize slave holders, but he cured someone’s slave without even hinting that slavery was wrong.
I respect you feel this way, David, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other rational ways to look at your statement.
William,
I think the principle I stated holds up well to scrutiny. That is, just because thing A has the potential to become thing B does not in any way imply thing A is thing B. In fact, if A has the potential to become B, it clearly implies A is not B. A child has the potential to become and adult, but a child is not an adult. My argument here is that establishing continuity from a fertilized egg to a fetus to a newborn baby to a child to an adult does not prove anything about the fertilized egg other than that it had the potential to become what it became.
It all boils down, of course, to what you mean by “person,” and the pro-life side will insist on using one definition and the pro-choice side will insist on using another.
A question occurred to me earlier today — kind of a crazy one — but I will raise it anyway. How do we know that cats, or dogs, or bears, or ants are not persons? If a flying saucer lands on earth and strange creatures come out, how do we know whether they are persons or, say, a herd of alien cattle the aliens are putting out to graze? Will it be absolutely impossible for a machine to be made that is intelligent and should be considered a person?
William – I think you and I are nearly in complete agreement. My one nuance would be to say that I understand the force of Eggloff’s point in that he/she (?) seems to want to suggest that at a certain point one has to admit that they cannot, in fact, inhabit another’s mindset. But, admiting that I honestly cannot see how a racist arrives at conclusions that do, indeed, seem utterly unreasonable (or non-reasonable?) does not mean I have to demonize the racist (suggesting they are less than human, or worse, evil). To demonize would be to turn the racist logic on the racist him/herself. We have to realize that people are finite reasoners and simply make mistakes, but that doesn’t not mean we simply must “tolerate” the misfiring actions of mistaken reasoning. At a certain point, we can say that the actions are grave enough, and the moral reasoning against them is sound enough to call for their restraint. This leads to the prudential questions of how best to call for such restraint, and the further question of what kind of restraint is required.
Cathy – This brings me to a question. I think there seem to be two kinds of “culture warrior.” One has a “warlike” mentality that demonizes the opponent and refuses dialogue because he/she sees the issue decided by claiming some priviledged epistemic highground (e.g. law, science, revelation). The other feels “privately” convicted by conscience, while not claiming to have won the case on the “public” merits, and seeks to convince others of the rightness of her position using tactics that may seem unduly violent. Now, of course, the warlike “mentality” will often lead to the warlike “practice,” but not always. It seems like some of the differences between MLK and Malcom X were over tactics, not necessarily mindset. Do you think both forms of cultural warfare are equally problematic, or do you want to isolate the “mindset” warrior as more troublesome?
I just want to add my support to Bill C.’s excellent appreciation of the question.
As I listened to NPR’s All Things Considered tonight, I was struck by the fact that according to their letters from listeners. most were put off by the bishop’s (especially JPII Bishops noted in Barbara Bradley Haggerty’s report of 12/3) involvement in law as coercive.
Part of the problem today around culture wars is that the polarization politically in society has reduced public discourse and dialogue which makes the listening Bill talks about a more difficult effort.
If important issues of culture are of the heart and mind though, that is the effort that needs be undertaken.
“Under the natural law, an acorn and the oak tree that develops from it are of the same kind, as are a caterpillar and the butterfly that emerges from a chrysalis, and as are the fertilized egg that gives rise to the baby that then gives to the adult human.”
Bill Collier –
Um, not exactly so. There are many versions of “natural law”. Aquinas’ version is one of the pre-eminent ones, and he did not think that the organism at the beginning of a human gestation process was the same kind of being as the organism at the end of the process. In other words, he thought that there were two different organisms at the beginning and end, and that those two organisms were not the same kind of things. Aquinas (and many other medievals) thought that there was a succession of substantial forms in the gestation process. Those forms are what makes a thing to be the fundamental kind of thing it is, in our case a rational animal.
The reasons why he thought this were metaphysical ones, and that is why many of us think that his arguments are still relevant today.
“So, it seems that the question of abortion, at least for those who think a fetus is a person, is a pre-legal question about recognition. Your suggestion that, within the law, empirical evidence can be marshaled to settle the issue seems to unduly favor scientific definitions of personhood, which don’t quite have the best track record.”
Eric -
I do not think that empirical data alone will settle the issue, and, yes, it’s the pre-legal assumptions that I’m concerned with. I think that implicit in common law procedures is a recognition that logic shall be used, and I also think that implicit in logic is the recognition of metapnysical principles, i.e., philosophical principles that can/must be used in arriving at sound conclusions.
It is music to my ears to hear you talk about the need to establish a definition of “person” — to discover what it is that distinguishes us from other animals, plus the need to establish criteria for recognizing one when we find one. (At least I think that’s what you’re talking about. Is it?) I’ve been preaching that on this blog for years! There is no way on earth that there will be a meeting of minds until there is a consensus about those questions and answers.
I also agree that science has gotten nowhere defining “person”. But I don’t think that science *alone* can do so. The solution must be a combination of metaphysical principles and empirical data, including data from the psychologists. (They and the neurobiologists, I think, will be the ones to answer the question: what evidence is there that the pre-born can think rationally?) Unfortunately, too many scientists think that empirical questions and answers are the only relevant ones.
The other big practical problem within the legal system is that the lawyers/justices need to recognize that our laws also have implicit within the system certain metaphysical assumptions which ground the system itself. These principles have to do especially with causality and the most fundamental principle of all: a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same respect.
I agree with practically everything you say. i do not agree with what you say about epistemic certainty, however. People’s generic confidence in experience isn’t bad — it’s our over-confidence in our own specific experience of the world, our interpretations of data that is often susceptible of different explanations. HOwever, I don’t think that problem is insuperable so long as we are open to correction by other people. I think you’re getting at that too.
So I really liked your post. Yours is a lonely position to take, I know, but I think it expresses some problems that are rarely addressed but desperately need to be: What is a person? and How do we know one when we find one?
David Nickol –
Your point at 7:03 pm is an excellent one. Thanks.
“A question occurred to me earlier today — kind of a crazy one — but I will raise it anyway. How do we know that cats, or dogs, or bears, or ants are not persons?
David N. –
The scholastic answer is: we know what a thing is (it’s essence) by *what it does*. (Though there are other hints.) For instance, we know that a thing is a vegetative reality when we observe that it eats, grows, reproduces. (What a vegetative thing is, is something that eats, grows, and reproduces.) We know what an animal is by its vegetative activities (see the last sentence) plus the evidence that it is a conscious being (some of its behavior is like our behavior when we are thinking and feeling about empirical realities — e.g., we yelp when someone steps on our foot). We know that a rational animal is rational when its behavior indicates that it too can choose, think abstractly, e.g., do geometry, etc.)
The medieval argument for the succession of substantial forms (also called “souls”) in a fetus is their justification for saying that the fetus is not a person until it can act in a specifically human way. This presents some problems, i think, because I don’t think the medievals had much if any evidence that the fetus at *any* stage could do rational activities. But the findings of the neurobiologist *do* indicate that the the site in the brain whose activity is correlated with abstract thinking does show activity in the pre=born. That site is the pre-frontal cortex. The evidence is not yet conclusive, I think, but we’ll see.
As to cats and dogs, if they have similar sites in their brains and there is activity there, then I guess we’ll just have to baptize them. But indications so far is that those animals lack analogous brain sites.
That’s a very rough presentation of a medieval argument. But a fascinating argument it is. if you want to know more see the William A, Shannon and Allan B. Wolter article in Theological Studies, “”Reflections on the Moral Status of the Pre-Embryo”, Dec. 1990. It’s primarily about metaphysical principles, not biological data. And see Joseph F. Donceel, “Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization”, Theol. Stud. March, 1970. Donceel presents a somewhat different argument.
David
That is an incorrect characterization. What the cases involving federal funds and the establishment clause say is not that the money doesn’t support religion at all, but that the primary purpose of the funds is not the support of religion. That’s not the same argument. I would accept that the primary purpose of federal funding of a health insurance plan that includes elective abortion is not the promotiuon of abortion.
I oppose any federal funding for abortion at all. Based on that position, the fungibility argument is sound. Those who oppose any state funding for religious institutions make the same argument. It was not this argument that was rejected by the courts. What the cases hold is that the establishment clause doesn’t require this level of absolute financial separation.
David -
You ask “So why can’t women who are given money to subsidize their purchase of insurance make a personal choice, and as a consequence, even if they choose a policy that covers abortion, why can’t it be considered a personal choice they make rather than being considered government funding of abortion?”
Again, this is comparing apples and oranges. The school choice case was a constitutional challenge. That is, whether the constitution prohibited the program. Voucher opponents are perfectly welcome to make their case politically and have the law changed.
So, the answer to your question is, of course they could be given money to make this choice. The constitution doesn’t prohibit it (at least as currently interpreted). I just don’t want it to be my money or other taxpayers who strongly oppose abortion’s money, and I support politcal action to keep it from happening.
There is nothing hypocritcal about that at all.
Thanks, Cathy, for the response. I have a post that tries to continue the conversation up at Mirror of Justice. (Sorry it took me almost a day. I don’t actually have nearly as much energy as you gave me credit for!) Take care, R
William,
I am not suggesting trench warfare. I am suggesting that prolifers should continue with their work and not listen to those who preach something other than that which has been so successful.
I urge you to actually get involved in teh prolife movement. I would guess that you are not and that neither are most people on this blog. If you were, you would know that it is broad and deep and there is something there for any taste. There are those who pray about it. Others who teach. Others who work on legislation; local, state, national and international: many very clever ideas have come out of local and state legislative efforts including going after planned parenthood leases. There are those who work with the women who are victims of abortion. Others who are such women who tell their tale. There are students who spend their summers walking across the country for the issue. There are students who plan and executive very clever stings against abortion clinics. There are those who staff pregnancy care centers which now serve roughly 2 million women a year.
The great glory of the prolife movement is that the issue is not only alive but it is continuously alive and vibrant. This issue was supposed to be settled years ago but its not. What you suggest, winning hearts and minds, is actually at the very heart of the movement. And the results are startling. More people now call themselves prolife than prochoice. Most Americans believe that most abortions should be illegal.
Jump in William. There is a place for you and the water is great!
I urge you to actually get involved in teh prolife movement. I would guess that you are not and that neither are most people on this blog.
Eggloff, I would guess that this is not a good guess.
Ann,
Thank you for your generous response. I think you read me correctly and that we are in agreement on the basics. I would add the further question to the debate, that Cathy and I have talked about on this blog, which is: Once we have determined that a fetus is a person, what obligations to we have toward such a person? I have heard pro-choice arguments that admit a fetus is a person, but that a mother does not have a legal obligation to support his/her/its life. This strikes me as a strange argument, given that we do say parents have an obligation to provide for their children, but Cathy has said that the case of the fetus must take into account the fact that the mother’s body is directly implicated in the life-support. This strikes me as yet another pre-legal or extra-legal concern, but it may be a question for another time.
There are those who work with the women who are victims of abortion.
Eggloff,
Here is one of the many places where “you guys” lose me. In how many other kinds of murder are the perpetrators also the victims? Abortionists don’t go looking for women. Women go looking for abortionists.
Once we have determined that a fetus is a person, what obligations to we have toward such a person?
Eric,
If there is an obligation to protect it’s life by preventing the mother from getting an abortion, is there not also an obligation to protect it from other threats by restricting what the pregnant woman can do? Society would not sit by and let a woman put vodka in her baby’s infant formula. Why should society not prevent pregnant women from drinking alcohol?
If “pre-born” children are to be given the same rights as “post-born” children, someone needs to take responsibility for them. Here in New York . . .
Why not extend this to “pre-born” children, and then we can all report pregnant women who we feel are not taking appropriate care of themselves to the proper authorities?
Sean,
The inconsistency would be claiming, on the one hand, that taxpayers’ money given to parents, who in turn spend it for a religious education for their children, is not government funding of religious education, but on the other hand, taxpayers’ dollars given to women to buy insurance coverage, if those women buy insurance that covers abortion, is government funding of abortion.
The American Bishops claim to support the Stupak Amendment because it applies the principle of the Hyde Amendment to the health care reform bill. But the Stupak Amendment goes much farther than the Hyde Amendment.
A big topic for sure, but I must start with what David said:
“Here is one of the many places where “you guys” lose me. In how many other kinds of murder are the perpetrators also the victims? Abortionists don’t go looking for women. Women go looking for abortionists.”
First of all David, we pro-lifers do not want to lose you; we need you and we welcome your help. What you say is partly true; some women “go looking” for an abortionist. Others are coerced into getting an abortion. Indeed, our society tends to steer women towards seeking an abortion. These are the things we pro-lifers try, on many levels, to change.
Secondly; abortionists in fact do go looking for women. Whether anyone likes it or not, and I do not mean to sound flippant, but the fact of the matter is that an abortionist makes his money by performing abortions. Abortionists are not Albert Schwietzers you know. From the abortionist’s standpoint then, it is a simple matter of business. The abortion industry is a key player in paying to loby Congress for federal funding of abortions. They certainly are not philanthropic and willing to perform them for gratis in perpetuity to all “in need”.
Third; of course women who have abortions are not literal perpetrators of murder. Women do not perform abortions on themselves; “doctors” do the murderous deed. For their part, women have been deceived by their boyfriend, by society, or sometimes even by their own families, that she is silly to have gotten pregnant in the first place (i.e. that this is all her fault), that and abortion is a trivial matter and that taking care of the matter, i.e., having some unscrupulous doctor unload the unwanted child into the trash, is her responisibility and is best for her, her friends and family and for society and finally, that there are no secondary effects whatsoever.
Imagine that I tell someone a monstrous lie; that I cajole them and shame them and pressure them and play on their worst fears, and to the natural selfishness that lies within all of us, and that I encourage them to do something that is profoundly wrong and terrible, and that they believe my lies and take my advice, and have the abortion.
Now this woman would go to the abortionist, who in turn murders her child. Afterwards she feels terrible and suffers from various emotional problems or even clinical depression, or even from serious physical problems. At that point I and society just tells there is nothing wrong, that she needs to just buck up and not worry about things; to be quiet about how she feels, and to just move on with her life.
Now obviously, the woman who has the abortion is no criminal or “perpetrator”. She might have been weak, incorrect, selfish, or foolishly naïve, but she is definitely a victim. The abortionist – with his medical training – knows full well what he is doing and is flat out guilty of murder. Both I and society know better and would be guilty of coercing her to submit herself to such a sinful outrage.
The woman who had the abortion suffers for the rest of her life from something that society convinced her to do, and after she has done it, everyone abandons her and says that if she does not feel good, that she is just being foolish and that in any case the whole thing was her fault. Indeed, it is after the abortion that society looses all interest in the women it so encouraged to have the abortion in the first place.
No – These women are not murderers and they definitely deserve better than this.
And again David, we need the help of folks as faithful and as articulate as you. You and everyone on this blog are always welcome in pro-life groups.
And I was only mentioned the physical world. What about her sould? What about the soul of the abortionists and his helpers?
If we know something horrid and murderous is happening and do nothing, certainlyw e must be culpable on some level. The old defenses “I did not know that was happening” or “I was tending my roses” have terrible precedence.
How many doctors, musicians, artists and mathematicians have we allowed to be slaughtered and tossed in the trash since the early 1970′s? I hear it comes to almost a million a year.
How long can this sort of thing continue without consequence?
Ann–
I’m no doubt doing nothing more than treading water in the deep end of the pool by having a give-and-take with a philosophy professor about Aquinas’s formulation of the natural law theory, but I was equating “differences in kind” with oak tree, butterfly, and human (i.e., in kind = species distinct), not with the different stages of development within a particular species. I’m by far no expert on Thomistic philosophy, but my understanding of Aquinas’s natural law formulation is that developmental stages are irrelevant as to whether a natural law prescription or proscription attaches to a human being. If the intentional killing of an adult human is wrong, then the intentional killing of an unborn human is also wrong (setting aside exceptions such as double effect).
If I’m wrong about this conclusion, then feel free, if you are so inclined, to continue educating me either in public or offline. :) :)
Ken,
I don’t believe it takes any complex moral analysis to come to the conclusion — if abortion is indeed the unust taking of a human life, which is to say, murder — that a woman who decides to have her unborn child murdered, makes an appointment with an abortionist/murderer, shows up for the appointment, and cooperates fully with the abortionist/murderer is just as guilty of murdering her child as the abortionist. (If not more so.)
Imagine a scenario in which a doctor advertises that he will euthanize children of any age. Would a mother who engaged his services, delivered the children, and stood by while he gave them legal injections not be as guilty as the doctor?
I am 100 percent with you if a woman is truly coerced into having an abortion. It should never happen. Let’s put those cases aside. Of course, almost any woman who seeks out an abortion is going to be doing so under some kind of stress, and perhaps even severe or unbearable stress. This will diminish her culpability, perhaps even to the point of zero, but it will not render her innocent of having committed an objectively serious offense — murder.
Not infrequently when we find out in detail why a “real” (non-abortion) murder took place, we find one of two things (sometimes both together). The guilty person had a miserable childhood and suffered terrible abuse (we say, “They never had a chance”), or the guilty person was under tremendous emotional stress and “snapped.” When those people commit murder, they are still murderers. Their personal situations may or may not (more likely not) be taken into consideration when they are sentenced, but it would be extraordinarily rare for a person who was driven to commit murder to be acquitted because of such things. You and a great many in the pro-life movement who claim that abortion is murder, don’t merely advocation taking into account the motivations that led a woman to obtain an abortion. You simply want to absolve them all (unlike the Church) with a general argument.
I once knew someone who told me one of his nieces had just had her fifth abortion and “just didn’t care.” According to the Guttmacher Institute, “Each year, about two percent of women aged 15-44 have an abortion; 47% of them have had at least one previous abortion.” I don’t doubt that some of what you say is true, but the incidence of repeat abortions would indicate that at least some women who have had abortions are not so scarred and guilty that they don’t willingly go back for a second or third time.
I am not the first one to observe this, but maintaining that all women who have abortions are coerced or duped is extremely patronizing to women. For those who claim abortion is murder, to absolve all women of culpability because they are too weak to say no or too ignorant to understand the gravity of what they are doing is to relegate women to a morally inferior class who aren’t responsible for their own decisions.
You seem very nice, so I hope that didn’t sound like too much of a tirade! It just does seem to me that absolving women of responsibility for abortion is wrongheaded, and of course the Catholic Church does not hesitate to automatically excommunicate women who procure abortions, so it seems to me rather un-Catholic for the pro-life movement to portray them as victims.
Mollie,
I would love to hear that everyone on this blog is actively working to save the unborn child from abortion (working on a higher minimum wage does not count). I will take the bait. What are you doing? What are others here doing?
David,
Stupack does not go further than Hyde. They both do the same thing. Abortion proponents say Stupack goes further by not allowing women to buy abortion insurance WITH THEIR OWN MONEY. This is simply false. Also, why the sneer quotes around pre-born?
Ken,
The prolife movement is huge! There is even room for those who, like you? or you just being fun?, think that women should be jailed. Most prolifers do not hold that, believing women who have abortions are also victims. But, if this is what you want, Ken, have at it!
Also, why the sneer quotes around pre-born?
Eggloff,
Because the concept of “pre-born children” is an invention of some in the “pro-life” movement for propaganda purposes (just like the term “pro-life” itself).
David,
Pre-born or unborn children are not really concepts are they?
Also, David, the problem in all situations of human rights vioaltions is to counter the inevitable and necessary dehumanization process of the victim. Perhaps it is medically more accurate to call the unborn child fetus, but that makes it all the more easy to kill her. It may be propaganda, but its the good kind!
David,
Your questions are well-taken. Determining personhood is only the tip of the iceberg. The question of obligations, especially when those obligations directly infringe upon the freedoms of another, is always sticky. But, we do make choices. Parents are obligated to feed their children, but are they obligated to pay for their college tuition? I say the debate about obligations is extra-legal, however, because it seems that we can say we have all kinds of moral obligations to others that cannot be enshrined in law. For example, we seem to be agreed that illegal immigrants are persons, but we often seem pretty fuzzy about our legal obligations toward them, though morally, of course, one would expect the same obligations (e.g. feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, treating the sick, etc.) to apply. I am open to saying that a fetus is a person to whom we have a moral, but not a legal, obligation. Though, I’m conflicted.
Also, goods for the fetus are *usually* goods for the mother as well. I imagine its a good idea *for the mother* to eat well and not drink while pregnant. Now, should someone be put in jail for gluttony? No. But, is gluttony a sin? So, some moral obligations, both to oneself and others, are going to be outside the purview of civil law (or, as Obama said, “above his pay-grade”), but some are within that purview, and the challenge is to decide which is which. To bring back another fraught analogy, determining the “personhood” of slaves didn’t yet determine the legally enshrined and socially practiced rights and obligations toward them – that’s what the civil rights movement was/is all about. So determining personhood doesn’t decide the issue, but it is the first step. The next step asks: is the fetus a person like me, worthy the same rights and obligations, or different than me, worthy of different rights and obligations? If the fetus is different, what are the rights and obligations that apply?
Eggloff, it wasn’t bait; it was a warning. It seems to me you can either advertise the breadth and inclusivity of the prolife movement or assume that people are insufficiently committed because they object to particular tactics. But either way, you’re not in a position to guess how, or whether, “most people on this blog” are contributing to prolife efforts. Stick to the topic.
David
You say, “The inconsistency would be claiming, on the one hand, that taxpayers’ money given to parents, who in turn spend it for a religious education for their children, is not government funding of religious education” And that would be true if that was the argument, but it’s not. What the case held was that it was not a government endorsement of religion. A very different thing. On the endorsement issue it is very important that the parents made an intervening choice.
In all these establishment cases where there is state funding that goes to a religious institution, the defenders never ever claim that the funds don’t benefit the institution at all. The question is whether the funds primarily serve a secular purpose (note not solely a secular purpose) and the spending doesn’t otherwise constitute an endorsement of religion.
As I said, I think setting up this functional equivalency is simply straw man.
Eggloff – Please re-read my post. I was not talking about jailing women. Believe me; I understand how one makes mistakes reading these blog thread; I just do not want your erroneous comment to leave the wrong impression.
And while you are correct David, about women who have abortions and those who help them obtain abortions automatically ex-communicate themselves, it is important to also remember that God is forgiving and that the Church welcomes these folks back into the fold whenever they repent and ask forgiveness. In fact these folks i.e., repentant post-abortive women, former abortionists and their helpers are a great help to the pro-life movement and are very welcome. Just look at Project Rachel and the Silent no More folks.
As for victims, women who have repeat abortions are especially difficult, and the sadness of their situations is stunning. We should not point fingers. We as a society, along with their ignorant families have failed to inculcate in them even the most basic values of self worth and the dignity of Man. They have no idea they were created in God’s image or that which they carry in their womb is so precious. The ignorance and vapidity with which society and their families have left these women is, in and of itself, a crime.
Eggloff is correct that the pro-life movement is large, and while it has been mentioned in the past, it bears noting again here. In addition to prayers and fasting and protesting (all hugely important), part of our Christian duty towards women in these sorts of difficult situations is – regardless of our personal opinions – to provide material assistance. Call it practical Christianity or anything you like, but God says are to help and be forgiving. It was Saint James a thousand years ago or so in Spain who pointed out that in addition to other Christian duties caring for those in need is another part of our Christian responsibility. It does a man no good if I tell him “I will pray for your brother”, but his stomach is empty and he has no coat or roof over his head.
Yes the pro-life movement is large, but it must of necessity be multi-faceted:
-Some are good at listening to women tell their post-abortive stories
-Some are good at prayer chains
-Some are good at praying in front of abortion mills
-Some are medical folks and can talk to the abortionists
-Some can organize food pantries
-Some can organize day car centres
-Tradesmen can repair houses and cars for these women to borrow or keep if necessary
-Business and financial types can help raise money and set up foundations to help pay for medical costs, schooling, and the like.
-Some can organize clothing drives
-Some speak languages other than English and can help counsel these women
All in the pro-life movement should start with prayer, and from there, each can help in their own way according to their God-given talent or ability. Nobody can do everything, but we can all do something. We can all pray and we can all go to mass and we can all vote, and regarding this horrid crime and those so snared by the devil, we can all be kind and decent, in both word and deed.
We should all be saying the rosary or course, and regarding abortion, since it is such an evil, I still like the Saint Michael Prayer: “Saint Michael the Archangel defend us in battle. Be our protection and safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”
Mollie,
The reason that i am in a position to guess whether folks on this blog, by that i mean Commonweal types (yes there is a type), would not be involved in pro-life is from my vast, broad, long and deep experience in the pro-life movement.
No matter what part of the movement you are talking about — and I know all parts of it very well — Commonweal types are mostly not involved. They do peace and justice, certainly, but not pro-life, not defense of the unborn child from abortion.
I assume there are more, but the only one i know is Tom Loome of Loome Booksellers (and a Catholic Worker House) who runs both a homeless shelter and a home for unwed mothers. I asked Tom, are there many more of you (meaning peace and justice types who also work on prolife) and he said, “Not that i know of.”
Sadly, that is one of the things that is missing from the pro-life movement. It would be better if this was not the case. In terms of tactics, as i said earlier, there are tactics for everyone, you included Mollie!
Best,
Eggloff
Oops – How could I make such a typo! Should be
“May God rebuke him we humbly pray, andnd do thou – oh prince of the heavenly host – by the poer of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”
Eggloff, if that’s your best, please keep it. Anyone else have a comment on Cathy’s post?
Perhaps it is medically more accurate to call the unborn child fetus . . . .
Egloff,
I have no problem with “unborn child.” It’s “pre-born child” that I object to as propaganda.
Eggloff,
It seems to me everyone has a right to choose his or her own way to try to make the world a better place. Working against abortion is not the only worthwhile cause, although you seem to be implying that it is. Someone who is passionate about animal welfare and devotes all of his or her time to it is just as worthy, in my opinion, as someone who devotes him/herself to trying to help women with crisis pregnancies. If we are all supposed to drop everything and devote ourselves to the anti-abortion cause, who is going to look after runaway teenagers, or help feed the homeless, or take care of the sick, or work to preserve the environment?
It is this “you’re not doing enough for my cause” mentality that drives me away from the “pro-life” movement. If Saint Damien of Molokai were alive today, would you expect him to leave the leper colony to come work in the pro-life movement? Are we all supposed to provide you a list of the causes we work for so you can decide who is worthy and who is not? It is only within the pro-life movement that you find people who believe that everyone else must be active in their cause.
I am wondering what you hope to accomplish by communicating here with (and denigrating) “Commonweal types”?
And who says that peace and justice are not “pro-life” in what one hopes is the true meaning of the word? Is everyone supposed to save the unborn so they can enter into a world of war and injustice? The Declaration on Procured Abortion says,
That’s not going to happen just by trying to make sure women can’t get abortions.
“Sadly, that [Commonweal types] is one of the things that is missing from the pro-life movement. It would be better if this was not the case. “
Egg—
I wonder if that may change going forward. I imagine many people who think themselves pro-life, yet who did not vote pro-life in the last election, will want to look for ways “make up” for their vote by working in the pro-life movement at the grass roots level. Hope so. Time will tell.
You are correct David, there are various ways to help the pro-life cause. I tried to say something similar. However as Americans, we all vote, and we should at the very least try to vote for the pro-life person.
Lets us say for example, that I work to help poor children with dental problems. That is fine and good cause. However if every day I pass by an abortion clinic that is next door to the destist’s office, all Catholics and other pro-life types would sure appreciate it if I could pray a bit as I pass by. I must realize too, that while providing dental services to children after they are born is very good and necessary, that praying that all children be allowed to be born in the first place is also very important.
It is no secret that the family is the foundation of society. That we as a society apparently have so little respect for ourselves and for our families (and for each other or the Commonweal, so to speak) that we would allow and in some case encourage laws that permit Americans citizens to kill their children if they like, is an astounding national shame. All of us Americans must try to undestand that we humans are not God, and that we do not get to decide who shall be born and who shall not; who will live and who will die. In short, we Americans should try not to be so arrogant.
That having been said, for almost a hundred years (1776 until 1865), the USA permitted and in some ways accommodated slavery, an abomination on par with abortion in how society de-valued the people involved (did not consdier them fully human) and consequently de-based themselves as well. It is worth keeping in mind then, that patience is a virtue and our time is not like God’s time. If it took us almost 100 years to end slavery in this nation, and another 100 years to end segregation, it only stands to reason it will take time to end abortion.
The growing issue with abortion is that each year – as more and more Americans involve themselves either by having an abortion of paying for one – the issue becomes more and more difficult to mention. The people who have had one of encoraged someone to have one become very emotional, mainly because deep down they know they helped kill a baby. Something similar was true of slave holders. Many were decent enough folks who thought they had the right to own another person, mainly because they did not consider Blacks to be fully human; they certainly did not think them entitled to be free or have lives of their own. In any case these fine Christian slave holders were quite offended by the Abolitionists who noted how terrible was the slave holders’ rather routine practice of slavery. It was settled law after all, and these folks (the slave holders) has rights.
And so we have only been at this since 1973; some 36 years. If our past track record on such basic civil rights issues is any indication, we have a long way to go. Thank goodness Gad is patient!
We each contribute in accordance with the gifts God gave us.
All of us Americans must try to undestand that we humans are not God, and that we do not get to decide who shall be born and who shall not; who will live and who will die. In short, we Americans should try not to be so arrogant.
I find this more than a little puzzling.
Is the arrogance among those who decide every child should be born? If so, what are you doing to overcome that arrogance?
Or is the arrogance among those who are unwilling to give birth to the child within them? If so, what are you doing to overcome that arrogance?
Where are you in terms of arrogance? Is everyone arrogant but those who agree with you? Do you offer yourself as an example of humility? What does humility look like in this discussion?
Jim McK,
Aren’t you going after somebody who’s on your side?
Jim McK, please pardon the following format, but I think it best if I answer your questions one at a time.
Jim McK – Is the arrogance among those who decide every child should be born? If so, what are you doing to overcome that arrogance?
Ken – No, the arrogance I mention is that which say that I as a human, would try to think that I (Ken) have the right to say which child should not be born.
Jim McK – Or is the arrogance among those who are unwilling to give birth to the child within them? If so, what are you doing to overcome that arrogance?
Ken – The arrogance to which I refer is that which says that we humans will decide, after a child is conceived, which children we will allow to be born (i.e. to live) and which children we will killed. That seems clear enough
Jim McK – Where are you in terms of arrogance? Is everyone arrogant but those who agree with you? Do you offer yourself as an example of humility? What does humility look like in this discussion?
Ken – Ah yes, here you make a very good point, especially considering that we are now in Advent. I am arrogant in many ways, certainly. It is one of many thing I try to work on. I do not consider those who disagree with me to be any more arrogant than I am however, and I certainly do not (and would not) offer myself as any decent example of humility (are you kidding?). No, I am just a flawed person who struggles to find my way, and I thank God every day for having been born Catholic, and rasied Catholic. To be sure, we Catholics do not get a free pass, but frankly, without the gift of Catholicism, given my personality, mindset and other tendencies, I probably would not have a chance – just ask my wife!
;-)
As for humility is this discussion of “Conscience, Culture War, and Lawyers”; I would have to read back through the blog-thread. Off hand though, regarding this discussion thread, I have not noticed a haughtiness that is any more extreme than I would expect. Actually when I think about it, folks (on this blog), with very few exceptions, have been rather polite.
The upshot is that I am not sure I understand where you are coming from.
Jim McK – Or is the arrogance among those who are unwilling to give birth to the child within them? If so, what are you doing to overcome that arrogance?
I apologize Jim; I did not answer part of your question. What am I doing to overcome this sort of arrogance?
I am not doing enough; that is for sure. None of us pro-lifer are. Still, the sort of arrogance that says “I am master of my universe and I have the right to do with my body whatever I please” is a tough one; especially when it comes from women.
I will never have a baby and so cannot understand that dynamic. However I do value human dignity and think those who choose to have an abortions fall into several categories:
- Those who have been forced into it
- Those who, for lack of a better word, simply drifted toward it
- Those who stridently call for their right to have an abortion
Much could be written on each of these three categories; more than space on this discussion thread allows.
As for my personal efforts; I say a few short prayers each for this (not enough) and I try to charitably speak my mind when the subject of abortion arises.
On a practical level, I am an electrician, and help with fixing electric things having to do with projects sponsored by the Knight of Columbus. The KCs give some monies (not a lot, but some) for temporary housing and other assistance for some of these women. Our parish is not large and our projects are small, but I think they are worthwhile. Each year around Halloween, some of us KC guys stand around outside various stores, wearing yellow vests and handing out Tootsie rolls to help raise money for the mentally retarded. I am a member of KC, and we have various little projects during the year that raise money. We send it to our national office, which in turn pools the money from various local KC chapters and buys ultra-sound machines for clinics. If a woman sees that which she is about to have removed from her womb and discarded is a living being, she is less likely to consent to the abortion. Also, we raise money so young adults who qualify can get a grant for college or trade school. The business and financial guys in our group handle the dinero and scholarship stuff, the sales and military types are always good at organizing the projects and dinners, and if our local priests want something done around the parish, the tradesmen and craftsmen in our group always try to help.
On a personal level, when a friend of ours daughter recently became pregnant out-of wedlock, instead of be a sour scold or looking at her so as to make her feel bad, my wife advised (and I agreed) that we would do better to simply congratulate our friend on her first grandchild, and her daughter on becoming a mom. Now this family is not poverty stricken, but are very much in the lower middle class, and given current economy, my wife dug up our son’s old high chair and crib and loaned to her, and long with some baby clothes, towels, etc.
Of course it was a mistake for her to go to bed with her boyfriend before they were married, and of course they are both too young and irresponsible; that much is obvious. However but the reality was the baby was on his way and rather than moan about it all and make the expectant mom feel that she was a burden etc., it is better and more fun to be happy and try to help. She now has a darling baby boy named Angelo, with a big smile and healthy as a (little) horse. My wife – a far better “Catolica” than I am – of course was correct.
My wife routinely prays the rosary and always reminds me to do so as well; sometimes I actually do what she says :- )
I need to make clear that this (described above) is only part-time stuff; I do not want to leave the wrong impression. While the KCs do good work, I do not spend enough time on it. Other KC guys are far more active than I am. At this point in my life, I like to just help out with small things – less responsibility that way I guess. Like I said earlier, everyone contributes according to what God gave them.
David,
I am not going after anyone. I am trying to understand the issue of arrogance that Ken raised, which makes no sense to me. I hear it as “We must stop all this choosing going on around here.”
Ken,
You seem like a very nice guy. I see a danger that you and William Collier (another very nice person) will give the pro-life movement a good name. :-P
Ken,
My apologies if it seemed like I was going after you. I find much “arrogance” and self-righteousness among pro-life people, so I was just surprised by your mention of arrogance. Thank you for treating my questions as honest questions, and not as an attack; that is how I intended them.
Every child should be welcomed as a gift from God, so I am pleased that you responded so positively when given that opportunity. Supporting women is at the core of my interest in the subject of abortion.
I still do not know why it is arrogant to choose whether to have a child, and not arrogant to declare that no one should have a choice in the matter. For many, choice is key to the discussion, so that is a topic that could probably be explored fruitfully by those committed to life. Yet I rarely see that kind of consideration. I think it is a serious problem.
Thanks for the compliment David and likewise; I enjoy chatting with you and other around this blog. I learn a lot.