The Moral High Ground And Getting Dirty: Further Reflections on Abortion
This blog seems under sustained attack, largely but not exclusively by Republican-leaning Catholics because some, but by no means all, of us favor focusing primarily on the non-legal route to end the scourge of abortion in the United States. For the Republican-leaners, the challenge is obvious: the whole house of cards they set up is predicated on the notion that the Republicans can somehow deliver on the abortion front. The others have no partisan dog in the fight, and are rather motivated what what they regard as moral theological purity, the idea that a non-legal strategy entails cooperating with the evil of abortion. Any compromise on abortion is akin to compromise with murder, with genocide.. take your pick. And while this position may lead to unburdened consciences, it does absolutely nothing to tackle a culture where abortion is rampant. It is akin to sitting on the sidelines, while denigrating those who would step into the mud.
Let us consider the state of affairs for a minute. The “ivory tower” approach argues that since abortion is murder, then it should be punished as (pre-meditated) murder. If you don’t accept that, or if you are willing to engage people who believe it is a valid “choice”, then you are a moral reprobate. Except that this standard is patent nonsense. Hardly anywhere in history when abortion was illegal was it treated with the gravity of homicide in the penal code. And this is for good reason: even though abortion is always intrinsically evil, the moral culpability of the woman making this choice might be greatly diminished. There is a key distinction to be made that often gets glossed over: there is a difference between abstaining from punishment, and declaring something to be a “right” that is opposed to the natural law. The former can be licit, the latter not. So clearly, the positive law does not have to treat abortion as akin to pre-meditated murder, even if the moral gravity is the same.
At the same time, there are those in society, perhaps a majority, who go much further and argue that abortion is a “right”. This cannot be accepted. So how do Catholics deal with this? Some claim that the source of the “right” is a certain Supreme Court decision, and this decision should be overturned. Game over. But not so. The largest states, states that account for the majority of abortions, would retain the legal framework intact— this, combined with ease of travel, makes me think that abortion rates would not change very much upon reversal. But what happens next? It is simply too easy to assert that society must simply criminalize every incidence of abortion, and that’s that. It’s just not going to happen. The barest hint of such legislation would muster the mother-of-all pro-choice backlashes. And what about legislation that falls short of the standard, by, for example, criminalizing some but not all abortions, or by criminalizing it, but with far less severity than murder? These are messy issues that are avoided by a rigid above-the-fray approach that ignores the “here and now” of our society.
I think the answer is to engage the culture, to get one’s hands dirty. Promoting the gospel of life in the real world can be a messy business. Christ never promised otherwise. Christians are called to lead by example. Jesus himself socialized with some of the worst sinners in his society. His fellow Pharisees took him to task for it, but he did it. Staying above the fray is simply not an option.
Look at some of the facts pertaining to abortion. A full 57% of women opting for abortion are economically disadvantaged. In fact, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women). And when asked to give reasons for abortion, three-quarters of women say that cannot afford a child. At the same time, black women are almost four times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are two and a half life times as likely. Almost half of women terminating their pregnancies have had previous abortions, and 60 percent of abortions are concentrated among women who already have children.
So what should we do? Should we stand firm and insist on criminalization? Or should we recognize that a combination of economic and cultural factors lead women to choose abortion too readily? Should we not be trying to change the culture, to promote stable families? Should we not be trying to promote just economic policies that allow the fruits of material success to be better shared? Adopting this latter approach may sometimes mean making common ground with those who do not believe that abortion is always and everywhere wrong. It really angers me when the naysayers claim that that is somehow akin to betraying Christ, to selling out one’s Catholic principles. We are motivated solely by the desire to end abortion, through the most effective means possible, with the firm belief that the “legal strategy” will do next-to-nothing to end abortion. After all, what impact have supposed “pro-life presidents” had on abortion rates? And experience suggests that we will be taken seriously by the pro-choice side, and by the culture at large, when we promote a consistent ethic of life. Again, what matters is persuasion, and we can only do this by example.
Let me anticipate a few objections to what I write. Could this not be consequentialism, making moral judgments based solely on the consequences? No. It does not entail choosing evil in order that good may come of it. I’m talking principally about engaging the culture, promoting just economic policies. These are virtuous endeavors in themselves. Sometimes, it entails voting for a person who is formally cooperating with evil. But a basic principle of moral theology is that an act leading to foreseeable but unintended evil consequences can be permitted if the act is not evil itself, and if the good is proportionate to the evil effects. In these situations, it is imperative to take consequences into account. That is why I appeal to statistics.
As I said, this approach may mean forming alliances with people who support abortion. But since when are we called on to withdraw from all the evils in the world? To pursue peace, sometimes we are called upon to deal with some of the worst tyrants and monsters in the world. The alternative is far worse. Again, proportional considerations.
Others have noted that I often compare abortion and torture, two intrinsically evil acts, and ask if I would be willing to support a non-legal solution to torture. Again, this is a false comparison. If we had a situation whereby the “private right to torture” was grounded in positive law, and supported by a majority, then it would be licit (while never supporting torture) to seek alternative ways to limit its damage. But this is fantasy. In reality, the “right” to torture is the “right” of the government to torture. The government is the acting moral agent. There can be no solution that does not remove this “right”. The same is simply not true with abortion.
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The reason legal protection, culture, and family structure matter most is because these are the most direct and enduring impact upon sexual behavior.
The root cause, for example, of the high rate among Black and Hispanic women – and of poverty and lagging educational achievement as well – is the near-total breakdown of the married, committed family.
I would like to submit, as I did in an earlier comment, that, insofar as the Catholic pro-life movement [with respect to abortion, I realize "pro-life" can mean more than this] has been inspired by the Church’s social magisterium (Casti Connubbii, Humanae Vitae, Gaudium et Spes, Evangelium Vitae, etc,) it has been primarly a movement against the legalization and legitimization of abortion. The imperitive to do all we can to end abortion as such has always and will always be with us. The reason the abovementioned documents raised the alarm against abortion was because of certian new and dangerous political and societal developments, chief amongst these being the legistlation and legitimization of murder. To say we should give up the legal fight would be a capitulation the the very dangerous forces that have provoked the Church’s collective conscience and led to the development of Catholic social doctrine. It would be at least a profound loss of courage and at worst a betrayal.
Why has the married committed family broken down?
Because of the “culture” in these communities?
What does that mean?
Bad values?
What does that mean?
You insistently separate “culture and family structure” from the political and economic history of these communities.
Why? Ideas and material practices are inseparable.
No one doubts that broken families are a problem. Do you think you solve it by telling people that?
Don’t you think there are “cultural” meanings embedded in the fact of being poor, of feeling hungry, of feeling outcast?
To simply posit that Black and Hispanics suffer from degraded “cultures,” as if that were a virus, doesn’t make sense. Unless you are looking for a way to insult those communities with abstract names — you might as well say Blacks and Hispanics are “bad.” In fact, that is what you’re saying.
there are those in society, perhaps a majority, who go much further and argue that abortion is a “right”. This cannot be accepted. So how do Catholics deal with this? Some claim that the source of the “right” is a certain Supreme Court decision, and this decision should be overturned. Game over. But not so. The largest states, states that account for the majority of abortions, would retain the legal framework intact— this, combined with ease of travel, makes me think that abortion rates would not change very much upon reversal.
This is a non sequitur. If having abortion declared a right is really unacceptable, then getting rid of Roe is going to be a necessary part of any pro-life strategy, regardless of whether it would have any effect on the abortion rate.
“to the”…not “the the”
Br Matthew –
Abortion was legitimized as an option long before it was legalized. The legalization was itself a capitulation to the fact that it was already legitimized. And the legitimization will persist long after it is once again made illegal.
The reason legal protection, culture, and family structure matter most is because these are the most direct and enduring impact upon sexual behavior.
Legal protection is not as forceful an influence on sexual behavior as you seem to imply. Your raw assertion seems to discount the fact that legal and political structures, while essential to the operations of the state, are shaped by more fundamental human and social realities such as ethics, commerce, and family. While there is some “trickled-down” effect from the secondary levels of politics and civil law, the main thrust of influential is always from the bottom.
The root cause, for example, of the high rate among Black and Hispanic women – and of poverty and lagging educational achievement as well – is the near-total breakdown of the married, committed family.
Are you saying that the breakdown of the married, committed family 1) is the “root cause” of poverty and lagging educational achievement; 2) is characteristic of black and Hispanic peoples in the U.S.? If so, this is a ridiculous assertion. Poverty and poor education (civic and moral), each radically circumscribing the other, tend to be the prime cause behind the breakdown of the family among all socio-racial groups, including white Americans. It is an extrinsic, not intrinsic, force.
I challenge MM to write the same post replacing “abortion” with “firearm ownership”, a thing he desperately wants to criminalize for “the greater good”. Why the hold up with abortion MM?
It’s also interesting that the people he desperately wants to put into office are the ones who fully support, and are beholden to groups like Planned Parenthood, who purposefully target the poor and minorities that MM is so caring of. Your statistics do not represent causation.
Legal protection is not as forceful an influence on sexual behavior as you seem to imply.
I would submit significant legal restrictions or outright bans (as we would see in about half the states should Roe be overturned) would impact sexual behavior much more than any effort of economic redistribution or change to tax structure.
And why is it outrageous to state that high out of wedlock births for all three major U.S. ethnic categories (roughly one-third, half, and two-thirds among white, Hispanic, and black respectively) correspond highly with educational and criminal trouble?
Are you saying that the breakdown of the married, committed family 1) is the “root cause” of poverty and lagging educational achievement;
Yes. For all peoples.
2) is characteristic of black and Hispanic peoples in the U.S.?
No, this was not my claim. It is tragically high among those two groups, and this is a greater cause than more cited reasons such as institutional racism or economic structure.
Poverty and poor education (civic and moral), each radically circumscribing the other, tend to be the prime cause behind the breakdown of the family among all socio-racial groups,
Then this is the root of our disagreement. I believe it is the other way around.
Evangelium Vitae is really quite clear on the point that Catholics have a grave obligation to oppose the legality of abortion and euthenasia:
“Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.”
Full disclosure: I am a Democratic-leaning Catholic for whom Bernardin’s consistent ethic of life represents a core conviction.
I find myself overwhelmingly supportive of the thrust of MM’s essay. I think he makes an entirely defensible yet sophisticated distinctions that in no way equivocate on the moral judgment our tradition renders on abortion and yet advocates practical, achievable steps to diminish the number of abortions. I think those who dismiss this essay out of hand would do well to consult the voluminous literature on the unintended consequences of interventions. Highly restrictive legislation enacted without broad consensus could indeed sway the center strongly in the prochoice direction. The ‘mother-of-all pro-choice backlashes’ indeed.
That said, I’d like to make a couple of comments about what MM might have said differently, changes that I suspect he might well endorse.
First of all: “Should we stand firm and insist on criminalization? Or should we recognize that a combination of economic and cultural factors lead women to choose abortion too readily? Should we not be trying to change the culture, to promote stable families?” It seems to me that MM falls into the binary thinking here, the dead-end trap in which abortion discourse fails. There is nothing mutually exclusive about insisting that fetuses deserve legal protection *and* that cultural and economic circumstances are highly influential in the decision to abort.
Second: “A full 57% of women opting for abortion are economically disadvaged.” Yes, a very troubling statistic. It is essential to provide economic support if we expect to persuade these women to carry their pre-born children to term. But, by definition, a full 43% of women opting for abortion…that is hundreds of thousands, now…are not economically disadvantaged. Several years ago a New York Times essayist wrote about her decision to ‘selectively reduce’ the triplets she was carrying to a singleton through abortion. Rationale: raising three children would, of course, be more expensive than one and she didn’t want to be reducing to shopping for peanut butter at Cosco while they were growing up. So it seems to me that in addition (but not instead of) addressing economic issues facing pregnant women, it is prophetic to say loudly and clearly that killing fetuses is wrong and that they ought to be protected. And yet, those who say both have no voice.
Finally: tone. As with most abortion essays, the predominant tone of this one seems to be aggrieved exasperation. I believe that *everyone* who engages on this neuralgic issue has been wounded and misunderstood, so such a tone is entirely understandable. But I’m convinced that we will make no progress on this issue until we can *really* understand why others frame and weigh the issue differently than we do.
There is an enormous callousness about abortion that has developed in recent years. MM and I should be willing to admit that expressing prolife sensibilities is very bad form in many progressive precints…and sadly, in some progressive Catholic precints. I read on these pages some weeks ago a prolife contributor likening typical prochoice ‘concern’ about abortion as akin to concern about second hand smoke. I am pained to say that this comment rang true to me as representative of how sanguine many progressives have become about abortion. So I guess my request is that MM reserve some of his considerable critical commentary for the prochoice tribe and acknowledge that the prolife movement’s focus on legislation, if exaggerated, is at least understandable.
I would submit significant legal restrictions or outright bans (as we would see in about half the states should Roe be overturned) would impact sexual behavior much more than any effort of economic redistribution or change to tax structure.
This is a red herring. I said ethics, family, and commerce (you pointed out two policy options in commerce) are more powerful in governing factors in sexual behavior than mere civic legality. Are you suggesting that legality is more influential in human behavior than ethics, family modalities, education, and economic conditions?
And why is it outrageous to state that high out of wedlock births for all three major U.S. ethnic categories (roughly one-third, half, and two-thirds among white, Hispanic, and black respectively) correspond highly with educational and criminal trouble?
Another red herring. I didn’t say any such thing about a correlation (I’ve been assuming the correlation between education and crime). Rather, I said it is ridiculous to assert that breakdown of family life is is characteristic of black and Hispanic peoples in the U.S.
You note that blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. have proportionately higher rates of family breakdown, but you seem to deny that it is a result of poor education and economics. You claim the inverse: family breakdown among blacks and Hispanics is the cause of poverty and poor education. So the question now is: Is there something intrinsic to black and Hispanic culture that causes the breakdown in families? And, by implication: Is there something intrinsic to blacks and Hispanics as individuals that causes the breakdown in families?
I will consider supporting tighter legal restrictions on abortion if the following is also part of the package:
Until the goal of the “pro-life” movement is to restrict abortion andoffer a “concrete, honorable and possible alternative to abortion,” I don’t believe they are representing the teachings of the Catholic Church.
I will consider supporting tighter legal restrictions on abortion if the following is also part of the package:
You will consider doing what the Church commands you to do if your other conditions are met?
That’s big of you.
Are you suggesting that legality is more influential in human behavior than ethics, family modalities, education, and economic conditions?
On this point, I was responding to the original post: “Should we not be trying to promote just economic policies that allow the fruits of material success to be better shared?” Legality will have more of an impact than particular policy prescriptions pertaining to economic or tax matters, statist or free market.
Rather, I said it is ridiculous to assert that breakdown of family life is is characteristic of black and Hispanic peoples in the U.S.
Why do you insist on stating that I asserted or assumed such a breakdown is characterisic? My claim is simple and easily verifable: in black and Hispanic communities, the rate of breakdown is tragically high, and this is a major cause of economic and educational lag.
You note that blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. have proportionately higher rates of family breakdown, but you seem to deny that it is a result of poor education and economics.
As a cause by comparison to family breakdown, the absence of the two birth parents committed to raising the child in a marriage relationship, yes.
Is there something intrinsic to black and Hispanic culture that causes the breakdown in families?
No, of course not to the people inherently. To the development of popular culture – “gangsta rap,” the acceptance of single parent households, ect, perhaps. But culture is notoriously difficult to grasp as a matter of definition.
And, by implication: Is there something intrinsic to blacks and Hispanics as individuals that causes the breakdown in families?
No, of course not. And why project such a view? I have written nothing whatsoever to indicate this.
My claim is simple, and the numbers have never been in dispute because hospitals keep quite good records, so let me plagerize myself here: It is tragically high among those two groups, and this is a greater cause than more cited reasons such as institutional racism or economic structure.
Zippy – You will consider doing what the Church commands you to do if your other conditions are met?
Isn’t it possible that the one depends upon the other?
GA,
I agree entirely with your statement. My point was that if the pro-life movement chooses to find its origin in and be formed by the Church’s social teachings, it will necessarily resist both abortion’s legitimization (through teaching, influecing the culture, etc) and legalization (through civil disobedience, consciencous objection, political activism, legislative activity, etc). To abandon these aspects of the movement would be to abandon the magisterium’s clear and urgent pleas to the faithful to resist, in every necessary way, the powerful and demonic forces which have set themselves against human life. If a misguided pragmatism causes us to abandon the certian essential elements of Catholic social doctrine, it will be our souls and not our hands that are dirtied.
Zippy,
Those conditions are not mine. They are from the Declaration on Procured Abortion. My point is that those who seek a legal ban and only a legal ban, without also seeking to provide alternatives to abortion, are taking part of what the Church teaches and pretending it’s everything. There are some people who would prefer a legal ban even if it results in more abortions rather than fewer. Yes, it’s hypothetical, but some people have been more than willing to answer the question of which they would accept, a legal ban that resulted in more abortions, or social programs without a ban that resulted in fewer. I don’t understand what is pro-life about that position.
Matt,
I think it would be better to say that both depend on eachother. We will not have lasting legal change if we don’t support women and abandoned children and society will not support and vulnerable women and children as long as the law allows us to close our eyes and make the problem…..disappear.
Br Matthew –
Let’s say you believed with reasonable certainty that criminalizing abortion now would lead to its vigorous and hard-to-overturn re-legalization within a year, but that, given strong and vigorous preliminary work on the culture, overturning it in five years was far more likely to be strong and lasting. Would it be legitimate to make a decision to delay criminalizing abortion based on that kind of factor-weighing?
Mike: points well taken. On tone, part of the issue is that this post was written in a defensive posture, in response to some sustained hectoring. But I should point out (and this is also in response to Br. Matthew and others) that I agree that we should be fighting abortion on many fronts (I hate military analogies, but there you go!). I think we can agree with pro-choicers that it possible for the law to abstain from punishment, but not to profess abortion as a right, which is what positive legal recognition does. This distinction may sound like hair-splitting, but it is crucial (I’m quoting from the Declation on Procured Abortion here).
Plus, as G Alkon correctly notes, the issue is as much legitimation as legalization, and that is why we need to engage the culture. I’ve said it before: our pro-life position will garner respect if we are seen as consistent. It will attract scorn if we are seen as inconsistent– as in focusing only on legality as opposed to culture, or only on abortion as opposed to the broader culture of life issues.
There are some people who would prefer a legal ban even if it results in more abortions rather than fewer.
I would prefer a legal ban on torture – a law which held a President accountable for war crimes for authorizing torture – even if it resulted in (or someone argued that it resulted in) more instances of illegal torture. This is a basic matter of justice, not a statistical calculation.
A legal ban is something which should be pursued – something we are commanded to pursue as a grave obligation – in itself. Nobody gets to toss it over the side or attach conditionals to it. Nobody. Everyone who does so will ultimately be held accountable for it.
I agree that a legal ban is not the sum total of what should be done, but then I think pretty much everyone agrees that that is not the sum total of what should be done.
Conscientious objection to the abortion legal regime is a grave obligation, and is not optional.
I think we can agree with pro-choicers that it possible for the law to abstain from punishment, but not to profess abortion as a right, which is what positive legal recognition does. This distinction may sound like hair-splitting, but it is crucial (I’m quoting from the Declation on Procured Abortion here).
Two things:
First: The Declaration sets that up as a general principle in order to argue against it in the specific case of procured abortion.
Second: The scenario described — where all legal recognition of a ‘right to abortion’ is eliminated, and yet no laws exist against it — is an imaginary scenario. You can’t get there from where we are now, even if it were desirable as a state of affairs.
MM – I’m going to be a little critical here, but it is an honest observation and you are posting on the internet, so I assume you can take it. Your stance comes across not as someone who is engaging the culture on the pro-life issue, but as someone who is willing to trade away the abortion issue for other issues you care more deeply about. You get a lot of flak because this is not a position that is supported by the church at large.
To turn the argument around a little, what evidence do you have that another political party can reduce the poverty rate to such a degree that we will see an actual decrease in the number of abortions? So we can judge appropriatly, just how many fewer abortions do you think we can expect if the dems can reduce the poverty rate? Do you think that this reduction will offset the greater acceptance that could come about from a president who uses his pulpit to support groups like planned parenthood and NARAL?
Response to Zippy: read what follows after this statement in the Declaration: on a law recognizing the “right” to abortion, one cannot (i) obey it, (ii) take part in a propaganda campaign for it; (iii) vote for it; (iv) collaborate in its application. I agree wholeheartedly. That does not mean that if the chances of overturning this law are negligible, one cannot work within this framework to reduce abortions, and to make tactical alliances accordingly. You seem to imply that even this should be avoided on grounds of concientious objection.
It also does not mean that one must treat it identical with murder in the criminal code. For example, one could have penal sanctions applying to abortion providers, but not to the women. It is also possible for the criminal code not to mention abortion at all, implicitly treating it as homicide, but opting not to prosecute the woman in question. The problem occurs when the positive “right” to abortion becomes enshrined in law. But perhaps this point, although valid, is really detracting from the main point I want to make, which is the one in the preceding paragraph. Forget the hypotheticals: we can all agree that the current legal situation in the US is immoral. I only make this point to counter your absolutist claim that because abortion is as morally grave as homicide, it should be treated as such in positive law.
And after the Declaration spells out the negative injunctions, it spells out the positive ones which Dave Nickol quoted– you cannot have one without the other. You cannot sit on a tower issuing negative pronouncements without getting your hands dirty.
Zippy,
You would prefer more illegal torture to less legal torture? And (hypothetically) more illegal abortions to fewer legal abortions? I can’t agree. I don’t see laws as ends in themselves, but as means to ends.
Are you saying that the breakdown of the married, committed family 1) is the “root cause” of poverty and lagging educational achievement; 2) is characteristic of black and Hispanic peoples in the U.S.? If so, this is a ridiculous assertion. Poverty and poor education (civic and moral), each radically circumscribing the other, tend to be the prime cause behind the breakdown of the family among all socio-racial groups, including white Americans
What is a ridiculous assertion? That family breakdown is a cause of poverty? Or that it is characteristic of blacks and Hispanics? On the latter point, note Table 20 here. In 2004, 24.5% of white births were to unmarried women. A staggering 69.3% of black babies were born to unmarried women. For Hispanics, the figure was 46.4% — not quite as bad but still almost double the white rate (which is bad enough in itself).
If you care at all about babies being born into committed two-parent families, things are not good. And blaming poverty is a difficult sell, if you consider the fact that the illegitimate birthrate for all races was far far lower prior to the 1960s, even though poverty was far worse at that time as well.
Jeremy: of course, I can’t answer that. I have no idea how abortion will evolve under different political regimes. I can point out that the rate of decline was greatest during the Clinton years. That’s not necessarily a guide to the future, but there you are.
Plus, the issue is not “trading away abortion”. When people think of proportional considerations, they mentally put abortion on one scale, everything else on the othe scale, and then conclude that abortion is so important that it outweighs everything else. The problem here is that, despite the rhetoric, the actual incidence and status of abortion is unlikely to differ much whoever is elected.
Also, it’s not just about hitching your wagon to a political candidate. Perhaps that’s a mistake too many of us make, on all sides. It’s about changing the culture. It’s about being witnesses to the gospel of life. It’s about being consistent and unwavering– that does not sell out abortion, but actually strengthens the pro-life hand. As others have noted, I am not arguing for approval– even tacit approval– of the current abortion regime.
Peacemakers too are often accused of coddling brutal dictators or terrorists, or turning a blind eye to evil– they are not.
MM – Why the shying away from criminalization of abortion, and being all about criminalization of other societal “evils”. Seriously, I’m curious…
J Jones –
You tell Policraticus that family breakdown is the “root cause” of poverty and poor education. You are therefore denying that these things are interrelated, that one can cause the other and vice versa.
You are INSISTENTLY committed to this idea in all of your posts: family breakdown PRECEDES and CAUSES the other problems. You won’t answer my question — asked by others many times before — about the CAUSE of the family breakdown. Your answer is vague and equivocal — it is “the acceptance” of single-parent households, or it is the “notoriously difficult to define” area of “culture.” Ultimately, you INSIST on saying “bad culture” causes all of the problems of poor communities; and you INSIST on NOT naming the cause of this one “root cause” of all other causes.
Essentially, you are saying, “Blacks and Hispanics have bad culture; we can’t explain why; all we can do is correct it.”
Two points: 1) we CANNOT correct it unless we understand WHY and HOW these cultural problems developed. 2) your REFUSAL to try to understand these factors means that you are essentially saying, “Blacks and Hispanics and have bad culture — they need to clean themselves up.” The structure of your discourse is racist. This is what Policraticus correctly implied: the logic of your posts, always, every time, is to say that “Blacks and Hispanics have bad culture, and we can’t explain why” — and that boils down to saying they are indeed “characteristically” sinful and dissolute.
To anticipate J Jones’ first denial of what I am saying. You will point to SB saying above that family structure was stronger when there was more poverty. Fine. That doesn’t matter. My point is NOT to oppose you by saying that poverty CAUSES weak families, or whatever. My point is that you must think about the many complex historical factors that lead to family breakdown. You cannot simply posit that certain minorities have debased cultures for reasons that are impossible to explain.
You would prefer more illegal torture to less legal torture? And (hypothetically) more illegal abortions to fewer legal abortions? I can’t agree.
Those are false choices. But as a matter of priority, it is indeed more important that abortion be illegal than it is to minimize statistically the number of abortions.
I don’t see laws as ends in themselves, but as means to ends.
A law must be just in itself, or it is no law at all. Looking at the law as arbitrary procedural means to achieve good ends is not the Catholic way to look at the law. “Explicit legality of abortion” is unjust in itself; and it is never acceptable to employ unjust means in order to achieve any end.
MM: I’m not going to get into an infinite parsing game with you over the Declaration. But I think it plainly says the exact opposite of what you say it says. It acknowledges that not all things which are immoral need be illegal, but then argues that abortion in in a class of moral wrongs which always ought to be illegal. You are using the first bit to argue against the second, and I think anyone who approaches the document without a preconceived legal agenda will conclude the same as I do.
G Alkon,
If I had to guess, I’d say the primary cause of increased family breakdown was the sexual revolution, helped along somewhat by the Great Society programs. What’s your hypothesis?
I’d echo Blackadder. But whatever your answer as to why family breakdown occurred, it has to be something that occurred and/or got worse in the 1960s (just as family breakdown skyrocketed), rather than something that got better (such as poverty). I call this the criterion of minimal plausibility.
Look at it this way:
Catholics have a grave duty to conscientiously object to the abortion legal regime.
MM’s proposal is that we set that grave duty aside in order to work with pro-choice people on other issues which (putatively) have an impact on the rate of abortions.
Our setting aside of our grave duty as Catholics is a cause of our ability to make common cause with pro-choicers. But even under double effect we are not permitted to do anything evil – including doing anything evil by omission – which causes the good effect.
So MM’s theory fails double-effect. It is precisely ignoring our grave duty to conscientiously object to the abortion legal regime (“conscientiously object” may mean many things, but it doesn’t mean ‘go along with silently’) which causes the solidarity with pro-choicers which MM would employ in the pursuit of fewer abortions.
BA – I agree that a persuasive case could be made that the sexual revolution contributed to family breakdown; a well-reasoned (but also dubious in some contextual ways) case could be made that Great Society enabled looser family connections, and thus contributed; but to say either one is the “primary” cause is stretching things a bit, don’t you think?
MM- Part of the perception problem could be that you are percieved to have hitched yourself to a particular candidate. When you talk about proportional reasons to vote for a pro-abort candidate, the impression I get is that you are looking for proportional reasons to vote for that particular candidate. The particular arguments in that case have been hashed over from here and back again, and again, and again, and I personally don’t find them compelling.
However, since neither you (or anybody else) can know how abortion will evolve under particular regimes, don’t you think it makes sense to support policies that recognize abortion as a grave evil, rather than polices that explicitly make abortion ok? Can’t you find ways to support fair wages, human dignity, ready access to health care for all that don’t involve trading off the abortion issue?
“Your stance comes across not as someone who is engaging the culture on the pro-life issue, but as someone who is willing to trade away the abortion issue for other issues you care more deeply about.”
Jeremy, that is a very well-stated and succinct description of this blog. I often feel like I’m visiting a support group for intelligent, but tortured souls troubled by the direction they are taking. They are clearly beyond reasonable persuasion, but not Grace.
Matt,
Could be. What would you say the primary cause of family breakdown has been?
Jeremy – Can’t Republicans get on board poverty reduction programs, ending the Iraq War, opposing capital punishment and raising taxes on the rich if it would help build credibility with liberals? After all – they are the ones you need to convince if there is to be an outlaw of abortion with durable pro-life consensus to support its continued outlawing?
But what caused the sexual revolution? What is that, anyway? Is that a ‘thing’ that you can just refer to and be sure that we all know about it? And why, anyway, would the sexual revolution ‘revolutionize’ blacks and hispanics more than more culturally adept whites?
First of all, the sexual revolution has to be connected to individualism and the economy that mobilizes and encourages individualism. Certainly, modern freedoms — of religion, of association, of consumption — would have to be involved with the sexual revolution.
And all of these factors affect different communities differently, based on an array of other factors.
I’m not saying that one cannot explain why certain cultural problems have developed in certain communities. One certainly can develop such explanations. But what betrays animosity is to assert that ‘bad culture’ afflicts certain communities inexplicably — thereby implying a dark susceptibility to cultural perversion in those communities.
When you talk about ‘sexual revolution’ as if it were just a ‘thing’ that ‘screws up’ certain communities more than others — without explaining why — you are doing nothing more than calling people names.
Matt, the only moral actor that counts is you. Not political parties,social trends, distant forces outside your control or abstract hypotheticals.. That is why Church teaching is directed at each individual soul. Siding with the culture of death is the only choice you can control. If you’re going to sin, sin boldly.
What if I accepted the idea that the ‘sexual revolution’ and the Great Society caused these family problems (artificially bracketing out economic and demographic factors, related to the end of the domestic manufacturing economy and the attendant increase in rich-poor divisions; artificially bracketing out the rise of the information economy that sells sex and profits from the way sexual imagery simultaneously satisfies and stimulates desires for more…) ?
Let’s just say the sexual revolution did it.
Why did it affect blacks and hispanics more than whites?
I really want some grace.
If I say, “I am for making abortion illegal,” does that mean that I have gotten the grace that I want?
Jonathan,
In your opinion, why the high rate of broken families among blacks and Hispanics in the U.S.? You deny the answer that I (economic and educational conditions) provide without arguing for your case. You deny that economic and educational modalities cause the break-up trend. You deny that there is anything intrinsic to these groups of people that causes the break-up trend. Instead of citing the statistics of which we are all aware, what causes the break-up trend?
But what caused the sexual revolution?
Presumably, were I to suggest a cause for the sexual revolution, you would ask what caused *that*, and so on. What purpose such questioning is supposed to serve is beyond me.
“If I say, “I am for making abortion illegal,” does that mean that I have gotten the grace that I want?”
No. It means you are thinking with the Church, which beats all other alternatives.
The problem, Zippy, is that you mis-define conscientious objection. Providing support to a certain pro-choice person or group (in the voting booth, through a campaign to reduce abortions etc.) is neither an evil act nor an evil ommission– provided you do not share their “pro-choice” beliefs. You remind me of people who claim one can never talk to terrorists, because doing so provides implicit support for their activity (after all, we have a duty to oppose the murder of innocent people). I would argue the opposite: sometimes the need to protect life calls for enaging these people, especially when there is no other moral alternative.
I wonder if I might correspondents to return, for a moment, to examine the ‘process’ rather than the ‘content’ of this and other conversations about abortion. I’m interested in observations on the following comments of social psychologists Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman, in ‘Character Strengths and Virtues,’ p. 144:
“Open-mindedness is the willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans, or goals, and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available. Its opposite has been called the myside bias, which refers to the pervasive tendency to think in ways that favor one’s current views.”
How wedded are disputants on abortion and its legal status to their particular point of view? How capable of searching to understand how reasonable, thoughtful people might come to a different conclusion? How inclined to filter out dissenting views? How inclined to assume malicious intent and to demonize those who arrive at different conclusions? Do the most insistent voices, prolife and prochoice, display similar styles of thinking and making their voices heard?
Is there a better way?
Correction:
I wonder if I might **invite** correspondents…
Kevin,
Suppose I think with the Church and say I want to see a reform of society “so that always and everywhere it may be possible to give every child coming into this world a welcome worthy of a person” and I want “a whole positive policy . . . . so that there will always be a concrete, honorable and possible alternative to abortion.” Why is it that people who want to see only a legal ban and not a concerted effort to offer alternatives to abortion, and aren’t interested in eliminating the underlying causes of abortion, are apparently better Catholics?
Suppose a legal ban is theoretically best, but in practice impossible to achieve? Is it really pro-life to focus on the impossible if there is actually something achievable that can be done?
BA – I think I’ll avoid getting into a Socratic dialog with a lawyer, if it’s all the same to you. :)
Mike – good points.
I am wondering exactly what kind of laws must be passed to satisfy those who say a legal ban is absolutely essential. Must the laws reflect the view that abortion is murder, an abortionist is a murderer, and a woman who procures an abortion is equivalent to someone who engages a hired killer? And how vigorously enforced must such laws be? Must a constitutionally protected right be turned into a capital crime? Even abolishing slavery wasn’t that dramatic a reversal.
Let’s just say the sexual revolution did it. Why did it affect blacks and hispanics more than whites?
It’s not clear to me, to begin with, that it did affect blacks and hispanics more than whites. True, the illegitimacy rate for blacks has doubled in the last 40 or so years, but the illegitimacy rate for whites has more than tripled during the same time period, so it may just be a function of how you look at the numbers.
Assuming that there a disproportionate effect to be explained, I can think of a number of possible hypotheses. For example, blacks were explicitly targeted by Planned Parenthood as part of the eugenics/population control crazy, so that might be a factor. Many of the Great Society programs were aimed specifically at blacks also, and from what I’ve heard, breaking down traditional views about family life was often part and parcel of getting people to accept government help. Illegitimacy rates tend to be higher in cities, and blacks disproportionately live in cities, so that might also explain things.
Maybe there are cultural or social factors at work. I’ve read research suggesting that the higher rates of illegitimacy in certain rural regions of Norway in the 19th than in others was due mainly to the custom in those regions of practice of “bundling”, and their could be some cultural practices in black American, whether benign or not, that explain the difference. Thomas Sowell thinks American blacks picked up some bad cultural habits from Scottish immigrants (I cite Sowell not because I think he is right on the point, but only as an example). Perhaps there is also a sort of snowball effect, where larger illegitimacy rates tend to cause more rapid degeneration of norms against illegitimacy.
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there’s plenty of possibilities I’ve left out.
The problem, Zippy, is that you mis-define conscientious objection.
What a hoot! Conscientious objection against the legality of abortion means supporting the legality of abortion in order to ingratiate yourself with pro-aborts. And waterboarding isn’t torture.
BA — the point is not to get into a what caused what game. the point is that real explanations require textured narratives that bring together multiple causes and explain their relationships. what j jones was doing at the start of this thread, by positing “culture” (a nebulous term, at best) as the “cause” of broken families, was not thoughtful. to replace “culture” with “sexual revolution” does not improve matters.
To say “i guess the sexual revolution caused broken families and a decline in culture” is to say precisely nothing. it is a tautology. it’s like saying “i guess the rise of industrial capitalism brought about the end of reliance on hand-crafted tools and goods.”
to talk meaningfully about this stuff, you need to a narrative more complex than “morals decayed” or “people no longer know right from wrong” or “culture has degenerated” or “the sexual revolution happened”
Kevin — “thinking with the church” does not “beat out” actually being the church, which means much more than putting in your two cents behind this or that position — even the positions in the catechism — even the positions in the Bible —
to say that doesn’t mean i’m questioning their truth —
but it is quite possible to be in no position to grasp the church’s teachings, and yet, in the intensity and urgency of actual life, to be opened up to — and to receive — the love of God as it meets us in human faces
Responding to Matt T’s point way back at 5:29:
I am arguing against those who would capitulate on the legistlative aspect of the pro-life movement. In your case you would clearly be working toward legislative change, so I would have no objection to your second example. That said, some here still seem to be arguing against the view that we should persue only legal change. I know of nobody in the pro-life movement who believes this. Does anyone here really think that legal solutions are the only solutions? Rather, my argument is with those who say that an effort toward legislative change should be abandoned in favor of merely ‘changing the culture’.
Moreover I echo Zippy comments above with regard to the law. In Catholic thought, the law isn’t merely a means to achieve an end. That is at the crux of the debate here. People are treating the law as just one amongst other means of eliminating abortion, but changing the law is an end in itself and an absolutely necessary aspect of the pro-life movement.
Here you can see the long tension between Catholic thought and the development of the legal tradition in the Anglosphere: in Catholic thought, it’s important for the criminal law to enunciate the moral principles of the ordered society, whereas in the Anglo-American legal tradition, criminal law is more or less functional to address specific harms that the judicial branch is deemed capable of adjuticating efficiently. The flip side of this is that, in countries influenced by the Roman tradition, there may be considerable discretion in applying the idealized law to concrete situations, while in the Anglosphere, the law is expected to be applied in a less discretionary fashion. What you don’t get is the idealized Roman view of law as applied in the less discretionary Anglospheric fashion.
Zippy: it is inane comments like this that prompted me to write this post in the first place. Nothing I have said implies “supporting” the legality of abortion any more than negotiating with Hamas entails “supporting” the bombing of civilians. You approach is not only misguided, but counterproductive.
Liam: that is an excellent point. Too many Americans fail to realize that canon law too is written very much in the Roman tradition– the very last line says that everything is geared to the salvation of souls.
MM
Yes, but that last canon would have to be read as Romans would read it rather than as Americans would tend to read it (the latter namely as a utilitarian universal exception). So I usually wince when I read American Catholics playing latter-day canonist to justify or excuse canonical irregularities. For but one example, it has virtually zero play in the area of valid form and matter of sacraments.
MM is right. Zippy cites “conscientious objection,” yet fails resiliently to define it, set out its conditions, and differentiate its modes. Nevertheless, he is obsessed with exposing both here and at his own blog what he perceives to be MM’s twisted logic, much to his own satisfaction.
Br. Matthew,
It seems to me that arguing for the passage of laws prohibiting abortion for their own sake, regardless of the impact on the incidence of abortion, are really aguing more about theories of law than about reducing or ending abortions. The question becomes “What kind of laws ought we to have” rather than “What can we do with the law, if anything, to have fewer or no abortions.” I don’t think it is going too far to say they are separate issues. As if abortion itself were not divisive enough in the United States, this introduces an additional problem of asking Americans to accept something other than their own legal tradition.
It seems to me that politically conservative Catholics, who also tend to be the most vocal “pro-life” Catholics, generally argue that Catholic social teachings are meant to be interpreted as giving goals but not instructions on what kind of laws to pass to achieve them. Consequently, political conservatives can argue they are abiding by the social teachings of the Church to help the poor when they support tax cuts for the rich to stimulate the economy, which they claim will help the poor. This seems to be the rare exception to how conservatives interpret Catholic teaching in that it is seen to mandate specific laws–and even if they are ineffective.
It seems we all to often fall back on associating ourselves (or perhaps more accurately, our interlocutors) with this or that political party or candidate. If we could only step outside this forced dichotomy and recall and recognize that we are the Church, all of us are members of Body of Christ. Perhaps a more fruitful and efficacious approach would result if we recalled that the eye cannot say to the hand “I do not need you.” In order to build a culture of life with a consistent ethic of life we need people who working for legal change and we need people who are working for cultural change. We should be supporting each other’s efforts. Instead we resort to judging the other. My way is better than your way. I’m right and you are wrong.
The movie Amazing Grace is about the man who changed the laws in favor of the African slave trade. He made his case to the British Parliament year after year after year. In order to do eventually be successful he had to make some uneasy allies, people he did not agree with on other issues. He also had to convince some “friends” that their constituents and Britain itself could sustain the economic hit that would result from the illegalization of the slave trade. He had groups “evangelizing” the country, each focusing on a different aspect: dignity of the person, economic, foreign affairs, etc. He had former slaves, former slave traders, etc. working with him.
Finally he only won his initial victory by inserting a law hidden within other foreign policy interest which did not make slave trading illegal, but made it unappealing and unprofitable in practice. Only later did he formally pass a law to ban the slave trade outright.
Clearly this is only an analogous case with more differences than similarities. Nevertheless, my point is that instead of judging and casting stones at the other, we should support and pray for the other. There is much work to be done all fronts in both political parties, in law, in culture, in schools, in families, etc. We need each other. We need to be the living Body of Christ if we are to significantly minimize abortions in America.
To clarify the above . . .
This [that is, the "pro-life" Catholic position on legal approaches to abortion] seems to be the rare exception to how conservatives interpret Catholic teaching in that it is seen to mandate specific laws–and even if they are ineffective.
David,
I think you are right that what lies behind much of the debate here is incommesurable theories of law- specifically the functionalist and pragmatic Anglo-American idea of law [I'm assuming what Liam said is true in this regard] and the idea of law set out in Catholic social thought. Those who would reduce law to an mere means or instrument for achieving some end (reducing abortion) are operating from an Anglo-american bias. A Catholic view of law explicitly rejects such a reductionist view of law:
Comp. of Cath. Soc. Doctrine: ~202, 397
202. Justice is particularly important in the present-day context, where the individual value of the person, his dignity and his rights — despite proclaimed intentions — are seriously threatened by the widespread tendency to make exclusive use of criteria of utility and ownership. Justice too, on the basis of these criteria, is considered in a reductionist manner, whereas it acquires a fuller and more authentic meaning in Christian anthropology. Justice, in fact, is not merely a simple human convention, because what is “just” is not first determined by the law but by the profound identity of the human being.
397. Authority must recognize, respect and promote essential human and moral values. These are innate and “flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person; values which no individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy”.[812] These values do not have their foundation in provisional and changeable “majority” opinions, but must simply be recognized, respected and promoted as elements of an objective moral law, the natural law written in the human heart (cf. Rom 2:15), and as the normative point of reference for civil law itself.[813] If, as a result of the tragic clouding of the collective conscience, scepticism were to succeed in casting doubt on the basic principles of the moral law,[814] the legal structure of the State itself would be shaken to its very foundations, being reduced to nothing more than a mechanism for the pragmatic regulation of different and opposing interests.[815]
Here we have, set against a reductionist theory of law, a truly Catholic one. Above and beyond matters of utility and pragmatism, the law must reflect the truth of the human person and protect the common good. Moreover as the Compedium states [~388], the primary way the common good is fostered is through fostering human rights:
388. Considering the human person as the foundation and purpose of the political community means in the first place working to recognize and respect human dignity through defending and promoting fundamental and inalienable human rights: “In our time the common good is chiefly guaranteed when personal rights and duties are maintained”.[787] The rights and duties of the person contain a concise summary of the principal moral and juridical requirements that must preside over the construction of the political community. These requirements constitute an objective norm on which positive law is based and which cannot be ignored by the political community, because both in existential being and in final purpose the human person precedes the political community. Positive law must guarantee that fundamental human needs are met.
Laws which permit the destruction of innocent life do not only not foster the common good, they make the establishment of this good impossible, since they undercut the most basic human right, and it is human rights which are the primary way the common good is fostered.
Summing up my thought then: civil law is not merely a contingent and optional means with which to limit or reduce abortion. If it were, it would not be necessary to pursue legal means in fighting the pro-life cause, and MM and others would be totally justified in reducing the pro-life movement to non-legal action. However, such is not the case. The establishment and protection of human rights in civil law is a prerequisite for the primary political goal of fostering the common good. When the civil law fails in this regard, and fails in reference to the most basic of human rights, the common good cannot be established. Therefore, if the end of our political action is to foster this common good, changing the law is not an optional or contigent means whereby this goal can be advanced, rather it is a necessary and indespensible means. To will the end [the common good] is to necessarily will the means [laws which reflect the dignity of the human person and the moral order].
MM: “Nothing I have said implies “supporting” the legality of abortion any more than negotiating with Hamas entails “supporting” the bombing of civilians. You approach is not only misguided, but counterproductive.”
Maybe this is because many are reading this essay as a defense of the idea of voting for Obama. In that context, it appears that you arguing that voting for someone who declared FOCA would be the first bill he passes is the only way to “negotiate” with the pro-choice side. Your analogy thus appears to be saying refusing to vote for Hamas is equivalent to refusing to negotiate with them. Perhaps this isn’t what you really meant?
Thus, understand that, to effectuate laws on abortion here in all jurisdictions, you would have to change centuries of legal culture. That’s not to make it futile, only to grapple with the reality. American legal culture is fundamentally opportunistic when it comes to natural law vs positivism – it appeals to whichever will for the time being secure what the plurality wants.
Liam,
Well, assuming that you’re right that the idea that written laws should reflect some greater understanding of “justice” is totally foreign to the American tradition, I think you’d be right we’d be facing a massive obstacle here. However, I don’t think that’s universally the case.
Generally speak, it seems to me that Americans carry (at least subconsciously) who different ideas of law, one having to do with “real laws” and one having to do with “regulations”.
Thus, the speed limit is a regulation, and no one really things it’s “wrong” in any objective sense to go faster than the speed limit.
However, in regards to other laws that more directly reflect moral norms (laws against murder, theft, prostitution, child abuse, assault, etc.) are pretty clearly understood by most people, I think, to be something other than simply outcome-based. If someone suggested (and produced all sorts of studies and statistics to back his case) that spousal abuse could be better ameliorated if it were not a crime (say because its criminalization made it more severe, made abused spouses afraid to report it, etc.), I think you’d see a huge reaction against the idea. Most people would generally agree that beating your wife should be illegal because it is wrong not simply because making it illegal seems like out best route to reducing the number of times spouses abuse one another.
Liam,
We can work, right now, to pass laws which reflect the dignity of the human person and the truth of the moral order, regardless of the culture and underlying assumptions of our legal system. However, you are right that while working to pass such laws we should also be working to change our positivistic and pragmatic legal culture and the philosophy of law which underlies that culture.
Much is said about Jesus’ hanging out with sinners and other undesirables as an analogy to making alliances with pro-choicers. But the crucial difference is that Jesus did not hang out with them to make tactical political aliances to reach some goal within their current mindset – He hung out with them to change their ways.
You want to hang with pro-choice Dems? Fine. Make it absolutely clear to them you are only with them to turn them into pro-life Dems (same would go fro pro-war or pro-torture Reps).
If we’re going to discuss why women have abortions then let’s please not limit it to the material dimension. The fact is that we live in a culture that’s immersed in a contraceptive mentality. The procreative has been divorced from the meaning of sexual intercourse. It’s no wonder that couples — led to believe that pregnancy is unlikely to occur — are surprised with an unwanted child. The surprisingly simple solution is to ensure that every act of sexual intercourse is open to life.
Of course, those with sunken chests that provide the illusion of large heads (re: Abolition of Man) can’t possibly imagine what the chest is for. Rather, for them the untamed belly is allowed rule, and man, reduced to instincts, becomes a mere animal.
The dignity of man assumes that people are more than rational beings wrapped up in animal skin. Neither the ivory tower rational or animalistic under class suffice. The dignity of man assumes that people can practice a chaste lifestyle.
It’s a lifelong practice in living the good life. And blacks, latinos and whites deserve a chance to figure that out.
Peace,
Bob
And IIRC, the emancipation proclamation came during the Civil War, not its end. There is no requirement that the culture must change first before the law does.
Zippy cites “conscientious objection,” yet fails resiliently to define it, set out its conditions, and differentiate its modes.
I’ve heard this ‘we need a definition’ thing a lot of times before. It seems to me that some people had infinite willful trouble understanding what ‘torture’ means too. I’m not sympathetic in either case.
Bob-
Great point. All the talk about changing the culture and winning hearts and minds seems to center on the need to provide economic support to mothers. This doesn’t seem to me to actually change hearts and minds. It is certainly a great good to give pregnant women in crisis economic assistance (and every pro-lifer I know does so), but it doesn’t seem to actually get at the heart of why these mothers – and more importantly, their boyfriends, husbands, parents, girlfriends – support and often push them into abortion. Until we as a culture understand the evil of contraception and the rejection of a child as a GIFT, we will never understand the evil of abortion.
Talk about seriously getting your hands dirty…if trying to change hearts and minds on abortion is tough work, taking on contraception is a whole new level.
Nothing I have said implies “supporting” the legality of abortion …
Really? You explicitly said “I think we can agree with pro-choicers that it possible for the law to abstain from punishment…“
Moreover, our grave obligation is not merely to refrain from supporting the legality of abortion. We have a grave positive duty to conscientiously object to the legality of abortion. (I know, I know. The term ‘conscientiously object’ is as baffling as the term ‘torture’).
DarwinCatholic
Yes, and no. As I noted: Americans are opportunistic when we appeal to natural law. We appeal to it when it suits us (the Declaration of Indpendence) but limit it when it suits us (contrast how the federal constitution decided to limit the application of the principles of the declaration to oh, only a portion of Americans…with the “other persons” being rather inconvenient; and how Americans swore off pragmatism for a few years after the Civil War only to fall off the wagon when we let Jim Crow grow; et cet.). This is fundamentally pragmatic rather than truly principled. And it has roots of centuries under it.
Liam: I wonder how Catholic legal positivists reconcile Evangelium Vitae, which says:
Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law.
[...]
Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.
… with the statement of now (Catholic) Chief Justice John Roberts, in his Appellate confirmation hearing, that
“Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. … it’s a little more than settled. It was reaffirmed in the face of a challenge … There’s nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent.”
One hopes that this statement by Roberts was made in ignorance, because ‘fully and faithfully applying that precedent’ is indeed directly in conflict with what ought to be every Catholic’s ‘personal views’. Certainly Catholic legal positivists who have defended the statement are speaking out of ignorance, at best.
Well, maybe he means fully and faithfully applying that precendent the way the court fully and faithfully applied the precedent of Bowers (?) in Lawrence.
It all depends on what one means by “fully and faithfully”, eh? Ah, the tangled semantic webs we weave. The intractable difficulties of such language as ‘torture’, ‘conscientiously object’, ‘fully and faithfully’, and, of course, ‘is’.
It all depends on what one means by “fully and faithfully”, eh? Ah, the tangled semantic webs we weave.
Well, Zippy, let me ask you: suppose you where nominated for a position where you had a chance to actually do something to get rid of Roe v. Wade, but to get confirmed for that position you had to make equivocal statements. Would you not do it?
No, blackadder, I would never make the statement that “There’s nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying [Roe vs. Wade].” I don’t think it is possible – at all – for a Catholic with a properly formed and informed conscience to make that statement truthfully.
And I was referring in particular to those who have defended Roberts’ statement as not a lie, but as a putatively proper (positivist) understanding of the law. Defending it as a putatively justifiable lie is a different approach, though also problemmatic.
I wouldn’t say it myself in under either proposed justification.
Zippy
American jurists are generally positivists, and enough elected politicians regularly scare the public to make sure most jurists stay that way. It should be noted that none of the Catholic justices on the SCOTUS have indicated any willingness to take a natural law approach from a pro-life perspective. And I don’t think any jurist who did so would win confirmation from either party.
Liam: so I suppose the answer to my question is, “they don’t”.
Defending it as a putatively justifiable lie is a different approach, though also problemmatic.
Not a lie. An equivocation. The two are treated very differently in Catholic moral theology.
That may be, but in this case it is really just a lie.
Question: If a political candidate had made public expressions which were clearly racist or bigoted, would it be ok to say that those should be disregarded because that politician has the best economic or health plan?
If it is not ok to vote for such a person on the basis of their health or economic plan, totally disregarding their racism or bigotry, then why is it ok to not vote for someone who advocates murder of people. Of course, you have to believe the unborn are actually people before you can comprehend this.
See my photostory on Mass & Burial with aborted babies at my parish, with Fr. Frank Pavone and ask yourself if the bigotry which supports their murder is ok to disregard.
Diane,
To your question, certainly that has been answered in the affirmative millions of times and by some very admirable people.
Diane: On your racist, and bigoted point, many Catholics did support Jesse Helms. I would argue that they were free to do so, as long as they did not support his racism.
On Roberts’ statement, I actually agree with Zippy on this one.
Diane
The question you present, to be properly presented, would have to be restricted to those who believed that to vote for a racist/bigoted person was intrisically evil. It would be if you vote for the person *because* of her racism/bigotry, but not if you vote *in spite of* for proportional reasons.