Why Do We Have To Lose
This may be a better topic in the afterglow of the election, but it is on my heart today. Many people like to analogize the civil rights movement with the struggle against abortion. An alternate history of the civil rights movement has been created to help make the analogy more compelling in relation to the political goals of the anti-abortion movement. There is the myth that the civil rights establishment would accept nothing less than full justice. While ultimately that was true, in the day to day space, the reality was markedly different. Much like the case chosen to fight the Washington, D.C., gun ban, great care was taken before advocating on behalf of a specific cause and many atrocities were met by silence.
I have been critical of what I call the Miss America mindset of the pro-life (anti-abortion) movement. This mindset has been embraced by a number of bishops. The short version is that if we think the right things and hope the right things, everything will turn around. Like the much maligned Miss America speeches calling for world peace, the substance of the issues are not merely matters of desire. The Palestinian and Israeli conflict is not a tale of two wicked people that just don’t want peace enough. The grievances are real. One party’s gain is another party’s loss. In the abortion debate in this country, the political debate is not between those who desire the death of babies and, to use pro-choice rhetoric, those who desire to reduce women’s bodies to the property of men. Philosophically it is indeed the case that radical individualism is competing against a communal obligation to the person. (This point in particular is frustrating, because many pro-life activists fail to recognize that your typical abortion rights supporter recognizes the death they are bringing.) Substantially however, the debate is over such things as FOCA, PBA, etc.
Going forward in this, it is not simply enough to say that a person is against abortion or even for it. It certainly isn’t enough to claim that the act of having children is a political act as some have done. In raising people to elective office and making express advocacy to them, we must have a political agenda. There is no good reason to completely abandon the political agenda in choosing candidates. As has been made manifest in the past few weeks, there are competencies and political goals that are ignored at our own peril in seeking a philosophically pure candidate. Come November as is the case in almost every election, solidly pro-life people will be voted out of office almost entirely on the basis of things having nothing to do with their pro-life advocacy. Given the limits of the pro-life political agenda, they will have achieved little on behalf of the unborn during their time in office. With pro-life advocates having wedded themselves to the Republican Party, the person elected will be adverse to the pro-life agenda. So, not only do pro-lifers lose, they lose even when they weren’t really competing.
I have long thought the pro-life movement in this country should learn some things from the NRA. Whatever you think of the NRA, everyone agrees that they are one of the best advocacy groups for their cause in the country. The ideal situation for any advocacy group is to have two candidates seeking office that endorse their views. The NRA has this happen quite often. The pro-life movement rarely has this. In large parts of the country like the northeast and California, pro-lifers are fortunate to have one candidate that advocates their beliefs. If pro-lifers were winning in the political arena – getting legislation they want passed and legislation they don’t want blocked, not just electing candidates – this wouldn’t be such a big problem. They aren’t. Instead we are getting situations like in Connecticut where advocates didn’t have a seat at the table and a bill mandating Catholic hospitals offer emergency contraception without first determining whether the woman was pregnant was pushed through. On a slightly different topic, we have places like New York mandating contraceptive coverage in health plans even for Catholic organizations. Now maybe not all of these things could have been prevented, but the odds sure increase if your vote is in play. And each of these things might have been a tolerable loss if say we were allowed to ban 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions, but little to nothing is getting done in many of these states on behalf of the unborn.
In the end, advocates must be the bearers of purity. They must demand more than nice pull quotes for their fund raising letters. They also must stop needlessly making enemies. For us on the ground, we need to find a seat at or near the table. In many cases, this means tolerating contemptible men who can otherwise help us. It means being measured in our enthusiasm for any one candidate, so that it actually matches what we hope to achieve, hope as in the here and now. Yes, hope that abortion will be ended by the Supreme Court in 2050, but recognize that hardly any person in office today will be there when it happens. Remember that things can and sometimes do get worse, sometimes a lot worse.
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In looking at the struggle against abortion long term, two things occur to me, and I am sure there are others in the same category (“advances in technology”") that I am not thinking of or that nobody can even anticipate.
First, one hopes that by 2050, fertility control will have reached a point where it is inexpensive. foolproof, and fre from side effects, and that unintended pregnancies will be extremely rare or unknown. Whether these advances will be acceptable to the Catholic Church is another question. Perhaps there is a loophole to be found in Humanae Vitae for some means of fertility control that is both a technological advance and a utilization of something purely natural. (And no, I don’t mean NFP, although of course advances in technology can make it foolproof, if used correctly.)
Second, technology is going to change the concept of viability, so the framework set out in Roe v Wade will probably become irrelevant. Work is already underway on artificial wombs. Some day it may be possible to save a baby that is born or aborted very early in pregnancy. In fact, it may be possible with artificial wombs to take a baby from conception to “birth” without a human mother. I am sure the idea of an artificial womb used to produce a baby “from scratch” would be horrifying to pro-life Catholics, but an artificial womb to save a baby that would otherwise die because it was born to prematurely would certainly be a blessing.
So I think long-term thinking about abortion has got to take into account something more than what’s in the contemporary pro-life agenda (overturn Roe, and so on).
Contraception is obviously not in the field of viable solutions to address abortion. As to contraception itself, I think we are approaching the limits of what pharmacology can effectively address. Looking around, many younger couples are moving straight to mutilation.
I don’t think the Catholic take on sex,orgasm-only-inside-the-wife’s-vagina, is much of a selling point when it comes to fighting of abortion. If anything, it will turn regular people against your cause. To oppose abortion AND contraception is counter-intuitive and can only be explained with the fertility/virginity cult nature of Catholic sexuality (note: not Catholics’ sexuality). Nor will complete abstinence during fertile periods win you any converts, heck, next-to-no Catholics even obey Church sex laws. Not that abortion should be completely illegal anyway, nor will it ever be. You have to be religious to think “Ectopic pregnancy ? Why, let’s cut out the tube (with the fetus)!” instead of removing the fetus by itself and thereby causing less harm. No one would otherwise come to such an absurd conclusion.
It does boggle the mind that anyone would seriously consider how to reduce abortions or do away with abortion altogether without considering contraception as an important tool. I know this is a Catholic blog, but not everyone in America is Catholic. Is it wrong for Catholics to support contraception for those who are not Catholic?
Once I asked if there had been a country that had gone from very permissive to very restrictive abortion laws, and someone cited Poland. Since the abortion ban there, the declining birth rate has continued to decline. It’s extraordinarily low. Is this happening without abortion and contraception?
Is it wrong for Catholics to support contraception for those who are not Catholic?
Yes.
Once I asked if there had been a country that had gone from very permissive to very restrictive abortion laws, and someone cited Poland.
I would imagine communist Romania is another example. Contraception and abortion were both banned there.
Is it wrong to allow contraception for those who are not Catholic? Or, as with abortion, are Catholics obligated to fight against the availability of contraception and education regarding the use of contraceptives? It is intrinsically evil, after all.
David, people will sin. There will always be people willing to produce artificial contraceptive devices and those who are willing to use them. But these people will be self limiting.
I see this in church. Those who support contraception (and practice it) have small families. They are passing their values on to one, maybe two children. Those who don’t practice contraception generally have large families. They are passing their values on to lots of children.
Being more observant and practicing their faith more “devoutly” should we say, they are more likely to have children who are devout, church going, non-contracepting people who in turn have more children to whom they can pass their values.
The demographic shift is striking. In Europe (where Gerald most likely gets his permissive values), we are seeing a less than replacement value fertility rate all over the continent. In italy, we are seeing a replacement rate of 1.2 (where 2.1 is what is required to maintain population) among cosmopolitan Italians. The Muslim immigrants, on the other hand, have large families. The projections figure that by 2050 (your magical, technological nirvana date), Italy will be Italy in name only (if that). For all intents and purposes it will be a Muslim country. Other European countries will fall also, like dominoes, in the order of their replacement fertility numbers.
A child is God’s way of saying He wants the world to continue. Contraception is our way of saying we disagree.
A child is God’s way of saying He wants the world to continue. Contraception is our way of saying we disagree.
Tony,
It seems to me that if artificial contraception is disagreeing with God about bringing children into the world, so is NFP. The Church’s teaching that every sexual act must be open to the transmission of life has very little to do with bringing children into the world, since it applies to infertile couples, couples past childbearing age, and couples practicing NFP. Fertility rates are fascinating and important socially and economically to regions and countries, but I don’t think there is a Church teaching about what a country’s fertility rate ought to be. And of course if having large families is commendable and limiting family size is in opposition to the will of God, we ought to applaud Muslim immigrants in Europe or the Palestinians who will eventually outnumber the Jews in Israel.
If NFP is used with a contraceptive mentality, sure. And every sexual act can be open to life even with infertile couples (we do believe in miracles, you know).
And as far as the Palestinians outnumbering the more cosmopolitan Jews in Israel, well, sin always has consequences both to the individual and those around them. We don’t sin in a vaccuum.
On this particular issue, the Muslims are closer to Catholic teaching than most Catholics (if you believe the polls).
If NFP is used with a contraceptive mentality, sure. And every sexual act can be open to life even with infertile couples (we do believe in miracles, you know).
Tony,
I believe we have been through this one before, but I am quite sure the Church doesn’t require infertile couples to make sure every sexual act is open to the transmission of life because to do otherwise might prevent a miracle.
And NFP, with or without a contraceptive mentality, is choosing (rather than leaving to chance, or God) when and how many children to have. A couple that chooses to have five children and spaces them using artificial contraception is just as accepting of God’s gift of children as a couple who has five children and spaces them with NFP. And a couple who has five children and spaces them using artificial contraception is more accepting of God’s gift of children than a couple who has three children and spaces them with NFP.