Anti-endorsement
Regrettably, or fortunately depending on your view, I have been rather busy lately and haven’t been frequently posting. I feel I cannot let pass the selection of Gov. Sebelius for Sec. of HHS without comment. Several Catholics have disappointingly offered their endorsement for her nomination. On this point I believe they are mistaken.
The defense against her abortion advocacy is little more than a series of non sequiturs. Sebelius has identified herself and been identified with the pro-choice community for a while. She has embraced George Tiller, a notorious abortionist. While seeking to reduce teenage pregnancy and seeking to improve adoption services are of value and do merit consideration in a comprehensive approach, they do not mitigate against open advocacy for abortion. One would be tempted to dismiss the issue except HHS has a profound affect upon abortion and family services more generally.
But most importantly, this offer of support is wholly unnecessary. No one had any expectations that Mother Teresa would be nominated for HHS. ”It could be worse” is no way to go through life, not that the endorsers seem to be making anything near as guarded of an endorsement. Even if you are personally thrilled that Sebelius was chosen, there are plenty of good reasons to lay low and keep your mouth shout. I can appreciate that one isn’t likely to stop any nominee given the make up of the Senate. And perhaps there is an argument to be made that gross sychophancy puts one in a position to get concessions later on. I more inclined to the belief that the squeaky wheel gets the greese. I’m inclined to believe that those that lay down will be walked over.
While worthy of its own post, let me offer a brief comment on the various interactions between Sebelius and her bishop. While recognizing a bishop’s right to find conduct that makes one unworthy to be offered communion, in the specific case of politicians I believe they should be addressed by the penal canons, specifically 1369. In particular, there seems to be the expectation that an injuction against receiving communion should be universally recognized, and the application of 915 does not address that as it is not a penal canal whereas the penal penalities are universally recognized. With politicians, we are dealing with a relatively small number of people, making the argument of an inability to be expedient moot. We are also dealing with a class that is generally not stable in a particular church or in many cases a diocese. (I’m in the minority in believing that one should generally abstain from communion when outside one’s parish. One isn’t obligated to have weekly communion.) Finally, we are dealing with a class with enough celebrity so as to be recognized widely.
Comments are closed.
I’m in the minority in believing that one should generally abstain from communion when outside one’s parish. One isn’t obligated to have weekly communion.
Can you explain your thinking on this?
Mirror of Justice has had some vigorous posts on this topic of late.
Soon the American Catholic Church will have no “moderates” left in it, and for those left foetuses and “homosexuality” will be the only issues addressed by traditional Catholic “social justice teachings.”
Indeed, in one year alone of the past decade the Catholic Church in America lost almost a half a million members:
http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=17638
The ghosts of Luther and Calvin must be jumping for joy in hell!
It’s a further application of closed communion. The latter sentence is just a note that the obligation is to attend mass, not receive communion.
People are and should be a member of a particular church. As such, a pastor should know his flock. He should know who is participating in the most sacred rite in his church. (When I say minority opinion, I may just be a minority of one.) Keep in mind, I’m not advocating anyone be turned away.
I hope this doesn’t turn into a discussion of closed vs. open communion. The whole Sebelius debacle is too important for Vox Nova readers to pass over it lightly.
As I see it, the problem isn’t just that another pro-abortion Catholic has been picked for office in the Obama administration. That was to be expected. The really disconcerting thing about this nomination has been the zeal with which Catholics identified with social justice issues have defended the governor’s record on life issues–to the point where her longstanding support of abortion as a basic human right is being portrayed as an example of fidelity to the pro-life teachings of the Church. As the posts at Mirror of Justice illustrate, it’s not just right-wing traditionalists who find this dishonest and dismaying.
The Group of 26 who are leading Catholics for Sebelius include some formidable figures who have done much to articulate and popularize Catholic social thought in this country, including Margaret Steinfels, Fr. Tom Reese, and Fr. Tom Massaro. With or without their endorsement, there is no doubt Sebelius will get Senate confirmation. But this endorsement so tarnishes the position of Catholic progressives that their own claims of fidelity to Church teachings must henceforth be treated with extreme skepticism–and not just, as they claim, by right-wing extremists. Frankly, I would be amazed if we ever saw another document like Faithful Citizenship issued by the USCCB.
She has embraced George Tiller, a notorious abortionist.
George Weigel in First Things: “And then, of course, there is Gov. Sebelius’ relationship with George Tiller, a notorious late-term abortionist who was entertained at the Kansas gubernatorial manse in 2007 and was photographed with the governor while holding a Sebelius campaign t-shirt.”
I think the Sebelius-Tiller connection has been overblown and and distorted and is more Operation Rescue propaganda than relevant fact. Tiller was entertained at the governor’s mansion because he put in the highest bid at a fund raiser held by the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus (GKCWPC). Sebelius had donated her time (and the reception, to be used as an auction prize) to the GKCWPC. So the fact that Sebelius and Tiller were at the reception together was the result of them both donating to GKCWPC, not of Sebelius deciding to hold a “secret party” (as the reception is described on so many pro-life web sites) for her favorite late-term abortionists.
Tiller is indeed notorious, but from a Catholic perspective, it is difficult for me to see how a case can be made that someone who performs late-term abortions is more reprehensible than someone who performs first-trimester abortions. If personhood and the right to life begin at conception, a late-term abortion and a first-trimester abortion are morally equivalent. It is precisely the point that a first-trimester fetus deserves less protection than a late-term fetus that Catholics argue against. It is, in a way, dishonest to use Tiller as a way to tarnish Sebelius, since if they are consistent, Catholics should be promoting the idea that there are not good and bad abortionists. Singling out Tiller is a way to appeal to people who are troubled by late-term abortions but not early abortions. It may be an effective political tactic, but it is not a faithful presentation of the Catholic view that life begins at conception and all abortions are the equivalent of murder.
Having said that, I agree with the main point of the post and am rather mystified that such prominent Catholics felt a need to endorse her. Although I think Weigel is way off the mark when he says Sebelius is “an abortion radical by any reasonable definition of the term,” she is clearly not in accord with Catholic teaching on how Catholic politicians should deal with the issue of abortion.
(When I say minority opinion, I may just be a minority of one.)It is a pretty interesting take, though, that I think people can learn from even if they don’t agree.
Tiller was entertained at the governor’s mansion because he put in the highest bid at a fund raiser held by the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus (GKCWPC).
But the evidence for this seems to have been constructed after the fact. Says one web page (with documentation):
Sebelius told the press that the party was the prize at an auction event that benefitted the PAC, and that the state was reimbursed for the expense. However, records show the state initially paid for the party, and was only reimbursed by the PAC – conveniently – on the very day that the open records request was finally answered a year and a half after the event, giving the strong appearance of impropriety. Based on the eye-witness source and the open records evidence, which indicates the “auction prize” story was cooked, Sebelius’ account of the Tiller party just does not add up and should not be believed for one minute.
Says one web page (with documentation) . . .
S.B.,
Operation Rescue is simply not a credible source. Sorry.
Operation Rescue is simply not a credible source. Sorry.
How about the Topeka Capital-Journal? Are they a credible source?
Operation Rescue is simply not a credible source. Sorry.
How about the documentation? (Genetic fallacy).
So what if a Republican governor — Bobby Jindal, let’s say — had a dinner honoring a member of the Aryan Nations, someone who happened to be under investigation for numerous gun crimes. The defense was that the Aryan Nations had just won a charity auction a couple of years before, fair and square. But oh, by the way, the Aryan Nations didn’t pay for their bid in the auction until more than a year after the dinner — and coincidentally on the very day that the publicity broke out about the dinner. (This is all in the Topeka newspaper.)
You wouldn’t raise an eyebrow? Come on.
How about the Topeka Capital-Journal? Are they a credible source?
BA,
I don’t know how reliable the Topeka Capital-Journal is, but the story you linked to seems fact-based to me and does not say, “Based on the eye-witness source and the open records evidence, which indicates the “auction prize” story was cooked, Sebelius’ account of the Tiller party just does not add up and should not be believed for one minute.” The story does not raise any questions at all about whether there was really an auction that Tiller won. It reports it as fact:
It doesn’t even say “according to Governor Sebelius, she had donated the reception.” It makes the same basic points I was making above.
The article is pointing out that the state was reimbursed for the reception (as I understand the article) only after Operation Rescue began demanding information. That reflects badly on Sebelius if you don’t buy the story about why the reimbursement was late, but it doesn’t support Operation Rescue’s contention that the whole story is a fraud.
The basic facts remain that Tiller was the highest bidder for the dinner at the governor’s mansion. His money went to the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus, not to Sebelius. It is the allegation of Operation Rescue, not the Topeka Capital-Journal, that the story of the auction is untrue. From all the information we have, neither the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus nor Governor Sebelius invited Tiller to a reception at the governor’s mansion.
Now, if you want to argue that the Women’s Political Caucus and Governor Sebelius should have simply had no dealings with Tiller at all, that the Women’s Political Caucus should have refused Tiller’s bid at the auction, and that Sebelius should have declined to go through with the reception, you are entitled to your opinion. But I am only discussing matters of fact, and it appears to be a fact that there was indeed an auction that Tiller won, and the reception at the governor’s mansion was not a “secret party” in honor of Tiller and other abortionists, but an event Sebelius participated in to help the Women’s Political Caucus.
The story does not raise any questions at all about whether there was really an auction that Tiller won. It reports it as fact
That’s not true, actually. What the story says is that there was an auction “which the governor’s office said Tiller won.” It doesn’t say that Tiller did win the auction, only that this is what the governor’s office says.
One needn’t be a hardcore opponent of abortion to think that there is something fishy about Sebelius’ explanation of the whole thing. According to Sebelius’ story, Tiller won the dinner in September of 2005. Yet the meeting didn’t take place until April of 2007, more than a year and a half later. The auction item was apparently “dinner for six.” Yet if you look at the photos of the event, Tiller brought about 20 people to the reception. And to top it off, Tiller didn’t pay for the dinner until May of 2008, and only did that when it became apparent the incident was going to draw media attention.
It’s possible, I suppose, that all this could be the result of a series of inconvenient coincidences. To me, though, it looks like a classic case of a politician trying to cover her tracks.
Sebelius has a long history of involvement with “Killer” Tiller and with the abortion industry, some of which was cited in Robert Novack’s column about her before the election. When I read the defense of her as a “faithful Catholic” put out by the Gang of 26 and the mealy-mouthed misgivings expressed by others in the “social justice” camp of American Catholicism, I am convinced they are not so much deceived as deliberately dishonest about what she stands for.
The right wing has long claimed that Seamless Garment Catholicism is a cover for the abortion rights crowd. As a longtime supporter of a consistent ethic of life, I have opposed that view. But in this case, I see no other way to explain the Orwellian logic of Catholics for Sebelius.
And to top it off, Tiller didn’t pay for the dinner until May of 2008, and only did that when it became apparent the incident was going to draw media attention.
BA,
I do remember seeing something about Tiller paying for the dinner in 2008. However, I can’t now find it, and I believe that must be a mistake. The state paid for the dinner when it took place and was was indeed reimbursed late (in May 2008), but by the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus (see here) not by Tiller. His winning bid was $2500 and was presumably paid in 2005, although I have not seen any documentation.
Interestingly, you can see the payment voucher for the catering on Operation Rescue’s web site, and it says “Reception for Women’s Torch Dinner” on it. So there is a contemporaneous document that identifies the reception as an event of the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus.
The bill is for $761, and I believe the Women’s Caucus reimbursed the state $848 for the event. There were more than 20 people present, but using 20 as a round number, that’s somewhere between about $38 and $42 per person for food and wine. Now I am sure catering costs are cheaper in Kansas than they are here in Manhattan, but where I’m from, $42 per person could get you a decent, but definitely not “lavish,” catered affair. (Countless web sites refer to a “lavish secret party.”)
When I read the defense of her as a “faithful Catholic” put out by the Gang of 26 and the mealy-mouthed misgivings expressed by others in the “social justice” camp of American Catholicism, I am convinced they are not so much deceived as deliberately dishonest about what she stands for.
Ron,
I have only glanced at Catholics for Sebelius, but while I have been critical of the attempt to tie Sebelius so closely with Tiller, it seems to me there’s no question that she is staunchly pro-choice in a way that is clearly unacceptable to pro-life Catholics and at odds with what the American Bishops and the Church in general teach about the responsibilities of Catholics in public office. Unlike many pro-choice Catholic politicians, she has been publicly admonished by her bishop. So I am mystified as anyone why she has been endorsed by some big-name Catholics, especially, as the original post points out, when the show of support is entirely unnecessary.
I quite agree she is unacceptable to Catholics. My only point is that just because someone is in the wrong camp, it doesn’t make true or fair everything bad that is said about them.
I looked on LEXIS for the terms “sebelius” and “auction” for stories dated between August and November of 2005 — i.e., contemporaneous stories. The only relevant result was this AP story, which you can also find here:
On the other hand, the 2006 report filed by the women’s caucus does show that Tiller’s PAC (ProKanDo) paid $2500 for something sometime in 2005. So that could possibly have been buying the dinner with Sebelius.
So the auction story may be true after all, although the belated reimbursement is still odd. But in all events, the very fact that Sebelius was so happy to break bread with Tiller (and note that another famous partial-birth abortionist, Leroy Carhart from Nebraska, attended the same dinner for some unexplained reason) isn’t consistent with the claim that she is personally pro-life.
Usual nonsense and usual obfuscation from the usual suspects. This issue has NOTHING to do with abortion. So please, don’t tell me how pro-abortion she is and don’t tell me how much great stuff she has done to reduce abortion (as the other side is doing): tell me instead what she is going to do to end the health care scandal in this country, which is her primary and overwhelming mandate.
This issue has NOTHING to do with abortion.
MM,
The folks over on Catholics for Sebelius spend an awful lot of time talking about abortion — probably three fourths of the site is about Sebelius’s record on abortion, and how unfairly she is being smeared on the issue of abortion, and what it means to be pro-life, and on, and on. So you need to tell them this has nothing to do with abortion.
A nominee for Health and Human Services has “nothing to do with abortion”? Hmm. HHS takes positions on a href=”http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/19/obgyn-leavitt/”>whether doctors have to refer patients for abortion; it is in charge of Medicaid (abortion funding under Medicaid is a major goal of certain politicians whom you supported); etc.
As MM so thoughtfully commented, it’s really all about getting the trains to run on time. (Pay no attention to the Jews in the cattle cars.)
This issue has NOTHING to do with abortion. So please, don’t tell me how pro-abortion she is and don’t tell me how much great stuff she has done to reduce abortion (as the other side is doing): tell me instead what she is going to do to end the health care scandal in this country, which is her primary and overwhelming mandate.
Come now… Must we be partisan on everything?
I would assume that if someone (particularly a Republican) appointed someone to a major position of government responsibility who was a notorious supporter of racism or a notorious supporter of genocide or some such, you would not merely say, “tell me instead what she is going to do to end the health care scandal in this country”
Is it not possible that even if her ideas on health care are (to your mind at least) sound, that her other policy commitments are so despicable that good Catholics should (as MZ advises) refrain from actively endorsing her nomination for the position?
Partisan?? For God’s sake, didn’t you read what I wrote? I have no time for the “Catholics for Sibelius” group either here. Honestly, this bizarre fetish among the American Catholic right for peering into the souls of Catholic politicians (but only on some issues) is getting ridiculous. We have a major health care crisis. Is Sibelius the one to deal with this competently or not? That is the issue. But no, you seem content to see 40 million uninsured, and even more than that underinsured, solely because the person is wrong on abortion. Here’s the ludicrous part: if Sibelius were Protstant, the protests would be far more muted. Get over it.
To understand what has happened to Catholicism in America, I think it’s helpful to think in terms of identity and allegiance. Most self-identified Catholics today seem to have some allegiance to the Church and its teachings, but many have even stronger ties to other entities, from family to social class to political party.
During the Bush years, it was revealing to call out Catholic right-wingers who swore by the doctrine of preventive war, the teachings of the Church notwithstanding. In fact, I believe MM did that on more than one occasion. But he certainly doesn’t like seeing the tables turned, does he?
During Lent, it may be salutary for the Catholics for Obama and Sebelius to remember what Jesus said about putting even their closest family loyalties ahead of call to follow him. To borrow Archbishop Naumann’s telling allusion to an earlier time of trial for the Church, “But for Wales?”
Given that the Secretary of HHS doesn’t have a magic wand that can provide adequate insurance to those affected, that’s a bizarre rant, MM. That’s up to Congress, not Health and Human Services.
I have the distinct impression I’d read the same argument from you if Sebelius actually wielded the scissors at Tiller’s clinic.
Wait a second, it was said many times here that the president has no direct power to influence abortion.
Now, within a month and a half we have:
- federal funding of foreign (“brown”?) children
- removal of a conscience law
- appointment of a well-known abortion supporter to HHS secretary
- and it looks like a reversal of the ban on embryonic stem cell research.
Each of the Catholics that voted for Obama bear a heavy load on the consequences of these actions. Pretending that Obama simply cares about people isn’t a defense. It was known he would implement these policies ahead of time, and you still voted for him.
Each of the Catholics that voted for Obama bear a heavy load on the consequences of these actions.
Each of the Catholics that voted for George Bush in 2000 and 2004 should examine their consciences in light of the fact that Bush started two wars and oversaw the near destruction of the American (and possibly world) economy to the point which it was unthinkable for rational people to vote for John McCain or any other Republican just because of their position on abortion.
David, there’s an obvious difference:
you’re looking at events after the fact. Bush didn’t run promising to start wars. Bush didn’t run promising to ruin the economy. Bush didn’t make terrorists bomb the cole, the trade center, or anything else. Bush didn’t ruin the economy, clinton era policies did.
Obama – he promised to do the things I listed out. There was no doubt what direction he was taking.
clinton era policies did
Tim – what policies would those be?
People are and should be a member of a particular church. As such, a pastor should know his flock. He should know who is participating in the most sacred rite in his church. (When I say minority opinion, I may just be a minority of one.)
Sounds a bit congregationalist to me.
This conversation is sidetracked. The outrage stems from the duplicity required to argue that she is, in fact, a pro-life appointment or in keeping with Catholic teaching on the topic of abortion as the group of 26 has done. Other posts on MoJ have pointed out that this action seriously tarnishes the reputation of the group of 26 and other Catholic Progressives.
Take some sense from the Vatican newspaper (h/t Rocco):
“Yesterday’s edition featured a short item about HHS Secretary-designate Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic whose bishop has told her not to receive Communion on account of her support for abortion rights. The Osservatore article mentioned neither Sebelius’s faith nor her stand on abortion, which could mean that the Vatican doesn’t expect American Catholics to make an issue out of either.
More explicitly favorable is an article in today’s paper praising Obama’s proposed budget for its heavy spending on welfare and health care. According to the unsigned article: “After a decade of exaltation of individual enrichment, today the USA, struck by the economic crisis, is witnessing instead the pressing resurgence of the values of solidarity.”
MM – I can’t believe you still try to defend Obama’s decisions.
YOU are the one that said the president has no power to reduce the instances of abortion. Obama has done plenty of things that are within the SOLE POWER of the President – basically he’s doing anything he can to further abortions in this country.
How do you rationalize this?
Oh, that’s right. Heavy govt. spending means that killing more children is OK
Matt, those “Clinton-era policies” that Tim is referring to were actually Alan Greenspan/Republican-designed implementation of de-regulation of banks and financial institutions, as well as the Bush/Cheney attitude that “defecits don’t matter,” and he knows it full well.
“Teutonic Tim,” “SB” and “Zack” probably aren’t real people writing here at all; they’re just shills for the Republican Party.
Nonsense. I rarely defend the Republican Party, except on this issue, where some people (not MZ, thankfully) seem determined to excuse and ignore any failings of the Democrats.
And comrades digby, MM, and MJI are just dear leader Obama’s new generation of “useful idiots” that allow him to implement these policies under their watch, all the while impressing them with crappy teleprompted speeches, and cracker jack wisdom.
Tim:
Tell me one thing that Obama has done that will have an increase in abortions in this country. One thing. Actually, I find it perfectly conceivable that abortions could spike up again in the near term, and the reason of course would be the worst economy since the 1930s. Then again, you don’t really appreciate the economics here, do you? And I don’t see you pushing too hard for universal health care. So, if we see a spike in abortion under abortion, I wonder which kinds of people will be more proximate to these acts.
Here’s a good example of the madness to which this fundamentalism regarding abortion is leading the Roman Catholic Church:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0306/1224242373838.html
If the Church continues to be this absolutist regarding abortion and “gay marriage,” and to see these issues only in terms of “black and white,” it’ll be wiped off the map of the developed world in a century, on account of its displays of anti-scientific obscurantism.
Why can’t these issues be framed in terms of a “desirable, righeous standard” to be struggled for (e.g. financially supported through orphanage, hospital and hostel-building, etc.) in a post-modernist, mostly atheistic culture in which the faithful will agree to work in a gradualist fashion to construct a better model of community and sell it by example, rather than seek to mercilessly re-impose it by fiat on a “civilisation” that no longer recognises a foetus to be a human being?
Why can’t the ecclesiastics of Church hierarchies realise that they are NO LONGER powerful political players and are,instead, the heads of sects that have been largely discredited in the eyes of mostly-pagan moderns? In other words, why can’t they re-find their roles as naked followers of the naked Christ, with no prerogatives and no privileges in the modern world?
If they could do so, and stop pretending to be “Fathers of Princes and Kings,” i.e. special advisors to Presidents and dictators, maybe the remnants of Catholicism–particulary the youthful members–could begin to take them seriously.
Tell me one thing that Obama has done that will have an increase in abortions in this country.
First of all, is it just about this country? Are you an American bigot?
- He withdrew a ban on using federal (OUR) dollars to fund abortions overseas. Why? What possible reason can a Catholic give to justify this?
- He’s withdrawing an order giving further protection to Dr.s and nurses that will not perform the “medical” procedure of abortion – Why? What possible reason can a Catholic give to justify this?
- He’s appointed at least two staunch abortion supporters for HHS, one of which also advocated for giving less care to the elderly under his view of “universal” health care. This post has direct power to recommend and implement policies that can (and will) support abortion. Why? What possible reason can a Catholic give to justify this?
- He is overruling a ban on embryonic stem cell research. The result of which will be the creation of new people “grown” for harvesting and testing. Why? What possible reason can a Catholic give to justify this?
These policies are SPECIFIC initiatives undertaken by the president, and none other than the president has the power to implement these policies. These are direct actions taken by Obama alone.
Your “economics” argument has no DIRECT effect on abortion, and even if your fantasy of his policies reducing abortion comes true, it does not and cannot negate the lives lost under his direct orders. Not only that, he as the president CANNOT implement these policies alone, he needs the legislative branch, filled with people who will not stop fighting his takeover.
You are trading specific unilateral action against any pro-life cause for the hope that his economic policies get placed into action, and then again on the hope that they actually help. Then you have to rationalize thinking it will then negate the lives lost under his direct orders.
He promised this “change” YOU have to believe in, and he delivered
TeutonicTim,
A number of your arguments are based on incorrect assertions rather than on facts.
He withdrew a ban on using federal (OUR) dollars to fund abortions overseas.
No he did not. The following are all still in effect:
Coding error above. The blockquote should have ended right after the paragraph about the Biden Amendment. Apologies.
Now we’re back to the symbolism argument. If these overturned decisions were so harmless, why overturn them?
As Michael Sandel pointed out, Bush’s compromise on embryonic stem-cell research could be described as saying that it is the equivalent of murder . . . and should be left to the private sector.
Witty, but still doesn’t address the point. If Bush restricted the use of federal money, thus allowing only the private sector to perform this and that is a problem, what does it say about Obama?
He is continuing to allow it to be performed under his watch, and now he’ll pay for it too! This will probably go down as the worst decision he’s made. It completely blows away any of MMs possible economics arguments because these people will be paying for “expendable” people to use to inject into rich people like Christopher Reeves.
And comrades digby, MM, and MJI are just dear leader Obama’s new generation of “useful idiots” that allow him to implement these policies under their watch, all the while impressing them with crappy teleprompted speeches, and cracker jack wisdom.
As I’ve made perfectly clear in ALL of my election-related posts, JERK, I don’t care much about Obama. Please refrain from “useful idiot” language in the future at Vox Nova or your comments will likely be deleted.
“useful idiot” is a political term. “JERK” is an insult. Funny how your comments won’t ever be moderated or deleted…
Now we’re back to the symbolism argument. If these overturned decisions were so harmless, why overturn them?
TeutonicTim,
If you read anything I wrote about the Provider Conscience Regulation in other threads, you will see I never said it was symbolic. I said it was overly broad and did not attempt to balance the rights of medical providers to refuse against the rights of employers to hire people who would do their jobs or the rights of patients. But the rights of doctors and nurses who do not wish to perform, or assist in the performance of, abortion were solidly protected before this regulation and remain so.
If Bush restricted the use of federal money, thus allowing only the private sector to perform this and that is a problem, what does it say about Obama?
Michael Sandel’s point was that if embryonic stem-cell research was so objectionable, why not simply ban it altogether? Sandel in his book The Case Against Perfection argues that nobody really believes a fertilized egg is a human person, otherwise we would behave quite differently than we do. For example, 60 to 80 percent of early human embryos die, for one reason or another, within days of fertilization. Nobody cares. There is scarcely any medical research to find out why, and certainly no attempt to come up with medical treatments that could save all of these lost “babies.” Nobody even bothers to pray for them.
My mother told me that once she thought she might have had a very, very early miscarriage (this was in the 1950s), and she called to ask our parish priest what to do. He said, “Flush it down the toilet.”
David, the only thing I’d have added to that, had I been your mother’s parish priest, would have been, “Say a prayer for this nascent life, as you ‘flush it down the toilet’ and offer it back to God and to the universe which produced it.”
ALL life is “sacred,” including non-human life. That is the wisdom that is part of the consciousness of both the Buddhists and the Native Americans, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t eat it, consume it, make tents out of it, if you will, and–most importantly, in the case of abortion–PROTECT OUR WOMEN against it.
What we are required to do, above all, I think–by ANY spiritual discipline that’s the least bit decent–is to RESPECT it. It’s not very respectful of the nascent life of foetuses to turn it into a football in our games of ferocious Catholic “identity politics.”
What WOULD be “respectful” of it, however, would be to WITHDRAW from the politics of a people who have become as pathetically pagan as a bunch of South Sea islanders in the middle of the nineteenth century (but who are as deserving of our mercy, prayers and RESPECT as any other group of barbarians), and to concentrate, instead, as I said above, on building hostels and clinics and counseling centres for the mothers of unwanted children, and orphanages for the children they may want to offer for adoption.
Most of the Catholics who wave the “foetus flag” here are more interested in restoration of the political power of the “Church Triumphant” than they are in LIVING EXEMPLARY LIVES after the model of their Saviour, who came into the world naked and went out of it naked, and not clothed in the robes of pontificial power. If this were not true, they’d be far less alarmed that their “Father of Princes and Kings” is actually in favour of the “redistributive” (and quite Christian, monarchist and feudal) model of political economy, as it was falteringly pursued by sacred and anointed Christian rulers for over a thousand years.
As any competent politician knows, it’s important to know when you’ve been defeated and to behave accordingly–and, if you’re a “Christian” politician, to behave respectfully and humbly toward your conqueror, who, in this case, is the spirit of secular, post-modernist paganism–and with confidence that this “spirit” cannot win eternally.
Tim, we’d still be paying for embryonic stem cell research if John McCain were President. What is it with you people (on both sides of the aisle) who think that politicians will save our country from teh abyss into which we are rapidly sliding? The same number of abortions will likely be performed in 2012 as were performed in 2012 (ignoring the natural decline that began under Clinton and has continued through today), a fact that would be true no matter which major candidate had won this election. When will you all stop committing the Americanist heresy and realize that our culture is fundamentally perverted, and that the people who are popular enough to end up becoming major party candidates are inevitably reflections of that culture? Our culture does not value unborn human life; hence, neither of our major presidential candidates this year did. Our culture supports the death penalty; hence, both of our major candidates did. Our culture does not care what happens in forgotten corners of the world such as Darfur; hence, neither of our major candidates did (recent events have made it abundantly clear that Obama cares no more about Darfur than did Bush). The biggest mistake that pro-life organizations, including very respectable groups such as Priests for Life and the NRLC, made from the very beginning was encouraging their followers to vote for the lesser of two evils, a strategy that, predictably, has left us with less and less.
Enough is enough. We have to separate ourselves from our corrupt two-party system go back to square one, working to change our culture through prayer and evangelization. Personally, I think a “fast” from the political process by all sincere pro-life Christians would do wonders for our movement, both spiritually and practically. We need to work for justice from the ground up, one heart at a time. Only when we have a pro-life culture will we have a pro-life party or president.
And incidentally, Tim, a quick rhetorical point for you: implicitly accusing someone of Communist sympathies and calling them a “useful idiot” usually does not help them see your side of an issue.
OK, and I mean to say that the same number of abortions will be performed in 2012 as were in *2008*.
“Hear, hear” for what Mickey Johnson just said!
Tell me one thing that Obama has done that will have an increase in abortions in this country. One thing.
What I sometimes wonder is what you yourself will think, on judgment day, when God introduces you to the actual children aborted specifically as a result of Obama’s election. (I wonder the same thing about many war hawks who pretend that intended acts in war are not intended, when God introduces them to innocents deliberately targeted in war; etc).
More generally, and perhaps mystically I suppose, I sometimes wonder if Hell isn’t a place where we ourselves choose to go hide for eternity in shame over our actions.
Nobody even bothers to pray for them.
That actually isn’t true, at least not literally.
But I think as a rhetorical or polemical point it is weak. That is, it only seems to be a strong rhetorical point to folks in the choir who already have a certain mindset, a mindset which cannot accept that the difference between natural death and deliberate murder is all the difference between Heaven and Hell.
But, “Zippy,” you DO know, don’t you, that we COULD “repent,” if we actually WANTED to, right?
We COULD band together to build hospitals, hostels and counseling centres for unwed mothers, as I suggested above. We COULD pool our resources to build orphanages where un-aborted children could be raised by communities of Catholic celibates (something for “same-sex attracted” “penitents” to do?–as opposed to being demonized by the Catholic puritans of North America?)
We COULD stop appealing to politicians to reverse arbitrarily and undemocratically the decisions of the appalling pagan and Protestant majorities and resolve to DEVOTE OUR LIVES to prayer and mass-movements of witness to the sinfulness of so-called capital punishment, of “preventive wars,” of the PLUNDER of the largely-Catholic poor of Latin America by U.S. corporations, of the denial of basic health care to the CHILDREN of the working poor in such sweat-shops as Walmart. You DO acknowledge that all of these are practical alternatives–things that involve ACTION–as opposed to caterwauling on blogs, right?
But “we” are not going to do ANY of those things, for the simple reason that our loudly professed hypocritical “faith” cannot HOLD A CANDLE to that of our ancestors, who built monasteries, laboured among the poor and un-evangelised, and PERMANENTLY and RESOLUTELY forsook the company of princes and politicians!
I see only one person caterwauling around here.
But “we” are not going to do ANY of those things, for the simple reason that our loudly professed hypocritical “faith” cannot HOLD A CANDLE to that of our ancestors, who built monasteries, laboured among the poor and un-evangelised, …
It seems to me that you are positively reveling in nihilism here. In the meantime, pro-lifers are in fact doing all kinds of good works beyond and in addition to legal advocacy for the unborn. You should look into it and join in. But you AREN’T going to do ANY of those THINGS, are you, because you would feel better if everyone was a contrarian nihilist like yourself.
…and PERMANENTLY and RESOLUTELY forsook the company of princes and politicians!
A contrarian nihilist with a rather counterfactual view of the history, at that.
a mindset which cannot accept that the difference between natural death and deliberate murder is all the difference between Heaven and Hell.
Zippy,
Surely there is a difference between abortion, on the one hand, and early embryo loss by natural failure to implant and spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), on the other. But I can find no reason to assume the difference is for the unborn person. If life truly begins at conception, do you believe that God treats differently the victim of a miscarriage and the victim of an induced abortion?
If 60 to 80 percent of babies died of mysterious natural causes within 10 days of being born, surely there would be a massive effort on the part of medical science to discover the cause and prevent the tremendous number of deaths. And even if it were discovered that there was absolutely nothing medical science could do to prevent these deaths, surely there would be explicit prayers for the souls.
There is no getting around the fact that, at present, many more babies die than are born, and hardly anyone give is a second though.
Of course, all of this is relevant only if life (and personhood) begins at conception. Assume it begins a little earlier (at implantation) and the unborn still die in significant numbers, but not massive ones. And assume life begins somewhere during the second trimester of pregnancy, and the problem (and the abortion debate) almost is nonexistent.
Sandel may not be correct that nobody believes life begins at conception, but he is certainly correct, when it comes to early embryo loss, that people behave as if they don’t believe early embryos that fail to implant are actual persons, if they even bother to think about it.
What I sometimes wonder is what you yourself will think, on judgment day, when God introduces you to the actual children aborted specifically as a result of Obama’s election.
Zippy,
If the victims of abortion are in Heaven (if they are saved, in spite of being unbaptized), then what will be their beef with Obama voters? Life on earth is not the ultimate goal. Eternity in Heaven is. Your scenario (and Archbishop Chaput’s) is based on the imagined suffering of the aborted babies. As I have said a number of times, those who are conceived, born, and reach the age of reason have, according to Catholic teaching, a real possibility of committing mortal sin and spending eternity in Hell. On the other hand, the Church now assumes those who die before birth and the possibility of baptism are saved.
It’s not my argument here that abortion is a good thing because it sends babies directly to heaven. The taking of an innocent life can never be justified. My only point here is that the Chaput scenario of meeting the victims of the abortion in the afterlife seems to assume they have suffered some terrible fate and will look at Obama voters with big, sad eyes and say, “Why did you do this to us?”
The scenario when it comes to war dead is much more compelling. And the scenario that haunts me is 16,000 children a day who die from hunger-related causes (one child every five seconds). What if they say, “How could you justify having so much, when we had nothing? How could you justify living in a country full of obese people, when we were starving to death? How could you waste so much?”
Joe Bernardin must be rolling in his grave. The seamless garment is so over. Does anyone doubt that for *many* progressive and conservative activists political party allegiance trumps consistent ethic of life sensibilities?
I’m less distressed Sebelius’ appointment than by the absence of expressed sadness or ambivalence about it in progressive Catholic precints. What’s up with this? Are we so polarized that if the despised prolifers oppose her nomination it must be supported???
Catholic Obama supporters could arrive at the sad conclusion that the president owes a great deal to his powerful prochoice constituency, that she is right on many other issues, and that however regrettable her rigid prochoice stance she’s as good as we’re going to get. I support Obama on the totality of the issues. I can get there.
But that’s not how this statement reads. We’re not talking about early first trimester ambiguity here, folks. We’re treated to unambiguous support for a HHS Secretary candidate who endorses a policy of *no* effective legal protection for fetuses at any stage.
As a progressive Catholic and Obama supporter, I ‘get it’ when progressive Vox Nova commentators express distress at the public associations of conservative Catholic luminaries. Yet we give a pass to progressive Catholic politicians who essentially subscribe to NARAL, Planned Parenthood and Catholics for Free Choice orthodoxy?
Sebelius is not in the least uncomfortable to be in league with the most prominent American third semester abortionist. Check this out: http://www.drtiller.com/medir.html. Are we absolutely sure that all of the extremism in abortion discourse comes from the anti-abortion side? That the Sebelius position is the middle ground?
I’m a “nihilist,” Zippy, because I’ve given up on the AMERICAN Catholics?
I don’t even live in America anymore, and don’t self-identify in any shape, way or form with American Catholicism, which I regard as an aberrant, neo-Protestant form of orthodoxy, whose main cultural influences are NIHILIST capitalism and Calvinism.
It does enormous good for my Catholicism that it should be have become a EUROPEAN form of that particular type of Christian orthodoxy. Not a single priest or lay Catholic here has yet to cross-question me regarding my “correctness” on abortion or “gay marriage,” as happened LOADS of times recently, in the American Southwest.
Mike: absolutely correct, and very well-said.
Mike McG…, thank you. I know a lot of self-styled progressive Catholics, but I don’t know many who would take the stand you are taking. In fact, it’s hard for me to think of even one. That is why the Seamless Garment is so over. But for the Church, that is a very bad thing.
“useful idiot” is a political term. “JERK” is an insult. Funny how your comments won’t ever be moderated or deleted…
1) My comments have, in fact, been moderated at Vox Nova.
2) “Useful idiot,” in this case, is an inaccurate term. “JERK” (in all caps), in this case, is an accurate and truthful term.
I’m a “nihilist,” Zippy, because I’ve given up on the AMERICAN Catholics?
Do you in fact volunteer at pro-life crisis pregnancy centers and march in protest in front of abortion clinics where you do live?
David:
Billions of people die of old age, quite naturally. And while some folks are indeed working on the ‘problem’ of natural death, as well as other things like implantation failure, those activities don’t inspire the same kind of political urgency as deliberate genocide.
And that is very much as it should be. As I said, people who think otherwise, who see the “millions of embryos die naturally” rhetoric as somehow compelling, only do so because they have already bought into a terrifically distorted moral view of the world.
Zippy,
You are avoiding the point I am raising. From the Catholic viewpoint, there is a compelling case against abortion, because it is seen as the unjust taking of an innocent life. However, statements that attempt to evoke sympathy for aborted babies because they never got to live a life on earth need more explaining. Statements like yours, imagining some kind of confrontation between the souls of aborted babies in the afterlife and the souls of Obama voters who die have to explain the grievances the souls of aborted babies will have against Obama voters.
When someone dies of old age, there is the comfort of knowing that they lived a full life. When someone dies at a very young age, it is puzzling. As I pointed out, if 60 to 80 percent of babies died within 10 days after birth, it would be seen as a catastrophe. However, if life begins at conception, 60 to 80 percent of babies die within the first 10 days of life. It may not be a political matter — although if people really believed that 60 to 80 percent of people were dying at an early age, I think there would be considerable pressure to do something about it. Note that the Catechism says, “Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.”
Quite simply, it is an inconsistency — for those who believe that life begins at conception — to be utterly indifferent to the death of 60 to 80 percent of the human race! If an asteroid hit the earth and killed 60 to 80 percent of the population, no one would say, “Oh, well, there really wasn’t anything we could do to stop it. At least they weren’t killed deliberately.”
Of course, one possible response to my argument is that everyone should care more about all of the unborn, not that because so many die outside our notice one should care less about abortion. Curiously, no one ever makes that argument to me when I bring up this issue. No one ever says, “We should try to do something so there is a higher survival rate,” or “We should remember in our prayers all of those many babies who die through natural causes so very early in life.” All of the arguments I get are basically that it’s no big deal that 60 to 80 percent of persons conceived die within a few days. We can’t see it. We can’t do anything about it. What’s the point of even thinking about it.
David — since you make so much of the supposed early miscarriage rate, I wonder how on earth anyone could even conceivably get accurate evidence as to how many conceptions supposedly occur but then die “within a few days.” Of the women who supposedly experience miscarriages “within a few days” of conception, surely none of them would ever even know. And I find it impossible to imagine that anyone (maybe Nazi scientists?) has ever experimented upon human women by implanting them with fertilized eggs and then operating to see how many were viable “within a few days.”
Statements like yours, imagining some kind of confrontation between the souls of aborted babies in the afterlife and the souls of Obama voters who die have to explain the grievances the souls of aborted babies will have against Obama voters.
Why, the grievance is the grievance of having been murdered. I think that is rather obvious outside the choir loft.
Quite simply, it is an inconsistency — for those who believe that life begins at conception — to be utterly indifferent to the death of 60 to 80 percent of the human race!
100 percent of the human race dies. 100 percent of the human race is not murdered.
We can’t do anything about it. What’s the point of even thinking about it.
Like, say, dying of old age.
As David suggests, aborting an embryo does not “hurt” the potential person at all. The “potential person” goes, according to our theology, directly to heaven.
There is, however, grave damage done to oneself and to the community one lives in by abortion and by the legalisation of abortion. To awaken the wider community to this spiritual harm–which is, indeed, contributing to the hardening of folks’ attitudes toward social and economic injustice, to so-called “capital punishment,” to “wars of choice” and to the “commodification” of both life and labour (in the so-called “culture of death”) is a far more crucial activity than working at pregnancy crisis centres or marching in demonstrations.
But doing it takes patience, it takes honing one’s communication skills, and, above all else, it takes RESPECT for the viewpoint of those who honestly don’t feel that a foetus is a “person,” and who apparently can’t recognise that taking its life is DIRECTLY RELATED to, say, denying health care to the children of a Walmart employee.
Even if one feels that the people whose consciousness one is attempting to “heighten” have let themselves become, morally speaking, the equivalent of barbarian cannibals, as I do, one must have the tact and compassion to reason with them, and one must refrain from attempting to coerce them, with a ballot box OR a judicial decision (both of which have come to represent, for them, the exertion of illegitimate force, by a MINORITY) into abandoning what they genuinely believe.
…aborting an embryo does not “hurt” the potential person at all.
An embryo is not a potential person, she is an actual person. (I took a ‘rescued embryo’ to the park one day. I have pictures. It was just like taking any other child to the park.)
And murdering her in her sleep does in fact hurt her, even though she may not consciously experience her murder.
You didn’t answer my question about your outside-the-US activities.
The idea that all aborted (or even miscarried) babies go to heaven is not de fide and is a contentious matter to put it mildly.
Zippy, I do not yet have sufficient German to be able to do the kind of volunteer work here that you’d like to suggest is my “duty” as a Catholic.
My next international school job should be in an anglophonic (Britain, Ireland, India, etc.) or a francophonic country (France, Belgium, Tunisia, etc.), though.
Meanwhile, the most practical thing I am able to do here is to speak on the subject to the Germans who have sufficient English to understand (an amazingly large number).
…However, it’s increasingly hard to talk sense to the European secularists when the Catholic Church allows itself to become so associated with this kind of insanely dogmatic cruelty:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7930380.stm
I like what MikeMcG had to say.
There was a quite interesting piece in yesterdays NYT
discussing the difficulties to pass on the abortion torch. There is hope to get this right after all perhaps.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/fashion/08generationb.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=Abortion&st=cse
But it is also quite clear that a solid and strong majority within and outside the catholic church will never allign with the pious theoretical church line in terms of the type of Abortions unfortunatelly highlighted by the case of the abused 4 mounth pregnant 8 year old brazilian girl.
The theological perhaps pure yet from any warm blooded catholic parents perspective sterile Vatican utterances did not help our case.
The idea that all aborted (or even miscarried) babies go to heaven is not de fide and is a contentious matter to put it mildly.
M.Z.,
All the more reason, one would think, to be concerned that — if personhood begins at conception — the death rate in the first few days is extraordinarily high. Those conceived but never born may constitute the majority of the human race.
David — since you make so much of the supposed early miscarriage rate, I wonder how on earth anyone could even conceivably get accurate evidence as to how many conceptions supposedly occur but then die “within a few days.”
S.B.
I would recommend reading the transcript of a presentation and discussion sponsored by the President’s Council on Bioethics titled Early Embryonic Development: An Up-to-Date Account. Here is an excerpt:
The President’s Council on Bioethics was created by George Bush and so far as I know, there are no Nazi doctors serving on it, nor do they cite any research by Nazi doctors. If you want to dispute scientific findings, I would suggest you do a little research instead of making things up.
Zippy,
Two unborn babies die, one by spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), the other by induced abortion. Do they suffer different fates?
I didn’t make things up. Notice the word “maybe”? The word “maybe” indicates a speculative thought on my part, borne out of disbelief that anyone could possibly have real evidence (as opposed to the “estimates” that you cite) on how many embryos are miscarried in the first few days. In fact, if you could do a little research yourself, can you find an actual study (not an offhand remark at a presentation) regarding normal healthy women (not women experiencing infertility)? I can’t find any such study right now, and I suspect you can’t either (or you would have cited it straightaway).
Digby:
I do not yet have sufficient German to be able to do the kind of volunteer work here that you’d like to suggest is my “duty” as a Catholic.
I didn’t suggest that it was your duty. You said a bunch of nihilist things about anti-abortion activism of various sorts. I pointed out that what you said was nihilist. You retorted that you didn’t live in America and you were criticizing the state of American anti-abortion activism, not anti-abortion activism generally. So I asked what you personally were doing wherever you live. You have now replied that you aren’t doing anything. So my original criticism of the stance you seem to have taken – that it is nihilist – still seems pretty credible, and your protestations to the contrary appear empty.
David:
Two unborn babies die, one by spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), the other by induced abortion. Do they suffer different fates?
I expect not. And again, only a member of your particular choir could possibly think the question or its answer is even slightly pertinent, let alone that it represents some kind of telling rhetorical point.
Two million Catholics in a state of grace die, one million murdered and the other million of old age. Which is a more urgent political concern: the million who were murdered, or the million who died of old age?
S.B.,
You could simply have asked me to cite evidence.
And for that matter, which is a greater moral concern with respect to the political activities which led to the mass murder before the seat of judgment: the million who were murdered, or the million who died of old age?
Which is a more urgent political concern: the million who were murdered, or the million who died of old age?
Zippy,
There may be political ramifications to what I am saying, but I am not primarily interested in the politics of it. When I asked why no one even prayed for these massive numbers of alleged human beings who die within a few days of conception, did you imagine that was a political question?
I am questioning how you can make a moral argument against abortion based on the suffering of aborted babies. There is, of course, a clear moral argument based on the prohibition against killing an innocent human being. But I am asking how you make an argument, from the aborted baby’s point of view, based on what the baby suffered and what it was deprived of.
I am questioning how you can make a moral argument against abortion based on the suffering of aborted babies.
Who made that argument? The argument against abortion is based on the injustice committed against aborted babies, not on their suffering.
Take all the Jews in Heaven who were gassed by the Nazis. What were they deprived of? Wasn’t it good that they were hastened on to a better place? What possible injustice could there be, then, and what possible shame could their murderers feel at the final judgment?
To ask these questions as if they had any validity is to use Heaven as an excuse to deny the moral reality of murder, and of all other injustices. I don’t understand why anyone would think the line of questioning and the argument behind it has any merit.
It is interesting to note that S.B. said, “And I find it impossible to imagine that anyone (maybe Nazi scientists?) has ever experimented upon human women by implanting them with fertilized eggs and then operating to see how many were viable ‘within a few days.’” And Zippy said, “Take all the Jews in Heaven who were gassed by the Nazis. What were they deprived of?”
It seems a little underhanded to me to evoke the memory of the Nazis as a means to attempt to discredit the points I am trying to make.
“Zippy,” like many of your ilk who pontificate here, you can’t read. I never said I was doing “nothing”; I said that I talk to a lot of English-speaking Germans here, and try to persuade them that abortion contributes to the deadening of their moral imaginations. Is that “nothing”?
Maybe Americans are more impressed by a bunch of hysterical people waving signs and blocking access roads, but the Europeans I’ve met are not: they are more impressed with logical, well-reasoned arguments expressed in amicable tones over, perhaps, a good meal in a restaurant or a few drinks in a cafe.
I just arrived in Germany and have only just begun to learn all the details of my extremely demanding faculty position; I have absolutely no social life aside from church services on the weekend and a book club that I belong to.
I’d have to know someone a lot better than you know me before I’d start throwing the term “nihilist” in his or her direction. Indeed, there are almost no “nihilists” in my profession. A “nihilist” wouldn’t last very long as a prep school teacher!
I’d have to know someone a lot better than you know me before I’d start throwing the term “nihilist” in his or her direction.
I didn’t say you are a nihilist. I said that what you said was nihilist. It was, and you’ve given no reason to think otherwise, as far as I can tell.