Cardinal Cottier on Obama and abortion
Very recently, Cardinal Georges Cottier, the Dominican theologian emeritus of the pontifical household, penned an interesting essay centered around Obama’s speeches in Notre Dame and Cairo. This is highly significant. The journal, 30 Days, has strong ties to the Vatican (just like the much maligned L’Osservatore Romano) and the cardinal was charged, under Pope John Paul II, with vetting documents for orthodoxy. And yet he writes an essay finding much to praise in Obama’s abortion strategy, even though Obama does not see merit in granting legal protection to the unborn.
To me, this is yet another indication of how much the American Catholic right is diverging from the traditional Catholic outlook, overly influenced by the dominant Gnostic-Protestant culture in general, and by the derivative dualistic Calvinism of the evangelicals with whom they increasing make common cause in particular. It’s significant that cardinal Cottier is a Dominican, a Thomist, an Aquinas scholar, and his analysis is couched in Aquinas’s theory of law. His main point, I think, is that Christians are expected to live in a fallen world, and to change by example and persuasion, not by force and through laws that will not be accepted. The application to abortion is pellucid.
So what exactly does cardinal Cottier say on Obama and abortion? He first implicitly rebukes those who adopt the right-wing talking points of the day and call him the “most pro-abortion president ever”. Here is Cottier:
“There are those who, like us, consider abortion an intrinsece malum, there are those who accept it, and even some who claim it as a right. The President has never taken the latter position. On the contrary, I think he has made positive suggestions – something also stressed by L’Osservatore Romano of 19 May – proposing again in this case the search for common ground. …His position is not the misunderstood relativism of those who say that it is a matter of contrasting views, and that all personal opinions are subjective and uncertain, and thus it is better to set them aside when speaking of these things.
In addition, Obama recognizes the tragic seriousness of the problem. That the decision to abort “is a heart-wrenching decison for any woman”. The common ground that he is proposing is that we all work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortion. He adds that any legal regulation of the matter must guarantee in absolute fashion conscientious objection for health workers who do not want to engage in the practice of abortion. His words go in the direction of diminishing the evil. The government and the State must make every effort to ensure that the number of abortions is minimized. It is, of course, only a minimum, but a precious minimum. “
He then draws an interesting historical comparison. He notes that the early Christian legislators did not repeal gravely unjust Roman laws tolerating practices that went counter to the natural law, such as slavery and concubinage. Instead, change took time, “arrived at by slow degrees, often marked by setbacks,” as the Christian ethos on the dignity of the person became more prevalent. In other words, they had to change the culture before they could change the law. In sum:
“At first, to obtain the consent of citizens and preserve social peace, the so-called “imperfect laws” were left in force, which prevented persecution for acts and behavior contrary to natural law. Even St Thomas, who had no doubt that the law must be moral, added that the State should not make laws too severe and “lofty” because they would be despised by those incapable of applying them.
The realism of the politician recognizes evil and calls it by its name. It recognizes that we must be humble and patient, fighting without the presumption of eradicating it from human history by means of legal coercion. It is the parable of the tares, which also applies at the political level. On the other hand, this does not become justification for cynicism and indifference to it. The effort to decrease evil as much as possible remains persistent. It is a duty.”
He then warns of the danger of utopianism, something the Church has always opposed, and shows how a zeal for good can lead to evil — he gives the examples of communism and the murder of abortion doctors:
“The Church has always perceived the illusion of eliminating evil from history by legal, political or religious means as unattainable and dangerous. Recent history is also full of disasters produced by the fanaticism of those who aimed to dry up the sources of evil in human history, ultimately transforming everything into a vast cemetery. The communist regimes followed exactly this logic. As does the religious terrorism which kills even in the name of God. When a doctor who favored abortion was killed by militant anti-abortionists – as happened recently in the US – one has to admit that even the highest ideals, such as the sacrosanct defense of the absolute value of human life, can be corrupted and turn into their opposite, becoming slogans at the disposition an aberrant ideology.”
As I have said many times, the Church throughout history has worked with flawed leaders and flawed juridical frameworks, trying to promote the common good to the best of its ability. Think of Charlemagne, Justinian the Great, Theoderic. Think of Thomas More working for Henry VIII. Think of Pope Gregory the Great pledging his respect and loyalty to Emperor Phocas after Phocas had murdered his predecessor Maurice and Maurice’s family. Whole books could be written with such examples. To think that standards of virtue rise in democracy is itself a form of idolatry. In other words, a position consistent with Catholic history would be work with Obama on the aspects of his agenda that we support — including the goal of reducing abortions even if we differ on the the larger picture.
We will only win by changing hearts and minds. Think about it. A noisy “pro-life” group demonizes Obama as the most pro-abortion president ever, and even our bishops have shown themselves more inclined to follow than lead on this issue. I remain convinced that the vitriolic response of many American Catholics to Obama’s election, to his positions (real or imagined), and to his address at Notre Dame, will surely backfire and do great harm to the pro-life cause. After all, the message being absorbed by the wider public is that Catholics are a bunch of single-issue extremists who had no problem with a war-and-torture president, but vehemently oppose Obama on abortion. What will that accomplish?
I was incredibly impressed by the pope giving a copy of the most recent CDF document on bioethics to Obama as a parting gift. Ever the teacher, he wanted Obama to read a literature that was patently foreign to him. Instead of denouncing, he sought to persuade by words. Instead of opposing with emotion, he reached out with intellect. I don’t not expect any road-to-Damascus moments as he reads it. But still, this gesture was worth a million Randall Terry types ranting and raving about the ills of abortion.
We can only win by persuasion, by changing hearts and minds. Remember, when the people of South Dakota were asked to criminalize abortion, what exactly were they asked to approve? Well, there would be no penalty for the woman, and the doctor would be charged with a misdemeanor akin to possession of a small quantity of marijuana. And it still failed at the polls. Cardinal Cottier’s example from ancient Rome is apt.
We can change the culture by example. We do so by stressing the consistent ethic of life, the personalist ethic of intrinsic human worth. We must denounce abortion as the violent act it is, and link it to the more general culture of violence. We must follow the Declaration on Procured Abortion which declares that, “One can never approve of abortion; but it is above all necessary to combat its causes”. It is merely a small step, one of a million necessary small steps. For those who remain cynical about this strategy, I would merely note that grace and nature are not distinct spheres.
The extremist are not helpful, and most people see that. There were some over the top reactions, but holding Terry up as the norm is dishonest.
The comparison to early Christians is interesting and enlightening. So early Christians changed unnatural laws over time by first endorsing the expansion of those unnatural acts? Or did they at a minimum try to hold the line in their effort to change hearts and minds over time?
Should President Obama sign legislation that adds abortion services to the proposed public health care system (as the Congress is adding now) and paid for by the government? Would this be consistent with the common ground to solve the problem?
The comparison is interesting but does not pass the sniff test. Politicians may stretch the truth, but can we not at lest be honest?
The abortion rate has fallen through Democratic and Republican administrations, through contractions of the welfare state and expansions, through recessions and booms. The pro-life movement has had tremendous on-going success in this respect, regardless of the allegedly unhelpful attitudes of some of the extremists in the movement.
The abortion rate is not tied to who we have in office – that battle is being fought elsewhere and we are winning! What IS tied to who is in office is the maintaining of profound structural injustice in our system. President Obama is 110 percent committed to supporting a system that exploits and enables violence against the poorest of the poor. Many Republicans are equally committed to injustice or only disavow the system with their lips, but not their hearts.
There is no reason to believe that President Obama’s anti-poverty initiatives (which I would enthusiastically support!) will reduce the abortion rate. In fact historical evidence tells us that one set of policies is not better for the abortion rate over another. He will DEFINITELY continue a process of enshrining injustice at the very heart of our laws.
I get what the Cardinal is saying, and I actually agree with his point. But I think it should also be pointed out that even when it is understandable and neccesary that the Church compromises in order to get good things done, it is still lamentable. Looking back, a Catholic can’t help but wish Gregory hadn’t cozied up to Phocus, that Pius hadn’t signed the concordat with Hitler, that the Church didn’t countenance ceratin secular crimes for as long as she did.
A lot of this was for Her own survival in a fallen world. The Church has to work with the people who rule the state, regardless of whether they are virtuous like St. Louis or have a horrible human rights record like Presidents Bush and Obama. But sometimes it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth of a Christian.
The Obama that you gave us is on the verge of mandating that abortions be free for everyone in health care. And this makes pro-life Catholics in the US into out-of-touch extremists? Right.
Cardinal Cottier says: “There are those who, like us, consider abortion an intrinsece malum, there are those who accept it, and even some who claim it as a right. The President has never taken the latter position.”
Obama says (Jan 22nd 2008): “Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it’s never been more important to protect a woman’s right to choose.”
So we can conclude that Cardinal Cottier is radically misinformed about President Obama’s positions, to such a degree that it simply removes the foundation for Cottier’s remarks.
(All this has been well discussed on other blogs, a week ago.)
Interpreting the pope’s handing Obama Dignitas Personae as a sign of his agreement with your positions is astounding. While Benedict has not given such gifts to other leaders (no just war tracts to Bush), he found Obama’s positions so troublesome (or perhaps the white-washing of them by you, Kmiec, and others for the sake of Malta) that he felt the need to underscore the differences between Obama and the Church.
It is amusing that your summary of COttier’s article sounds awfully familiar to what you’ve been repeating ad nauseam. As Paul noted, it appears the Cardinal (through no fault of his own) has not read enough of Obama’s speeches. If you can illustrate that Obama does not think abortion is right and that FOCA is in line with what other presidents thought, then the charge of “most pro-abort president ever” remains as fact not insult.
Furthermore, where is this strawman of “don’t work with Obama on anything?” Has anyone argued not working with Obama on those things we agree with? You’re marginalizing those who are simply trying to point out to you that Obama doesn’t agree with the Church on almost anything-from his social ideas to his Americanist foreign policy.
Finally, the notion that Obama is trying to change the culture of abortion is laughable from a Catholic understanding. Obama is not attempting to promote healthy notions of sexuality and a value of life. Instead he’s praising the LGBT crowd, protecting torturers, and most of is attempting to reduce abortions primarily through contraception. Any Catholic understands that the abortive mentality is at its root a contraceptive mentality. By spreading contraception, Obama is spreading the attitudes and reinforcing the culture which says that sexuality is for pleasure and that life is a hindrance to this. Indeed, Obama will most certainly leave the culture behind abortion stronger than when he left.
You’re right in that Catholics need to be wary of becoming a single-issue group and moving towards a consistent ethic of life. However, those who you are trying to persuade will see the utter nonsense of the idea that Obama is part of it and will reject it. The only way you can start persuading people to take the pro-life issue more broadly is if you start becoming more loyal to the Church and the pro-life cause than Obama. But if you and other liberal Catholics continue to maintain that Obama is actually moving us towards a culture of life then you will continue to be rejected by Catholics.
P.S. Considering that we know now that the Obama administration is going to try to fund abortions, isn’t Cottier’s article outdated or misinformed? I don’t blame a Vatican theologian for not having the time to devote to a full study of Obama’s positions on abortions the way Americans do, but how reckless is it for an American to push this knowing full well it’s been recently demonstrated to be completely false?
Michael,
First off, I’m a bit tired of the whole “the Vatican doesn’t understand America” shtick. It’s old, and it’s a little patronizing. A theologian of Cottier’s caliber and intelligence will surely have digested what Obama has to say on the issue before he put pen to paper, but he will not passed it through the Americanist screening process. Do you not see the difference?
Same with the CDF document. Did you even consider that he gave it to Obama because he thought Obama might have the intelligence and intellectual curiosity to study it, even if he is not ultimately persuaded?
Let me tell you a little about “just war tracts”. The pope did send a walking-talking “just war tract” to Bush, by the name of Cardinal Pio Laghi. The Bushies could at least have listened to the message with due respect, even if they intended to ignore it. But they didn’t even do that. The proceeded to lecture Cardinal Laghi’s delegation on just war theory, using the distortions of Weigel-Novak. The delegation was absolutely dumbfounded (this, by the way, all comes from an eyewitness account). It would be like Obama trying to lecture the pope on bioethics!
And when did I say that Obama is “moving us toward a culture of life”. It irks me that you put words in my mouth (almost as much as the mis-application of the term “liberal” again, dear God!). I have always said that there were no true pro-life candidates on the stage, and one needed to use judgment guided by reason to decide which person to support, if any.
You also won’t find Cottier saying Obama is pro-life. You seem him saying that he supports a position that we do not support, but he also provides an opening for Catholics to support him.
“First off, I’m a bit tired of the whole “the Vatican doesn’t understand America” shtick. It’s old, and it’s a little patronizing. A theologian of Cottier’s caliber and intelligence will surely have digested what Obama has to say on the issue before he put pen to paper, but he will not passed it through the Americanist screening process. Do you not see the difference?”
Really it appears to believe that he believes things about Obama’s positions that are not true.
Just because he is a Cardinal that is pretty much retired means that is following the in and outs of American politics everyday and getting updates on C-Span
It seems we have a new foreign policy that is very abortion friendly, threatenedd abortions in D.C. that will be funded by federal tax dollars, the repeal of the Mexico City Policy , and some concerns over what this health bill will bring in that Department
It seems abortion is likely to increase not decrease
For the talk of the incremental steps the Cardinal talks about and how this is similar to early Christian Politicos in the Roman world he seems to have failed to notice that many of these incremental steps are being brushed aside in a period of months
I do hope if the New Health Care provides coverage for abortion that if the President has a Health Care workers clause for those that object we all don’t do a chorus of “How wonderful” since the net effect will be a huge increase in abortions
Any Catholic understands that the abortive mentality is at its root a contraceptive mentality. By spreading contraception, Obama is spreading the attitudes and reinforcing the culture which says that sexuality is for pleasure and that life is a hindrance to this. Indeed, Obama will most certainly leave the culture behind abortion stronger than when he left.
Let us all hope and pray that some day, perhaps in 2012 or 2016, we will elect a president who understands what “any Catholic understands” and will persuade the country (including the 90 percent of Catholic couples) to give up contraception and return this nation to its former glorious state, when sex was not for pleasure and when everyone practiced abstinence before marriage and NFP thereafter and found the idea of homosexuality disgusting.
MM:
First off, I’m a bit tired of the whole “the Vatican doesn’t understand America” shtick. It’s old, and it’s a little patronizing.
The article proclaims only to be an examination of two speeches. It is not unreasonable to say that it is absurd to take this as an indication that the Cardinal means this to apply to Obama’s positions as a whole. This is a big difference from the vatican doesn’t understand America; this is saying that the self-proclaimed limited scope of the article needs to be taken into account.
Same with the CDF document. Did you even consider that he gave it to Obama because he thought Obama might have the intelligence and intellectual curiosity to study it, even if he is not ultimately persuaded?
I didn’t say it wasn’t. But there are many aspects of Catholic social teaching that the pope could have given him information on; the choosing of Dignitas Personae i.e the choosing of the abortion/ESCR issue is very important to discerning the pope’s priorities.
Let me tell you a little about “just war tracts”. The pope did send a walking-talking “just war tract” to Bush, by the name of Cardinal Pio Laghi. The Bushies could at least have listened to the message with due respect, even if they intended to ignore it. But they didn’t even do that. The proceeded to lecture Cardinal Laghi’s delegation on just war theory, using the distortions of Weigel-Novak. The delegation was absolutely dumbfounded (this, by the way, all comes from an eyewitness account). It would be like Obama trying to lecture the pope on bioethics!
Um…how is this relevant? There is a particular significance in gifts exchanged in diplomatic visits. That the pope made a point to give a diplomatic gift which declares the need for Obama’s conversion on an issue underscores the importance of that issue. Benedict could have used diplomatic gifts to make a point about just war theory; instead he made a point to invite Bush into the Vatican Gardens. I applaud the pope’s efforts to change Bush’s mind and I think those efforts need to be taken into account by Catholic Bush supporters. So too do the the pope’s actions to Obama need to be taken into account by Obama-supporting Catholics.
And when did I say that Obama is “moving us toward a culture of life”. It irks me that you put words in my mouth (almost as much as the mis-application of the term “liberal” again, dear God!). I have always said that there were no true pro-life candidates on the stage, and one needed to use judgment guided by reason to decide which person to support, if any.
You argue that Obama possesses a common ground which will help Catholics change the culture of abortion, which has to be a move towards the culture of life. I think Obama’s “common ground” provides us an opening to get to a common ground, but as his common ground seems to include only increased funding for contraception, as of right now there is no way to work with Obama that will truly eliminate the culture of abortion (not counting other life issues like the death penalty).
I would love to be proven wrong. Please show me a proposal by Obama to reduce abortions acceptable to Catholic social teaching. Also, I renew the challenge to you to disprove by comparisons to other presidents the statement “Obama is the most pro-abortion president” in light of Obama’s continued stated support of FOCA.
David:
Let us all hope and pray that some day, perhaps in 2012 or 2016, we will elect a president who understands what “any Catholic understands” and will persuade the country (including the 90 percent of Catholic couples) to give up contraception and return this nation to its former glorious state, when sex was not for pleasure and when everyone practiced abstinence before marriage and NFP thereafter and found the idea of homosexuality disgusting.
Did I give any indication of some nostalgic vision of a past utopia? America has been composed of humans and thus has had many flaws. One president will not overcome the problems but a president can hinder our progress. Obama is clearly not helping the situation; just because the situation may have been bad for a long time (or always bad) doesn’t mean it can’t get worse.
The Obama that you gave us is on the verge of mandating that abortions be free for everyone in health care.
What has Obama said or done recently on the issue of health care reform and abortion? All the action is in congress.
Here is a question I raised on dotCommonweal which was ignored. If you are a Catholic, and you pay insurance premiums, and your insurance company provides abortion coverage, are you subsidizing abortion? It would seem to me that Catholics who buy insurance coverage from a company that provides abortion coverage are more directly subsidizing abortion than the government will be if it subsidizes people who buy their own private insurance that provides abortion coverage.
To quote myself, unless you are unfortunate enough to have medical bills that amount to more than you pay for your insurance, you contributing toward the treatment of the others who get insurance from the same company as you and take advantage of the abortion coverage. Is that not remote material cooperation with intrinsic evil? It seems to me a more direct contribution toward abortion than having a small amount of your tax dollars subsidize, for people in lower income brackets, the cost of health insurance that includes abortion coverage.
So I urge all good Catholics who receive insurance coverage from the 90 percent of insurers who cover abortion to switch their coverage to the 10 percent who do not. I realize that may turn out to be an inconvenience and an added expense to people who receive insurance through their place of employment and will have to forego that to buy individual coverage, but certainly no one who is pro-life will insist that the government not subsidize insurance that includes abortion coverage while they themselves pay premiums to insurers who cover abortion.
The extremist are not helpful, and most people see that.
I’ll take your word for that. But that makes it all the more objectionable. They Catholic Right sees that these extremists are not helpful, even harmful. But they cannot bring themselves to say anything against them or to separate themselves from them. And when others of us dare say a word against the tactics and means of these extremists, we get nasty and personal attacks from those who supposedly “see” they are not helpful.
“What has Obama said or done recently on the issue of health care reform and abortion? All the action is in congress.”
Hmm, Obama is just in favor of making abortion free for everyone which will increase it by hundreds of thousands, and filling his administration with people in favor of it like Sebelius and Benjamin, and pledging undying devotion to Planned Parenthood in favor of it, and *he will sign it* (a minor point I suppose), and he will implement it. Yes the fact that Obama Catholics like MM gave us Obama and abortion-in-healthcare-supporters like Tom Perriello is irrelevant to the issue, they have no culpability for causing a massive increase in abortion, they have impeccable credibility to continue to describe Obama as an abortion reducer and to have explicitly cited health care overhaul and abortion reduction as a reason to vote for and continue to support Obama and these Democrats in charge of Congress.
Stop digging, Matt. Covering abortion in a health insurance plan (which as David points out occurs in most private plans today) is not “making abortion free for everyone”. This is the whole problem — there is indeed a lobby to have the public plan cover abortion, and this should be strenously resisted. But you will not do that by wild and hyperbolic overstatement. It’s again the point I was making in the post.
David, what you propose is EXACTLY what American Catholics WILL NOT DO, because what you propose is actually LIVING their faith and preaching by example. They’re not going to do that; instead, they’re going to persist in the delusion that American culture and traditional American public policy (as demonstrated by history)is hospitable to Roman Catholicism.
It is not. Roman Catholicism in America is a much-despised (less so in certain regions) religious cult that has NEVER agreed (on the higher level of its intellectual framework) with the theological and anthropological assumptions of the Enlightenment rationalism that is the bedrock of American political thought. That is to Roman Catholicism’s credit, but American Catholics who understand the contradictions are still very uncomfortable with their “outsider” status, and they do everything to try to “fit in” to the grossly unjust American political system, which could never be “reformed” to align with the theological and anthropological presumptions of orthodox Christianity.
At least the Amish KNOW that they cannot change American culture and agree to “retire” from it and to preach their faith by EXAMPLE. Roman Catholics in America are still right in there, attempting to play the Devil’s game of “American politics,” attempting to coerce people into criminalizing what the majority consider to be their “rights.” That is simply “unjust,” according to the Englightenment frame of political thought that American law suscribes to. American Catholics cannot figure out that they may only preach to a debauched and decadent society BY EXAMPLE. What American Catholics are doing with their crazed abortion schtick is to attempt to convert others BEFORE they have themselves been converted away from the “culture of death.”
JR
“I do hope if the New Health Care provides coverage for abortion that if the President has a Health Care workers clause for those that object we all don’t do a chorus of “How wonderful” since the net effect will be a huge increase in abortions”
Why do you think so? Already women receive coverage for abortion under their private insurance plans. Nearly 90% of insurers cover abortion procedures:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1909178,00.htm
And in Italy were abortion is covered by public health care and is free of charge the abortion rate has been going down constantly.
Digby,
Back in the late ’60′s and early ’70′s the tactic for change was to change the system from within. Crap! That failed! It seemed that the system changed those who attempted to change it and freedom became the freedom to consume even more while at the same time the social programs seemed to be bandaids that attempted to cover gaping wounds. Those who were able to fit into this more open and free society then seemed to begin to develop symptoms that could not be treated effectively through success or consumption.
So, the field of psychotherapy became more open to the general public including the marginalized poor.
Then advances were made in the understanding of neurobiology and medications were developed to attempt to rid all of us of the symptoms of being vulnerable human beings so we can compete better with those who seem to be successes or at least numb ourselves to that nagging underlying sense of hatred for those who appear to be better than us and the self-loathing of being oneself.
Well, drug companies benefitted and tens of millions of people are being medicated and therapized for something that cannot be cured by politics, psychotherapy or medications. Oh, I forgot about Christianity becoming a political force of its own as you mentioned above and am in absolute agreement with everything you stated.
The underlying issue seems to be “arrested development” in identity formation as it relates to being a disciple of Christ and willing to give up everything and He does mean to give up everything for Him.
How in the world is fovering abortion in health insurance not making abortion free for everyone? There are a bunch of women now who have to pay for abortion, and no one will have to pay for it if it is covered. This, both sides researchers agree, will cause a tremendous increase in the number of abortions. What are you talking about?
Matt,
I think you need to address David Nickol’s point about the 90% of private insurers who provide abortion coverage and why Catholics subscribing to these providers are not already in material cooperation with evil.
And–not to intrude on your dispute with MM–I think the point is that even with a public option you will still have the vast majority of Americans *paying* for their insurance coverage, either through an existing private plan or the public option. And because they are paying for this coverage, it doesn’t make sense to claim that procedures performed under this purchased coverage are “free,” as you claim.
If one yields ground on any single point of Catholic doctrine, one will later have to yield later in another, and again in another, and so on until such surrenders come to be something normal and acceptable. And when one gets used to rejecting dogma bit by bit, the final result will be the repudiation of it altogether.
– St. Vincent of Lerins
During my time on the insurance side, I can’t think of a single plan that covered elective abortion. They did cover abortion in the case of medical necessity. There are plenty of women that have gone through grief because the hospital put the wrong procedure code on their abortion and it was initially denied.
WJ, your and DN’s ideas about paying for coverage are irrelevant to the very simple point: the Obama that MM gave us is going to MANDATE that abortion be covered for EVERYONE. For the women who are not getting abortions currently because it costs them money, they will have those abortions available at no marginal cost–they are likely the women who don’t have to “pay” for their new mandated insurance at all. For the women who have jobs and through those jobs already “pay” for their insurance, they will all now have abortion covered instead of a significant portion of them having it as not covered or as an option they previously couldn’t afford. And even these women aren’t paying for abortion–they’re paying some fraction of a total insurance premium–they are absolutely not deciding whether or not to fork out $600 off the top of their budget to kill their babies.
Once everyone is forced to have insurance, and the insurance is forced to cover abortion (and some of them are forced to pay in part for the insurance), abortions will be FREE FOR EVERYONE. That’s the OUTCOME. It universalizes abortion access and makes it cost nothing for the abortion decision and nothing additional if it even costs anything at all, which for most of the women for whom it matters it won’t cost anything at all.
That is the simple issue I am raising–a masssive universal change from having lots and lots of women for whom the added cost of abortion is a deterrent to having it cost nothing for them to abort. I’m not talking about principles of cooperation–I’m talking about numbers of abortions.
The entire liberal Catholic theory of “abortion reduction” is premised on the idea that economics influences the abortion decision. And the president and congress they just gave us is going to cause us to go from significant economic cost to zero economic cost for every abortion for every woman in America. This is not just “not abortion reduction”–it’s a massive increase in abortion that dwarfs any degree of abortion reduction that was ever even plausible but unlikely under their theory.
It’s bad enough if they don’t fight it, as at least Michael Sean Winters seems to be doing in part. But to go further and deny the reality of what their candidate is now doing, that is reprehensible.
“And yet he writes an essay finding much to praise in Obama’s abortion strategy, even though Obama does not see merit in granting legal protection to the unborn.”
MM, just a quick question for my clarification, because I can’t every remember seeing you address this (though I may have missed it):
Do you support granting legal protection to the unborn?
Well, Ronald, it looks like I’ve found one more “soul brother” at Vox Nova.
It’s encouraging to learn that I have a few, and the minor issues of support or non-support of Obama, or support or non-support of “gay marriage,” or support or non-support of wars for Israel or for oil, or support or non-support of environmentalist causes don’t really matter to me so much as how to preserve Catholic, i.e. orthodox, religious tradition in the West from being co-opted and eliminated by godless post-modern, high-capitalist culture.
Abortion-guarantees by governments certainly ARE a manifestation of that culture’s war on God-given human nature, but they are only ONE manifestation among countless others, most of which American Catholics are no longer able to recognise.
During my time on the insurance side, I can’t think of a single plan that covered elective abortion. They did cover abortion in the case of medical necessity.
M.Z.
Please note the following from LifeNews:
As usual LifeNews doesn’t know what they are talking about. I should mention that over half dozen of the plans were for school district employees, some in very liberal areas.
WJ, your and DN’s ideas about paying for coverage are irrelevant to the very simple point: the Obama that MM gave us is going to MANDATE that abortion be covered for EVERYONE.
Matt,
You may or may not be right about a mandate for abortion coverage, but we don’t know that yet, since the plan is still being worked out.
There are several arguments that pro-lifers can make against what they fear will come out of health care reform. I am pointing out a problem with one of them. If individuals say, “I don’t want my tax dollars going to pay for abortion,” it seems to me they have a problem of consistency if they are paying insurance premiums to a company that provides abortion coverage.
See the article I posted above. What I am saying is this: If you don’t want to contribute to abortion through your tax dollars, don’t contribute to it through your own private health insurance, either.
I can say that Matt could or could not be right. The House bill does not mention abortion or even reproduction. There is a good argument for having it specifically excluded, but then you are opening up arguments about what is and isn’t included. The assumption of malicious intent on his part in unbecoming, but is to be expected. Such is not to claim that the prolife doesn’t have interests that they should legitimately seek out.
David, “we don’t know that yet” is not true and is irrelevant to what I am saying as is your other point. We do know that all the plans on the table include abortion, and that Democrats have defeated several amendments to exclude abortion, and that they and MM’s Obama favor including abortion in healthcare, and that they apparently have the votes to make it happen. What in heaven does “we don’t know that yet” mean in this context? We DO know it is happening and that efforts to stop it are failing, and that the Catholics who gave us Obama and these Democrats have not even organized to stop it to the same degree they created a Catholics for Sebelius campaign (Sebelius being the abortion extremist who will implement free abortions for everyone, thanks for that too). Are you saying that until Obama actually signs the free abortion for everyone bill and it is too late, sounding the alarm is not appropriate? I don’t think you or anyone believes that when issues they really care about are pending.
There have been no ammendments because it hasn’t been brought to the floor. Do you just pull information striaght out of your butt?
Do you support granting legal protection to the unborn?
I can’t believe I am being asked this in good faith, but fine: yes, I favor a legal regime that explicitly recognizes the right to life of the unborn. I also favor de-funding Planned Parenthood and totally banning IVF — something your Republicans don’t seen very keen on.
Let me ask you: do you oppose war and torture, when instigated by your own country?
So, my question wasn’t in good faith, but yours is? What sort of example are you trying to set, MM?
I oppose unjust war, and torture. I also support banning IVF.
And since you mentioned political platforms, it seems worth mentioning that your Democrats don’t seem too keen on banning abortion, euthanasia, or IVF, nor on defunding Planned Parenthood. But you have nimbly leapt over these stumbling blocks repeatedly in your support for and defense of Democrats.
But thanks for the straight out clarification. I’ve really wondered.
Are you saying that until Obama actually signs the free abortion for everyone bill and it is too late, sounding the alarm is not appropriate?
Matt,
I am saying that you are talking about something that is still in the works as a fait accompli. It may or may not turn out as you say, and I am not arguing that the pro-life forces should lie dormant. You talk about sounding the alarm before it is too late, but you speak as if it is already too late. I will actually be amazed if everything you foresee comes to pass, since I see Obama as considerably more moderate than you do, and I don’t think he wants to be seen as providing “free abortions” to everyone. (I personally do not see the medical treatment I get as “free” just because I have insurance, but that is another argument.)
My own personal opinion is that health care reform is too important to use as a battleground for abortion, and if either the pro-choice or the pro-life side pushes so far for their agenda that the whole thing goes down the drain, it will be a terrible tragedy.
MZ I was taking you seriously until your last comment. Have you ever heard of committee amendments? There have been no amendments? That is a falsehood and you should take it back. The Democrats have voted down abortion exclusion amendments to these bills in committee.
David I’m not saying he already signed the bill. I’m saying its passage and the chance to take abortion out if it is as imminent as it gets in politics. But your counsels seem to end the way you ended this one. What are pro-lifers proposing to do that qualifies as improperly “pushing so far”? When you make statements like that and there is only one pro-life action they apply to, it is reasonable to surmise that you are applying them in opposition to that pro-life action. The only thing pro-lifers have tried to do at all on this issue is maintain the status quo, instead of making abortions free for everyone. If that counts as pro-lifers pushing too far, then your position is quite simply radically pro-abortion however you want to describe yourself. If instead that pro-life activity is OK in your view, then what else are you talking about, because pro-lifers haven’t proposed anything else.
MS says maybe abortion isn’t included because the word abortion isn’t used. That’s like saying that a plan paying for all surgeries doesn’t include abortions, even though abortions are surgeries, and amendments to exclude abortions were voted down, and the plan will be implemented by die hard Planned Parenthood enthusiasts. Reality is knocking at your door.
Will someone please tell me how abortion coverage in healthcare is possibly compatible with “abortion reduction”, and how liberal Catholics can continue to speak of abortion reduction if this passes or without even addressing this elephant in the room, and how they will not be culpable for the resulting increase in abortion if this does pass as it has an excellent chance to do?
It seems to me that Obama Catholics, simply out of mere self interest and wishing to continue to be able to plausibly talk about abortion reduction, would be pulling out all the stops to prevent this from happening. I would like to see that happen, and there’s precious little time left. Perhaps Catholics United could put their “Catholics for Sebelius” web developer on the case, or they could use the money that they were planning to spend on their next newspaper ad comparing pro-lifers at Notre Dame to the KKK.
As usual LifeNews doesn’t know what they are talking about. I should mention that over half dozen of the plans were for school district employees, some in very liberal areas.
M.Z.,
A number of states prohibit abortion coverage in insurance for public employees.
I would say the source of the statistic I quoted is not LifeNews but Dr. Robert Moffitt Robert E. Moffit, Director, Center for Health Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation. If you go to the Heritage Foundation Web site, you will find that they say in a number of places that 46 percent of private insurance plans cover elective abortions. For example
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed101807.cfm
The only thing pro-lifers have tried to do at all on this issue is maintain the status quo, instead of making abortions free for everyone.
Matt,
If that is actually the case, then I applaud pro-lifers. I do not want to see either side attempt to use health care reform to promote their cause. I am not sure it is quite so simple, however.
David thank you for clarifying that.
Daniel,
The 46% is unsourced. 46% is claimed to subsidize abortion. That appears to be conflated with subsidizing elective abortion.
For commentary on abortion and the health plan that isn’t mindless, see here:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=playing_the_abortion_card
On July 10th, the House Democrats passed a bill in subcommittee that they wrote prohibiting any federal funds for abortion and increasing by $317 million funding for abortion prevention initatives.
The thank you note from the National Right to Life Committee seems to have been lost in the mail.
Kurt, perhaps you’re suggesting that the Hyde amendment in appropriations would prevent federal funding for abortion in Obamacare without actually specifying that restriction in Obamacare, and would prevent Obamacare from forcing abortion to be covered in all plans by using non-federal money–because, you’re wrong
Or perhaps you’re suggesting that $317 million in “family planning” which funnels cash to Planned Parenthood the nation’s largest abortionist and other abortion referrals and abortifacient peddlers suddenly becomes “abortion prevention” because Democrats decide to call it “abortion prevention”–because if that’s what Obama Catholics mean when they say “abortion reduction,” that it actually includes giving money to Planned Parenthood, I think they ought to come clean about it when they are selling their wares to pro-life Catholics
The NRLC has been against universal health care for years — they are a disgrace to the pro-life cause. When I see some of this rhetoric, I find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that some are using abortion as a way to kill a type of health care reform that they hate on ideological grounds.
MM that’s an interesting technique you’re using to distract from the fact that the President and Congress you supported to give us healthcare, and who were known to support abortion in healthcare, are indeed giving us free abortions for everyone in healthcare and massively increasing abortion as a result.
Have you yet to take leadership the campaign against this? Are you going to take responsibility for the increase in abortions that will result? Are you going to stop talking about Obama as an abortion reducer? Or are you going to deny that it is even happening as you did above and attack the people who are trying to stop the damage you helped cause?
MM:
If the healthcare bill includes funding for abortions, are you going to support it? I mean that if the bill that gets to the floor, after amendments, requires healthcare to provide funding for abortion, do you vote up or down?
If the healthcare bill includes funding for abortions, are you going to support it? I mean that if the bill that gets to the floor, after amendments, requires healthcare to provide funding for abortion, do you vote up or down?
Michael,
What if it doesn’t provide “funding for abortion”? What if it provides subsidies for those with lower incomes to help them buy their own insurance from a private company? Must they then be prohibited from buying a policy — which they partially pay for with their own money — that covers abortion? And what about contraception?
Michael,
If the health care bill does not support funding for abortions, are you going to support it?
Mr. Denton,
How about we cross that bridge when we get there?
I can tell you that I won’t look kindly upon pro-lifers and their associated organizations if they position themselves soley to prevent this legislation rather than find a way to implement this legislation and accomplish their goals. At this point, pro-lifers do not seem serious about addressing the health care situation in this country. Judy Brown of the American Life League can take time to come here and endorse torture. I hope her and her compatriots can find time to help find a solution to the very real problems in health care in this country that are bankrupting the middle class and are a real impediment to the financial well being of families. I’m dubious, but I’m really hoping to be surprised.
Based on Cardinal Cottier’s thinking it is evident why so many European Church’s felt it necessary to live with in the imperfect world of legal fascism. THe reality is that some things are unacceptable because they are so lethal and set off a chain reaction of destruction. He also doesn’t appreciate the work of the last 35 years of building prolife legislation and the peril that so many of those laws now face. He also fails to see that the soaring speeches of the US President and followed by contradictory actions. Just witness the President’s call for greater democracy in his Cairo speech while at the same time he withdrew the funding for pro democracy groups in Egypt. The urgency of the pro life community in the US is obviously now become an annoyance to so many in Rome. Being out in front has just become lonlier.
Kurt, MZ, and David:
I do have a lot of concerns about health care plans not actually taking care of people (see the article Peter Singer wrote in the NYT yesterday for why), so I really am waiting to see what gets proposed. That said, if it promotes abortion I would vote it down.
That said, I agree with MZ that I hope pro-life forces work to defeat the part that focuses funding on abortion and not simply allow this to kill the whole plan but rather take this as an opportunity to try to work with leaders to make a truly pro-life health care plan both in not supporting abortion and making sure the dignity of the human person is taken into serious consideration lest the worth of the person is reduced to merely a dollar figure.
Kurt asks the relevant question. Those who would oppose the health care reform bill even without it touching abortion have no standing whatsoever to pull the abortion card on this issue — it’s a case of using the unborn to make a cheap political point. The NRLC has opposed universal health care for years, and Judie Brown not only defends the use of torture but believes it to be virtuous. And most mainstream Catholic bloggers (who tilt far further to the right than the mainsteam Catholics) seem to oppose this kind of health care reform anyway. Will they too use the unborn in their fight against it?
But those of us who believe this health care reform bill is crucial would be presented with a difficult choice if it were to directly mandate the overturning of the Hyde amemdment (and we see no evidence of that — as MZ’s piece showed, it’s the pro-choice crowd that are worried). But if that happened, would it be sufficient to sink the whole reform? It would depend partially on its actual impact, and we would have to note the prevalence of abortion coverage under private plans.
From the moral theology perspective, the late Cardinal Dulles once mused that “To vote for an appropriations bill that includes some provisions for funding abortions … might arguably be licit if the funding for abortion were only incidental and could not be removed from a bill that was otherwise very desirable”. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to this. There’s nothing the the present bill about this, so let’s hope it stays that way.
“no standing”
Absolute nonsense. Every Catholic has not only the right but the duty to oppose legislation that massively increases abortion by giving it away for free. That duty is not in any way dependent on whether the Catholic would also have other reasons to oppose the bill. If abortion expansion is a legitimate reason to oppose the bill, and it is, it doesn’t become not a sufficient reason because someone also has other reasons even if those reasons are bad. Your position is completely devoid of logic. If anyone lacks standing on part of this issue it is Obama Catholics like yourself who knowingly supproted electing a President and Congress that fully intended to expand abortion through healthcare and supported them by falsely claiming they were abortion reducers. What you have no standing to do is criticize pro-life people who are trying to prevent the blood you are responsible for spilling. And you certainly have no standing to dance around this issue by relying on MZ’s false facts (“there have been no amendments”) and leftist spin to deny the reality that all the plans cover abortion, have rejected amendments to exclude abortion, are supported by people you put in place who favor covering abortion, and will be implemented by people you also caused to be appointed who are abortion enthusiasts. You are responsible if this massive expansion of bloodshed gets passed, and all you seem to be doing now is trying to cover your backside by posturing yourself as a smug denier of what is happening in front of all our eyes.
By the way, you know that proposal by your abortion reducing president who doesn’t really believe abortion is a right, the one to reverse policy and give away abortions for free with federal dollars in DC where they will kill the most black babies possible for the buck? Well the house just approved it with the vote of your Catholics in Alliance daydream Tom Perriello.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll571.xml
Congratulations. At this rate when you get done reducing abortions you might someday offset the increase you knew you were causing.
Matt writes:
Congratulations
Thank you.
While its my impression that at Vox Nova there are some bedwetting, hand-wringing liberal Catholics who have this need to prove to folks like you that they are okay, I have long ago concluded there is nothing better than for people with your and my views to just go our separate ways. I mean, its not like in the current political climate there is any need to come to an accord with the right-wing.
I’m happy where I am. I don’t need your approval consent or even understanding. And I am perfectly happy when those on the right take themselves out of serious policy discussions rather than be an effective force. By best to your and your loved ones.
It is convenient for you to label opponents “right wing” as an excuse not to deal with their arguments, but more importantly, as a balm to prevent you from thinking of the blood of innocent children that will be spilled because of increased abortions by politicians you supported. Because the innocent blood of those children is the issue, not you scoring self-assured high ground over “right wing” combatants. Dismiss your interlocutors if you like–it doesn’t make those increased abortions go away, abortions knowingly caused by supporting this administration and Congress. And as long as people not only stump for politicians with an abortion increasing agenda, but claim the mantle of Catholic and even pro-life when they do it, their consciences won’t be silent and please God neither will pro-life Catholics.
Your time here has been one long tantrum absent any serious arguments. Go watch some abortion porn assure your conscience of your self righteousness.
M.Z. its again very convenient to declare from on high that someone has no arguments when they have presented multiple of arguments that you simply don’t want to deal with. When you have the integrity to withdraw your false claim above that there have been no amendments to the health plans–pro-life amendments that were defeated–then maybe you will have standing to criticize people for lacking “serious arguments.”
Matt,
Cut your self-righteous snivelling! If you did just that much you’d discover you have little to say or contribute.
Name calling instead of dealing with arguments seems to be a favorite tactic at this blog!
Will anyone dare to address the fact that their political party is poised to give abortion coverage for every woman in America, and how that increase in abortion is possibly compatible with claiming that they are abortion reducers, much less compatible with your seamless garment Catholic view?
Matt,
Clean up your act and people will take you seriously. No one wants to respond to a whiner.
My advice: I think you’re done on this particular post. It’s time to look at the man in the mirror. Come back another time with a different attitude.
Thanks for the advice Gerald. Would it help if I adopt the clean tone of M.Z. and use the word “butt” more?
M.Z. maybe you’re forgetting the “serious argument” you made above that is false and that you have failed to correct. I’ll copy it here for ease of reference:
M.Z. Says:
July 16, 2009 a 9:39 am
There have been no amendments because it hasn’t been brought to the floor. Do you just pull information straight out of your butt?
Here’s a “right wing” website reporting on the fictional amendments:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157588.php
The tantrum continues….
Matt,
Your welcome.
But this sentence was not needed: “Would it help if I adopt the clean tone of M.Z. and use the word “butt” more?”
Classy, gentlemen.
Anyway, to talk about something not name-calling:
Those who would oppose the health care reform bill even without it touching abortion have no standing whatsoever to pull the abortion card on this issue — it’s a case of using the unborn to make a cheap political point.
Yes, Minion, but that’s not everyone. There are many pro-lifers who would like to see health care reform but want nothing to do with it if it fund abortions. That’s a valid position.
I’ll be interested to see your arguments defending the health care bill whenever it’s more clearly explained.
There are many pro-lifers who would like to see health care reform but want nothing to do with it if it fund abortions. That’s a valid position.
Michael,
Suppose a woman already has private health insurance that covers abortion, and she struggles to pay the premiums. The current bill is passed, and she is eligible for a subsidy to help her better afford the policy she now has. Will it be “funding abortion” for her to receive that subsidy? To be eligible, must she switch to a policy that does not provide abortion coverage? Actually, must she not just change policies, but must she switch to a policy from an insurance company that does not provide abortion coverage in any of its policies?
Also, is coverage of abortion in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the life of the mother to be prohibited? The Hyde Amendment does not prohibit them.
In other words, what exactly constitutes “funding abortion”?
Michael, this is similar to, though even more urgent than, the battle against FOCA. FOCA has gone nowhere so far precisely because the Bishops and pro-life groups united against it so forcefully. But liberal Catholics actually went on attack against the bishops for opposing it.
What MM’s counsel about lack of standing means is this–all the people leading the fight against abortion in healthcare are disqualified, by him, from leading that fight and from criticizing Catholic Obama supporters for not themselves leading the fight. Who exactly will be left? And if the heat of drafting, and committee approvals, and defeats to pro-life amendments by Sen. Bob Casey himself is not the TIME to come out against it, when is? There is no more time. Counseling to wait and see is simply counseling surrender. Michael Sean Winters recognizes this, and he’s not a right winger! But he also isn’t putting in the days and days of effort that the “disqualified” pro-life groups are putting in to try, unsuccessfully so far, to defeat abortion.
Also as I point out above, if universal abortion access is a good reason to oppose a healthcare plan (and it is, despite attempts above to apply some quote from Cardinal Dulles to this situation), then it is absolutely not true that people who may oppose the plans for other reasons may not oppose it for it being a massive increase of abortion (even if you assume those other reasons are invalid). It is a plain non sequitor.
[Gerald, was that a sniveling-free, seriously argued comment? I am trying!]
Could it be that abortion being labelled as an intrinsic evil actually prevents insight into the hidden and unseen root causes of this most obvious symptom of human suffering? Could it be that by addressing the abortion issue as we do through the dynamic of human structures that we are addressing a spiritual crisis through the blindness of our human conditioning? Could it be that calling abortion an intrinsic evil actually is even more harmful to those who suffer the choice of abortion?
Being conformed to the ways of the world seems to mean relying on the systems that have been created by human beings to continue to resolve spiritual crises. It also seems to evident in our anger with one another when we stop seeking the underlying truth of the suffering that leads to abortion.
Abortion is much more than a spiritual crisis which must be answered with prayer and conversion. It is also an ongoing human holocaust which, as the church teaches us, must be ended by protecting the rights of the unborn in law.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a low priority for the Vox Nova crowd.
Paul
Do you disagree with the Church, now? You don’t agree with prayer? You don’t agree with conversion of hearts? And what is “much more” than a spiritual crisis? What can be more than that — a spiritual crisis, especially since the spirit is what guides the whole of the human person, and it is because of this spiritual crisis as a cause, that we have the effect of abortion? Christ came to save persons, to convert, and found the spiritual crisis the most important of all. You, however… I don’t know, sounds like you are a materialist?!
Matt,
I hope you understand I was only trying to be helpful.
Your comments here are framed much better. If I wasn’t pressed for time this morning, I would engage you. There are many questions you raise that need to be sorted out, not only with regard to the health care plan (when it becomes final) but also the general strategy of the pro-life movement. (Notice I distinguish between pro-life individuals and the pro-life movement. The “movement” is dominated by a few individuals and groups which think in certain ways. It is the “movement” that alone has a voice in D.C. But the integrity of this “movement” has in recent years been discredited by failure and scandal. This is sad but it constitutes an opportunity to put it on a more solid footing.)
It is also an ongoing human holocaust which, as the church teaches us, must be ended by protecting the rights of the unborn in law.
Actually, it is my understanding that the Church insists abortion must be illegal as a matter of justice, whether or not legal prohibitions are effective. People have argued, even here on Vox Nova, that the top priority is to make abortion illegal, not to decrease the number of abortions.
I would think, from a Catholic point of view, abortion must be stopped not out of concern for the unborn, but out of concern for those who would perform and procure abortions. I have yet to grasp why we should feel sorry for the unborn who are never born. (Archbishop Chaput strongly implied that they would present us with their grievances in the next life, but he didn’t say what those grievances were.) And of course even without abortion, there are so many unborn who are never born that were we to feel sorry for them, our grief would be overwhelming.
Gerald I do appreciate that. It’s your “when it becomes final” that I think is a serious problem. The chance to keep abortion out of healthcare is not when it becomes final. It’s too late then. This week in the House, the Democrats intent on funding abortion in DC for free for everyone with tax dollars pulled strings to defeat even the chance of voting on a seperate amendment on the specific issue. In other words, they made sure that once it was final there would be no chance to take their new abortions out except to defeat the bill, and Obama Catholic politicians voted for the bill. It seems to me that healthcare advocates who are Catholic should recognize that it’s not in their own self interest to want a bipolar choice between abortocare and nothing. Gerald, the suggestions that we’re not really sure what’s happening, and that we wait and see, and that abortion opponents are disqualified from sounding the alarm now, combined with the already starting suggestions that maybe voting for healthcare that covers aborton is morally permissible, well please see what that means. It means nothing is done now to stop it, certainly nothing effective, and when it’s too late to stop it, people vote for the healthcare plan that includes a massive expansion of abortion. How can people who are promoting a consistent ethic of life support that course of action? If that’s what they mean by a consistent ethic of life, then all their naysayers have been right all along. Why isn’t now the time for liberal Catholics to show that they really do care about abortion and aren’t using their ethic to make it the least prioritized issue rather than the first among many? Can you suggest a good reason why we don’t have every member of this blog, Commonweal, America, Catholics in Alliance, Catholics United, Doug Kmiec, Obama’s Catholic advisors, all sign the letter from the 19 pro-life Democrats and the blog post of Michael Sean Winters? If some people here don’t like the pro-life movement, that would be one way to create your own. But not only is it not happening, when the issue is raised the response here is denial of the problem, attacking pro-lifers, hedging bets so that people can support abortion-included care when it comes out, and unexplicable delay amidst a fast track process.
Paul,
You appeared to answer my post with an incomplete understanding of a spiritual crisis and thus an incomplete resolution to the crisis. You answered with what you expected to be the answer which is a result of being conditioned through your history of human relationships and predicting, though unconsciously, the answer formulated in your brain just miliseconds before it came to your awareness.
Thus, you reflexively responded with your truth that is formed on the basis of your conditioned observational style.
This is not meant to be a criticism but a compassionate communication of what has been evolving in my life’s vocation. I was and continue to be confronted with this awareness every moment and it deepens my appreciation for the depth of our faith and the requirement for all of us to seek a deeper relationship in love and this can only be done through God’s Grace showing us what in each of us is lacking in love.
I am sorry if this sounds preachy, but I am going as fast as I can because God’s Gift of Love to me for the last 34 years is expecting me to have the home clean, the car packed and my insurance billing completed before we leave for 10 days and attend the first 3 days a blues festival and try to escape the suffering that is a constant source of my lack of sleep and feelings of exhaustion because most of the time I shown how much love is lacking in the world.
Thank you, David Nickol, for putting your finger right on the difference between the Roman Catholic definiton of “justice” and the traditional American definition. It’s as clear an exemplum as I could possibly find myself of why the Catholic community MUST retreat from these political battles and purify themselves of the rationalist, Protestan indoctrination they’ve gotten themselves and given to their children.
“Justice” in the Enlightenment thinking that characterises American political philosophy, is what the MAJORITY (being, of course, innocent, righterous and “saved”) think they need and want. If the MAJORITY would be “injured” or have their “liberties” infringed upon by re-criminalization of abortion, then that re-criminalization would be the “unjust” thing. In asking that the majority of American women, who’ve been converted to feminist ideology, be deprived of their “choice,” American Catholics are not just asking for what the “Founders” (slave owners most of who are probably roasting in hell) would consider “unjust” (and, remember, they only cared for “ourselves and our posterity”–not slaves or brown-skins–the egregious racist Pat Buchanan is even now reminding us) and an infringement of “natural rights,” but also asking for civil strife on an unparalleled order. (Most of you anti-abortion fanatics obviously are quite limited in your social contacts; you seem to know only our own demure, chaste, God-fearing “family-women.” Haven’t you ever seen “Sex in the City”? THOSE, God help us, are the majority now, of American women–or, at least, that was my experience in my years there.)
Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not claiming that all of Protestant and Englightenment thinking in the American tradition is barbaric and intrinsically heretical. After all, it was the great Protestant philosopher Kierkegaard who said that the “majority” are “always wrong,” because the paradigm of a popular election was the “election of Jesus Christ to the cross.”
Do you disagree with the Church, now? You don’t agree with prayer? You don’t agree with conversion of hearts?
You insult me, sir. Are you claiming that once an issue can be declared “spiritual,” it need not be addressed in the public arena? That action should not be combined with prayer?
The apologists for the promoters of abortion on this blog have truly jumped the shark on this thread.
MM claims to support making abortion illegal and de-funding Planned Parenthood, yet endorsed and continues to support a President who opposes him on these issues. One can only wonder just how low a priority he places on them.
You, like any liberal or Protestant, create a false dichotomy when you claim that if I am for political action it must be because I oppose spiritual action.
The continuing contempt from Vox Nova contributors for those who are actually working in the political sphere to end abortion, and their continued apologies for those who are promoting abortion in the political sphere, puts the lie to your claims of fidelity to the Magesterium, and even to human decency.
You have all made your peace with abortion, and if we all followed your endorsements, abortion would be every day more integrated into American society, and you would be content with that, as long as you have your universal healthcare, and your cradle-to-grave nanny-state and your worldwide apology tour and your oh-so-articulate, um, president.
Not me. I’m working to unseat a pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage legislator in my state, and when I’ve done with her, I’ll find another.
As Democrats, you at Vox Nova have an opportunity to try to change your party. Instead, you are shills for your party’s evil ways. All of you. You, and your protests that you really are pro-life, have lost all credibility, if indeed you ever had any.
Paul,
You are the one who keeps accusing and making things up, without reflecting upon the meaning of your words. You are the one who makes “spiritual” something outside of the context of the whole. You divide the world dualistically, which your comment provided and proved. You are the one who said it is “more” than a spiritual crisis; by pointing out what a spiritual crisis is in the Christian faith, and how it is the root of what we are dealing with, I pointed out it can’t be “more than,” but it seems, you confuse “spiritual” with a dualistic notion which ignores the material world. How is that? Really, you keep coming to fight, keep coming to make up charges which are false, and purposefully insulting. You will not be welcome here again if you can’t reform and engage honestly with others instead of make things up as you go.
I know that I’ll catch a lot of hell for saying this, but I think that a lot of opposition to abortion is sheer moral sentimentality which turns the fetus into a fetish. (You’ll notice that I think fetishism of some sort or other is a pretty salient feature of the contemporary American moral imagination.) Many of the same people who oppose abortion are champions of laissez-faire capitalism, and they either don’t see or don’t care to see the linguistic and cultural affinities between themselves and the pro-choice advocates they fight. They’ll retort that capitalism doesn’t kill anyone in its normal operations, but, first, that’s just not true—capitalism has never been instituted or maintained anywhere, not even in the North Atlantic, without considerable coercion and violence—and second, it doesn’t matter, because the exercise of market “autonomy” has devastating effects on individuals and communities regardless of whether or not they wind up dead. (”Yeah, the company cut your medical benefits or cut your job or left your town a mess, but hey, you’re still alive!”) When I say this, a lot of people retort that I’m “changing the subject.” In one way, yes I am, but for a reason—because I want them to see that it is the same subject, in a different guise. Talking about abortion is a way of not talking about the “autonomous individual,” the latest ideological guise of libido dominandi, discussion of which would topple quite a few idols, and not just “reproductive choice.”
http://vox-nova.com/2007/12/03/eugene-mccarraher-on-capitalism-abortion-and-the-culture-of-death/
So people raise the question: health care will massively increase brutal killings of innocent children, how is this consistent with the pro-life identity of liberal Catholics. And MZ responds by calling it a fetus fetish, among other slurs.
MZ what is relevant about your issuing an opinion about what you think “a lot” of people’s views amount to? You’re simply dodging the questions raised, and the dodge is issued in the service of a program that will expand the killing of unborn children. Calling opposition to abortion “fetus fetish” doesn’t shed any light on the positions of pro-life Catholics, but it does say a lot about your own willingness to accept the dismemberment of human beings that you determine don’t count in the human community. It’s one thing to take that monstrous position, but it’s quite another to claim the mantle of Jesus Christ as you take it.
Is MZ’s view of pro-life activity as fetus fetish the accepted view of Catholics at Vox Nova? Is it within the legitimate scope of what it means to be a consistent ethic Catholic?
David:
Suppose a woman already has private health insurance that covers abortion, and she struggles to pay the premiums. The current bill is passed, and she is eligible for a subsidy to help her better afford the policy she now has. Will it be “funding abortion” for her to receive that subsidy? To be eligible, must she switch to a policy that does not provide abortion coverage? Actually, must she not just change policies, but must she switch to a policy from an insurance company that does not provide abortion coverage in any of its policies?
Also, is coverage of abortion in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the life of the mother to be prohibited? The Hyde Amendment does not prohibit them.
In other words, what exactly constitutes “funding abortion”?
I don’t want to see any taxpayer dollars going to abortions. If that means requiring plans that accept federal money to not cover abortion, so be it. Otherwise, I’m not supporting the health care plan. I don’t want my money going to pay for an abortion. It’s not a difficult or unreasonable request for the Obama administration to accomodate.
As far as what abortions to prohibit, I would like to see the prohibitions extended to the cases of incest and rape.
Out of curiosity, you say the “current plan.” What plan are you talking about?
This week the House Democrats put forward two bills, both of which prohibit the federal government for funding abortions.
The only reason we have the government stepping to provide healthcare is because we have failed to love enough and give enough and the cause of abortion is also a lack of love.
It is our failure.
Kurt those bills won’t prevent funding in healthcare, they won’t prohibit mandating abortion coverage in healthcare as funded by non-federal sources, and they explicitly provide funding for abortions in DC.
An idea: How many millions of Catholics live in the U.S.? Why don’t the bishops get together and instead of pronouncing intrinsic evils, start a Catholic healthcare system open to everyone and each pays into it what they can and contributions are made each month in the collection to subsidize this coverage.
Then let’s see where we stand with our faith.
“Instead of pronouncing intrinsic evils”
Why do you see this as either/or?
And why don’t you stop assuming that the lack of healthcare is an evil, if you are going to insist that the Magisterium stop declaring things evil? Who are you to declare which evils are evil, and which people count as victims? If the bishops don’t have that right, how did you get it?
Who knows how I got it. I see how people are affected everyday by someone’s words. The victims are those who are attacked with anger either verbally, physically or attitudinally. Are you a victim?
Once again. Why doesn’t the church get its act together and shut up unless it is discussion about how we can develop a comprehensive healthcare system for everyone who wants or needs it?
Bless you, Ronald King, bless you!
Matt,
It seems to me an awful lot of what you and other “ardent” pro-lifers say in forums like this is that you care, and the people who disagree with you not only don’t care, but are subverting the pro-life movement. Much of the argumentation is personal in nature. Thus we have statements like this one, from Paul:
or from you (drawn from several messages)
I think there’s much to be said for the view that “a lot of opposition to abortion is sheer moral sentimentality which turns the fetus into a fetish.” You seem to be distraught with an imagined empathy for fetuses — feeling the pain of their dismemberment when they do not — and constantly talking about “innocent” children, when their innocence is due to the fact that do not yet have the capacity to perceive, know, decide or act — but I haven’t heard you say a word about the importance of health care for people who have already been born. It brings to mind the old saying that some people believe live begins at conception and ends at birth.
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.” Some people seem to not notice the words like any other human being. All human beings deserve to be defended in their integrity, cared for, and healed. To hear you argue about health care reform, one would think that the only issue at stake is the welfare of the unborn. I haven’t once heard you even hint at the welfare of anyone else.
Thanks Digby, more than you can know. Same Blessing of God to you. Blessings for everyone to have a clear head and prayers for the Bishops to act in creation instead of proclaim in condemnation.
Matt,
The House Democrats have put forward two bills this week. One will prohibit federal funding of abortion under any health care program and the other will prohibit federal funding of abortion in the District of Columbia. President Obama will sign both bills without objecting to the language restricting federal tax dollars for abortion.
The cardinal has some interesting things to say about what happens when idealists get into power and start mandating what they know to be right.
I remember what Winston Churchill said about democracy: it is the worst government there is, but all the others are worse. Under secular democracy we get along by outlawing only what the great majority of people agree is bad enough to be outlawed. We allow as much freedom as possible, and even allows minorities their rights. We have freedom of speech, knowing full well that lots of people will use that right to say truly bad stuff that will lead to genuinely bad results. We guard the rights of accused criminals in order to prevent abuse of the criminal justice system, and to protect the innocent, even though we know it is true that 95% of the people the police pick up are guilty as hell. And so on.
Our system works remarkably well in practice, all things considered. It starts not working when people who know they are right push though measures to make things right by law–and it may not even matter so much if the moral crusaders are actually right or not.
Is it possible that women must have, or should have, a “right to choose” in our secular democracy, while it is never right, by Christian lights, to exercise that right?