Tempering optimism with realism: pro-life liberals and Obama
On November 7, 2008, I flew to DC for STAND’s National Student Conference, a meeting of grassroots anti-genocide activists from high schools and colleges around the country. Three days before prior to the conference, Senator Barack Obama had become President-elect Obama, and needless to say, optimism was running high. As a Senator, Obama had had a stellar record on Darfur and related issues: he had co-sponsored the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, co-sponsored a resolution calling for a no-fly zone over the region, and worked to include funding for African Union and United Nations peacekeeping forces in various appropriations bills. He had also addressed rallies, written articles, and generally been a reliable and passionate advocate for the cause to which the students at that weekend’s conference had devoted so much time and energy. We knew that as President, he would reverse the sad tradition of US indifference to acts of genocide and mass atrocities that had been demonstrated in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and now Darfur.
Of course, after the inauguration, reality became a bitter pill to swallow. Aside from a few cursory mentions of the issue in his speeches on foreign policy, and the appointment (after a very loud advocacy campaign by STAND and other organizations) of a new special envoy to Sudan, the President has demonstrated clearly that ending genocide in Darfur and preventing it from breaking out elsewhere is not high on his list of priorities. For anti-genocide activists, many of whom volunteered for Obama’s campaign, this reality was painful to accept not only on a policy level, but on a personal level as well. Nevertheless, we have all put aside these thoughts and begun to do what is necessary to hold President Obama’s feet to the fire, just as we did under President Bush.
To a large extent, the same needs to happen among those of us who call ourselves pro-life liberals. We must acknowledge that while there is much to be supported in the President’s policy agenda, and while his rhetoric on finding common ground around abortion reduction has been inspiring, we do have a duty to call evil by its name.
Now, “evil” is a strong word, and to avoid misunderstanding, let it be very clear that I do not claim that Barack Obama himself is evil, or that he is the modern-day equivalent of Hitler, Stalin, and Satan all rolled into one (as some of his more passionate detractors seem to think). I applaud his efforts to re-engage with the Arab world, to extend health care coverage to all Americans, to rebuild our economy around the alternative energy industry, etc. From what can be determined from his public persona, he seems to be a good man with a good heart and a large amount of respect for those with whom he disagrees. It is also important to remember he is a brother in Christ and for that reason alone is entitled to the benefit of the doubt from us when it comes to his intentions. However, none of this changes the objective fact that on the issue of abortion, President Obama at the end of the day supports a legal regime that is not only profoundly unjust, but indeed brutally inhumane—in a word, evil. His mentions of finding common ground to reduce the number of abortions—certainly a praiseworthy goal in principle—have been as frequent as his mentions of the need for action in Darfur, yet just as with Darfur, his rhetoric does not match the reality. Indeed, the only tangible actions that have been taken by his administration on this issue (reversing the Mexico City policy, funding embryonic stem cell research, de-funding crisis pregnancy centers) will lead to more, not fewer, unborn deaths.
Certainly, pro-lifers, particularly those of us who consider ourselves to be politically liberal, should remain eager to engage the President on worthwhile opportunities for common ground. The Pregnant Women Support Act, enthusiastically endorsed by Democrats for Life and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, remains one such opportunity, and more may be revealed whenever the White House working group on abortion reduction makes its recommendations. Nevertheless, to exaggerate the good and downplay the bad that Obama has done on this issue (i.e. claiming, as Doug Kmiec did, that Kathleen Sebelius is pro-life and that the new stem cell funding guidelines are ethically sensitive) serves only to destroy the credibility of those of us who attempt to add a progressive voice to the pro-life side of the debate. Worse yet, it is an assault on truth and a silent acquiescence to grave injustice, just as if I told my STAND chapters that there is nothing lacking in Obama’s response to genocide in Darfur. And such acquiescence is something in which no Christian (and no true liberal) should play a part.
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Very good.
Obama has disappointed also in his usage of executive signing statements in a manner reminiscent of the actions of his predecessor.
Those of us who were discouraged by the undue expansion of executive power under Bush have seen precious little yet for which to cheer.
the new stem cell funding guidelines are ethically sensitive
The guidelines for government-funded stem-cell research require that no stem cells be used other than those (1) from nongovernment sources (2) derived only from existing embryos created and not used for the purpose of in vitro fertilization. That being the case, it strikes me as difficult to argue the guidelines are any less ethically sensitive than allowing in vitro fertilization in the first place, or perhaps (to set a less strict standard) allowing the creation of embryos that might go unused. No embryo is going to be created that would not otherwise be created, and no embryo is going to die that would not otherwise have died.
So to criticize the new guidelines, it seems to me an argument must be made that it is immoral to derive stem cells from a doomed embryo. And I wonder if such an argument wouldn’t also forbid organ donations from, say, accident victims.
Stricter ethical guidelines for government-funded stem-cell research would not save any embryonic lives. Anyone who wants to do that is going to have to attempt to regulate fertility clinics.
Didn’t take long for the spin machine to start working here, I see. Nonetheless, I appreciate the honesty of the original post. At election time, I said that no matter what the new president might do on the abortion issue, we could at least be thankful he’d close down the School of the Americas (an issue dear to my own heart). But it looks like we’ll be holding the annual protest at Fort Benning again this year. “Put not your trust in princes” is good advice in season and out.
Ron: Amen!
Didn’t take long for the spin machine to start working here, I see.
ron,
I don’t oppose the NIH guidelines, but I could have written exactly the same message if I deplored them. It is just a fact that with the guidelines, the only source of embryonic stem cells will be from “leftover” embryos from fertility clinics. That is not spin. It’s fact. No more embryos will die under the NIH guidelines that would have died otherwise. The guidelines will not encourage the creation of embryos for government-funded research.
Other countries that we tend to think of as more “liberal” than the United States have strict laws regulating in vitro fertilization. The pro-life movement, to the best of my knowledge, does almost nothing in the way of attempting to get the government to regulate fertility clinics.
It is just a fact that no embryo is going to die and be used in government-funded stem-cell research that would not have died anyway.
I don’t oppose stem-cell research, but I would definitely support some limits on in vitro fertilization (and after “Octomom,” a lot of others would, too, I am sure).
Very well stated, Mickey.
I liked this post. I didn’t hold with the Sheen/Kmiec CACG/CatholicsUnited thinking about Obama being a reasonable or preferable choice for Consistent Life Ethicis followers anyway, but I’ve thought for a while now that those who did must be feeling disappointed even if you don’t hear that much.
Also, to anyone who cares to respond: Is the church opposed to IVF across the board, or only to IVF which produces unimplanted embryos? I know observant Catholics who’ve had hormone treatments from a fertility clinic in order to have a child, and I was wondering if the opposition to IVF is complete, then how is that morally different than the hormone treatments?
Ockraz,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html
Is the church opposed to IVF across the board, or only to IVF which produces unimplanted embryos?
ockraz,
Across the board, and more so when the parties involved are not husband and wife, but even when they are. From Donum Vitae
Ockraz:
My understanding of church teaching is that hormonal treatments are aids to the sexual act but not a replacement of it for the purposes of procreation and are therefore licit whereas IVF is a replacement of the sexual act and therefore illicit.
Thanks for the link.
Let’s see, after objecting to standard practices which needlessly discard embryos (an objection which seems quite logical), the objection to the process in theory seems to be:
“The Church moreover holds that it is ethically unacceptable to dissociate procreation from the integrally personal context of the conjugal act: human procreation is a personal act of a husband and wife, which is not capable of substitution.”
What follows, though seems rather odd. It looks like the argument is that such a process leads to the same attitude which causes a lack of respect for human life which leads to things like abortion…
“The blithe acceptance of the enormous number of abortions involved in the process of in vitro fertilization vividly illustrates how the replacement of the conjugal act by a technical procedure – in addition to being in contradiction with the respect that is due to procreation as something that cannot be reduced to mere reproduction – leads to a weakening of the respect owed to every human being. Recognition of such respect is, on the other hand, promoted by the intimacy of husband and wife nourished by married love… The desire for a child cannot justify the “production” of offspring, just as the desire not to have a child cannot justify the abandonment or destruction of a child once he or she has been conceived.”
I’m obviously out of my depth here, because I don’t know much about religious based philosophy (which is how I think of theology), but if: 1) the embryo is formed from gametes from a married couple and 2) no embryo is created which is not implanted- then why should this be disrespectful of life rather than respectful. Isn’t it actually in the interest of such an embryo for such a procedure to be used? After all, such an embryo is being given a chance to live, whereas if one disallows IVF altogether such an embryo can never exist.
I can see an argument that such a procedure would show a lack of respect for ‘nature’ which one could argue is tantamount to a lack of respect for an ordering of the world which God created, but that isn’t the argument that was presented. Furthermore, such an argument would still seem to be at odds with the use of artificial hormones to cause pregnancy.
As a side note- I notice that “dignity of the person” seems to be a phrase that comes up a lot.
In countering pro-choice arguments that potential persons do not have rights, one can either take the view that the unborn are persons or that potential persons do have rights.
I think it’s interesting that there is a popular movement now to argue for the former view, but that the church clearly takes the latter view. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, no state has ever granted legal rights to non-persons.
I rather like the idea of replacing instances of “ability to” in the ordinary definitions of person with “capacity to”. :)
“the church clearly takes the latter view [that potential persons do have rights]”
The Church teaches that the unborn are persons–it also uses the supporting argument that if there is doubt, doubt should favor life. But it doesn’t say that the unborn are merely potential persons and not persons.
Well, the document that was referred to above said,
“Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say, from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life”.”
I was reading treated AS A person, and respected AS A person, to mean that it is not a person, but ought to be accorded the same rights and treatment. Isn’t that what it is saying? Otherwise, why not say that the human being IS A person. It doesn’t say that.
Also, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, it says:
“Rationalis naturae — Person is predicated only of intellectual beings. The generic word which includes all individual existing substances is suppositum. Thus person is a subdivision of suppositum which is applied equally to rational and irrational, living and non-living individuals. A person is therefore sometimes defined as suppositum naturae rationalis.”
Given that the unborn (at least prior to the fetal stage) has no intellectual ability, then isn’t it not yet a person? I thought I remembered (from a history unit on the Scholastics) where Aquinas took a position like this- although I could have gotten that mixed up. (I paid better attention to the post-renaissance stuff.)
Maybe I’m reading this all wrong?
PS: It might’ve been Augustine instead of Aquinas. (?)
Is there a straightforward definition somewhere that says, this is what the word “person” means in the eyes of the church?
The newer document, Dignitas Personae, clarifies this a bit. The Church’s teaching is that all human beings are persons. DP teaches that there is an ontological continuity of a human being from the moment of conception. That means, the you you are now is the same you you were earlier. Ergo, if you are a person now you were a person then. DV is not as ambiguous on this point as it can sometimes seem. “Hs rights as a person must be recognized” is a very strong statement, and need not be read with the emphasis on the “AS”.
What the Church is not doing is deciding as a scientific matter which entities are human beings, except to recognize the unanimous opinion that a human being begins at conception. So that’s all it is trying to avoid to speak on.
“Certainly no experimental datum can be in itself sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul; nevertheless, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person? The Magisterium HAS NOT EXPRESSLY COMMITTED ITSELF TO AN AFFIRMATION of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable.”
Isn’t that the same as saying that we are not taking the position that the embryo is a person, but it should be treated as if it were?
Does one (DP or DV) supersede the other?
I see, DP is supposed is a newer ruling than DV.
“in order to avoid a statement of an explicitly philosophical nature, did not define the embryo as a person, it nonetheless did indicate that there is an intrinsic connection between the ontological dimension and the specific value of every human life. Although the presence of the spiritual soul cannot be observed experimentally, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo give “a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?”.[8] Indeed, the reality of the human being for the entire span of life, both before and after birth, does not allow us to posit either a change in nature or a gradation in moral value, since it possesses full anthropological and ethical status. The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person.”
That still seems to be a hedge, though.
ockraz,
The Church has not committed itself on the moment ensoulment takes place, and one wonders how — from the Catholic viewpoint — there can be a human person without a soul. When this comes up, some attempt to argue that a soul is not a thing that inhabits the body. The problem with that argument is that in the Catechism, death is defined as the moment the soul leaves the body. It seems to me that if it is argued that a soul is not a “thing” that gets put in a body at some point very early on and that leaves at death, a lot of other common ideas fall apart.
When one says that something ought to be “treated as a person” it definitely leaves open the possibility that the thing isn’t a person. I could say that a beloved pet ought to be treated as a person.
You’re right though, that “rights as a person must be recognized” seems to be the key. I can’t really see how one could have “rights as” something if one were not that thing.
“The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person,” seems inconclusive. After all, the dignity proper to a thing could be proper to something else as well. But when it says that “the dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception,” that is a lot stronger. It could’ve said ‘The dignity proper to a person must be accorded to every human being from conception’ if the intention were to be less emphatic.
I’d never seen:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html
Do you think that prior to DP, it was right to say that the church’s position was that it didn’t matter whether the unborn were persons, they had a right to life merely because they were human? I’d been given to believe that skirting the personhood question and just arguing that an entity didn’t need to be a person to have a right to life was the Catholic approach- but that was years ago.
Even if it never was the church’s position, it isn’t a bad strategy. Animal rights advocates argue that non-persons have rights (at a minimum to a certain standard of treatment).
O–i don’t think its a hedge, because it excludes the opposite position, the idea that some humans aren’t people but change ontologically at a later date. By the way, that opposite view has nothing ontologically to prevent its extension beyond birth or any other point. And Jesus was personally present mere days after conception at the visitation.
True- it excludes the opposite position, but it could be seen as a ‘hedge’ by not explicitly taking the affirmative position. Nonetheless, I agree that “rights as a person must be recognized” is so strong that while it might not be an explicit declaration of personhood, one would probably have to have an agenda not to consider that to be the most reasonable and likely interpretation.
“The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized”
I’m sure that that wording was agonized over and that it is intentionally distinct from something like,
‘The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment it must be accorded the same rights as a person’
Still it would’ve been so much better if they’d not used an infinitive! Look what a difference it would make…
‘The human being is a person from the moment of conception and should be respected and treated as such; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized’
It just goes to show Obama is a rather typical politician. If Americans wanted real change, they would have elected Ron Paul. But real change is too scary; better to stick with rhetorical change only.
It just goes to show Obama is a rather typical politician. If Americans wanted real change, they would have elected Ron Paul. But real change is too scary; better to stick with rhetorical change only.
c matt,
What makes you think Ron Paul wouldn’t have become a “typical politician” if he had been elected? Not that I would call Obama a “typical politician,” although he is definitely a politician. And who would not want a politician to fill the highest political office in the land?
“So to criticize the new guidelines, it seems to me an argument must be made that it is immoral to derive stem cells from a doomed embryo. And I wonder if such an argument wouldn’t also forbid organ donations from, say, accident victims.”
The argument is that IVF embryos aren’t lame horses you can just put out of their misery. Futhermore, the organ harvested does not speed the death of the individual hyany more than mintues or an hour. Death for the accident victim must be imminent. IVF embryos can exist in the frozen state for years. You’re suggesting that a procedure be done on the embryo that would directly cause its death because, hey, it’s been abandoned anyway?
Obama fails the ethics test here.
You’re suggesting that a procedure be done on the embryo that would directly cause its death because, hey, it’s been abandoned anyway?
Unknown Caller,
Remember that under the NIH guidelines, the “parents” must donate the embryo in order for it to be used. Presumably they are, at that moment, deciding whether the embryo should be used for stem-cell research or simply destroyed. It’s going to be killed either way.
IVF embryos can exist in the frozen state for years.
Note this from Donum Vitae, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
You are resisting what seems to me the only possible conclusion for a pro-life Catholic. In vitro fertilization is an evil in and of itself. Only more evil can follow. It does not make the situation better that an embryo created by in vitro fertilization has it’s “life” prolonged by freezing. That is evil, too. To destroy it for the purpose of creating stem cells is evil. To simply destroy it because it is unwanted is also evil. There may or may not be convincing arguments that destroying an unwanted embryo for stem cells is a worse evil than simply destroying it merely to get rid of it. I don’t know. But from the Catholic viewpoint, creating an embryo in the lab begins a chain of evil. The only reasonable course of action is to try to prevent the whole thing from starting.
It is just a fact that with or without the NIH guidelines, the same number of embryos are going to be created and destroyed, and no embryos are going to be created for the purpose of government funded stem-cell research. To focus on the NIH and on government funding for stem-cell research seems to me to be anti-Obama politics, since the real problem is what takes place in fertility clinics. The Catholic Church opposes it, but if there is a concerted effort on from the pro-life movement to regulate in vitro fertilization, I certainly have not heard of it.
David-
Perhaps the hope is that if they aren’t destroyed for stem cell research, then the embryos will be adopted? That this could affect for than a few percent of the leftover embryos seems like an outlandish case of wishful thinking, but it could be a motivation. I don’t really see any other motivation that would get around the reasoning in your argument.
Perhaps the hope is that if they aren’t destroyed for stem cell research, then the embryos will be adopted?
ockraz,
Opinion within the Catholic Church as to whether embryo adoption is morally permissible is still ongoing, and (in my opinion) edging toward disapproval. Here’s a summary that is as up to date as I can find.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0806229.htm
David,
That’s awful!!! I’ve never heard about any of that.
I agree with this comment:
“Some theologians have said that, since a central criterion for making bioethical judgments is the defense of the right to life even though the creation and freezing of the embryos is immoral, rescuing them from long-term freezing and possible destruction is not only morally acceptable, but laudatory.”
There is very little debate over embryo adoption. It is immoral. The Vatican has been clear.
There is very little debate over embryo adoption. It is immoral. The Vatican has been clear.
M.Z.,
Can you cite anything? Are you reading Dignitas Personae to prohibit embryo adoption? The USCCB says
Unless there’s something in addition to Dignitas Personae, I wouldn’t say the issue is clear.
CNS
Addendum. I see the document basically closing the question.
I see we cited the same story.