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In that passage from Orthodoxy so familiar that it is almost now cliché, G. K. Chesterton wrote that there are a thousand angles at which a man may fall but only one at which he stands. By this he argued for the unique, enduring character of orthodox Church doctrine, of the one, true, upstanding strand of Right Teaching. Though the same tired heresies may reappear to contest it -- mutated, renamed, warmed-over -- the old, wild truth remains standing, "reeling but erect."
This well-worn lesson takes on a new freshness, I think, when applied to the culture war. The wild truths that inform Christian ethics -- our insistence on a moral universe, on a real human nature with its own teleology, on the transcendent significance of human acts and human relationships -- also reel but remain erect in the face of perennial challenges. We are not gods. Moral truth is something we discover, not invent. From the Garden of Eden to the Supreme Court of the United States, we have fought the same battle under different banners.
In what is probably the modern culture battle par excellence, the fight against abortion, we see displayed with perfect clarity the principle of a single upright truth (that directly killing an unborn child is an evil and a crime) being contested by a rotation of errors; taking turns or working in tandem, passing in and out of fashion, each seizing upon the vocabulary, events, and moods of the cultural moment until the next comes along to supplant it.
In some cases cultural developments render one of them obsolete. In the years shortly after Roe v. Wade, abortion debates inevitably featured three words the pro-abortion side considered a trump card: "blob of tissue." This factually empty but sound-bite-perfect catchphrase made a great impact with its implication that the fetus was roughly equivalent to a ball of snot. Which put abortion about on par with picking your nose: bad form, a messy affair that ought to be kept private, but nothing to get overly excited about.
Of course, advances in the study of human embryology, most notably the window to the womb afforded by the sonogram, all but pulled the teeth from the "blob of tissue" canard. The 1980 film The Silent Scream, an ultrasound depiction of an abortion at eleven weeks, provided a chilling, graphic look at abortion's inner workings. And today, expectant mothers keep pictures of their "blobs of tissue" on the refrigerator. They make copies and stuff them into Christmas cards.
So that particular line was no longer viable. But it wouldn't be the last. More would follow, and we who are engaged in the culture have surely heard most of them. However, even for those who have heard them all, I think it can be valuable to gather them up and define them; to identify their originators, exemplars, and champions; to understand their appeal; and to consider how to counter them. Let us now look, then, at five (a nice number, though by no means exhaustive) of history's most insidious pro-abortion arguments.
1. 'Don't Say the "A" word': NARAL
Names are important to propagandists. One could hardly imagine, for example, Planned Parenthood enjoying the status it does had it not in 1942 dropped "American Birth Control League" in favor of its current benevolent-sounding moniker. What if Greenpeace had instead called itself "Vegan Freaks Against Ambergris"? Would society still look on that organization in the indulgently tolerant way it does today? Would Bono still play its benefit concerts? There are some things we are just never meant to know.
A few years ago, in a calculated PR move, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) changed its name to NARAL Pro-Choice America. Amazingly, the new name is even more cumbersome than the old. "NARAL" juts out at the front like "Nokia" before "Sugar Bowl." But this name change was not about streamlining signage and business cards. It was an attempt to deflect notice from the singular object of NARAL's 30-plus years of existence -- unlimited access to abortion-on-demand -- and toward broader, more high-minded, and less gruesome concepts of gender equality and personal self-determination. The change was timed to coincide with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign depicting the new-and-improved NARAL not so much as an advocate of "abortion rights" as a defender of women's suffrage, satellite TV, and 31 Flavors.
Semantic games have always been part of the battle, of course. No one -- no one, mind you -- is "pro-abortion." Folks are "pro-choice," "pro–reproductive rights," or, slightly more courageously, "pro–abortion rights." In each case, even the last, the emphasis is steered away from the repugnant reality of abortion itself -- a sure loser in focus groups time and time again. Whenever we debate abortion or write a letter to the editor, we engage in a struggle for the linguistic high ground.
But NARAL's gambit takes things to a new level. By all accounts, abortion's popularity is waning steadily. Recent polls show high school and college students reporting pro-life leanings in growing numbers. The pro-life side's rare propaganda advantage in the partial-birth abortion debate has riveted public attention with clinically graphic descriptions of the violence abortion inflicts on the unborn.
Clearly, the long-term survival strategy, from NARAL's perspective, is to make the abortion debate about anything but abortion.
It can be wearying sometimes, but the counter-strategy is continually to return the debate to where it belongs: the humanity of the unborn child and his right to life. It may also be effective to ask just why abortion is so repugnant to so many.
2. 'Personally Opposed, But...': Mario Cuomo
It is these days thoroughly engrained in abortion discourse; its premises taken for granted and its logic never questioned. It is all too common for a politician, clergyman, or fellow parishioner to claim that he is "personally opposed" to abortion but wouldn't dream of "imposing" that opinion on a public with diverse religious and ethical beliefs -- and then sit back, secure in the feeling that his is an ironclad position.
Yet this line about being "personally opposed, but…" has only the appearance of reasonableness, acquired through sheer repetition. It also fits perfectly in a society valuing tolerance above all other virtues, conflict-avoidance over tackling unpleasant truths.
Some might trace this attitude back to John F. Kennedy, who as the price of the presidency swore that he would not let his Romish religious convictions dictate his politics. And if you want to point to JFK as a kind of spiritual grandfather to the "personally opposed, but…" position, you'll get no argument from me. But in its full form it must be credited not to Kennedy but to the former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo.
In a 1984 speech at the University of Notre Dame (at the invitation of the notorious Rev. Richard McBrien) titled "Religious Belief and Public Morality," Cuomo laid out the basic premises of the "personally opposed, but…" line, by way of reconciling his soi-disant devout Catholicism with his political support for abortion-on-demand. Skillfully equivocating Catholic teaching on abortion with Catholic teaching on contraception and divorce, as well as a presumed Catholic perspective toward nuclear weapons, he asks, would it be right for a Catholic to make (or sign) laws forbidding divorce? Withholding state funds for contraception? Instituting a unilateral nuclear freeze?
"Should I argue," he asks, "to make my religious value your morality? My rule of conduct your limitation?" Clearly not, is his conclusion. Not, absent a democratic consensus, in a society of varied and sometimes flatly contradictory moral values, a society in which even the collective voice of Christianity is not monolithic on issues but fractured and sectarian. Not, he notes, when "there is no Church teaching that mandates the best political course for making our belief everyone's rule, for spreading this part of our Catholicism."
The forceful case made by Cuomo in his speech (he quotes for support, in places, Michael Novak and even Pope John Paul II; the whole thing makes for fascinating reading) touches only on the context of politics, and mostly from the politician's perspective. But its spirit has crept out of the corridors of power into general society. It is the spirit that makes the saying "If you don't like abortion, don't have one" sound to some ears like a devastating rejoinder. The spirit that gives rise to slogans like "You can't legislate morality," when in fact the morality that protects human rights and thus the common good is the first and best thing worth legislating.
It is also the spirit that animates our next argument.
3. 'Safe, Legal, and Rare': Bill Clinton
Among politicians only Bill Clinton could devise a line like this, during his 1996 campaign, brilliantly triangulating liberal abortion-on-demand orthodoxy with Middle America's broad-based distaste for the practice. Ultimately nonsensical yet somehow familiar and reassuring, like a couplet from Dr. Seuss, this buzz phrase became an instant and enduring success, for two reasons.
First, it validated the internal conflict that the majority of Americans were (and still are) experiencing over the abortion question. They were conscious of a natural sense of revulsion toward abortion itself, yet unwilling for whatever reason to sign on whole-hog with the pro-lifers. Clinton let them know that he felt their pain and that his administration's policy would include a subtle nod toward the general feeling that abortion is a Bad Thing (which ought to be "rare") but would not place restrictions on its availability ("legal") that might send women to back alleys ("safe"). Thus he accomplished an unprecedented political feat: co-opting the vaguely antiabortion sentiments of the masses and mollifying the blood lust of the radical pro-abort left with one simple statement.
"Safe, legal, and rare" also subtly but definitely realigned the terms of the abortion debate. No longer would the question center on whether the aborted fetus was a blob or a baby; no longer would it be necessary to make tortured distinctions between public and private morality. In the first place, safety and legality are conservative concepts, not radical ones. Now the pro-choicer could consider himself a guardian of the status quo-an American tradition, even. In the second place, with the word "rare," the focus shifted away from abortion itself (which we now presumed to be beyond debate) and toward abortion's presumptive root causes. The abortion issue was now really a healthcare or poverty or education issue -- right in the liberal Democrats' wheelhouse.
To be truly pro-life, they could argue, meant to "get over this love affair with the fetus" (as former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders put it, with typical elegance) and instead pay attention to alleviating the conditions that led women to get abortions in the first place. Implied here, of course, is a kind of false dichotomy: The qualities of justice and mercy are not strained, nor must the interests of the mother and unborn child be necessarily set at odds. But the argument worked by playing into multiple stereotypes: pro-lifers as single-issue fanatics, misogynists, icy-hearted grinches. And it allowed politicians to spin abortion questions into Great Society sermonettes.
Pro-abortionists' next major tack would ratchet to a new level the lip-biting empathy invoked by "safe, legal, and rare" and that slogan's tacit admission of abortion's unpleasantness. But at the same time, it would rebuke the Clintonian strategy of ignoring or spinning away from the question of abortion itself.
4. 'Embrace the Guilt': Naomi Wolf
Feminist-at-large Naomi Wolf is perhaps best known for her work as a consultant to Al Gore's presidential campaign in 1999-2000. Charged with creating, ex nihilo, a personality for the vice president that would play better with women voters, Wolf devised the "alpha male" strategy, which began with Gore donning earth tones and lumberjack duds and ended (mercifully) with his PG-13 smooch of Mrs. Gore on convention night. In years previous, Wolf had been credited with identifying the "soccer mom" constituency while advising Clinton's reelection bid and caused numerous stirs with her books and publications on gender conflict and female sexual "liberation."
But in an earlier writing -- an article for The New Republic in 1995 -- she caused quite a different kind of stir. In it she claimed that her recent firsthand experience of pregnancy and childbirth had given her a new perspective on the abortion debate, a perspective she believed her fellow feminist pro-choicers needed to hear and act on.
In "Our Bodies, Our Souls," Wolf called for "a radical shift in the pro-choice movement's rhetoric and consciousness about abortion." Self-deluded by their long practice of dehumanizing the unborn (what she termed "the fetus-is-nothing paradigm of the pro-choice movement"), pro-choicers, she argued, were falling dangerously out of touch with the reality of abortion and women's experiences with it. In order to avert the loss of credibility and thus political influence the abortion movement would suffer thereby (although to her credit, Wolf also cited the need simply "to be faithful to the truth"), she asserted the "need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death."
This remarkable essay is liable to engender, in the pro-life observer, the same kind of cognitive dissonance that "safe, legal, and rare" does. In it Wolf admits bluntly that the fetus is a live human being with a certain value and that abortion undoubtedly kills that human being. She laments the prevalence of casual, "'I don't know what came over me; it was such good Chardonnay' abortions." She insists that abortion calls for a period of "mourning" and recommends spiritual "mending" ceremonies for women who abort, for vigils outside abortion clinics "commemorating and saying goodbye to the dead."
Yet her practical aim all along is to help other pro-abortionists develop a better strategy for keeping abortion legal.
Wolf avoids adopting conventional pro-life convictions by assigning the significance of the guilt and blood and killing to interior categories only. "If I found myself in circumstances in which I had to make the terrible decision to end this life," she writes, "then that would be between myself and God." For the unhappily pregnant woman, oppressed by patriarchal society and burdened by this fellow-victim inside her womb, abortion is not a social injustice but a personal "failure"; an evil to be borne and acknowledged and slowly atoned for.
For its frank admission (and thus diffusion) of the evidence that abortion kills a living human being, and its conclusion that this evidence doesn't logically require prohibition of abortion -- and in fact may even lend its perpetrators a certain tragic nobility -- Wolf's argument is a powerful one. Its effects live on in every pro-choice apologist who tries to imbue his position with moral gravity -- or, as with our next case, in those who invoke the name of God.
5. 'Pro-Faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice': The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
Some abortion advocates pick up Wolf's ball and run even farther with it. For some, God might be not merely patiently tolerant, even sympathetic, toward this business of feticide; He may in fact positively endorse it, as the exercise of a mature and devout conscience. For sure, the landscape is dotted with liberal churches and associations of them, each self-defined as "pro-choice." But the biggest and best organizational representation of the religious pro-abortion folk can be found within the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), Planned Parenthood's collar-and-chasuble lackey.
Beginning with the assertion that "most people of faith are pro-choice because of their religious beliefs, not in spite of them," the RCRC attempts to build a case for abortion on both sectarian and interreligious principles. First, compassion: "People who follow Jesus… should bring healing and wholeness to those in distress," claims one of the canned sermons the group offers as a resource. This means not forcing them into back alleys for their "healing" abortions and not forbidding them to opt out of the life-threatening ordeal of childbirth. Of course, there's good ol' freedom of conscience, too. Didn't Jesus "emphasize the moral agency of each person"? By this He compels us to believe that a woman's "life, health, and freedom… are more important than the potential life in her womb."
Not convinced? Then there's the cleanup issue: religious freedom. Church and state are separated in this country; without this separation we would be in danger of losing the freedom to believe and worship freely. "And at the center of religious freedom is keeping the government out of personal moral decisions such as terminating a pregnancy."
This rather bald assertion is a kissing cousin to the "libertarian" pro-abortion argument one is beginning to hear more frequently (which I do not treat fully here due to space limitations): According to this argument, the whole question hinges on whether "the government" has the right to interfere with personal medical decisions. Here the RCRC simply substitutes "moral" or "religious" for "medical." The antiabortionist's affront is not to the presumed sacrosanctity of medicine but to the cherished American ideal of religious liberty, of which the right to an abortion has apparently become iconic.
One could spend a great deal of time deconstructing the RCRC -- its sophistic mastery of religious vocabulary and concepts; its historical place in the disintegration of American mainline Protestantism; its clever self-positioning as an "equal but opposite" voice in the abortion debate and thus its successful bid to neutralize the natural advantage the pro-life side enjoys in religious contexts.
But I will make just one other observation: It's the pro-abortion side that always wants to turn this into a religious issue. Sure, there's no shortage of biblical positivist pro-lifers, but by and large, the pro-life side would like to frame the debate in social-justice terms. One needn't be a Christian to oppose murder or to look at a sonogram. Conversely the pro-abortionists need desperately to paint the issue as a struggle against religious zealotry.
To these folks it is always an effective -- and unexpected -- rejoinder to ask that they stop talking about God so much.
Wesley Clark and the Eclipse of Reason
There may be a thousand angles at which a man can fall and an equal number of ways to justify killing the unborn, yet all pro-abortion arguments really boil down to one root fallacy. General Wesley Clark, once a pretender to the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, expressed it quite well to a New Hampshire newspaper that year. Keen to display his abortion credentials (having entered the race too late to attend the NARAL fund-raiser at which the other major candidates had already pledged their obeisance), Clark claimed to oppose all restrictions to abortion, up to the point of complete delivery. After fumbling for a moment with a follow-up question about where life begins, he replied, "Life begins with a mother's decision."
Here we have a philosophical phenomenon aptly summarized by the title of Bernard Nathanson's second film, The Eclipse of Reason. Here we have nothing less than a fundamental crisis of being at the heart of our culture: a legal and societal status quo wherein a person is defined (and thus has rights apportioned to him) not by what he is but by how another person feels about him. This has been underscored in the debate over the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. If "life begins with a mother's decision," kill a pregnant woman on the way to an abortion clinic and you've committed one murder; kill a pregnant woman on the way to buy baby clothes and you've committed two.
The human mind can barely contain such a violent conflict of premises, forced together against the laws of nature and reason like identical poles of powerful magnets. How much more can the national soul contain it?
Todd M. Aglialoro is the editor-in-chief for St. Benedict Press/TAN Books and a columnist and blogger for InsideCatholic.com. This article originally appeared in the March 2004 issue of Crisis Magazine.
Readers have left 27 comments. Quote(1) Masonic idealsOctober 13th, 2009 | 3:30pm It's too bad "space constraints" led you to eliminate the two most damning Masonic ideals from consideration: Not convinced? Then there's the cleanup issue: religious freedom. Church and state are separated in this country; without this separation we would be in danger of losing the freedom to believe and worship freely. "And at the center of religious freedom is keeping the government out of personal moral decisions such as terminating a pregnancy."
This rather bald assertion is a kissing cousin to the "libertarian" pro-abortion argument one is beginning to hear more frequently (which I do not treat fully here due to space limitations): According to this argument, the whole question hinges on whether "the government" has the right to interfere with personal medical decisions. Here the RCRC simply substitutes "moral" or "religious" for "medical." The antiabortionist's affront is not to the presumed sacrosanctity of medicine but to the cherished American ideal of religious liberty, of which the right to an abortion has apparently become iconic. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the First Amendment's ban on "establishment" of religion "by Congress" is the single biggest factor today working against a reversal of Roe V. Wade- and that this is a Masonic ideal, not a Catholic one, which by Lumen Gentium "At the end of time it will gloriously achieve completion, when, as is read in the Fathers, all the just, from Adam and "from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,"(2*) will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church." In other words, Religious Freedom in this case is pitted against the Church directly. If the pro-abortionists want to define the struggle as one against religious zealotry- then maybe us Zealots need to fight for our right to religious zealotry. Now for my simple answers to each of these points, which I've attacked individually in the past: 1. 'Don't Say the "A" word': NARAL I've met pro-abortionists. Portland, OR may be the world headquarters of such- or maybe Eugene. They are the type of people who get vasectomies or other sterilization procedures in their twenties because they are: Intelligent, Environmentally Conscious, and believe that the Human Race is Evil, but that THEY PERSONALLY DESERVE THE RESOURCES THAT WOULD OTHERWISE GO TO THE POOR. They do exist. They're maybe only 15% of our population, but they're there- and the 49% who call themselves pro-choice are buying into their lies. My answer: let this group die out, they will anyway from a lack of having children in the next three generations. We can afford to wait these people out. 2. 'Personally Opposed, But...': Mario Cuomo This is really where you should have put the first Amendment debate- because that's what this leads to: "I'm moral, you can trust me, but you can also trust me to keep the government out of your doctor's visits". It's the libertarian argument. To defeat this, we need to phrase the result as a public safety issue. 3. 'Safe, Legal, and Rare': Bill Clinton This is similar. But easier to defeat. All we need to do on this one is attack every social justice issue they bring up with vigor, and give up on the sins that cause these social justice issues to begin with. Eventually, the social justice issues will run out- and at that point, abortion will be so rare that an 85% majority of Americans will be willing to make it illegal. Catholic side of this: Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson "The greatest weapon we have against the pro-death culture is charity". 4. 'Embrace the Guilt': Naomi Wolf The answer to this one is similar to #3, but going a step further- a Right to Life Amendment that fulfills our obligations as a society under the UN Declaration of Human Rights. All we really need to do is enshrine WIC into the Constitution- along with a statement that life begins at conception, in keeping with articles 3 and 20 to 26 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights that our country signed in 1948. 5. 'Pro-Faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice': The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice This last needs to be called what it is: Religion, divorced from reason, Protestantism with a strong Masonic influence. The dangerous side of religious freedom- is that it gives satanic influences the freedom to practice also. This last is why I'm opposed to religious freedom, and call the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, anti-Catholic. Quote(2) the First AmendmentOctober 13th, 2009 | 3:44pm Are you saying that we should not have Freedom of Religion? Or that we should have an established church? I disagree. I've met people from all faiths, especially Protestants who oppose abortion, and even an agnostic of good will can make an argument against abortion on human rights grounds. I cannot blame the Protestants for abortion, as I've seen far too many so called Catholics who are in favor of it.
The Supreme Court ran roughshod over the laws of all 50 states with Roe v Wade. They threw out laws which were passed by duly elected state legislatures, often confirmed by courts, in one fell swoope, a direct violation of the 10th Amendment. Roe v Wade should be overturned and the issue of abortion determined by the states. A few goofy states such as California might have laws that I disagree with, but I think most of them would get it right. Quote(3) Re: #5 - Catholics as pawnsOctober 13th, 2009 | 4:30pm I often wonder if pro-choice Catholics realize how they've been targeted and used as pawns over the years. Todd Aglialoro mentions Bernard Nathanson. I dug this up on google because it's stunning - should be read by all Catholics. From Nathanson's CONFESSION OF AN EX-ABORTIONIST in which he describes the some tactics he used to generate support for his abortion business (he subsequently converted to Catholicism):
THE SECOND KEY TACTIC WAS TO PLAY THE CATHOLIC CARD
"We systematically vilified the Catholic Church and its "socially backward ideas" and picked on the Catholic hierarchy as the villain in opposing abortion. This theme was played endlessly. We fed the media such lies as "we all know that opposition to abortion comes from the hierarchy and not from most Catholics" and "Polls prove time and again that most Catholics want abortion law reform". And the media drum fired all this into the American people, persuading them that anyone opposing permissive abortion must be under the influence of the Catholic hierarchy and that Catholics in favour of abortion are enlightened and forward-looking..."
There's more - read the whole thing, it's eye-opening...
Quote(4) Re: the First AmendmentOctober 13th, 2009 | 4:33pm Are you saying that we should not have Freedom of Religion? Or that we should have an established church? — AustinI'm saying that freedom of religion goes too far when it allows intrinsic evils to take place simply because we can't "impose our religion on others". An established church would take care of this.
I disagree. I've met people from all faiths, especially Protestants who oppose abortion, and even an agnostic of good will can make an argument against abortion on human rights grounds. I cannot blame the Protestants for abortion, as I've seen far too many so called Catholics who are in favor of it.
Specifically, I'm blaming the Masons for it. Insofar as their value of prosperity over human life caused it, anyway.
The Supreme Court ran roughshod over the laws of all 50 states with Roe v Wade. They threw out laws which were passed by duly elected state legislatures, often confirmed by courts, in one fell swoope, a direct violation of the 10th Amendment. Roe v Wade should be overturned and the issue of abortion determined by the states. A few goofy states such as California might have laws that I disagree with, but I think most of them would get it right.
I do not share your optimism in this; there's too much money involved, and too much individualism over the common good. Quote(5) The Masons?October 13th, 2009 | 6:06pm Well, this is the first time that I have read of the Masons being responsible for abortion. Perhaps some of them are pro abortion, but I think it is a bit of a stretch to blame the Masons for abortion.
I am not for an established church. The English went down that road and it was a mistake. I don't want the church beholden to the government. T like the church being civil, but with a slightly adversarial relationship to the government. I don't trust the government and the church has often been a counterweight to government tyranny. I don't want to lose that. Quote(6) Abortion cannot be stopped, periodOctober 13th, 2009 | 6:45pm Those who oppose abortion can argue against it all they want, talk about the "right to life","sanctity of life", condemn it until they are blue in the face, protest abortion until the cows come home, and even murder abortion providers,(not that any one here would ever do this.)
And yes, the US government COULD make abortion illegal again. But you cannot get around one inevitable thing, namely that women will seek and obtain abortions whether they are legal or not, and if they are too poor to pay for illegal ones, they will attempt it themselves, with the inevitable catastrophic results.
But this would no more "stop" abortion than Prohibition stopped alcohol consumption in America decades ago.
Furthermore, there is absolutely no way to enforce laws against abortion. How will we stop women who can afford it from flying abroad for safe,legal ones? Put up blockades at every border and airport and examine every woman of childbearing age for possible pregnancy ?
Or stop poor women for attempting to abort themselves ? Put up surveillance cameras in every home and arrest, prosecute and imprison any women who tried this ? This sounds more like Orwell's 1984 than the kind of "free" America conservatives call for.
And it should be remembered that countries where abortion is illegal have much higher abortion rates than ones which permit it. And much,much higher rates of deaths from botched,illegal ones, including Brazil, which is the world's largest Catholic nation. Quote(7) Re: The Masons?October 13th, 2009 | 7:24pm Well, this is the first time that I have read of the Masons being responsible for abortion. Perhaps some of them are pro abortion, but I think it is a bit of a stretch to blame the Masons for abortion. — AustinMore one of their biggest heresies- individualism. The idea that one man's profit is more important than another man's life.
I am not for an established church. The English went down that road and it was a mistake. I don't want the church beholden to the government. T like the church being civil, but with a slightly adversarial relationship to the government. I don't trust the government and the church has often been a counterweight to government tyranny. I don't want to lose that.
I actually want the government to be beholden to the church- as in, an excommunication being equal to a coup. Quote(8) not trueOctober 13th, 2009 | 8:45pm Mr Berger above is repeating talking points from NARAL. A couple of rebuttals are in order.
First, abortion is NOT comparable to the drinking of alcohol. When the US passed Prohibition, it was outlawing, at one stroke, the use of a perfectly innocent thing (when used in moderation), one that had long been a part of the people's most cherished celebrations. It is true that Prohibition spawned a wave of bootlegging. It is also true, though not much commented upon, that alcohol use dipped sharply, as did deaths from cirrhosis of the liver and other alcohol-related diseases. If you don't believe me, look up the actuarial tables, which don't lie. Prohibition was a bad idea, but the notion that it did not work is historically inaccurate. Law, after all, is a teacher.
But abortion is not like the drinking of alcohol, because one must go well out of one's way to procure an abortion -- seeing a doctor, agreeing to an operation, and so forth. The reason why we don't legislate against minor infractions against temperance is that, well, it is so easy to sin against temperance, the opportunities being so readily available; and in any case sins against temperance are often quite minor.
Second, it is not true that the legalizing of abortion in the United States caused the number of abortions to drop. They rose suddenly and sharply -- and even the number of ILLEGAL abortions rose. A quick consideration of human nature would suffice to show why. Once some abortions were made legal, that set up the expectation in women that any abortions would be legal; and when that proved not to be the case, women sought illegal abortions even after the legalization. But in any case, anyone who actually believes that abortion kills a human life cannot possibly allow it in law, just as we cannot allow infanticide.
Third, let us not forget that law is a teacher as well as a corrector. If abortion were to be outlawed in the United States, it is simply not true that the same number of women would seek abortions as would have done when abortion was legal. For people do actually follow the law; or at least will not go so far out of their way to break it. The outlawing of abortion could only come about after a widespread social revulsion against the procedure; enough to keep those who waver on the right side of the fence. A good analogy is the social stigma that once attended those who fornicated. Obviously, it did not keep all people from fornicating; but it did keep many from the sin, and those who did sin had to do so furtively, and thus less frequently. If this is not believed, a quick glance at baptismal records would be enough to show that the great majority of babies were born in wedlock.
Fourth, it is not true that women nowadays who would procure illegal abortions would resort to that cliche, the back alley. James Burtchaell long ago, in Rachel Weeping, documented the testimony from the PRO-ABORTION side, that illegal abortions were quite safe. We have, after all, antibiotics; and even back in the 1950's most illegal abortions were performed by doctors.
Quote(9) and so what is the reason for lawOctober 14th, 2009 | 2:56am Applying Mr. Berger's logic, there would be no reason to have any criminal laws prohibiting criminal acts as it is quite clear from the evening news that many people disregard the ;aw and behave badly.
But there is a high purpose for the law. It is the basis for an ordered society that reflects the natural law in its civil law, and hopefully through its process respects both the individual's rights of life, liberty and property, and the rights of the community to live in relative harmony and peace. Indeed since the law is to recognize the rights that each human being has to those basic rights acknowledged by our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, one of the original purposes of the courts was to protect the minority from the majority. It would appear therefore, that the most defenseless and vulnerable of the human family ought to be protected. and that any act or anything that would do harm to a hum Quote(10) finish the thought.....October 14th, 2009 | 2:59am that any act or anything that would do harm to an innocent human being would be opposed by any person of good will.
Quote(11) The underlying patternOctober 14th, 2009 | 6:02am It is, I think, worth pointing out that the dodges listed in this article (as well as the litany of bumper sticker slogans from Mr. Berger) have a common theme: Rather than defend the act of abortion, they attack the need for pro-life action.
Arguments such as these could not have been made back when abortion was newly legal; the activists then were the pro-choice movement, and it was far more tactically effective to energize their own side than to demoralize the opposition.
The situation reverses, though, as time goes on. As anything becomes more and more firmly entrenched as the status quo, it becomes harder and harder to justify its removal to the undecided. Legal abortion is no exception in that regard.
Hence, I disagree with Ted's argument above that we can wait for the pro-abortion minority to die out. Time is on their side, not ours--the more generations that grow up with the current state of affairs as the way things always have been, the closer we get to a day when our cries that abortion is murder will be met with: "So what?" Quote(12) Re: Re: the First AmendmentOctober 14th, 2009 | 9:56am Are you saying that we should not have Freedom of Religion? Or that we should have an established church? — AustinI'm saying that freedom of religion goes too far when it allows intrinsic evils to take place simply because we can't "impose our religion on others". An established church would take care of this. Catholicism would not be the established religion, if there were one, in the US. If I had to imagine The Church of America, I think it would be a watery mainline Protestant thing that led a prayer service on the anniversary of Sept 11, swore in the president and other leaders, and urged Americans to care for their brothers and sisters through volunteering, charitable donations, and saftey-net government programs. This would be completely unhelpful to the pro-life movement. As the article itself describes, not all Christian denominations are friends to the unborn. Quote(13) Note to Chrissy GOctober 14th, 2009 | 10:54am As i said in a previous post, I like the idea of the church, especially the Catholic Church being totally independent of the Government and having a slightly adversarial relationship with the Government. I don't want the church to be a rubber stamp to the government. I don't trust the government and we need the Church as a counterweight and to hold the Government's feet to the fire on abortion and other issues. Quote(14) Abortion & peaceOctober 14th, 2009 | 6:11pm A great article that is much appreciated!
I always find it interesting that males seem to voice an opinion about abortion on these sites 2 to 1 over females. Even rarer may be those females who have actually had an abortion speaking out.
I am one of those females who for the past 38 years has been trying to reconcile with my decision to do so. Truthfully it has been since I read the Bible at age 40 and more so since I entered the Catholic Church at age 46. Then it was another 10 years before I became aware of the part prolonged contraception had played in my decision to abort.
As a teenager of the 1960's I bought all the lies of the culture; "free love, tune-in, turn-on & drop out; it's your thing; do what you want to do." I was a fallen-away Protestant who deemed my Methodist congregation a bunch of hyppocrites in action. In fact it was my "pious" mother who immediately advocated abortion for me as a "solution"--to cover her shame, when I called her for some medical history info. at age 29 and the pregnancy issue came out. Mom had always told me that I was on my own & that she wouldn't be there to rescue me from bad decisions or consequences. I moved out on my own as soon as I turned 18.
I lived in a party-down college town, so when I was 18 and "legal" I sought out the prudent strategy for anticipated promiscuity--the rational cultural logic that said "protect yourself--don't count on the male"--be smart--take care of yourself" ideology. For the following 10 years I took the pill and then thought my body deserved a rest from being tricked into a perpetual state of pregnancy and went to a diaphram and bingo. This contaceptive mentality led me through 3 non-committal relationships lasting about 5 years each and culminating in an abortion....the normal progressive consequence of promiscuous activity.
You see, I had made my decision to abort when I decided to contracept, although I didn't even know of all the specific actions of the Pill. I thought it prevented implantation of an embryo in the unterine wall--I did not know that it was also an abortifacent. So in actuality over that 10 year continuous contraceptive period I most likely had several abortions unknowingly. I was listening to Janet Morano of Priests for Life recently and found out my complicity with abortion through use of contraceptives....38 years after the surgical abortion. I went to confession.
I was a product of the cultural progressive mindset of my day. I bought all of the lies for women that were being expressed. God is Woman by Melin Stone and burn your bra--ha! All lies.
Ironically the name of the Clinic I used was called Hope Clinic; touted as a safe place. If there hadn't been a "safe" place it is likely that I would have lived up to my responsibilites and carried the baby to term.
The abortionist at Hope is now near retirement after 30 years. He came from India and was trained with U.S. dollars and even worked at a Catholic Hospital as head of OB-GYN for 8 years before his side-line practice was exposed causing him an ethics problem and forcing his resignation from that hospital. He took over as head abortionist from the South American born Dr. who began Hope Clinic (now retired & residing in CA.)
When Dr. Nathanson (NARAL) & other men mapped their strategy targeting the Catholic Church to promote the abortion industry, he admitted that NARAL lied concerning abortion performed statistics at the start. They embellish the numbers in hopes that people would get on board if they thought it was a popular option/solution to unwanted preganacy. It worked. Humans are sheep-like; following the leader.
I believe in what Mother Teresa said: The world will not see peace until there is no more abortion. She justly received the Nobel Peace Prize. The Clintons didn't heed her wisdom. That Obama was given the NP Prize is pure folly, in light of Mother's sentiments. The Catholic Church is the only Church who has consistently continued to tell the truth about contraception and abortion and the consequences for society morally and physically, since 1933 when other denominations followed the Anglican Church in allowing it after a conference decision in England. Then in 1968 the athnolic bishops further rebelled against Humanae Vitae.
My life is living proof that the Church holds the keys to Truth and Life. Praise God for the Tribunal of Mercy; Jesus in the confessional within the Catholic Church.
I am very glad that Ted Seeber has brought up a Masonic dimension to this discussion about which the Catholic Church also has plenty of historical commentary. But that is for another entry. Quote(15) "So what?"October 14th, 2009 | 6:51pm LV, I have already come upon multiple people who have given me the "So what?" answer ![[smiley=shock]](http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/components/com_jreactions/custom/templates/blog/smileys/smiley_shock.gif) . So you may be right. These people would start out with their usual pro-abortion arguments expecting me to be completely ignorant about such matters, and after recognizing their lies and rhetoric wouldn't work with me some actually told me it didn't matter if it was murder or not. This country is in a sad state of affairs (no pun intended). We know from history that nations do not last long in conditions such as ours. Either there will be some sudden reversal by the grace of Christ, or we will see the final collapse of this country (and western society as a whole). Europe will be the first to fall to the Islam controlled state. Either America will follow along a while afterward, reunite with it's Judeo-Christian heritage, or end up in a war as Mother Teresa predicted. Those with a "so what?" attitude concerning genocide will have nothing against participating in nuclear war. ![[smiley=sad]](http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/components/com_jreactions/custom/templates/blog/smileys/smiley_sad.gif) This will include those who already believe today the world's population should be reduced to approximately 100 million. Quote(16) LEMOctober 14th, 2009 | 7:13pm LEM, didn't see your post until after I had posted mine. I believe many women with a past history are still having a hard time dealing with what they have done, and avoid discussions such as this. And of course there will be the men who do not realize the part they may have played in the occurrence of an abortion combined with not having the mother-child bond that women have. Hence the 2-1 ratio you speak of. Often times we forget that there may be those who have been personally affected who may be reading but not posting.
Thank you for your courage in making your post. It may very well save one or more lives and souls. God bless you!! Quote(17) UntitledOctober 14th, 2009 | 11:51pm LEM, your courage is both admirable and inspirational. Thank you. Quote(18) Legality V.S. FundedOctober 15th, 2009 | 3:27am "Third, let us not forget that law is a teacher as well as a corrector. If abortion were to be outlawed in the United States, it is simply not true that the same number of women would seek abortions as would have done when abortion was legal. For people do actually follow the law; or at least will not go so far out of their way to break it. The outlawing of abortion could only come about after a widespread social revulsion against the procedure; enough to keep those who waver on the right side of the fence. A good analogy is the social stigma that once attended those who fornicated. Obviously, it did not keep all people from fornicating; but it did keep many from the sin, and those who did sin had to do so furtively, and thus less frequently." -- Tony Esolen --
I very much agree. With today's "virtue" of toleration there are less defined boundaries for immoral sexual behavior. To be ostrasized by society for an unacceptable & even immoral action is for the most part a thing of the past. It is even difficult to link persons to their associations in this present time. No more "birds of a feather flock together" reasoned discernment. Many can no longer discern good from evil and the societal view has become topsey turvey. Some moms have come to approve of prostitution as a viable & profitable temporary profession for their daughters in these tough economic times. Young women are selling their embryos.
It is one thing for the Federal or State government to legalize abortion; a right it does not morally possess. Life and death are ultimately under God's domain alone. This applies to same-sex unions as well; for marriage is instituted and defined by God and humanity has no right to redefine it. God has clearly revealed his Way pertaining to these within not only the Holy Scripture, but has written His natural law upon every human heart. Life is a God-given right; not a State right. But much of humanity is dull of spirit.
Legalization tends to give abortion a legitimacy within society through its false assertion that managed infanticide fosters the common good. Safety for women is the argument. But, it is not always a safe procedure and now there has been found a link to breast cancer as a risk factor. Indescriminate abortion certainly has no legitimate claim in "healthcare."
For 15 years after my abortion I felt that I had done the right thing in my life for myself and the baby. Low self-esteem prevented me from seeing that I could have been a good mother; especially with God's providence. I didn't have a belief or relationship with God then and felt overwhlemed with responsibility; very alone and terribly afraid in my own lack of abilities. It was only when God touched my heart drawing me to Himself and the Church; to the Christian Life that I saw my selfish act of abortion for what it was & gently God revealed more & more to me through conviction of the Holy Spirit. I no longer believed that abortion was good for women because the Govt.& medical profession said it was a safe alternative option to illegal means.
Government funding of abortion further enhances it's legal legitimacy and more. It is the driving catalyst propelling a now billion dollar industry. It has gone from providing a legal "safe" alternative to risky illegally-performed abortions; to a profitizing cash-cow. Greedy blood-lust. Still, currently 70,000 women die annually from legal and safe abortions. I consider myself lucky to have even survived.
Ironically, many of the women feminists who continue to loyally foster & perpetuate abortion are victims of it themselves who have not yet been touched by God's grace. They continue in non-perceived denial; blinded by their sin.
Abortion financing has tragically been interwoven into the very fabric of many of our charitable organizations such as the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Assoc.-pink ribbons. I was appalled to learn that part of my donnation to help erradicate breast cancer is going to support abortion, as well. Same with the United Way. Children typicaly solicit donnations around this time of year through Catholic parish endeavors. Johnson & Johnson; the "Baby People" are also duplicitly funding abortion and the list is endless. Boycotting alone is not an effective means of stopping these despicable practices because the organizations are quite well cloaked. Not unlike pork attached to the Congress bills under cover of darkness. An example would be the refunding of ACORN beginning 12 midnight Halloween night that was attached to a recent military spending bill. America was appalled by the undercover investigative corruption found in ACORN offices across the country linked to prostitution rings of illegal underage aliens a few weeks ago, but only appalled enough to sever funding for a month!! Corruption abounds in Congress.
By over-reaching in the Democratic Insurance Reform Bill, the abortion industry is now going to affect all who didn't think abortion could or would touch them. The majority of taxpayers do not want their taxes funding abortion; which strikes at personal choice & convictions. It is becoming evident that we have all become morally complicit; which, of course we always have been, but through varying degrees of support. Many young people now feel that they are survivors of abortion within their own families and the pendulum is swinging widely to the opposite extreme in favor of chastity and Life. Praise God. We are our brother's keeper. * * *
TED SEEBER: By Masonic do you mean the 20th Century Progressives, regardless of political party, such as Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, W. Wilson, H. Truman, & Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama & many of his radical Administration; Supreme Court Justice appointees--who followed the ideology of racist founder of PParenthood (genocide) Margaret Sanger, advocate of population control & Socialist agendas??
An historic first-ever Masonic Inaugural Ball to which Obama and V.P. Biden were invited was held at Royal Arch Mason (32nd Degree) Lodge in Washington, D.C. Jan. 2009. Civil War hero & Mason, Albert Pike, founder of the Royal Arch Masons, a self-avowed Satanist, is burried there. His statue, in full Masonic dress, is located near the Judicial Bldg. Quote(19) An important distinctionOctober 15th, 2009 | 11:24am
I thought it prevented implantation of an embryo in the unterine wall--I did not know that it was also an abortifacent.
— LEMIt's important that we dispel this myth whenever possible. LEM, thank you for your important testimony that the pill clearly does more. The distinction I would like to make is the fact that the pill "prevents implantation of an embryo" MAKES IT AN ABORTIFACIENT. Contrary to the attempt to redefine pregnancy as beginning at implantation, we know it begins earlier. Any artificial attempt to prevent implantation, which expels and kills the embryo is abortion. Yes, the ordinary use of the pill causes abortions. Quote(20) People are sheepOctober 15th, 2009 | 6:44pm As for the impossibility of making abortion illegal - today, tomorrow no. But if the American PR machine decided that abortion was "out" it could turn people's attitudes around pretty quickly. People are sheep and the shepherd is the media. Think of how racist this country was in the 60's and how just a few decades later we shudder in shame at such an attitude. Some people still hold racist attitudes just as some women would still want to get abortions but a public awareness campaign depicting abortion and all the harm it also does to women could slow it down considerably. Think what sonogram technology in crisis pregnancy centers does. A little information and solid reasoning and most people would not want to commit the crime. Eventually, it could be illegal.
Unfortunately, the sacredness of unborn life is not one of the PR machines pet causes. Quote(21) Re: finish the thought.....October 15th, 2009 | 8:52pm that any act or anything that would do harm to an innocent human being would be opposed by any person of good will.
— John JakubczykBut that cuts both ways. What of persons of bad will? Are they not equally freed by the idea of liberty, that so many Popes wrote against in the 1800s? Quote(22) Re: Re: Re: the First AmendmentOctober 15th, 2009 | 8:54pm Catholicism would not be the established religion, if there were one, in the US. If I had to imagine The Church of America, I think it would be a watery mainline Protestant thing that led a prayer service on the anniversary of Sept 11, swore in the president and other leaders, and urged Americans to care for their brothers and sisters through volunteering, charitable donations, and saftey-net government programs. This would be completely unhelpful to the pro-life movement. As the article itself describes, not all Christian denominations are friends to the unborn. Actually, by demographics, Catholicism is a plurality that is 1% more than all the Protestant religions combined in the United States, as we are throughout the world. Quote(23) Masonic influencesOctober 15th, 2009 | 9:01pm TED SEEBER: By Masonic do you mean the 20th Century Progressives, regardless of political party, such as Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, W. Wilson, H. Truman, & Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama & many of his radical Administration; Supreme Court Justice appointees--who followed the ideology of racist founder of PParenthood (genocide) Margaret Sanger, advocate of population control & Socialist agendas??
An historic first-ever Masonic Inaugural Ball to which Obama and V.P. Biden were invited was held at Royal Arch Mason (32nd Degree) Lodge in Washington, D.C. Jan. 2009. Civil War hero & Mason, Albert Pike, founder of the Royal Arch Masons, a self-avowed Satanist, is burried there. His statue, in full Masonic dress, is located near the Judicial Bldg. All of them and then some- going right back to our freemasonic founding fathers with their worship of Freedom (at least for white landowning males over 18) and "pursuit of happiness" over human life. Article I Section 10, which keeps states from actually making their own laws and economies and treaties; and the First Amendment are the result of their arrogance. Quote(24) AbortionistOctober 15th, 2009 | 9:32pm Here is an article I just read from today's Lifesitenews titled "Abortionist Reflects on Dismembering One Baby While Feeling Her Own Flutter in Her Womb". It is a sign that God is raining down graces for these abortionists, but most (including the one from the article) are still refusing to heed His call. May God grant us mercy.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09101501.html Quote(25) UntitledOctober 15th, 2009 | 10:54pm "Actually, by demographics, Catholicism is a plurality that is 1% more than all the Protestant religions combined in the United States" - Ted
From Wiki:
According to a 2007 survey,[9] the following is the order of religious preferences in the United States:
Christianity: (78.4%)
Protestantism (51.3%)
Roman Catholicism (23.9%)
Mormon (1.7%)
Jehovah's Witness (0.7%)
Orthodox Church (0.6%)
other Christian (0.3%)
Unaffiliated, including atheist or agnostic (16.1%)
Judaism (1.7%)
Buddhist (0.7%)
Islam (0.6%)
Hinduism (0.4%)
other (1.2%)
Quote(26) Modern day PILATES.October 26th, 2009 | 12:18pm
Pilate was 'personally opposed' too.
Quote(27) UntitledOctober 30th, 2009 | 11:18pm This was an good article. I strongly encourage the author to write a comparable article from the pro life prospective. The pro choice side has been much better at using language to engage and mold suppositions and frame debates. The pro-life side has tended to engage in a more socratic debate where we are constantly trying to get someone else to admit that the fetus is a baby. Unfortunately, because of TV and other reasons this method doesn't really work in the public square. As Cardinal George said political arguments today are designed "to make you stop thinking". "My body, my choice!" (choose what?? this isn't part of the question.)These aren't Socratic arguments from people who are wholeheartedly seeking "the good" without predijuice.
"Abortion stops a beating heart." Would be an example of engaging suppositions without giving the hearer the power of choosing their own truth. The implication of the sentence stands for itself. Again Cardinal George said that prochoicers "much like slavery were on the wrong side of history". This works on several levels. With slavery, you have a blatant example where a whole society demeaned a group of individuals for their benefit...why are we so different that it can't be happening again? "wrong side of history"...this ads a moral context without getting into name calling.
Until the pro-life side does a better job of using language to engage peoples suppositions, they'll never make serious progress. Also pro-lifers need to expand their arguments beyond the immediate act of abortion...how does men's selfishness contribute to the number of abortions or middle class parents shame or politicians using language to minimize the moral dimension to maximize the political benefit lead to a culture of aboriton. How do these things affect are churches ? ("Christianity is not Gnostism") How does it affect who we are as a nation? ("We can't been a great nation without being a good nation.) We need to think what would the suppostions of a pro-life community would be and how do we get there?
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