Cardinal Francis George, President of the Bishops’ Conference, is to be commended for the statement he issued last night opposing the final health care reform bill. I do not agree with the policy conclusion reached by the USCCB, as I mentioned yesterday. Still, unlike some of the previous statements coming from the USCCB, and unlike some of the statements from his brother bishops, Cardinal George is neither unduly strident in his claims nor condemnatory of those who disagree. For example, he acknowledges the USCCB disagreement with the Catholic Health Association, and chides them for being naïve, but he does not question their Catholic identity as some have done. The whole tone of the letter is one of sadness, which would seem to be the appropriate sentiment for someone who genuinely wants health care reform but feels compelled not to support the final bill.
It is painful to see the Church’s bishops unable to support this bill. It is painful, too, to see the charges and counter-charges within the Church, as if legislation had replaced the Creed as the test of orthodoxy. But, one thing seems abundantly clear to me as we near the end of the health care debate: The passage of universal health care will go down as a landmark pro-life victory. In part, this is because of the support for pregnant women in the bill, the fact that countries with universal health care almost always have a lower abortion rate than here in the U.S., and because the bill’s requirement that abortion coverage be paid for every month with a separate premium check will remind millions of Americans that abortion is not health care, and the reminder will come every month.
But, the debate has also exposed something surprising about the pro-life cause: that it means so many different things to so many different people, and that these differences even appear to exist within the Episcopal bench itself. And this leads me to think that the USCCB should consider undertaking a pastoral letter on what it means to be pro-life in America in this second decade of the twentieth century. This thought came to me at the end of my post yesterday, when I pointed out that in the 1980s, the bishops issued two really significant pastoral letters, one on the economy and the other on nuclear war, and that in those teaching documents they made the point that at the level of moral principle the bishops enjoyed a high degree of certainty but that as they got to the legislative and policy level, their moral certainty was necessarily lessened. N.B. This is not to say that prudential political judgment can be used as a cover to dodge moral judgment: Prudence is a virtue, and political judgment, even one on so pedestrian a decision as a parliamentary vote to end debate, can be fraught with moral significance.
The process the bishops adopted in the 1980s was important. A committee of bishops was formed and they listened to experts and ordinary folk across the country. They consulted theologians both here and abroad. They analyzed the statements of other episcopal conferences and the Holy See. The process took several years but it proved to be a learning process all around. The complexities, in the best sense of the word, of the Church’s social teaching became manifest. The Church’s commitment to peace and justice were made clear in ways it had not been before, and the final documents met with widespread concurrence both among the bishops and among the people in the pews. The pastorals changed public opinion among Catholics. In 1983, only a third of American Catholics believed America was spending too much on weapons and defense, the same percentage as among Protestant Americans. In 1984, 54 percent of American Catholics held that belief, while the percentage for Protestants was unchanged.
Many Catholics dismiss the bishops as pawns of the Republican Party, a charge that is false. Others have come to ignore the bishop’s teaching authority entirely. Continuing with a piecemeal approach, issuing statements here, lobbying there, have not served the necessary purpose of uniting the flock around the teachings of the Church. Those teachings demand more than showing up at the March for Life, useful though that March is as a public witness. The Church’s teachings about life are richer than merely opposing abortion, and it is far from clear how one can politically and legally enact the moral principles that flow from our commitment to life. It is time for the bishops to do for the pro-life cause what they did for economic justice and issues of war and peace in the 1980s. It is time to listen, to consult and to teach.
Really? I would have thought that would have been obvious to all of us long since.
Particularly when rampaging mobs screaming ''Baby killer!'' during the last election, as they also hurled racial epithets, showed to all of us just how interwined with something other than pro-life causes the movement and its rhetoric had become.
And I can't imagine the bishops were unaware of that intertwining. Their silence, as the movement has gotten itself connected to causes that represent the antithesis of a pro-life stance, has suggested to me for a long time that the investment in a pro-life ethic has to do with more than the abortion issue.
The result in Roe is tragic, however given the tenth chapter of the decision, it was necessary. Unless some legal recognition is given to the fetus by the national legislature, the plain language of the Constitution is very clear about when legal protection under it begins. Until legal personhood is a reality, the rights of the fetus cannot be considered legally. The venue to grant such rights is not the Courts (that would be judicial activism) and it is not the states (as they are not sovereign in these matters), but the Congress.
Fixating on Roe may help Republicans organize to appoint Justices who may overturn Roe (although Roberts and Alito do not seem to be moving in that direction), but they do nothing to focus the debate on where it should be. Oddly, Barack Obama at least made noises in the Presidential debates about legislatively ending all late term abortions (not just those involving Dialation and Extraction). As a constitutional scholar, he at least knows which venue this issue must be decided in. We should, by all means, hold him to his promise. It would help if we quit calling him a foreign born socialist if we want to do this, however.
I don't think I disagree with Mr. Winters's post, except that I had to scratch my head at his apparent concern with "strident debate." American political debate is tame compared to the rest of the world (ever watch Prime Minister's question time on CSPAN?), and relative to American political history as well. In my experience, liberals only whine about "strident" debate when they lose one.
Based on the Republican bishops' apparent tolerance of the hate-mongering (Baby killer! Infanticide!) fanned by the pro-life movement during the last presidential election, I believe that the bishops are indeed party pawns. A false charge? Not so much. If the bishops were not pawns, they would be criticizing the Republican leadership for not doing enough (anything?) while in power to aggressively legislate away abortion rights. The ONLY times I recall the party bishops and leaders promoting "discourse" about restricting abortion is when it's politically advantageous. In other words, between elections and during periods when the Republicans are in power, the silence concerning restriction of abortion rights is deafening.
I have yet to see a cogent argument for regulating first trimester abortions which take into all the ramifications of a fetus as a full up legal person. You simply cannot do it in such a manner as to not make it offensive, since the implication must be that every miscarriage deserves an investigation. You want to see investigators killed (or at least punched in the nose) in droves, just try sending police or health department personnel to interview families about the circumstances of the event at such an emotionally charged time. You can object that it would never happen, but if the police don't have that power any ban on first trimester abortions is easily evadable.
Until the pro-life side understands that this is as much a debate about police power as it is about life, it will never understand how people can be both personally against abortion and pro-choice at the same time and until they get that understanding, they stand no chance of being at all effective.
Of course, most people do not mind this fact, since it makes many pro-life and Republican fundraisers quite wealthy. The best way to become rich in politics is to fundraise around an unsolveable problem. In fact, losing is good for business. After health care reform passes, NRLC and GOP donations will go through the roof, since nothing succeeds like failure. PT Barnum explained why.
1. Your "legal" analysis is such a hodgepodge of hyperbole and mis-information (how, pray tell, does the 14th Amendment allow Congress to declare a fetus a person?) as to be unintelligible.
2. Your ad hominem attacks on the "GOP & Pro-lifers" is so uncharitable and ridiculous is unworthy of responding to.