Pro-Life Progressivism at St Thomas

Got back Saturday from a terrific conference at St Thomas Law organized by Tom Berg entitled "Can the Seamless Garment Be Sewn? The Future of Pro-Life Progressivism." It was interesting to discuss these issues in a state where there actually is a pro-life progressive tradition, and to do so after the Common Ground conference the previous weekend in DC on "Religion, Law and Politics." This flurry of activity did not necessarily convince me that there is a politically viable pro-life progressive movement, but each certainly intensified the discussion, and showed that there are serious and subtle issues to be considered.

The panels were very well balanced. The first one included nice articulations of the CE of L as a philosophical basis for PLP (sorry about the acronyms, but my fingers hurt!) by the well-known Sidney Callahan, and by John Carr of the USCCB. They were countered by Susan Appleton, a law prof from Wash U who argued that a prolife position that criminalized abortion cannot be squared with the human dignity of women as understood in progressive thought. Kevin Schmiessing of the Acton Institute did not have any trouble with the prolife part of PLP, but did not think progressivism was very Catholic (especially "progressive" versions of Catholic Social Thought). I don't know which I disagreed with more. Later, John O'Callaghan, a philosopher from ND, gave an unusually sophisticated and subtle version of the non-equivalence critique of the CE of L. I ended up speaking towards the end of the day, and tried to respond to all three critiques.

1. In response to Prof. Appleton, I argued that the left has gone astray, and departed from its own core commitment to the oppressed, by refusing to recognize that the unborn have as much a claim to human dignity as women, and that it must seek justice for BOTH mother and child. This would include at least a restrictive legal approach to abortion and a much stronger social safety net for the poor and minority women who are getting most of the abortions.  The left cannot avoid that conundrum by dismissing the personhood of the embryo or fetus, and by fetishizing choice as the only aspect of a woman's dignity. I thus believe that the prolife argument can be squared with secular progressive values. While the antiabortion movement has drawn force from those who are also committed to the preservation of patriarchical authority and subordination of women, the prolife argument does not depend upon those values philosophically, and is also put forward by many who share feminist values.

2. Our readers already know what I think about the Novak-Acton line, so I won't reiterate that here.

3. The non equivalence argument, which attacks the coherence of the CE of L by distinguishing between the intrinsic evil of abortion, and the more complex and contingent moral calculation associated with making decisions about war, poverty etc., draws too sharp a distinction between principled and prudential decisions that are made about these problems. I expanded upon the argument I made at the CGI conference, and posted last week, re the prudential issues generated by the moral evil of abortion in a pluralistic democaracy and the principles implicit in the social and economic issues that limit our ability to dismiss all disagreements about them as matters of prudence.

I'll post my paper when I've finished revising it (and making up the footnotes!). If people are interested in following up on this post, I'll add some details re the other presentations, especially re the political questions. Our fellow blogista Greg Sisk was in the audience, and may have some thoughts.

-Mark