Mirror of Justice

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

New essays on gays and Christianity

An essay in the new Christian Century asks Christians to rethink homosexuality by looking to Isaiah for an example of a radical reimagining of divine grace as a supplement to scriptural exegesis. And Commonweal has a reflection by an Episcopalian on the uneasy state of the Anglican communion in light of the ordination of Gene Robinson:

To my mind, the question of whether an openly and sexually actively gay person can serve as a bishop is not a matter of essential Christian faith, nor is the identity or faithfulness of Episcopalians threatened by such service. I respect those who feel differently, but I think they are confusing the essential with the inessential. I believe the identity and faithfulness of the church are threatened far more by those who think the Gnostic Gospels or The Da Vinci Code has more to teach us than the Nicene Creed or the central texts of the Bible. I wish the ECUSA had waited a bit longer to take the step to ordain a sexually active homosexual person as bishop, and I wish the opponents of that step were more willing to consider whether God may be doing something new in our own time. But I continue to be an Episcopalian because the arguments, the disagreements, and even the threats of schism are all part of a messy and all-too-human way of struggling together to glimpse the nature and actions of an ultimately unknowable and infinitely loving God.

As a former Episcopalian, I appreciate a certain dose of theological humility; I just wish there would have been a similar reticence in proclaiming what could only be considered a strangely perfect convergence between Christianity and lefty secular social policy. (At least in our New York diocese, that is: see, e.g., here, here, and here.)

Rob

Monday, May 15, 2006

More on Abortion Policy, Prudential Judgment, Political Compromise, and the Culture of Life

By Greg Sisk

I continue to think there is more in common than not among all of us on the Mirror of Justice regarding the sanctity of life in general and the evil of abortion in particular, from both a moral perspective and in terms of appropriate legal responses, even as I read the ongoing exchanges between Michael Perry and Rick Garnett. I wonder whether the apparent distance can be further lessened and the remaining points of difference be more sharply illuminated by a few clarifications or points of emphasis.

First, I agree with Rick Garnett that any political response to the problem of abortion that is truly faithful to Catholic teaching must march forthrightly to the front-line, which is located where early abortions are being performed. Most of the unborn lives stolen each year are snatched away in the early stages of pregnancy. Accordingly, any political or legal response that fails to directly address early abortions would leave the daily violence against the unborn in this society largely unabated. A premeditated determination to neglect the center of gravity for the abortion travesty indeed would be difficult to reconcile with Church teaching emphasizing the intrinsic evil of destroying innocent unborn life.

However, to insist, as Rick rightly does, that we must “prohibit direct abortion, without regard to the gestational age of the fetus, fetal deformity, or any other factor,” does not lead ineluctably to forceful employment of the heavy hand of the criminal law as the primary means to that end. As Rick has explained previously, for example, few if any in the pro-life movement advocate imposing severe criminal penalties upon vulnerable women in difficult situations who procure abortions. And even if society instead and appropriately directs its ire toward those medical practitioners who pervert the healing arts to the destruction of unborn life, regulation and licensing of the medical profession or provisions for civil liability should be explored rather than resorting too readily to the penal law. Thus, prudential judgment not only is permissible but is desperately needed to craft creative and sensitive means of curtailing early abortions, even if prudential judgment may not be invoked to justify neglecting or tolerating this killing field.

Second, when I consider the element of prudential judgment in Catholic social teaching, I tend to think of the need to balance the limits of law, the realities of human weakness, and the complexities of societal structures in deciding how best in a particular culture to advance an ideal for a just society, such as the preferential option for the poor or the need for human development through education. By contrast, many (by no means all) of the justifications I have read for focusing efforts upon more limited constraints on abortion, including leaving early-stage abortions largely unregulated, emphasize simple political feasibility. While I acknowledge that political calculation is necessary, I think that factor lies at the outer edge of prudential judgment, if it can be characterized as part of prudential judgment at all. Political calculations sometimes force us to make necessary compromises, based simply on what can be achieved at the moment. Such compromises are not based on principle nor grounded upon the inherent limitations of law or concerns for externalities. Thus, a political compromise on a matter of fundamental principle can never be justified as anything other than an inadequate and interim measure that only precedes continued and concerted efforts to achieve complete justice.

When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the political realities of ongoing war, divided public opinion, and persisting legal precedent may have justified the partial abolition of slavery only in those regions that remained under the control of those in rebellion against the Union. But the achievement of that interim advance in social justice was no reason not to press forward toward more complete justice through the Thirteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act following the Civil War.

Furthermore, when we consider the wisdom of compromise measures or partial remedies, we must weigh as well the danger that we will be perceived as abandoning a fundamental principle and settling too readily and too comfortably for something much less. Rather than being intended by ourselves and seen by others as but a preliminary step, the compromise could become the end game. If the Catholic witness for life in this culture is to be heard loud and clear, we all are responsible for making sure that our conversations about practical obstacles and prudential judgments are not misunderstood by the public.

As Catholic thinkers, we thoughtfully and appropriately raise questions and ponder responses to the evil of abortion, including evaluating the faithfulness and wisdom of compromises and alternative measures. However, the nuances and the qualifications—and especially the unwavering commitment to an ethic of life—that are contained in such academic dissertations often become lost in translation to the news media and the political arena. Thus, when such compromise proposals emerge into general discourse, I frequently hear from my stalwart pro-life friends on the political left that they feel cut off at the knees. In an environment on the political left that has been most inhospitable to their message, they have stood heroically as witnesses for the culture of life. Then they are pressed by others on the left who crudely invoke these compromise proposals as supposed evidence that one can be adequately pro-life or safely within Catholic teaching without supporting political measures that would seriously threaten the abortion license. (“See,” the argument they hear goes, “faithful Catholics don’t have to be opposed to abortion in the first trimester.”) And thus pro-life progressives are left feeling even more marginalized, with insult being added to injury in that they perceive this marginalization as coming from those who should be their allies in the pro-life cause. However unfair or misguided may be these reactions, they nonetheless are part of the practical realities that should form the background to our exercise of prudential judgment. And knowing as much, we are responsible to take aggressive steps to ensure that such misunderstandings do not persist.

Finally, while accepting that prudential judgment has its place in nearly every area of public policy, surely we all would agree that the parameters of such discretion are greatly narrowed when the subject at hand is one of arresting an intrinsic evil. To take for example the subject of torture as recently discussed on this blog, consider if someone were to propose compromise measures to reduce the incidence of torture while accommodating to the practical reality of divided opinion on the subject. Suppose legislation were introduced to mandate the executive to obtain a “torture warrant” from a court which required a high showing of necessity to use the infliction of pain to obtain information vital to prevent great loss of life (as Alan Dershowitz has proposed) or a regulation were proposed to limit the forms of torture that may be used against terrorists, such as allowing suffocation short of death or serious bodily harm but prohibiting electrical shock or use of cutting tools. Would we accept such compromise measures as reflecting the legitimate exercise of “prudential judgment”? Or would we insist that accepting any such compromise on such a matter of principle would itself be unprincipled? And, if we reluctantly did support such a compromise as necessitated by political calculation, would we not remain diligently and energetically committed to continuing the effort for more complete justice in the future? And shouldn’t our answers to these hypothetical questions about torture policy directed toward terrorists inform our answers to similar questions about public policy addressing the killing of innocent unborn children?

Greg Sisk

Letters to Amnesty Inter. due by May 17

By rstith

May 15, 2006

Consistent Life Appeals to Amnesty International on Abortion

The Board of Consistent Life has issued an open letter to Amnesty International (AI) regarding AI's consideration of policy positions regarding abortion. AI's 2005 International Council Meeting decided to begin consideration of policies on three specific issues:

1. access to health care for the management of complications arising from abortion;

2. access to abortion in cases of rape, sexual assault, incest or risk to a woman's life; and

3. the removal of criminal penalties for those who seek or provide abortions.

Consistent Life supported the first point, but asked AI to reflect on how much the other two points contradict it. We noted, "What you are basically saying is that governments have a responsibility to clean up after botched abortions, but should have no ability to prevent those botched abortions. They should simply allow the harm to occur, and then deal with it." We asked that AI act consistently with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which states that every child "needs special safeguards and care, including legal protection, before as well as after birth."

We also noted that AI's points do not explicitly cover a woman's right to aftercare for the trauma which often follows having an ordinary abortion. Nor do they cover coerced abortion, or sex-selection abortions. We commented, "In these cases no one could argue whether abortion itself is clearly violence against women, and no policy could pretend to oppose violence against women while remaining silent on these points."

We observed that perpetration-induced traumatic stress (PITS) affects all those who kill other human beings, including those who perform abortions as well as those who kill in war, in police actions or in executions. The effects of PITS lead to botched abortions, as is demonstrated by a number of cases involving legal abortions.

We also observed that sincere advocates of certain life positions may sabotage their own goals by being inconsistent. For AI, its principled position against the death penalty, in which we stand in solidarity with them, "may be discredited if they advocate laws that allow imposition of the death penalty on innocent children without due process."

Prudential Judgment and Abortion Policy

By Michael Perry

Unless I misread him, Rick claims that there is no room for a reasonable difference in prudential judgments about whether early abortions--or, say, abortions in cases of rape--should be criminalized (here). So, I wasn't just hallucinating that there is disagreement about whether there is room for a reasonable difference in prudential judgments.

Is there room for a reasonable difference in prudential judgments? Rick (and many others) say no. Cardinal Martini, John Langan SJ, Cathy Kaveny (and many others) say yes. So I guess that Rick's response to Martini, Langan, Kaveny et al. is that "you're not merely wrong, you're unreasonable, because no one who accepts the Church's position on the immorality of abortion could reasonably decline to support the criminalization of early abortions. And I, by contrast, am not merely right; my position is the only reasonable position."

Is Rick's position the only reasonable position? Why might one who accepts the Church's position on the immorality of abortion decline to support the criminalization of early abortions (or the criminalization of abortions in cases of rape)? John Langan's comments in the America article I've cited before respond to that question:

[E]ven if we think that there is a very strong case for opposing abortion, we must acknowledge that public opinion remains deeply divided on the question. This does not by itself defeat the moral argument against abortion. Public opinion may well be wrong. It has been wrong in the past on such serious questions as slavery, religious toleration and segregation. It is still wrong on the subject of capital punishment. But continuing and intense public disagreement does underline how far we are from having a broad public consensus against the practice and how difficult it would be to enact and enforce a legal prohibition against it. In the absence of consensus, there are certain to be serious problems of enforcement, patterns of passionate resistance to the prohibition, failures to convict offenders and further threats to public order. . . .

[P]ro-life advocates need to recognize that while the philosophical arguments they make against abortion may persuade many honest people that abortion is indeed the taking of innocent human life, they are extremely unlikely to persuade the general public to accept an absolute and universal ban on abortion. Hard cases (conception as the result of rape or incest, fetuses with grave mental or physical handicaps, the likelihood of very negative consequences for the mother) will make a universal ban impossible to achieve. For that reason, some sort of compromise on the details of any prohibition of abortion is necessary if the prohibition is to be sustainable in a democratic society. Pro-life advocates may well regard compromise on this matter as regrettable; but we all have to live with many things we deplore.

[P]ro-life advocates must recognize that the pro-choice position, though gravely flawed, is held by many of its advocates as a matter of conscience. It would be naïve to think that all pro-choice advocates are moved solely or even primarily by conscience, but it would be arrogant to deny the role of conscience on the other side of this debate. Several things follow from this point. For one, enacting a prohibition on abortion would generate extensive civil disobedience (and perhaps some violence). It would require coercing the conscientious—not an appealing project in a pluralistic society. Furthermore, even if the conscience of pro-choice advocates is erroneous, it puts them under obligation. On grounds of religious liberty, Catholics should be very reluctant to apply coercion in this area. Catholics should also remember that we want and need to protect freedom of conscience for our members and our institutions in the face of government regulations and policies that would require the funding or the practice of abortion. It does not follow from this point that abortion is therefore right, or that the erroneous conscience of some puts others under an obligation to obey it and to act in error, or that there is no moral truth in these matters.

Now, Rick disagrees with Father Langan. No doubt one may reasonably disagree with Father Langan. The question under discussion is whether we should conclude, with Rick, that Father Langan's position is not merely wrong but unreasonable.

[John Langan, who is a Jesuit priest, is the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. His America article is based on a talk given at the conference, “Public Witness/Public Scandal: Faith, Politics, and Life Issues in the Catholic Church,” convened by Ave Maria Law School at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, 2004.]
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Sunday, May 14, 2006

Yet another reply to Michael . . .

By Rick Garnett

I wrote, a few posts ago, that:

I am perfectly happy to agree that responding legislatively to abortion in a just way would -- if the Supreme Court would permit such a response -- involve "prudential judgments," about which reasonable people (including faithful Catholics) could disagree. (I'd be surprised if anyone denied this.)

My friend Michael insists, though, that some do deny this, and as evidence cites Bishop Myers's observation:

One should not permit unjust killing anymore than one should permit slave-holding, racist actions or other grave injustices. . . . Obviously, recognizing the grave injustice of slavery requires one to ensure that no one suffers such degradation. Similarly, recognizing that abortion is unjust killing requires one--in love and justice--to work to overcome the injustice.

In Michael's view, "Archbishop Myers's position seems to be that the answer [to the question whether recognizing that abortion is unjust killing requires one to support the criminalization of early abortions] is yes and that there is no legitimate diversity of prudential judgments about the matter."

I guess I don't see Bishop Myers denying the fact that responding wisely in law to abortion requires prudential judgments. Yes, as Bishops Myers says, we ought -- as a matter of strict justice -- to prohibit direct abortion, without regard to the gestational age of the fetus, fetal deformity, or any other factor. Bishop Myers is right, it seems to me, that to "allow others to continue directly to kill the innocent is a grave scandal[.]" Still, as Michael, I, and (I'm sure) Bishops Myers agree, designing just, reasonable, and prudent abortion laws would be -- if only the Court would let us! -- a difficult business.

Reply to Michael

By Rick Garnett

Michael's latest post deserves more, but . . . it is quite clear (to me, anyway) that even a nominee with Michael's reasonable and well argued views on Roe, Casey, and Atkins would be opposed by the Senate Democrats -- and by Senator Casey.

I agree, by the way, that everyone should read and engage Michael's important Thayerian argument about the death penalty (and other controversial matters) and the Constitution. I'll leave it to MOJ readers, though, to decide whether or not the argument is persuasive.

Reply to Rick

By Michael Perry

In a post yesterday, Rick wrote: "I am perfectly happy to agree that responding legislatively to abortion in a just way would . . . involve 'prudential judgments,' about which reasonable people (including faithful Catholics) could disagree. (I'd be surprised if anyone denied this.)"

Rick says he'd "be surprised if anyone denied this." According to Rick's thinly veiled suggestion, I am seeing controversy where there is none. Am I? I don't think so. Listen, for example, to Archbishop John Myers, "A Time for Honesty," Origins, May 20, 2004, at 1, 4-5:

That some Catholics, who claim to believe what the Church believes, are willing to allow others to continue direcrly to kill the innocent is a grave scandal. . . . [W]ith abortion . . ., there can be no legitimate diversity of opinion. . . . One should not permit unjust killing anymore than one should permit slave-holding, racist actions or other grave injustices. . . . Obviously, recognizing the grave injustice of slavery requires one to ensure that no one suffers such degradation. Similarly, recognizing that abortion is unjust killing requires one--in love and justice--to work to overcome the injustice.

The question, however, is whether "recognizing that abortion is unjust killing" requires one to support the criminalization of early abortions. Archbishop Myers's position seems to be that the answer is yes and that there is no legitimate diversity of prudential judgments about the matter.

So, Rick, I don't think I'm seeing controversy where there is none.

On another issue: Yes, Roe and Casey were wrongly decided. I argue so myself in my most recent con law piece (here).

A final issue: I read the piece about Robert Casey to which Rick provided a link. Yes, Casey would vote against the sort of judges that George Bush has nominated to the Supreme Court--and that a successor Republican president would probably nominate to the Court. But there is nothing in the piece to suggest that Casey would do this because those nominees might vote to overrule Roe and Casey. I assume that Casey would do it for the same reason I would do it: because those nominees adhere to a misguided judicial philosophy that would lead them to oppose many other, constitutionally correct rulings, like Atkins v. Virginia, which held that the imposition of capital punishment on the mentally retarded is unconstitutional, or Roper v. Simmons, which held that the imposition of capital punishment on minors is unconstitutional. I would support a nominee who would vote to overrule Roe and Casey but whose judicial philosophy was sufficiently nuanced that he/she would not also oppose cases like Atkins and Roper. I have no reason to doubt that Robert Casey would also support such a nominee. (Whether it is realistic to expect either party to bring forth such "nuanced" nominees is a separate question. Our politics is so polarized--even degraded.)

I've committed myself in writing (here) to the twofold position that the Court should not rule that capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment *and* that Atkins and Roper were rightly decided. If Rick thinks my argument misfires, then I wish Rick would go beyond simply saying that he disagrees with me and point out to MOJ-readers precisely those places where (according to Rick) my argument--my Thayerian argument--misfires.
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Choose Life

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

Many MOJ contributors have identified and have begun to discuss some important aspects of contemporary issues including abortion and capital punishment. I shall begin this posting with a passage from the Book of Deuteronomy (30:15, 19):

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity… I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendents may live.

Let me begin with a few thoughts about capital punishment and another command made by God that we must not kill. Today I discuss abortion and capital punishment seasoned with a few references to euthanasia. But there remains the question of the use of lethal force in self-defense that I will put aside, for the time being.

History has certainly presented the human race with enough monstrous tyrants who have earned the harshest punishment for the torturous deaths that they have meted out to others. But does this mean that the Christian, the Catholic, when justice is to be administered to the perpetrator, must implement the eye-for-an-eye sort of punishment? I do not believe so. Several MOJ contributors have indicated that civil society and the Church, in both of which we claim membership, are moving away from the use of capital punishment for the most outrageous crimes. I have also been following another argument outside of MOJ made by advocates opposed to lethal injection execution that the chemical cocktail administered during this form of capital punishment constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” The recent experience of a condemned man informing the death chamber authorities that “it’s not working” reinforces their concerns. I find merit in their argument, but I wonder why advocates for euthanasia have not caught on to this problem since their chemical cocktails are geared to a “noble” purpose in their estimation—the use of a cruel and unusual means of accelerating death that is voluntarily chosen. But, I digress.

In considering the question about the permissibility of capital punishment, there remains a series of issues that must be addressed with the application of right reason as developed in the context of Catholic moral teaching. Defining these issues clearly aids in understanding the objectives that any punishment, including the death penalty, can serve in advancing the proper interests of victims and their families, the guilty who have committed serious crimes, and society as a whole. This inquiry enables us to consider suitably the important matters related to just punishment involving: the self-defense or protection of society; retribution or vengeance; the deterrent quality of the punishment; and the goals of compensation, restoration, rehabilitation, and reconciliation. When all is said, it should appear that there are other means of protecting ourselves and our society from the perpetrators of heinous acts without accelerating their death. Since God gave each person the gift of life, it is for God to call that person to respond to and account for the sins of commission or omission during one’s lifetime, and society should exercise caution, prudence, and wisdom so God’s plan of salvation for everyone can be fulfilled. To interfere with this salvific plan is not a proper human activity. Even if the condemned were to give consent, no one must interfere as directly as capital punishment would interfere with God’s justice and God’s reward or denial of His plan. Even the justly convicted must be given, notwithstanding other punishment including life imprisonment, the opportunity for redemption, and to reduce by artificial means the time in which the convicted person’s redemption might take place is to place a human judgment before God’s. As teachers of the law and as Christians, we have a variety of duties in regard to God’s plan.

And this brings me to the question of abortion. Taking the life of the innocent is even more reprehensible than taking the life of the scoundrel. It is intriguing to reflect on the position held by some that taking the life of those guilty of the most heinous criminal activity is a moral outrage but taking the life of the innocent person (I use the term intentionally) is not. And how does the Christian, the Catholic respond to this? Well, we have not far to go to acknowledge that taking the blameless life is also wrong. But we are confronted with an irony in the law, an irony that our society and we, as it members, must take responsibility. That irony is presented by the irreconcilable conflict of the “legal reasoning” of Roper v. Simmons on the one hand (which precludes the taking of the life of a thug who happens to be a minor) and that of Roe v. Wade and Stenberg v. Carhart (which permit the taking of the life of the guiltless on a massive scale) on the other.

And what are we to do as Catholic legal theorists about these situations? If it is impossible to do away with them immediately, we must not surrender hope that these actions which offend our moral senses need be permanent fixtures in our legal landscape. We have a duty to demonstrate the inextricable link between the moral natural law and the law which society should and can conceive. But our activities cannot stop here. The question has been correctly posed: what does prudence (and for that matter, the other virtues including justice, courage, and wisdom, etc.) require of us in this task? While the underlying precepts of the moral and civil law are different, the two necessarily must overlap. The civil law must guarantee the fundamental rights given to us by God through an ordered society; the state is not the author of these rights; God is their source. If each of us (be we citizen, legislator, or judge) cannot immediately change that which threatens the most fundamental right upon which all others are based—the inviolable right to life—we are still called to minimize the threat to this right. In those cases where it is impossible, for the time being, to expunge the offensive law, it is imperative to begin the process of limiting the harm that is achieved by it so that its consequences will decline. As the Church teaches, this does not represent improper cooperation with an evil, but it is the duty of the faithful individual to limit the effect of the law in its evil aspects. [Evangelium Vitae; 2002 Doctrinal Note of the CDF on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life] And, like Thomas More, we can also pray for a miracle in the meantime.

Also in the meantime, we need to take stock of the consequences that these existing laws have or can have on other members of society—particularly those whose consciences may be imperiled if they are required to comply with an evil law. John Paul II reminded us that we are participants in democracy, but he counseled that a democracy that loses its moral compass and corresponding values easily converts into an “open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.” Thus, there remains the Christian and Catholic duty to see that such persons who object to evil in the law remain protected so that they are not forced into complicity with those laws which are evil and cannot yet be changed. John Paul also exhorted us: “To refuse to take part in committing an injustice is not only a moral duty; it is also a basic human right.” And, as Rick notes, “we are permitted by the Court to have such conversations about capital punishment.” However, can the same be said about abortion? About euthanasia? About other moral issues that lie in wait on the horizon? In the interim, our classroom teaching, our research and writing, and our debate in this MOJ forum might serve as a humble but essential beginning of the affirmative task God has given us: to choose life. RJA sj

Response to Greg: The significance of abortion lies not just in numbers

By rstith

Much as I sympathize with the frequent appeal to the high numbers of abortion deaths to galvanize us to action, I think that such appeals actually distract from abortion’s full significance.

To take the life of one’s own child is destructive of our core humanity in a way that killing strangers cannot be. Abortion involves the betrayal of a dependent by a natural guardian. Furthermore, abortion is emblematic of wider lethal betrayals of radically dependent persons, like Terri Schiavo. All these betrayals are rationalized precisely by the victims’ lack of autonomy-based dignity.

“All power to the autonomous!” is monstrous and frightening. Like “Non serviam!”

(My thoughts on this are developed in greater detail in the November 2005 issue of New Oxford Review.)

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Celebrating Our Common Dedication to an Ethic of Life And Not Resting Until a Culture of Life is Achieved

By Greg Sisk

It is most heartening to read an ongoing dialogue here on the Mirror of Justice among diverse members of our common Catholic faith who all are genuinely committed to an ethic of life. We may not fully agree on how best to advance that sacred principle in a fallen world, but we should celebrate the progress that our community of Catholic academics and legal thinkers has made toward common-ground about at least some politically viable and plausible measures to reduce the loss of human life through abortion.

Further, we likewise stand in agreement that there is ample room within our Catholic communion for all persons of good faith who express and manifest a heartfelt dedication to the protection of unborn human life, despite differences on the political responses appropriate to the moment and political and legal context. We ever must maintain our counter-cultural role, never giving in to the temptation to distort Catholic teaching in a misguided attempt to make Catholic moral principles safe and unthreatening to those who follow the latest secular or academic trends. But neither are we to withdraw from the world or fail to exercise wise and practical judgment when engaging with it.

At the same time, our theological, legal, and political deliberations about the sanctity of human life should not remove us from honest confrontation with what is occurring all around us. We must not avert our eyes from the reality of the culture of the death. We must never forget the heartbreaking fact that the most dangerous place for a child in America is in his or her own mother’s womb.

Some time in the year 2008, the 50-millionth unborn child in this country will be legally aborted, measuring from the time the abortion license was mandated by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Fifty million lives lost. No other calamity in our nation’s history resulted in casualties even approaching that number. We should be stunned and humiliated and ashamed that we have allowed this to occur in the nation we call our own.

More than a million unborn children are deliberately killed in this country every year. By contrast, 60 convicted murderers were executed in the United States last year. According to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, not once in any single year during the past half century has the number of executions exceeded double-digits (the high mark was 98 in 1999, which was unusually high).

If two new diseases were identified in the United States this year, one that took more than a million lives each year and another that was rare malady affecting fewer than 100 each year, surely we all would agree that society should leave no stone unturned in saving the million, while being more deliberate but hopefully not neglectful toward the rare disease. For the rare disease that affected so few, we might regard it as tragic but understandable if society was unable to marshal considerable resources to eradicate that disease as a high priority, among the many other social justice needs competing for finite resources. Moreover, for the disease that stole away a million lives each year, we would demand diligent and expeditious attention and would reject as plainly inadequate any partial measures that might reduce the death rate by only 15-25 percent, saying that we should not rest until the disease were eradicated altogether or at least until its lethal force was reduced to a tiny fraction.

Turning from the analogy and back to the realities of lives lost each year in this country by deliberate but legal action (particularly abortion and capital punishment), we also must look beyond the rate of occurrence to the magnitude of evil. Any deliberate taking of human life, without necessity, diminishes our society, and in my view (which I believe consistent with and increasingly compelled by Catholic teaching) the execution of convicted murderers who are securely imprisoned for life cannot be justified in this society. Yet it is difficult to generate the feeling that the execution of someone like a Timothy McVeigh was a tragedy. By contrast, abortion steals the entire lives of innocent unborn children, depriving both those persons and the rest of us of all their potential, their communal relationships, and their communion as living people of God. In sum, as Mark Sargent posted earlier yesterday, “the evil is very grave—the deliberate destruction of an innocent human life.”

For these reasons, as much as I welcome any progress, and as willing as I am to accept a political arrangement that achieves some results over an absolutist approach that accomplishes nothing, I still worry that half-measures directed toward intrinsic evils—such as genocide, slavery, torture, and abortion—could easily turn into a road-map toward incomplete justice. By all means, let us create a true culture of life, that abolishes the death penalty as well. But let us never lose sight of the greater priority of protecting innocent unborn human life. Prudential judgment, which is such a valuable faculty for determining how to translate abstract principles of social justice and the good society into practical reality in a complicated world, should not become an excuse for tolerating the most egregious of evils. I may not agree with all that Cathy Kaveny writes in the "Thomist Perspective on Abortion" piece that Michael Perry well highlights here on the Mirror of Justice and in his book "Under God," but one of her concluding points should be emphasized: “A lenient attitude toward abortion [should] be viewed as a prismatic and poignant example of a callousness toward life in general, a callousness that must be eradicated in all its forms” (emphasis added). While we should do what we can today, we must not rest until all—most poignantly including the not-yet-born—are able to thrive in a culture of life.