Prudential Judgment and Abortion Policy

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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