Today is Guy Fawkes Day. For more on the Gunpowder Plot, this page has lots of resources. All the English Recusant saints and martyrs, pray for us.
Sunday, November 5, 2006
Guy Fawkes Day
Catholics and the Election
Some have suggested that the only reasonable choice for one who accepts the Catholic Church's position on abortion is to vote Republican. MOJ-readers may be interested in this editorial, which presents a different view:
National Catholic Reporter
November 3, 2006
Sorting through imperfect choices
In the early 1970s, when antiwar activist and stalwart liberal Allard K. Lowenstein was running for Congress against a nondescript Republican incumbent from Long Island, N.Y., he received the endorsement of conservative pundit William F. Buckley. Buckley’s rationale: As long as the House of Representatives was going to be dominated by liberals (remember those days?) it might as well have a smart one in the bunch.
Another anecdote from that era: The second choice of the 41 percent of New Hampshire primary voters who supported Eugene McCarthy and forced LBJ’s withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race was none other than … segregationist pro-war Alabama Gov. George Corley Wallace. New Hampshirites, it seems, were more interested in “sending a message” than in the messenger.
Voting, it seems, is a complex act.
So what is a conscientious Catholic to do this year? There’s plenty of advice out there.
The U.S. bishops’ document, “Faithful Citizenship,” offers a sound approach. It is a voter’s responsibility, say the bishops, “to measure all candidates, policies, parties and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good.”
It can be found at www.usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship.
More recently, a new kid on the block, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, issued its voter guide, “Voting for the Common Good.” It strikes the right chord, noting that “There is no Catholic voting formula, and there is rarely, if ever, a perfect candidate for Catholic voters.” That voter guide can be found at thecatholicalliance.org.
Unfortunately, the guide that has drawn the most media attention in the past is from the conservative group Catholic Answers, which has reissued its “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics.” It is essentially the same pamphlet describing the “nonnegotiable issues” the group distributed, to much publicity, in 2004. To Catholic Answers, voting is an equation: If Candidate A is closer to Catholic teaching on the “nonnegotiable issues” than Candidate B, the “serious” Catholic should vote for A. The “nonnegotiable issues” are abortion, embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning.
In fact, it’s hard to take the “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics” very seriously. For starters, it takes candidate’s assertions (“I oppose abortion”) as statements of purpose.
In Tempting Faith, his new book describing his experience in the Bush White House, David Kuo recalls a spat conservative icon William Bennett had with James Dobson, founder of the influential Focus on the Family. “If a pro-choice candidate of exemplary character used the bully pulpit to talk about, say, teen abstinence, adoption, crisis pregnancy centers, individual moral code -- and did this well -- he could have a profoundly positive impact on the nation’s cultural condition,” Bennett told Dobson in a letter. “And he could do more to lower the number of abortions than a presidential candidate who supports a constitutional ban but does nothing more than pay lip service to the pro-life constituency.”
Check and mate.
Next, the “Serious Catholics” voting guide leaves out some equally nonnegotiable issues like, say, torture, which, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is “contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.” Clearly a “nonnegotiable” issue.
It’s perfectly reasonable -- an inescapable conclusion we think -- to conclude that a large number of candidates bidding for office this year actually support torture. Sure, they call it something else (“harsh interrogation techniques”) but it’s clear that some lawmakers and would-be lawmakers believe that “water-boarding,” for example, is a good way to get information from would-be terrorists.
Or maybe the war in Iraq is on a voter’s mind. One doesn’t have to accept the conclusions of the recent Johns Hopkins study, which estimated Iraqi war deaths as high as 655,000 (more than died in the U.S. Civil War), to conclude that both the initial decision to invade that country and the continuing military effort are counter to the church’s teaching on just war. Sure, it’s debatable, and, yes, Catholics can come to different conclusions, but a “serious Catholic” is surely free to determine that this is the overriding issue of this election and vote accordingly.
Or maybe there’s a gubernatorial election where one candidate supports the death penalty and another opposes it. According to the catechism, capital punishment is justified only and exclusively when society has no other means of protecting itself from a heinous criminal. That’s not the situation in the United States, where we employ the electric chair as a deterrent and, according to those who support the practice, as a tool of justice. Those are certainly debatable points, but they have nothing to do with Catholic teaching. To support the death penalty for reasons other than the protection of society makes one a dissenter from, here it comes, a nonnegotiable issue.
Pennsylvania’s Senate contest provides a concrete test for the conscientious Catholic. Republican Rick Santorum is the strongest and most effective antiabortion voice in Washington. No doubt about it. Further, Santorum has voiced reservations about the death penalty (though he’s voted for legislation that includes the ultimate punishment).
Democrat Bob Casey, son of a politician who bucked his party on abortion and paid the price for his dissent from the political orthodoxy, says he, too, is pro-life. Yet he supports the over-the-counter availability of the “morning-after pill” and is a strong proponent of the death penalty. Yes, Casey will vote to ban partial-birth abortion, but he won’t put a litmus test on judges who might stray from the antiabortion line.
Santorum supports the war in Iraq; Casey would likely side with Democrats working to end U.S. involvement in the quagmire. Casey supports civil unions, Santorum speaks harshly about gays and opposes same-sex marriage.
What’s a conscientious Pennsylvania Catholic to do?
Here’s a suggestion: If opposition to abortion or gay marriage is the issue that a Pennsylvania voter has determined is paramount, the most important in the current context, then he or she probably should vote for Santorum. He’s clearly someone who will continue to make these issues a priority.
If, however, a pro-life Keystone State voter thinks there is more at stake in this election than abortion and gay marriage -- the war, economic opportunity, social justice, tolerance for those who are different -- then that Keystone State voter should probably pull the lever for Casey.
An imperfect choice? Certainly. It always is.
Democracy ain’t easy. That’s why we’re fortunate God’s given us brains and a conscience. Use them well.
Voting, indeed, is a complicated act.
The Editorial
AP
An editorial scheduled to appear on Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times, calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The papers are sold to American servicemen and women. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, which is a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. Here is the text of the editorial:
----------------
Time for Rumsfeld to go
"So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth."
That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.
But until recently, the "hard bruising" truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "mission accomplished," the insurgency is "in its last throes," and "back off," we know what we're doing, are a few choice examples.
Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.
Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war's planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war."
Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on "critical" and has been sliding toward "chaos" for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.
But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.
For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don't show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.
And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.
Now, the president says he'll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.
This is a mistake.
It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.
And although that tradition, and the officers' deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go.
Friday, November 3, 2006
One More Time on Ectopic Pregnancy
In response to my continuing questions, Notre Dame law prof Julian Velasco argues for a meaningful moral distinction between removal of the embryo and removal of the tube in which the embryo is located:
There is a general rule -- thou shalt not kill. There is no doubt that removing the baby is killing it. The only question is whether removing thetube is the same as killing the baby. My argument is that knowing the baby will die as a result of my actions is not the same thing as killing the baby; thus, removing the tube is not the same as killing the baby. But if I am wrong, then the answer is not that killing the baby is fine, but rather that removing the tube is wrong (because it is killing the baby). Furthermore, even if I am wrong with respect to the last sentence, then there may be an exception for the extreme case of ectopic pregnancies, but that would not be proof that either the embryo is not a baby or that abortion is generally acceptable.
BTW, I understand that it is the embryo's growth within the tube that threatens the mother's life, and it is the embryo's growth within the tube that I am trying to stop. But I insist that not all means of achieving that goal are acceptable. Directly killing another (the baby) is not acceptable under any circumstances (IMHO). But removal of a body part is. That removal is neither directly killing nor intending to kill the baby; it is only done with knowledge that the baby will die as a result. Without more, is not enough to impute moral culpability.
For an entirely different perspective on these issues, check out Eugene Volokh's forthcoming article on a constitutional right to medical self-defense.
Rob
Miller on Penalver on abortion and the election
My colleague Robert Miller takes on Eduardo on abortion and the upcoming election over at
More on elections and voting
Last week I received my absentee ballot for the mid-term elections. As I perused the ballot, which contained elections for about thirty offices, I noticed something that I did not expect. Only three of the races had candidates from the two major parties. The overwhelming percentage of offices only had candidates from one of the major parties, the Democratic Party to be specific. I came to realize that our discussion of a few weeks back on Catholics, voting, and voting guides did not address very much, if at all, this circumstance that I have just encountered. How does any voter, including the Catholic voter, deal with an election in which there is no opposition. I suppose this is what happens in totalitarian regimes where voters have no choice. But, the United States is a democracy, is it not? I then began to wonder if the time has come to consider the possibility of reevaluating the current “two party” system. In particular, I have started to think about the likelihood of members of the laity forming an American version of the Christian Democratic Party. Would there be Constitutional prohibitions against such an institution or not? I am curious what other MOJ participants and readers might think about such a proposal. In the meantime, I continue to reflect on the meaning of my voice in American politics that was dramatically affected by the ballot I received. RJA sj
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Arguments for Amnesty
Dear Fellow Amnesty Members and Activists:
As some of you may know, Amnesty International’s 2005 International Council Meeting called for a process to “enable AI to take an informed decision as to the organization’s position” regarding abortion. AI is presently neutral on abortion. The decision now being contemplated would endorse various rights to abortion.
I think an AI endorsement of abortion rights would be a mistake, for three reasons: Endorsing abortion rights would cause further harm to already oppressed women, particularly in the developing world. Endorsing abortion rights would hurt AI’s important work for human rights in general. And the consultation process being used by AI is woefully inadequate to generate a thoughtful and democratic result. Let me explain these three assertions.
If a woman is dominated by others, certain rights she is given will be exercised against her by those who dominate her :
The “Draft Amnesty International Policy Statement on Abortion” begins with words of great wisdom: “In practice, many women are simply unable to effectively negotiate the terms and conditions of their sexual interactions and reproductive choices due to pervasive discrimination, coercion and violence against them.” [#1] Unfortunately, the Draft Policy contents itself with saying that AI “believes” women should not be so coerced [#6] and then goes on to suggest providing the coercers with another weapon that they can use against the women they dominate, i.e. “decriminalization [of abortion] in all cases” [#8]. (Note that I am purposely ignoring the fetus here.)
In other words, the AI Draft Policy is idealistic but misguided. It genuinely seeks to help oppressed women, but it would end up hurting them. Here’s an analogy: Suppose a certain nation has a law limiting women to ten hours of work a day, but no law at all limiting men’s work. Clearly such a law is sexist and harms women who would be powerful enough to control they own lives. For example, such a law would stop Westernized and educated young women from working the 14 hour days that it takes to crawl to the top of a modern business, thus preserving an all-male leadership. But should the law be abolished? What if the vast majority of the women in that nation are not their own masters? What if the elimination of the sexist law would cause untold misery, as women would be forced to spend all their waking hours in a sweatshop? Isn’t abolishing the law putting the cart before the horse? Shouldn’t women first be empowered and then given the right to work as many hours as they wish?
Abortion rights are the same. They may truly be liberating for powerful women whose careers cannot easily accommodate children, for women who are truly free to choose without outside pressures and for whom the opportunity costs of children are very great. Polls indeed show that such women overwhelmingly support a right to abortion. By contrast, poorer women, even in the USA, are the group most hostile to abortion. Why would they want abortion available if it’s only going to result in a boyfriend, a parent, a husband, or an employer coercing them (even by violence) to forego one of the few satisfactions they have in their oppressed lives, the love of a child? Or just think how the availability of abortion can facilitate raw sexual exploitation: A college student told me once: “I’m really pro-choice, but you can bet I tell my boyfriend I’m 100% pro-life.” She knew that the option of abortion could easily make him less careful. But not all young women are so clever. (Consult the great feminist thinker Catherine MacKinnon for more on the effect of making abortion a “privacy” right. She points out that it is precisely in women’s private lives that male dominance is most extreme.)
The developing world is much, much worse for most women, as the first section of the Draft Policy so well stated (see above). Except for a tiny elite segment of women (which unfortunately may be the only non-male presence at international conferences set up to propose new laws) abortion hurts women because it empowers husbands, sweatshop owners, and pimps to use them with impunity. The rule is very simple: Those who make real life choices for women are the real rights holders, regardless of who may have the formal legal right to make decisions.
Even seemingly obvious rights to abortion, such as abortion after rape or incest, may backfire against women where they are weak. After all, in most societies rape and incest are viewed very negatively, if they are discovered. Male predators ordinarily want their victims to have abortions so they won’t be exposed and punished, and so that they can continue their sexual exploitation. Only in a modern nation, with a good police force, could predators regularly be caught and punished, so that the abortion decision could be truly that of the woman. This is a tough call I admit, if we put aside any fetal interests, but the uncertainty of the real life impact of laws permitting abortion after rape should give one second thoughts about making even abortion after rape into an international right, applicable in all countries.
In summary, to proclaim rights to abortion around the world is to adopt a first-world, or an upper elite, view of the beneficiaries of such rights. A down-to-earth look at poor and oppressed women’s actual lives will lead one to conclude that women would first need to be empowered before they could truly benefit from any rights to abortion.
Amnesty will no longer be able to proclaim complete support for Human Rights if it endorses abortion :
As a teacher of comparative law, I can tell you the right to life of the fetus is explicitly protected by a number of international treaties and national constitutions. Fundamental rights to abortion are recognized far less extensively.
I’m not saying that only a few nations permit abortion. Many do. But very few treat it as a basic human right. Abortion is permitted simply because the legislature of the nation has decided to pass such a law, but that law could be repealed tomorrow without violating any treaty or constitution. Nowhere in Europe
(with the possible exception of abortion for severe health reasons in Italy) is there a clear constitutional right to abortion, to my knowledge. But various countries’ constitutions or constitutional court decisions contain a right to life. Germany is one. The unborn child has a constitutional right to life throughout pregnancy there, recognized twice by the high court in lengthy decisions in 1975 and in 1993. Do not rely on the over-simplified report that Germanydoes not punish abortion in the first 12 weeks, as long as the pregnant woman has undergone solidly pro-life counseling and has waited three more days to think it over. That is true, but the Court’s reasoning is that the counseling will save more unborn lives than threats of punishment. Strange as it may seem to us, abortion goes unpunished in Germanyi n recognition of a fetal right to life, not of a maternal right to abortion. And why does Germany care about unborn life? The answer given by the Court is that to permit abortion is to head once again down the path to devaluation of individual human life followed by the Nazis. If Amnesty were to proclaim a right to abortion, according to German human rights doctrine, it would be attacking life, the most basic human right of all, and following again that dreaded path.
The regional human rights treaty for the Americas, the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José, 1969) explicitly proclaims “Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception.” [Art. 4(1)]. It also emphasizes that “’person’ means every human being.” [Art. 1(2)] Thus we see that the unborn child is recognized as a person with a right to life from the moment of conception. When it comes to legal protection of that right, it is true, the signatory states have a little flexibility (presumably to deal with any clash with the mother’s equal right to life) because of the words “in general.” But this is not phrased as a limit on the right itself, but only as a permitted (but not required) minor exception to the enforcement of that right. Does Amnesty really want to proclaim a right to violate the core of a major human rights treaty? Does it want to have to say from now on: “We’re for many recognized human rights, but we’re opposed to others”?
It is true that the recent Protocol to the African Charter endorses a very limited right to abortion—the first such treaty right in the world. This is quite ironic, however, since black Africa may be the most pro-life part of the globe. A recent Pew poll, for example, found that 64% of Nigerians and a whopping 81% of Kenyans said women should be stopped from having abortions (USA: only 32%, according to Pew). How much does that Protocol represent the African peoples as opposed to representing NGOs and other elites? Does AI want to be part of what may well be a shoving of elite westernized interests down the throats of Africans? Why not stay out of the whole uncertain mess, by staying neutral on abortion?
Lastly, and most simply: Amnesty International has long had one clear message: Human Dignity. AI has proclaimed that rights are not just for the strong, or just for citizens, or just for non-criminals, or just for adults. AI has always said that just being human is all one needs to have human dignity and human rights. But no one seriously doubts that the unborn offspring of two humans is also human. So if AI endorses a right to abortion, it is saying that merely being human and alive is no longer enough for dignity and rights. Amnesty will either have to make a deep change in its self understanding and abandon its foundation in the dignity of simply being human, or else constantly face the charge of hypocrisy from many opponents and erstwhile supporters.
The current consultation process is deeply flawed. It is not designed to produce thoughtful or democratic reflection from long time AI supporters :
First of all, non-members have no voice at all in the consultation. This is unfair and unwise because many of AI’s strongest supporters are thus left out of the conversation simply because they forgot or couldn’t afford their dues, even though they may regularly join in letters, petitions, rallies and other AI causes.
Perhaps It could be argued that any final voting should be done by members, but why not at least get the opinions and views of non-member AI activists? This is not being done at all. The Draft Policy and accompanying documents are available only to those who type in someone’s membership data. (Here are mine, for any AI supporters who want to take a look at the documents: Username: rstith Password: 1a9iwyq Scroll down to the lower right.) Moreover, when various members of Consistent Life called AI headquarters in New York, they were told curtly that AI is staying neutral on abortion rather than thinking of changing it. And no record of the callers’ views or names seemed to be kept. (Consistent Life is a group to which I belong that is opposed to all violence: no war, no death penalty, no abortion, no euthanasia, no poverty and no racism. We have all traditionally supported AI, though only some of us have been actual members at any given time.)
However, in fact voting on the policy will not be democratic even among the AI paid members; it will be done by certain leaders—supposedly after receiving input from members. But the questions asked (if one can find them; they’re not prominent even in the members-only pages of the AI website) cannot possibly generate people’s true or deep opinions on a subject like abortion. Please take a personal look at all of them, but here are the first four questions: (1) “Is the scope of this policy consistent with 2005 ICM decision 3, especially paragraph D?” (2) “Is the level of detail in this policy and the supporting notes appropriate?” (3) “Which of the options in paragraph 6 do you prefer?” [What if you don’t like either?] (4) “Which of the options presented in paragraph 8 do you prefer?” [The only choice here is between complete decriminalization throughout pregnancy and complete decriminalization except in some unspecified late part of pregnancy. A small paragraph in the 14-page “Explanatory Notes” shows that either option will be taken to endorse a right to abort for sex selection or for the “potential disability status of the fetus.”]
The Explanatory Notes accompanying the questions are dense and confusing. They seem almost designed to obfuscate (or even to manipulate) rather than to clarify. For example, the only option in question 3 (regarding paragraph 6) is whether to append (to a general statement supporting freedom in termination decisions) the following sentence: “Such decisions are a matter of private conscience to be decided by the woman in consultation with her health service provider.” I would read the sentence in question to be a kind of encouragement to be reflective and to get medical advice before exercising one’s freedom. But the Explanatory Notes say “Opponents of this sentence argue that … use of this terminology could give the impression that AI is staking out a broad ‘pro-abortion’ position here.”
For the three reasons I have explained above, I believe it would be highly unwise for Amnesty International to adopt its Draft Policy endorsing rights to abortion. Such a right might benefit powerful elites, but it would harm many of our most vulnerable sisters in the developing world. It would clash head-on with the internationally recognized human right to life of the fetus, and even with Amnesty’s own foundation in universal human rights. And many AI supporters may be alienated not only by the substance of the proposed policy but also by the un-open fashion in which the new policy is being “debated.”
If you agree with some of these arguments, please do whatever you can to make your views known to the leadership of Amnesty International.
Sincerely,
Richard Stith
Member, Amnesty International
Member, Consistent Life
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.consistent-life.org
Is Acting on the Embryo Morally Dispositive?
Here is the Finnis, Grisez & Boyle article referenced by Karen Stohr (thanks to Antonio Manetti for the link). And here is a helpful excerpt from their discussion of the moral distinction between a hysterectomy and craniotomy:
[T]he hysterectomy is performed "upon the woman," the craniotomy "upon the fetus." We reply: this difference does not show that craniotomy is direct killing. A counter-example makes this clear. All those acts of self-defense of the kind that Aquinas shows need involve no intent to kill and no direct killing are nonetheless performed "upon" the person killed. And in general, the fact that an act is done to (or "upon") X for the sake of Y, or to Y for the sake of Y, provides no criterion for distinguishing between what is intended and what is accepted as a side effect.
This underscores my own (much less educated) skepticism toward the lines drawn on the issue of ectopic pregnancy. If we're going to invoke Kevorkian, the remove the tube / remove the embryo distinction seems akin to attaching moral significance to the difference between Kevorkian assisting a suicide by lethal injection and assisting a suicide by bulldozing the victim's house while she is inside. The death is certain to result in both cases and the actor's intent is, as far as I can tell, identical. So why does it matter if I bring about the death by acting upon the person or by acting upon the container in which the person is located?
Rob
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
More from Karen Stohr
Thanks again to Karen Stohr for her contributions (here and here). Here is another:
I must say, I have always found the terms of this particular debate [ecgtopic pregnancy] quite troubling. As a Catholic philosopher (and mother) who subscribes to the basic tenets of double effect, I am very skeptical of attempts to apply it definitively in such situations. If anyone is going to insist that a woman suffering from an ectopic pregnancy must undergo the removal of her fallopian tube, on the grounds that nothing else is a morally licit option, one had better have a *very* good justification for that view. After all, her health, hopes, and dreams may rest on it (what if it is her only remaining fallopian tube?). And the justification for the view depends on philosophical concepts that are undeniably murky.
In order to use double effect in a philosophically responsible way, one must have reasonably defensible views about intention and related issues in action theory. The distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' killing requires, among other things, an account of what it is to intend something (including whether actions can be intentional only under descriptions and if so, which descriptions of one's actions one must accept) and an theory of action individuation (including how we can distinguish actions from their consequences). Many discussions of double effect just slide past these issues. I have not seen a comprehensive and persuasive action theory that supports May's contention that while salpingectomy does not count as intentional killing, salpingostomy and methotrexate do. It's not that there couldn't be such a theory, but I do not see it in the articles Professor Myers cites, nor have I seen it elsewhere.
On the other hand, the line on intention taken by Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle in the article I mention[ed] in the email to Rob [here] undermines the distinction as May draws it. And in her seminal book, /Intention, /the great Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe argues for a theory of intention that also cannot support the salpingectomy/salpingostomy distinction. The accounts of these four thinkers are far from decisive, but their combined philosophical skill and sophistication ought to carry considerable weight, and hence, give pause to anyone who wants to insist that women suffering from ectopic pregnancy choose evil if they choose salpingostomy or methotrextate.
Society of Catholic Social Scientists annual meeting
Before too much time goes by, I wanted to mention the most recent annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. The meeting/conference was at the University of Dallas. The plenary talks were by Ron Rychlak (Mississippi Law) and by J. Budziszewski (Texas Philosophy). The latter talk featured insightful comments by my colleague Kevin Lee and by Frank Beckwith. The banquet address was by Gerry Wegemer (Dallas, English) who spoke with great eloquence about the witness of St. Thomas More.
The SCSS is a good group, and I encourage people to take a look at its activities. Most of the members are not law professors, and so the conferences are usually quite diverse (some law, but more history, political theory, sociology, etc.). I don't mean to slight the law professors--there was a very good session featuring 3 professors from Mississippi Law--Ron Rychlak, John Czarnetzky, and Kyle Duncan.
One important SCSS project is a forthcoming encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought. See this link for information.
Richard M.
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