Remove the wooden beam from your eye first (Mt 7:5)

In reading the Commonweal article by Cathy Kaveny posted by Michael Perry one might consider whether Kaveny is guilty of the very offenses of which she accuses others.  Consider, for example, her sarcastic and vitriolic attack on Robert George and Gerard Bradley for their careful critique of Mark Roche's New York Times op ed article claiming that pro-life Democrats should vote for John Kerry despite the fact---explicitly conceded by Roche---that abortion is an evil on a par with slavery.  (The pieces by Roche, George and Bradley, and Kaveny were all posted on or linked to MoJ.)  Kaveny even sank to the point of engaging in name-calling, branding pro-life scholars like George and Bradley as "Rambo Catholics."  Yet now she accuses others of "taking delight in demonizing the opposition."

Kaveny depicts those "theocons" whose steady focus on defending the lives of the unborn seems to annoy her so much as holding "a Manichean world view: it’s Good v. Evil, the forces of light v. the forces of darkness."  Who does Professor Kaveny have in mind?  Professor George and Bradley?  Fr. Richard John Neuhaus?  Pope John Paul the Great?  Who exactly is it who treats the battle over abortion as pitting "the forces of light" against "the forces of darkness"?  I've done a search, and found someone who fits the description precisely. 

Here is what he had to say:

Three years ago, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services 492 U.S. 490 (1989), four Members of this Court appeared poised to "cas[t] into darkness the hopes and visions of every woman in this country" who had come to believe that the Constitution guaranteed her the right to reproductive choice. Id., at 557 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). All that remained between the promise of Roe and the darkness of the plurality was a single, flickering flame. Decisions since Webster gave little reason to hope that this flame would cast much light. See, e.g., Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S. 502, 524 (1990) (Blackmun, J., dissenting). But now, just when so many expected the darkness to fall, the flame has grown bright . . . I fear [however] for the darkness as four Justices anxiously await the single vote necessary to extinguish the light.

Who was the "Manichean" who depicted the struggle over abortion in these terms?  It was Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade, writing (and quoting himself) in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.