In his Chicago Tribune piece, to which Michael linked, describing glowingly his meeting with Sen. Obama, Prof. Doug Kmiec writes:
The discussion dwelt at some length on abortion. Obama said he
earnestly wants to "discourage" the practice—despite the distortions of
some who think if they affix the "pro-abortion—won't
overturn-Roe-label" to the senator, pro-lifers like myself won't give
him the time of day. Sorry, good friends, not this year.
It's no secret that, despite my longstanding affection for him, I've been, so far, unimpressed by Doug's efforts to explain how and why it is that someone who has spent decades writing and saying what he's been writing and saying -- particularly on questions of constitutional law -- has suddenly transferred his affections from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama. This latest piece, and the passage quoted above, don't help matters much (for me).
The point that some of us have been making to Doug is *not* that it is impossible for someone who supports Roe to also have a good-faith desire to "discourage" abortion. It is, instead, that Sen. Obama's record, and his public statements to people who, unlike Doug, very much want to hear him offer -- and *do* hear him offer -- his full-throated, unqualified support for abortion rights, do not seem to provide a basis for concluding that, in fact, he would be willing to do anything to "discourage" abortion, other than to support social-welfare initiatives which he would support in any event. (The point here is *not* to criticize such programs -- if they work, fine [Which reminds me, has Obama endorsed 95-10 yet?]. It is to remind Doug that these programs and efforts will come packaged with a roll-back of the few pro-life legislative and executive-branch victories that have been secured during the past decade or so.)
Abortion aside, the judges that Sen. Obama will nominate (and that the Senate will certainly confirm) will bring an understanding of constitutional law to the Court that is entirely irreconcilable with the vision that Doug has been advocating for years. Again, it's not just about Roe. I'd like to hear Doug's account of why it suddenly no longer matters that justices approach constitutional interpretation as he has, for many years, been saying they should approach constitutional interpretation.
But, back to abortion: even if it is true -- of *course* it is true -- that overturning Roe would not end abortion, and that there are ways to reduce the number of abortions that do not involve overturning Roe -- and even if we accept, as I do, that many reasonable, faithful Christians will conclude, given the givens, that their best option is to vote for Obama, the *fact* is that President Obama will sign legislation and issue executive orders that remove currently existing regulations, that undermine conscience-protections and religious-freedom protections for hospitals and health-care professionals who do not wish to participate in abortion, and that use public funds to pay for abortions and embryo-destroying research. This is not just about Roe, and Doug knows it. Perhaps there are "distortions" going on, but, with all due respect, they are not coming from those who report accurately Sen. Obama's publicly expressed views and record on abortion. "Sorry, good friend[]."
I thank the two Michaels (Perry and Scaperlanda) once again for bringing us to an urgent discussion on same-sex issues that continue to embroil our nation and our world. I also thank Rob and Tom for their contributions on this critical matter.
In his response to Michael S., Michael P. relies on the works of Dr. and Sister Margaret Farley, RSM to reinforce his position—in particular her most recent book “Just Love”. As some MOJ readers and contributors may recall, I have offered a few thoughts on Dr. Farley’s work in the past. [HERE and HERE] Since December of last year when I last commented on Dr. Farley, I have read additional works she has authored that predate “Just Love” including her work “Personal Commitments.” After reading these additional works she has penned, I submit that her writings reflect more the views of the Metropolitan Community Church and the Unitarian Universalist Society on matters dealing with same-sex issues than they do the teachings of the Catholic Church. In fairness to her, I acknowledge her own self-disclosures about her disagreements with the Church’s teachings. But it is also clear that she departs from many other Church teachings when she addresses questions that include abortion, contraception, and bio-technology issues.
I am in no position to do anything but to pray for her and those whom she has influenced over the years. I also pray that her misleading sway will not be accepted as Catholic teachings by the faithful as the debates on same-sex marriage/unions and on other questions on which she has written intensify.
RJA sj
Folks, apologies for my long blogging hiatus. I hope to make it up to you all this summer. To start, Fordham’s Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work has just launched a new resource page on Catholic Citizenship and Voting. As many of you know, I’m a fan of the 2007 document issued by the United States Bishops, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” so that’s the first link. It also includes my contribution to the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies symposium on that document, due out this summer. You may recognize some of the musings in my previous blogging on how the category of intrinsic evil should intersect with voting. Here’s the blurb:
Which voter’s guide gives the most reliable account of Catholic teaching? This essay compares Forming Consciences, the document issued by the US Bishop’s Conference in November 2007, with the Catholic Action Answers’ “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics.” It argues that Serious Catholics fails to captures the tradition’s nuanced intersection between moral values and their practical implementation in the sphere of politics; and that Forming Consciences serves as a more complete and helpful guide for Catholic voters.
Other musings at the intersection of Catholic social thought and political life touch on the topics of conscience, abortion, torture, and immigration. Enjoy! Amy
There was an interesting story
in Friday's NY Times concerning gentrification in Harlem. The whole
article was worth reading, but I was struck by this passage:
While welcoming safer, cleaner streets, longtime residents have
found themselves juggling conflicting emotions. And those who enjoyed a
measure of stability in the old Harlem now long for the past — not
necessarily because it was better but because it was what they knew.
“The
majority of the stores, the 99-cent stores, they’re gone,” said Gwen
Walker, 55, a longtime resident of the General Grant Houses in West
Harlem, giving one view. “The Laundromat on the corner is gone. The
bodegas are gone. There’s large delis now. What had been two for $1 is
now one for $3. My neighbor is a beer drinker, and he drinks
inexpensive beer, Old English or Colt 45 or Coors — you can’t even buy
that in the stores. The stores have imported beers from Germany. The
foods being sold — feta cheese instead of sharp Cheddar cheese. That’s
a whole other world.”
Gentrification, it turns out, can have an
odd psychological effect on those it occurs around. No one — almost no
one — is wishing for a return of row upon row of boarded-up buildings
or the summer mornings when lifeless bodies turned up in vestibules, or
the evenings when every block seemed to have its own band of drug
dealers and subordinate crackheads. But residents say they do
miss having a neighborhood with familiar faces to greet, familiar foods
to eat, and no fear of being forced out of their homes.
In one of my current writing projects, Land Virtues,
I discuss some of the problems with the Demsetzian conception of
land-ownership. In Demsetz's words: "[i]f a single person owns land,
he will attempt to maximize its present value by taking into account
alternative future time streams of benefits and costs and selecting the one
which he believes will maximize the present value of his privately-owned land
rights."
One of the problems with this view of the dynamics of land-ownership
is that, for most owners, land is not merely an investment. Consider the
largest group of landowners in the United States:
homeowners. Homeownership certainly is an investment, and homeowners are
acutely interested in the performance of this investment. But the home is
also the means by which owners obtain a number of nonfungible (and often
social) goods that homeownership makes available to them. When the value of a home increases
in ways that diverge from the home's ability to generate these nonfungible
goods, homeowner behavior becomes particularly hard to interpret without
departing from the Demsetzian framework. One place we see this happen over and over again is
in the gentrifying neighborhood.
Continue reading
A really nice essay, by Jon Meacham, about Tim Russert and the Faith. Check it out.
