Weigel on "Pro Life Catholics for Obama"

Here's George Weigel, in Newsweek, discussing Prof. Kmiec, et al.:

. . . [Kmiec's and others'] argument, in sum: the constitutional and legal arguments that have raged since Roe vs. Wade are over, and Catholics have lost; there are many other "intrinsic evils" that Catholics are morally bound to oppose, and Republicans tend to ignore those evils; liberalized social-welfare policies will drive down the absolute numbers of abortions and Senator Obama is an unabashed liberal on these matters. Therefore, a vote for Obama is the "real" pro-life vote.

The argument is, some might contend, a bold one. Yet it is also counterintuitive, running up against the fact that, by most measures and despite his rhetoric about reducing the incidence of abortion, Barack Obama has an unalloyed record of support for abortion on demand. Moreover, he seems to understand Roe vs. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court decisions as having defined abortion as a fundamental liberty right essential for women's equality, meaning that government must guarantee access to abortion in law and by financial assistance—a moral judgment and a policy prescription the pro-life Catholic Obama boosters say they reject. . . .

There's a lot more.

In my view, there are (at least) two different positions that a pro-life Obama supporter might take:  The first is to say, "yes, abortion is the defining moral issue of our time, and not just one issue among many, but Sen. Obama is -- all things considered -- the better candidate on abortion, and not just with respect to "life issues" generally, and so that's why I'm for him."  This position, in my view, does not stand up to scrutiny.  Nutshell version of my view, which regular MOJ readers have probably encountered more than they'd like:  All things considered, the policies of an Obama administration are not likely to reduce the number of abortions; an Obama-selected judiciary would be unlikely to move constitutional law in a direction friendly to reasonable abortion regulation; and, numbers aside, the question for pro-life Catholics should not be simply "how many abortions are taking place?" but "are we excluding unborn children from the protection of the law, to which they are entitled in justice as a matter of human rights."

Another position would be to say, "Sen. Obama is dead-wrong on abortion; his views are odious, and his plans and policies with respect to abortion are repugnant.  And yet, he is right on many other things that I care about -- some of which are, I judge, also very serious moral issues.  Indeed, Sen. McCain has odious and dead-wrong views on some very serious moral issues, too.  So, all things considered, I will vote for Sen. Obama as the lesser of two evils, even though I know -- I wish it weren't so, but I know it is -- his election will set things back on the abortion front."  This second position is easier for me to understand (although I do not endorse the premise that there are lots of morally serious issues on which Sen. Obama's likely-to-be-enacted-into-policy views are clearly better than Sen. McCain's) and, until this election cycle, it seemed to be the more common one among my pro-life Democratic friends.  Any thoughts about what (if anything) has changed?

UPDATE:  A reader writes:

I think what changed is that in the 2004 election cycle, many pro-life Republicans argued for the primacy of abortion over other issues, in particular the war in Iraq, because of the scale of abortion -- 1 million abortions per year was orders of magnitude greater than the detahs caused by war, or the number of those who had been tortured.

So in this election cycle, pro-life Democrats are under the impression that efforts to reduce the number of abortions are sufficient.  If the problem with abortion is its scale, then a valid response should be to reduce that scale, right?

There are several problems with this way of thinking, but I think the arguments from 2004 paved the way for it.

UPDATE:  My friend and colleague, Mark McKenna, writes: 

I think I sort of agree with your characterization of the two pro-life Obama
> positions.  But I think I would characterize my own position as something of
> a combination of the two:>
>
> I disagree with Obama on abortion.  I think at least some of his positions
> are odious.  But I also think that some of the other things he will do are
> likely to have a substantially positive impact on the number of abortions.
> I don't know for sure the full net effect of all those policies.  So I'm
> left with disagreement on a serious issue, somewhat (at least) offset by the
> impact of other policies on the problem.  If that was it, and it was
> otherwise a close call, that might not be enough for me to tip in favor of
> Obama.  But I do believe that "Sen. McCain has odious and dead-wrong views
> on some very serious moral issues, too."  So I guess I think that's an "all
> things considered" view, but probably not as strongly as you imply.
>
> I think that's something of a combination of the two, though probably more
> (b) than (a).