A few comments on the most recent exchanges over abortion and the Democrats:
We have been debating again whether the Democratic proposals (there are two—more on that in a second) are a sufficient move against abortion. That’s an important question. But it should not cause us to lose sight of another important question, whether safety-net proposals like these are a good and necessary move against abortion (sufficient or not). The proposition I'm talking about is that a variety of social supports—like increased funding for women’s and children’s health and nutrition, increased restrictions on pregnancy discrimination in insurance, increased funding of adoption and of child-care on college campuses, and so forth—will stop many abortions by increasing alternatives for women who face difficult situations of pregnancy.
This Wednesday, the Pregnant Women Support Act (PWSA), formulated and endorsed by Democrats for Life, will be introduced in Congress. The bill provides for the increased social supports above and others. Unlike last week’s Democratic proposal, the PWSA omits the funding of contraception as a means of preventing pregnancies and thus abortions, based on the division over the morality of contraception.
I cannot imagine why any pro-life member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, should not wholeheartedly support this bill. The only reason to oppose it from a conservative side would be on the basis of a knee-jerk hostility to government spending and regulation, overriding—in a telling and disturbing way—a commitment to preventing the deaths of some unborn children. Therefore, I hope and expect that large numbers of pro-life Republicans will join pro-life Democrats in support of the bill.
While some folks (including, I’m sure, some fellow MOJers) believe that Democrats for Life are engaged overall in a quixotic and counterproductive endeavor, I think we should note that it took this group to put forward a comprehensive package of safety-net measures to reduce abortions. Even though many pro-life conservatives support such measures, to my knowledge no such package ever came forth from the conservative side of the political aisle, probably because there’s a congenital suspicion of safety-net measures on that side. I’d submit that this tells us that—notwithstanding all the problems with the current Democratic Party on Roe and abortion restrictions—there is substantial value in having a pro-life voice working within the Democratic Party instead of bailing out (even leading aside whether Democratic positions are morally preferable on other issues). With respect to my friend and co-worker Rick, I think it would be unfair to diss Democrats for Life's work as "repackaging longstanding policy goals as efforts to reduce the number of abortions." CLARIFICATION AND UPDATE: After personal conversation, I understand that Rick's dismissal of the first Democratic proposal was not meant to include the safety-net funding elements that Democrats for Life's proposal will champion, but only the contraception funding because some would go to Planned Parenthood.
A few further comments:
(1) Note that the PWSA, like the Democrats for Life’s proposals in general, does not simply mean more central government. Many of its provisions support mediating institutions addressing abortion: for example, increased funding for sonograms at crisis pregnancy centers (which studies show convince many women not to abort), for adoption organizations, and for child care on college campuses.
(2) To support safety-net measures does not let Democrats off the hook on the abortion-restriction questions. (Democrats for Life, BTW, has not done so; it includes informed consent and parental notice in its proposal, and it has even applauded the South Dakota ban that many other pro-life leaders opposed as mistimed.) I understand the worry that some will use these measures to claim to be pro-life while they still support Roe or public funding of abortions. But it would be unfortunate to resist a measure that can reduce abortions—and help women in difficult circumstances—because of considerations about how it will be used politically. In fact, one can argue the other way too: strengthening the safety net may make it easier, in the long run and in swing states, to enact and (equally important) sustain legal restrictions on abortion because the collateral consequences on women will be cushioned.
(3) Those collateral consequences of legal prohibitions have to be acknowledged, because--do I have to do these reminders?--abortion does frequently arise in very difficult circumstances, especially for impoverished women who have a disproportionate share of abortions. Although there were exaggerations of pre-Roe back-alley abortions and deaths, certainly some occurred and some would occur again, disroportionately to the poor. Economically vulnerable women who give birth will also have real health and nutrition problems, may drop out of college permanently (thus heading toward economic dead-ends), and will risk losing whatever chance they had at health insurance—all problems that the safety-net proposal addresses. These consequences do not mean giving up on protecting the unborn. But they do demand a sober, honest recognition of the need for a strengthened safety net to address the increased needs.
The proposal will be on the table this week. Can anyone fail to support it?
Tom
Monday, September 11, 2006
Regular blog readers will know that I think Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism is quite helpful for our times, including, in certain important ways, for Catholic social thought. In The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier seeks to channel Niebuhr for today's war and terrorism challenges. He is "confident that Niebuhr would have opposed the war in Iraq," but wants to pinpoint the right ground for opposition and dismiss the wrong ones:
Niebuhr's opposition to the war would have been based, I think, on his principled distaste for Bush's style of nationalism, which he would have regarded as auto-idolatry, and on his insistence that the legitimacy of such an enterprise must be conferred by international institutions. It may be Niebuhr's teachings about the love of country that hold the most stinging rebuke to Bush's jingoism. "We are the most powerful nation on earth," he observed, in a typical passage, in Christianity and Society in 1950. "We are also sufficiently virtuous to be tempted to the assumption that our power is the fruit of our virtue." The president surrendered to that temptation long ago. He is contentedly blind to what Niebuhr, in another essay, called "the immoral elements in all historical success."
I'm pretty certain we could find numerous occasions (though I haven't gotten the cites, I confess) in which the President or other war supporters have effectively asserted that we as a nation are or will be successful because we're "fundamentally good." The relation between such sentiments and the huge missteps in Iraq is pretty direct: we knew better than other nations whether Saddam was an immediate danger, we knew better than others how to build a successful postwar Iraq, and anyway it would be relatively easy to rebuild because the Iraqis would react positively to our obvious commitment to democracy. (Peter Beinart's The Good Fight (see here) has a remarkable reference to American policymakers in 2003 worrying that they couldn't bring in the UN to work on reconstruction because Iraqis would fear the economic self-interested motives of nations like France as opposed to America's moral purposes.)
But Wieseltier also knows the other side of the Niebuhrian coin. There are two other, misguided, forms of opposition to rthe war. One is what Wieseltier calls "unethical realism": the idea that moral principles play no role in a nation's decisions, which amounts to pure cynicism and just as easily leads to terrible acts. The other misguided ground is the the position of some war critics that "we have no right to make Iraq a better place until we make America a better place." This is, Wieseltier says, both an un-Niebuhrian and
an erroneous view of the relation between domestic policy and foreign policy. The one does not, or should not, shape the other. A state that treats its citizens justly sometimes behaves abominably beyond its borders, and a state that treats its citizens unjustly sometimes is a force for good abroad. When we fought Hitler, we were a Jim Crow country. Colonialism was to a large extent the odious project of liberal states. If Bush's foreign policy is scandalous, it cannot be because his environmental policy is scandalous. . . . The new Niebuhrians should be wary of their own wholeness, and of the satisfaction that comes from the belief that everything is connected to everything else. . . . The exercise of American power, when it is right, cannot wait upon the attainment of American perfection. America will have to use force against its enemies even if many millions of Americans are without health care.
This seems right but needs a qualification. The "new Niebuhrians" reference appears to be a jab at Beinart, whose book makes the Niebuhrian critique of the war and unilateralism. Although Wieseltier is correct that in a sinful world a nation's imperfection does not deprive it of the right to act against a greater evil, I think that Beinart''s point is that prudence (if nothing else) dictates that America engage in some self-criticism and address its own problems if it wants to convince others of its moral standing. Although we had Jim Crow when we beat Hitler, Mary Dudziak's scholarship (e.g. here) has conversely shown the Cold War importance of Brown v. Board and desegregation in countering the Communist charges of American hypocrisy and winning the "battle for the minds" of disadvantaged nations. There needs to be a balance between confidence and self-criticism, but we've seen almost none of the latter from the Bush administration.
Tom
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Earlier in the summer (see here), a Third Circuit panel issued a ruling holding that the constitutional right of a church or religious organization to choose its clergy could be interfered with by courts in antidiscrimination cases unless the case implicated some specific theological principle or issue (such as a doctrinal belief that only men could be clergy). This created a lot of consternation for those of us involved in defending churches' rights of autonomy, because decisions about who will serve as spiritual leaders and speak for the church are crucial to churches' freedom regardless of whether the decision implicates specific doctrinal principles or theological issues.
But after a series of events, including the death of the panel opinion's author (Judge Edward Becker) before the opinion issued, the case was reheard before a new panel. Now on rehearing, the court has reached the opposite decision, joining numerous other circuits in holding that the so-called "ministerial exception" to antidiscrimination claims applies not only to claims where a specific doctrinal issue is at at stake, but "to any claim, the resolution of which would limit a religious institution’s right to choose who will perform particular spiritual functions." This is an important reversal of course from a previous decision that would have harmed church autonomy (and created a circuit split that might have sent the issue to the Supreme Court). The case is Petruska v. Gannon University.
Tom
Monday, September 4, 2006
It's good to be back in the U.S. after two excellent weeks in Europe (including in Siena, Italy teaching at a European summer school on church-state relations on which I'll blog a little).
On SSRN, Allan Samansky (Ohio State) posts an article arguing that the Internal Revenue restrictions on tax-exempts intervening in political campaigns in favor of particular candidates should not be applied to churches, at least as to "core" religious activities such as sermons:
There are convincing arguments for treating churches differently from other section 501(c)(3) organizations when interpreting and applying the prohibition against intervening in political campaigns. The article recommends that pastors and other church leaders be able to communicate with members about the merits of political candidates without risking loss of favorable tax status. Such leniency for churches is consistent with the legislative history of the prohibition and would not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Furthermore, strict enforcement of the ban against participation in political campaigns by churches risks violating the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
Tom
Monday, August 7, 2006
We've blogged before about the reasons for and implications of the Catholic majority on the Supreme Court. If you're interested in the topic and have plans or just an inclination to be in the Twin Cities on November 10 (even though ice fishing season probably won't start for few weeks thereafter), you might want to check out this symposium at St. Thomas Law. Judge O'Scannlain from the Ninth Circuit will give the lunch address, and there's a good roster of other speakers.
Tom
