Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Thursday, June 2, 2005

Abortion Rate Changes: What do the Statistics Show?

By Thomas Berg

Are the recent claims that abortion declines have stalled or reversed during the Bush administration's years based on bad statistics?  Pro-life liberal Glen Stassen originally wrote the articles (for example this one) proposing, based on data from 16 states, that abortions had begun to increase during the Bush years after declining during the Clinton years.  More complete statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, based on 44 states, now indicate that "abortion rates continued to decline in 2001 and 2002, although the rate of decline has slowed since the early 1990s."  But Stassen responds that even if there has been some continued decline, nevertheless "the dramatic decline in number of abortions of the '90s to 300,000 fewer abortions per year has now stalled almost to a stop."  The emerging consensus seems to be that there has been a statistically significant slowdown in the decline of abortion rates; how much the decline has slowed is a matter of debate, based in part on how one interprets the statistical margins of error.

Tom B.

Moralization, National Purpose, Sacrifice, and Abortion

By Thomas Berg

Like Rob, I have doubts about whether our response to 9/11 reflects a renewed "moralization," sacrifical commitment, and sense of national purpose that might be turned to combat the evils of abortion.  But my skepticism has less to do with the Iraq/antiterrorism effort itself -- which has indeed involved sacrifices by many brave soldiers and their families -- than with the fact that so little sacrifice has been asked of the rest of us in pursuit of this effort.  The fundamental weakness that has exposed us to Islamic terrorism is our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, yet the administration has done little to encourage conservation, presumably because that would require sacrifice from tens of millions of gas-guzzling Americans, not just from the small percentage who are military members and their families.  The administration has handled the cost of the war not by rerversing some of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, who (and I include myself) could afford to pay more taxes, but rather by running up a large deficit that is likely to be passed onto future generations.  Let's criticize the Democrats too to the extent they oppose any efforts, even means-testing, to reform Social Security in order to put it on sounder footing for future generations.  But granting the Democrats' sins, I still don't think that the administration has really given us a solid sense of national purpose:  it hasn't expended the political capital to persuade the majority of Americans that the war on terror is a national effort for which they as individuals ought to sacrifice.

Turning to abortion, there is a new plan on the table now to mobilize the resources of American civil society in a national campaign to combat abortion.  It's the "95-10" initiative proposed by Democrats for Life of America, which aims to "reduce the number of abortions in America by 95 percent in the next 10 years."  The package includes severaI components, but among them are funding programs to promote adoption, to help crisis pregancy centers, and to encourage daycare centers on college campuses.  The package thereby joins increases in some government safety-net programs (like Special Nutrition for Women, Infants, and Children) with efforts to support private community-based agencies that are out there trying to provide alternatives to abortion.  There are also restrictions on abortion such as right-to-know and parental-notification provisions.

Such a package of proposals will run into opposition, no doubt, not only from those on the left who don't want to do anything to discourage abortion, but also from those on the right who don't want government to spend any more money to help those in need.  But doesn't a proposal like this reflect what Bottum hopes for:  a "sense of national purpose" and a "will to halt [or at least significantly reduce] the slaughter of a million unborn children a year"?  Yes, the proposal leaves out criminalization of abortion (which would still be struck down in the courts now); but it does include several of the restrictions (noted above) that are likely to survive judicial review.  Yes, in theory one can fight abortion simply by means of restrictions without doing anything to help or provide alternatives to pregnant women in difficult circumstances:  but does anyone really support that kind of policy?  And yes, one can welcome alternatives to abortion without supporting them through government funding:  one could rely on wholly privately-funded initiatives and the renewed moral sense of individuals.  But only if America as a nation encourages those initiatives will the effort reflect the "sense of national purpose" that Bottum hearkens for and that he finds in our military and democracy-building efforts in Iraq (which, needless to say, are government programs on a big scale).  Note again that much of the 95-10 initiative gives weight to considerations of subsidiarity by relying on the government funding  private, community-based providers, not on the government itself providing the services.

But this brings me back to my worry about our ability to sacrifice.  Abortion without government restriction has become pervasive in our society in large part because the alternatives appear to require people to make significant sacrifices:  for the woman, to bear the child and put on hold other important plans in her life, and for taxpayers, to commit the resources to care for and provide alternatives for millions of children who would otherwise be aborted.  A real war against abortion (one that didn't just lay all the burden on pregnant women) would require sacrifices from large numbers of Americans, in a way that the war on terror as pursued to date has not.  Because the war on terror has as pursued has not accustomed most of us to any sacrifices, I have doubts about Bottum's claim that it has laid a groundwork for national efforts against abortion.  The impetus, I think and hope, will have to come from elsewhere.

Tom B.

Debate on Embryo Adoption

By Thomas Berg

From the May 30 Washington Post:

Some Catholic theologians are encouraging married couples to adopt unwanted embryos from fertility clinics. Others vehemently oppose the idea, calling it a grave violation of the principle that procreation should occur naturally.

The Vatican has not yet taken a stand. But if Pope Benedict XVI rules against embryo adoption, as some doctrinal conservatives expect, it could create a fissure between Catholics and evangelical Protestants, who have enthusiastically promoted embryo adoption and enlisted the White House's support for it.

Any thoughts from co-bloggers or readers on whether embryo adoption would (as one theological critic puts it) "make Catholics complicit in test-tube fertilizations, which the church considers illicit"?  Or is it (as a theological supporter puts it) a justifiable act of "reaching out to another human being, albeit in an embryonic state, in the only way that that little being can be helped"?

Tom B.

Christianity Today on Evangelical-Catholic Relations

By Thomas Berg

The leading evangelical magazine has a June 2005 editorial "We are Brothers":

Why the sudden change [from hostility to cooperation between evangelicals and traditionalist Catholics]? John Paul II offered a winsome face of Christianity to the world and leaves behind a Roman Catholic Church firmly opposed to moral relativism. He reinforced the Second Vatican Council's commitment to seek renewal in the sources of classic Christianity—Scripture and the church fathers. And while significant differences remain—examples include ecclesiastical authority, the means of grace, and the relationship of justification to sanctification—evangelicals can confidently engage a Catholic Church committed to fundamental Christian truths. . . .

Numerous factors converged to create favorable conditions for this achievement. Having already fought together to defeat communism, Protestants and Catholics now turned inward to combat the decadence of secularism. Abortion became a potent rallying point. Finding enemies in their own respective camps, kindred spirits reached across the theological front to arrange new alliances.

Unlike so much mid-20th-century ecumenism, recent Catholic-evangelical efforts acknowledge the lingering hurdles. The motto of John Paul II's papacy—Totus Tuus (Totally Yours)—highlights his disturbing embrace of Marian devotion. Evangelicals and Catholics have made little progress on the central issue of ecclesiology, especially in areas of papal authority and infallibility, notions repugnant to most Protestants. Megachurches swell their numbers significantly from the ranks of nominal Catholics. They will continue to do so absent concerted re-evangelization efforts from the Catholic leadership.

Tom B.

Religious Reflections on Property

By Thomas Berg

Today I came across a book called Having: Property and Possessions in Religious and Social Life (William Schweiker and Charles Mathewes ed., Eerdmans 2004).   From a review on the website of the Center for Public Justice, a Canadian organization concerned with religion and public life:

The editors tell us that their book "aim(s) to show the contribution religious studies and theological reflection can make to considering and responding to a humanly basic reality, namely, property and possession." Sixteen essayists come at the theme from different perspectives and disciplines. From a brilliant study by Charles Mathewes of Augustine’s concept of "using the world." to Jean Bethke Elshtain’s anguished look at the rhetoric of today’s eugenics, this book reminds us that we inherit an ocean of meaning nuanced by our ancestors and fed by biblical streams.

Tom B.

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

More on Bush and God Talk

By Thomas Berg

Continuing with the subject of President Bush's use of religious rhetoric in various speeches:  MOJ reader Jason Samuel, from Ave Maria Law School, points me to some interesting comments made by Michael Gerson, the President's speechwriter, during an Ethics and Public Policy Center conference in January.  Gerson gives a generally persuasive defense of the religious elements in Bush's speeches.

One of the more recent criticisms, by a U. Washington communications professor, compared Bush's supposedly arrogant "declarations of God's wishes" with Franklin Roosevelt's more humble "requests for divine blessing." I suspected from the start that the professor was giving a selective use of quotations designed to make FDR look more humble than Bush, and Gerson confirms my suspicion by citing some other examples from FDR's speeches:

On D-Day, most of you probably know, FDR did his announcement to the nation entirely in the form of a prayer. He said, “In the poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer.” He asked for victory, for renewed faith, and said, “with Thy blessing we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogance.”

Or FDR’s State of the Union address a month after Pearl Harbor:

“They know that victory for us means victory for religion, and they could not tolerate that. The world is too small to provide adequate living room for both Hitler and God. In proof of this, the Nazis have now announced their plan for enforcing their new, German pagan religion all over the world, a plan by which the Holy Bible and the cross of mercy would be displaced by Mein Kampf and the swastika and the naked sword.

“We are inspired by a faith that goes back through all the years to the first chapter of Genesis: God created man in his own image. We on our side are striving to be true to that divine heritage. That is the conflict that day and night now pervades our lives. No compromise can end that conflict. There never has been, there never will be successful compromise between good and evil.”

Plug in "Bin Laden" for Hitler, and you've got something that Bush might have said today -- and boy, if he had, wouldn't there have been an uproar among the editorial-page writers and the communications professors (and more than a few law professors as well).  Actually, FDR went quite a bit further, it's my impression, than Bush ever has.  Would Bush dare (especially in a State of the Union address) to call a victory over terrorists "a victory for religion" -- as opposed to a victory for freedom, justice, and democracy?

More and more, these efforts to define ground rules for what kind of religious language is appropriate strike me as evasions of the real issues.  If the Bush administration has pursued too cocksure and dogmatic a policy on Iraq and terrorism, that case should be made on the merits of the policies.  There are plenty of grounds to sustain that charge.  But sustaining the charge would require actually analyzing the military, diplomatic, and cultural aspects of the Bush policies -- which are matters that communications professors (and we law professors) often try to evade because they lack real expertise in them.  It's so much easier, isn't it, to just read a speech and pick at the language in it.

Tom B.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Bush and Invocations of God

By Thomas Berg

I'm more than ready to criticize the Bush administration for being dogmatic, overconfident, and arrogant in waging the "war on terror."  But the anti-Bush arguments in the "Petitioner or Prophet?" op-ed that Michael P. posted seem pretty nit-picking to me.  Let's set aside how much one can glean from the number of references to God in State of the Union addresses; let's focus on the nature of the references.  Professor Domke and Mr. Coe characterize Bush's references as "declarations of divine wishes," reflecting a "certainty about God's will [that] is troubling" -- while other other presidents' references have been simply more innocuous "requests for divine guidance."

First, what is the divine will that the writers think it's troubling for Bush to assert?  It's "that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation," and that this "is God's gift to humanity."  Ah, right.  Bush arrogantly brushes aside the powerful counterargument that God is against freedom and doesn't want all persons to have it.  And that counterargument is found -- where exactly?

Second, what's the big difference between Bush's statements and those of FDR and JFK that the writers approve?  FDR treats freedom as just as bedrock and unassailable a value as Bush does.  (Plus, I'll eat my hat if Bush hasn't also essentially "requested divine guidance" at various times in his speeches.)  If anything, one could argue that Bush's phrasing is facially more humble, at least than JFK's was.  Bush says that freedom comes from God, not from America.  Kennedy spoke of freedom, and America's unique commitment to it ("the burden and glory"), and then enlisted God in aid of that specially American endeavor, without asking first whether God was in favor of it.

Saying (as Bush does) that a political value comes from God, not from you or your own nation, can reflect or produce arrogance (since the value is of divine origin, there are no limits to what can be done to pursue it).  But it might also reflect or produce humility (we're not the source of all goodness; since the origin of that value is higher than any of us, it stands in judgment of our own actions as well).  I don't think that one can tell which of these two is at work in a particular case just by looking at the words.  And thus I don't think it's per se troubling to invoke "God's will" as the source of a political value.  Dr. King and other civil rights leaders didn't say "We strive for freedom, and hope that God will guide us."  They said "Freedom is God's will"; and their appeal, far from being "troubling," was deeper and more powerful for it.

To reiterate:  There's a strong (even airtight?) case that the administration has been pervasively arrogant in prosecuting the war on terror.  But:

(1) I doubt that all or even most of that arrogance comes from religious certainty (does anyone think Dick Cheney's or Donald Rumsfeld's overconfidence about policing Iraq came from spending hours on their knees before God?); and

(2) The case for arrogance should be made on the basis of the administration's actions, not merely its invocation of God in support.  Perhaps Professor Domke makes the fact-based case in his book; but the op-ed seems to me to reflect an excessive focus on interpreting the minutiae of rhetoric.

Tom B.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Taxes and the Archbishop

By Thomas Berg

Continuing the discussion about anti-poverty programs and Catholic thought:  Last week St. Paul Archbishop Harry Flynn gave an interview to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in which he criticized our governor, Tim Pawlenty, for proposing cuts in state health-care programs in order to avoiding raising taxes.  (Free registration required to view.)

Now conservative pundit Katherine Kersten, a Catholic and a new regular columnist for the Star-Trib, takes Abp. Flynn to task on the ground that "[c]ommon sense tells us that, beyond a certain limit, high taxes actually harm people: working families and the poor, most of all."  The familiar arguments are that (1) excessive tax rates discourage job creation and (2) welfare programs encourage dependence among the poor and discourage empowerment.  Kersten quotes my St. Thomas colleague and Institute co-director Bob Kennedy:

According to Kennedy, the late Pope John Paul II had serious reservations about the welfare state. "He believed that it wasn't fully respectful of human dignity," Kennedy explains. "In his eyes, respecting human dignity requires helping people to become economically independent."

I don't want to blog right now about the general issue of welfare programs, taxes, empowerment, and human dignity (partly because I agree with my friend Bob's quote as far as it goes, and partly because it's a complicated cluster of questions involving the kind of program and the level and kind of taxation).  For now I only want to distinguish that general issue from the more specific question of funding faith-based and other intermediate institutions in anti-poverty efforts.  Many of those programs are the exact opposite of simple handouts; they emphasize the very educational, moral, and behavioral transformations in people that commentators like Kersten presumably want to encourage.  Yet we hear, as recent posts have noted, that the "faith-based initiative" has been hampered not only by Democratic secularism and statism, but also by Republican indifference -- and we hear this from conservatives, not just from liberals.  I hope that David Brooks is right about about possible liberal/evangelical (and Catholic?!) alliances; I hope that if they form, they can overcome the "keep God out of it" cadre of Democrats and the "keep my money in my pocket" cadre of Republicans.

Tom B.

Lutherans on Gambling

By Thomas Berg

In further response to Rob's question about gambling:  The most comprehensive and sophisticated recent Christian statement I know of on gambling is from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the "mainline" or more "liberal" Lutheran body.  The study is online here.  A couple of key quotes:

Christians have traditionally offered four reasons to be concerned about gambling: first, because the games focus on acquiring wealth, gambling can encourage the sins of greed and covetousness; second, the emphasis on chance can be an occasion for despair and distrust in God's promises; third, gambling can lead us to misuse stewardship over our time, talents, and resources; and fourth, gambling can place vulnerable members of our communities at risk of great harm. . . .

Insofar as gambling is entangled with greed, hopelessness, selfishness and careless stewardship, it is an activity that is incompatible with the godly life. If our gambling can avoid these vices or "desires of the flesh" (Gal. 5), however, then gambling belongs within the broad area of Christian freedom. This analysis leads us to conclude, in the words of the 1984 ALC statement on gambling, that "there are no biblical or theological grounds for any absolute prohibition of gambling." Gambling is not intrinsically wrongful. It belongs to each Christian to decide whether he or she can, in good conscience and without self-deception, participate in gambling.

The fact that gambling is not intrinsically wrongful does not, however, mean that gambling is a matter of indifference. The Christian's freedom is quite different from the freedom that the modern world proclaims. Where others might assert their liberty to act in any way they see fit, so long as it is not prohibited, the Christian's freedom is always the freedom to be a good steward of God. In addition to the stewardship of our time and resources, we are also called to be stewards -- caretakers -- of one another. Cain's question to God is met with the Christian's response: we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers.

The study is notable for its description of the current state of gambling in America, its separate focus on state-run lotteries and on operations run by Native American tribes, and for its careful theological analysis.  I recommend reading the whole thing.  It was written -- or at least an earlier version of it was written -- by friend and lawprof Bob Tuttle of George Washington U. Law School, who has a Ph.D. in religious social ethics under his belt.

Tom B.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Senator Santorum and the Poor

By Thomas Berg

The story on Senator Rick Santorum in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine is quite interesting.  A recurring theme in it is that Santorum makes at least a good-faith effort to bring Catholic faith to bear not only on issues like abortion and homosexuality, but also on government efforts to assist the poor (through funding of private charities).  For example, Joe Lieberman is quoted as saying:

''People associate him just with these [sexual] issues. . . .  But he is more complex than that.  He has a faith-based concern about poverty, and he's prepared to fight for more money than the administration wants to allot.''

The story also cites David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who complains that the Republican Party is concerned "too little with poverty":

[Kuo] considered Santorum the exception.  ''He was a singular voice in Republican leadership fighting for antipoverty legislation,'' Kuo said. ''He kept pushing it.  I was in meetings when people would start rolling their eyes when he started talking about it.  It is very much at odds with the public perception of him.  He fought behind the scenes where nobody could see it.  His compassion is genuine.''

This is the same Mr. Kuo who explained late last year on Beliefnet how President Bush's promise of "compassionate conservatism" remains "unfulfilled in spirit and in fact" in part because of pervasive "indifference" to the issue in the administration and in the Republican Party (not by the president, but by the people who actually staff the White House, the Congress, and the agencies):

In June 2001, the promised tax incentives for charitable giving were stripped at the last minute from the $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. The Compassion Capital Fund has received a cumulative total of $100 million during the past four years.  And new programs including those for children of prisoners, at-risk youth, and prisoners reentering society have received a little more than $500 million over four years--or approximately $6.3 billion less than the promised $6.8 billion. . . .

In December 2001, for instance, Sen. Daschle approached the Domestic Policy Council with an offer to pass a charity relief bill that contained many of the president's campaign tax incentive policies plus new money for the widely-popular and faith-based-friendly Social Services Block Grant.  The White House legislative affairs office rolled their eyes while others on senior staff yawned.  We had to leave the offer on the table.

To be sure, Kuo also emphasized that the Democrats' "knee-jerk opposition" to greater funding of religious entities, based on "hackneyed church-state scare rhetoric," has likewise greatly hampered the initiative.  "At the end of the day, both parties played to stereotype -- Republicans were indifferent to the poor and the Democrats were allergic to faith."

Let's recognize Sen. Santorum for bringing a Catholic moral vision to bear on other issues in addition to abortion, homosexuality, and embryonic stem cells.  I didn't hear much at the time about his push for more anti-poverty money; I suppose that few media outlets find it remunerative to do stories that emphasize non-stereotypical behavior like that.  (But let's recognize that the Times, and reporter Michael Sokolove, played the point fairly prominently in Sunday's piece.)

If any of the eye-rolling and yawning White House staffers were Catholics, or Christians more generally -- as I expect many would claim to be -- it's hard to see how they'd square that contempt and indifference with their faith.  Funding for private community-based anti-poverty entities (faith-based and secular), especially through block grants to the states, broadly combines the preferential option for the poor and the principle of subsidiarity.  Someone who rolls his eyes at the idea, it seems to me, is likely operating on the principle that a libertarian friend of mine articulated:  life should be as tough as possible for the poor, to discourage them from staying poor.

Tom B.

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