Some have suggested that the only reasonable choice for one who accepts the Catholic Church's position on abortion is to vote Republican. MOJ-readers may be interested in this editorial, which presents a different view:
National Catholic Reporter
November 3, 2006
Sorting through imperfect choices
In the early 1970s, when antiwar activist and stalwart liberal Allard K.
Lowenstein was running for Congress against a nondescript Republican incumbent
from Long Island, N.Y., he received the endorsement of conservative pundit
William F. Buckley. Buckley’s rationale: As long as the House of
Representatives was going to be dominated by liberals (remember those days?) it
might as well have a smart one in the bunch.
Another anecdote from that era: The second choice of the 41 percent of
New Hampshire primary voters who supported Eugene McCarthy and forced
LBJ’s withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race was none other than
… segregationist pro-war Alabama Gov. George Corley Wallace. New
Hampshirites, it seems, were more interested in “sending a message”
than in the messenger.
Voting, it seems, is a complex act.
So what is a conscientious Catholic to do this year? There’s plenty
of advice out there.
The U.S. bishops’ document, “Faithful Citizenship,”
offers a sound approach. It is a voter’s responsibility, say the bishops,
“to measure all candidates, policies, parties and platforms by how they
protect or undermine the life, dignity and rights of the human person, whether
they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good.”
It can be found at
www.usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship.
More recently, a new kid on the block, Catholics in Alliance for the
Common Good, issued its voter guide, “Voting for the Common Good.” It
strikes the right chord, noting that “There is no Catholic voting formula,
and there is rarely, if ever, a perfect candidate for Catholic voters.”
That voter guide can be found at
thecatholicalliance.org.
Unfortunately, the guide that has drawn the most media attention in the
past is from the conservative group Catholic Answers, which has reissued its
“Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics.” It is essentially the
same pamphlet describing the “nonnegotiable issues” the group
distributed, to much publicity, in 2004. To Catholic Answers, voting is an
equation: If Candidate A is closer to Catholic teaching on the
“nonnegotiable issues” than Candidate B, the “serious”
Catholic should vote for A. The “nonnegotiable issues” are abortion,
embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning.
In fact, it’s hard to take the “Voter’s Guide for Serious
Catholics” very seriously. For starters, it takes candidate’s
assertions (“I oppose abortion”) as statements of purpose.
In Tempting Faith, his new book describing his experience in the
Bush White House, David Kuo recalls a spat conservative icon William Bennett
had with James Dobson, founder of the influential Focus on the Family. “If
a pro-choice candidate of exemplary character used the bully pulpit to talk
about, say, teen abstinence, adoption, crisis pregnancy centers, individual
moral code -- and did this well -- he could have a profoundly positive impact
on the nation’s cultural condition,” Bennett told Dobson in a letter.
“And he could do more to lower the number of abortions than a presidential
candidate who supports a constitutional ban but does nothing more than pay lip
service to the pro-life constituency.”
Check and mate.
Next, the “Serious Catholics” voting guide leaves out some
equally nonnegotiable issues like, say, torture, which, says the Catechism of
the Catholic Church, is “contrary to respect for the person and for human
dignity.” Clearly a “nonnegotiable” issue.
It’s perfectly reasonable -- an inescapable conclusion we think --
to conclude that a large number of candidates bidding for office this year
actually support torture. Sure, they call it something else (“harsh
interrogation techniques”) but it’s clear that some lawmakers and
would-be lawmakers believe that “water-boarding,” for example, is a
good way to get information from would-be terrorists.
Or maybe the war in Iraq is on a voter’s mind. One doesn’t
have to accept the conclusions of the recent Johns Hopkins study, which
estimated Iraqi war deaths as high as 655,000 (more than died in the U.S. Civil
War), to conclude that both the initial decision to invade that country and the
continuing military effort are counter to the church’s teaching on just
war. Sure, it’s debatable, and, yes, Catholics can come to different
conclusions, but a “serious Catholic” is surely free to determine
that this is the overriding issue of this election and vote accordingly.
Or maybe there’s a gubernatorial election where one candidate
supports the death penalty and another opposes it. According to the catechism,
capital punishment is justified only and exclusively when society
has no other means of protecting itself from a heinous criminal. That’s
not the situation in the United States, where we employ the electric chair as a
deterrent and, according to those who support the practice, as a tool of
justice. Those are certainly debatable points, but they have nothing to do with
Catholic teaching. To support the death penalty for reasons other than the
protection of society makes one a dissenter from, here it comes, a
nonnegotiable issue.
Pennsylvania’s Senate contest provides a concrete test for the
conscientious Catholic. Republican Rick Santorum is the strongest and most
effective antiabortion voice in Washington. No doubt about it. Further,
Santorum has voiced reservations about the death penalty (though he’s
voted for legislation that includes the ultimate punishment).
Democrat Bob Casey, son of a politician who bucked his party on abortion
and paid the price for his dissent from the political orthodoxy, says he, too,
is pro-life. Yet he supports the over-the-counter availability of the
“morning-after pill” and is a strong proponent of the death penalty.
Yes, Casey will vote to ban partial-birth abortion, but he won’t put a
litmus test on judges who might stray from the antiabortion line.
Santorum supports the war in Iraq; Casey would likely side with
Democrats working to end U.S. involvement in the quagmire. Casey supports civil
unions, Santorum speaks harshly about gays and opposes same-sex marriage.
What’s a conscientious Pennsylvania Catholic to do?
Here’s a suggestion: If opposition to abortion or gay marriage is
the issue that a Pennsylvania voter has determined is paramount, the most
important in the current context, then he or she probably should vote for
Santorum. He’s clearly someone who will continue to make these issues a
priority.
If, however, a pro-life Keystone State voter thinks there is more at
stake in this election than abortion and gay marriage -- the war, economic
opportunity, social justice, tolerance for those who are different -- then that
Keystone State voter should probably pull the lever for Casey.
An imperfect choice? Certainly. It always is.
Democracy ain’t easy. That’s why we’re fortunate
God’s given us brains and a conscience. Use them well.
Voting, indeed, is a complicated act.
AP
An editorial scheduled to appear on Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times, calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The papers are sold to American servicemen and women. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, which is a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc.
Here is the text of the editorial:
----------------
Time for Rumsfeld to go
"So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused
and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard
bruising truth."
That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.
But until recently, the "hard bruising" truth about the Iraq war has
been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy
reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice
President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "mission
accomplished," the insurgency is "in its last throes," and "back off,"
we know what we're doing, are a few choice examples.
Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired
generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines,
inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should
have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought
the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.
Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate.
Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the
war's planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate
Armed Services Committee in September: "I believe that the sectarian
violence is probably as bad as I've seen it ... and that if not
stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war."
Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide
showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on
"critical" and has been sliding toward "chaos" for most of the past
year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police
force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for
the security of their new government and their nation.
But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of
molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a
force for national unity has become a losing proposition.
For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training
the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of
national identity, are only in it for the money, don't show up for duty
and cannot sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.
And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.
Now, the president says he'll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.
This is a mistake.
It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has
failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break
publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is
losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many
privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private,
adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of
subordination of the military to civilian authority.
And although that tradition, and the officers' deep sense of honor,
prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe
it.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with
the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy
has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the
blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the
troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party
wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard
bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go.
Friday, November 3, 2006
In response to my continuing questions, Notre Dame law prof Julian Velasco argues for a meaningful moral distinction between removal of the embryo and removal of the tube in which the embryo is located:
There is a general rule -- thou shalt not kill. There is no doubt that removing the baby is killing it. The only question is whether removing thetube is the same as killing the baby. My argument is that knowing the baby will die as a result of my actions is not the same thing as killing the baby; thus, removing the tube is not the same as killing the baby. But if I am wrong, then the answer is not that killing the baby is fine, but rather that removing the tube is wrong (because it is killing the baby). Furthermore, even if I am wrong with respect to the last sentence, then there may be an exception for the extreme case of ectopic pregnancies, but that would not be proof that either the embryo is not a baby or that abortion is generally acceptable.
BTW, I understand that it is the embryo's growth within the tube that threatens the mother's life, and it is the embryo's growth within the tube that I am trying to stop. But I insist that not all means of achieving that goal are acceptable. Directly killing another (the baby) is not acceptable under any circumstances (IMHO). But removal of a body part is. That removal is neither directly killing nor intending to kill the baby; it is only done with knowledge that the baby will die as a result. Without more, is not enough to impute moral culpability.
For an entirely different perspective on these issues, check out Eugene Volokh's forthcoming article on a constitutional right to medical self-defense.
Rob
