UPDATE: I just noticed Rick's post on this below. I agree with Rick that the LAW treats all sorts of homicides differently, but usually not based on the mere identity of the human victim. (Imagine a law, for example, that classified the killing of very old people as a less serious form of homicide than the killing of someone in the prime of life.) If anything, we normally think of the killing of the very young and defenseless as a particularly egregious form of murder, not as something worthy of lesser forms of punishment. All of this points, in my view, in the direction of the conclusion that we do not intuitively view abortion as falling in the same legal category as murder. Moreover, in addition to the legal distinctions on which Rick focuses, there's the question I address in the body of this post below, i.e., of the moral quality of the act, and the moral and political response it demands from those who equate abortion and murder.
*******
In a recent post, Kevin Drum (rightly, in my view) takes Ramesh Ponnuru to task for, on the one hand, equating abortion with murder, but, on the other hand, refusing to advocate the sorts of actions that moral assessment would seem to entail. In an essay that is forthcoming in Commonweal, I make a similar point. Commenting on an op-ed that Robert George and N.D. law prof. Gerard Bradley wrote for the National Review during the past election, I argue that the simple equation of abortion and murder is an argument that proves way too much.
According to Ponnuru, “Eight-week-old fetuses do not differ from 10-day-old babies in any way
that would justify killing the forme . . . . The law will
either treat the fetus as a human being with a right to be protected
from unjust killing or it will not.” According to George & Bradley, the importance of the death penalty pales in comparison to the "scale of the wrong anything approaching 1.3 million deaths per year by abortion." They go on to compare the issue of abortion to slavery in the nineteenth century.
I have no doubt that George & Bradley (and Ponnuru) fairly reflect the tenor of authoritative Catholic teaching on abortion. Here's my problem with this position, though. (I take it that this is Kevin Drum's objection as well.) Why don't the actions of those who engage in this heated rhetoric match their words? The United States fought a war over slavery (among other things) that killed half a million people. John Brown went to the gallows for attempting an armed abolitionist uprising. These actions seem justified to me in light of the gravity of the injustice. But if abortion is murder, then the scale of the injustice being perpetrated on a daily basis in our country alone (not to mention the world) is truly staggering. Over six million innocent human lives have been intentionally taken in the United States under the Bush presidency alone. Why does President Bush get a pass for this? No doubt some will point towards his rhetoric of life and the limited actions he has taken, which admittedly would not have been taken under a different administration. But if abortion is mass murder on the scale of a Holocaust every eight years, shouldn't he be doing more? Where is the sense of urgency? If abortion is mass murder, the President should be filibustering, refusing to talk about anything else, shutting the federal government down until he gets his way, not taking his eye of the ball and fighting wars in Iraq, negotiating trade agreements, cutting taxes, or making speeches about the problems with social security. Abortion opponents should be taking to the streets to prevent the ongoing murder. Catholics are not pacifists, so perhaps armed intervention would be justified. (In light of the equation to murder, I think it is apt to ask what our faith would require of us were we to have lived in Nazi Germany. I assume armed resistance would have been morally permitted.) The destruction of property (e.g., the fire-bombing of abortion clinics at night after delivering a warning to ensure no loss of life) would seem like an easy case.
Of course, I don't think any of this is really justified. Whatever one thinks of the morality of abortion, I think there is cleary a difference between, say, procuring a first trimester abortion and murdering an adult (or even a newborn infant). The simple equation of abortion and murder seems to me to obscure the moral complexity of abortion, a complexity that even its most strident (mainstream) opponents acknowledge with their actions and prescriptions, if not their words. Ponnuru, for example, refuses to endorse the imprisonment of women who seek abortions. I wonder what he thinks of violent resistance.
THROUGH WORK man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.
Today's New York Times features this review, by Jonathan Rauch, of Ramesh Ponnuru's book, "The Party of Death." The review -- critical in places, appreciative in others -- is admirably fair and serious. Rauch's primary criticism seems to be that Ponnuru refuses to embrace the implications of his own pro-life position:
“Eight-week-old fetuses do not differ from 10-day-old babies in any way that would justify killing the former,” he writes. “The law will either treat the fetus as a human being with a right to be protected from unjust killing or it will not.” If those are the only choices, and if the right position is that an early-term fetus is a full-fledged person, why not impose jail terms on women who seek abortions? After all, they are taking out a contract for murder. Instead of confronting that question, Ponnuru equivocates, mumbling that “the pro-life movement” does not necessarily seek jail time for women and that fining doctors and revoking medical licenses might suffice.
He believes that discarding or destroying embryos should be forbidden, but should it be punishable as first-degree murder? If not, why not? If an embryo is morally indistinguishable from a newborn, then killing it is surely a heinous crime. If human life is “inviolable,” then why should it matter whether a hopelessly vegetative patient — someone like Terri Schiavo — left instructions not to be fed? Surely, from Ponnuru’s perspective, the doctors caring for her cannot ethically conspire to starve her to death even if she would prefer to die. If every abortion is infanticide, could even the most life-threatening pregnancy be ended? We don’t have a “health exception” to the murder laws.
I'd welcome correction from the moral philosophers who read MOJ, but -- I have to admit -- Rauch's objection here has never seemed as powerful to me as it does to others. The fact is, our law treats homicides differently, in all kinds of ways. So, why would a decision not to treat a homicide involving the death of an 8-week-old human fetus exactly like a homicide involving the death of a 36-week-old fetus, or a two-day-old infant, or a 36-year-old woman necessarily reflect the view that the 8-week-old fetus is not actually a "human being"?
[David Gregory, of St. John's University School of Law, would like to call these forthcoming events to our attention:]
Craig Mousin at DePaul U has put together quite a two-day conference on the Living Wage and the faith communities, Sept. 28-29 at DePaul.
On November 16, David Gregory is hosting Lisa Wagner from Chicago at St. John's; Wagner is returning to perform her internationally acclaimed one woman, one act play on Dorothy Day (Haunted by God).
And, October 26-27 (2007), David Gregory is co-chairing, and St. John's law school is hosting, the annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.
[David Gregory, of St. John's University School of Law, sent me the following message:]
Dear Michael,
So, as an at best infrequent skimmer of the MOJustice, at the beginning of the academic year I thought I'd see what some forthcoming conference highlights might be.
I see quite a bit of discussion on the MOJ blog re: your alma mater, Gtown, and the current issues re: the Campus Ministry.
Having deposited my one and only child last weekend at Gtown (premed, Gtown Class of 2010, double major in biochemistry and philosopy, with sights set on an MD/PhD in bioethics (or, so he thinks----it is a long way from 'here to there'!!!!) (and a grad of Regis HS, Class of 2006), and having sat through a weekend of orientation and welcomes, I must say I was very impressed with the outstanding emphasis on Ignatian principles throughout the orientation weekend. The Jesuits with the office of Mission and of Ministry were stunningly impressive (and I am not easily impressed). The few questions from parents about the current issues re: the Protestant component of the C. Ministry were direct, and were handled with great insight and decency (or so it surely seemed to me).
My son reports that the Catholic Mass at 11:15 PM every evening on campus is among the most moving and reflective liturgies he has thus far experienced (and he has been to some pretty amazing liturgies, from Mass with Pope JPII to the Catholic Worker to Opus Dei).
My impressions, thus far, is that the Gtown C. Ministry is doing superb work, and with exquisite and enlighted ecumenical sensitivity to all (I am always on alert for the ecumenical dimensions, since my father was a non-Christian Cherokee and my wife is Jewish) (I was a bit surprised, however, in that there was no mention in all of the orientation events with Campus Ministry about the 450th and 500th year anniversary events re: e.g., the death of Ignatius, etc.) _______________ mp
Michigan professor of law, English, and classics, James Boyd White, continues his exploration of "the ethics of expression, in law and the rest of life," in his new book Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force (Princeton, Aug. 2006). The book is hard to put down. Here's its epigraph. "No one can love and be just who does not understand the empire of force and know how not to respect it."
Thursday, September 21, 2006: Faithful Citizenship This year's Catholic Lawyer's Program explores the legal, ethical and cultural implications of bringing Catholic values and social teaching into public life. For the first in the series, Professor Robert K. Vischer of the University of St. Thomas School of Law will address the topic "When Conscience Clashes with State Law & Policy." He will discuss in particular the distinctions between the roles of lawyers and judges. The event will take place from 6:00 - 7:45 p.m. at Fordham University School of Law, 140 West 62nd Street. Admission is free to the public; $65 processing fee ($55 / Fordham Alumni) to receive 2 non-transitional CLE ethics credits. For more information and to register www.law.fordham.edu Click "Continuing Legal Ed"; conferences/lectures/CLE; or email [email protected].
More information does not necessarily provide any answers to Susan's and Rick's earlier questions about the Georgetown matter that they have previously discussed about the Protestant chaplaincy. But, more information may be useful in understanding what was formally presented to the representatives of the Protestant affiliated ministries whose relationship with Georgetown has been severed. Here is the Rev. Constance Wheeler's letter [Wheeler letter]. RJA sj
Many of our discussions here at MOJ have focused on, or at least touched on, questions concerning the role, purpose, and identity of universities. So, this new group blog -- hosted by The New Republic -- might be of interest. It's called "The Open University." Here is how the bloggers describe the enterprise:
To the best of our knowledge, this blog is unlike any other out there. It's dedicated to thinking about not just the news of the day but also the news from the academy: Controversies in campus politics that warrant thoughtful discussion. Scholarship from our various disciplines that we think deserves a broader hearing. Ideas we had in doing our research that seem eerily relevant to something we read in The New York Times today. Our bloggers range widely over the political spectrum. They include both novices and old hands (as well as chastened dabblers like me).
Contributors include Cass Sunstein, Alan Wolfe, Lawrence Summers, Sandy Levinson, Jacob Levy, and many more. Check it out!
