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.

Sunday, November 7, 2004

"Nothing is Lost" -- Really?

By Rob Vischer

In defending embryonic stem cell research, Professor Outka (see Michael's post) embraces the "nothing is lost" argument, under which the intentional killing of an innocent life is justified if the innocent will die in any case, and other innocent life will be saved. This defense encompasses not just research on embryos, of course, but also research on concentration camp inmates, death row prisoners, even terminally ill patients. Thankfully, Professor Outka resists the argument's full impact, applying it only to anencephalic infants and embryos. The key, for Outka's analysis, is the embryo's "perpetual potentiality." In light of this status, the "nothing is lost" argument can carry the day with minimal moral fallout.

I certainly prefer Outka's grudging and narrow concession on life's sanctity to the across-the-board utilitarian exuberance of folks like Peter Singer. But there is still a disturbing cost-benefit mindset that underlies his analysis, and I'm not sure he faces it in all its starkness.

First, what precisely is the morally relevant object of the frozen embryo's potentiality? The embryo is not potential life -- it is life, albeit static and (relatively) simple. So what trait does the embryo lack that would make the difference for Outka? He mentions self-awareness a lot -- is self-awareness what makes life sacred? Why? Where is the line that lets us treat the frozen embryo as an instrument, rather than as an end in itself? (The "nothing is lost" principle can't circumvent this line of inquiry unless we're willing to defend experiments on death row inmates.) Outka tries to make us believe that we're not conceding much on the moral front under his approach, but it seems we're still blurring the fundamental boundary afforded by treating all human life as inherently (not instrumentally) valuable.

Second, Outka laments the state of affairs under which "excess embryos" are a given. But if he really believes that we, as a society, should do what we can to alleviate this problem, how can he propose that we harness our medical advancements to the continuation of the problem? If embryonic research is embraced by society as the path to ending much human suffering, the embryos churned out in reproductive therapy will no longer be viewed as "excess," but rather as a key pipeline of human progress.

Rob

Human Life: Location-Dependent?

By Rob Vischer

Fr. Robert Araujo, S.J., a law prof at Gonzaga, offers these thoughts in response to Michael Perry's posting of the Outka and Cadley pieces on embryonic stem cell research:

First of all, there are life advocates who are quite aware of the political, social, economic, legal, and moral issues that are at stake. I am intrigued by the language that uses formulations like "potential life", "living cells", and "the need to help innocent and suffering people." I was taken by Ms. Cadley's reference to scripture, including the Psalms. She apparently has not yet reached Psalm 139, but if she has, she did not indicate this. I may be viewed as one of those ideologues who promotes the "theology of the few." But, it is essential for anyone who enters the debate on whether to ban or endorse embryonic stem cell research to be mindful of the nature of the subject that is at the core of the debate.

The scientific methodology involved with embryonic stem cell research is indeed complex regardless of whether the source of the stem cells is from aborted children (some would argue fetuses or tissue), in vitro fertilized embryos, or cloned embryos. But the reality of what the researcher is about to take apart is quite simple: it is a human life. It is not a cell or cluster of cells, it is not a potential human being, it is something that you and I were in the continuum of our unique human development. Our lives started and continued. The lives of the "donors" of stem cells have also started. Why is it that their lives may be sacrificed? Many advocates who support embryonic stem cell research do not identify and do not discuss this utilitarian problem, but there it is staring us in the face.

There is often heard from supporters of stem cell research that the embryo (it does not matter if the embryo was formed by cloning or by in vitro fertilization) will never be implanted in a womb; therefore, one need not be concerned about the "potential" human life that will be sacrificed in medical research that may help lives that now exist. This argument from the geography of the embryo's location must fail. A similar rationale was used in Dred Scot. But Dred Scot was always who he was regardless of whether he was in a slave state or a free state. A human embryo is always a unique human regardless of whether it is in a Petrie dish, a cryogenic preservation unit, or a womb. Its geographic location does not enhance or detract from its fundamental nature as a human life in the early stages of life's continuum.

Another important point to make about the nature of the embryo and the stem cells that are constitutive of each embryo is this: the removal of the stem cells necessitated by the research to which Outka and Cadley refer inevitably and irrevocably leads to the death of the embryo. I never cared much for Monty Python skits, but one sticks out in my mind that illustrates well the grave moral concerns associated with embryonic stem cell research as it currently exists: one day an official from the organ donor bank visits a residence of a prospective donor and inquires whether Ms. Smith is home; indeed she is and she answers the door. The organ donor bank representative then says, "Ah, good, we're here for your liver!" But, Ms. Smith protests, and a robust debate ensues. Finally, the official says, "Well, there must be another reason why we can't have your liver?" Ms. Smith responds in the affirmative and says, "Yes, I'm using it!" The same goes for the embryo whose stem cells are being targeted for extraction: the embryo needs its stem cells because its life is dependent on them, too.


Does Religion Have a Future in Liberal Politics?

By Rick Garnett

This question is more timely than ever today, as the prevailing assumption is that religion is associated almost entirely with conservative politics, and that there is little place in liberal or progressive politics for religious voices. Of course, it has not always been that way, as the experience of the abolition, civil rights, labor, antiwar, liberation theology and antipoverty movements has shown. A conference sponsored by Fordham University's new Center on Religion and Culture on November 11 will explore whether that tradition has any vitality today. The Center was organized by Peggy and Peter Steinfels (a great move by Fordham!), and this is one of its first programs. The moderator will be EJ Dionne, and the speakers will include former Senator Bob Kerry, Mary Joe Bane, a well known Catholic scholar at the Kennedy School and yours truly. The Seamless Garment Party may make its New York debut that night! The program on "Religion and the Future of Liberal Politics" will be held on Thursday November 11 from 3-5 PMM on the 12th Floor of the Lowenstein Center on the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University. Open to the public. I will try to post my paper next week.

-Mark

Reframing Outka's Premise

By Rob Vischer

Chuck Roth, of the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center, weighs in on Professor Outka's stem cell argument:

It seems to me that the main problem with Prof. Outka's theory is that the option is not between useless death and useful death - it's between potentially useful death and continued suspended "potentiality" (to use Prof. Outka's phrase). This is not someone who is going to die in 5 minutes - this is someone who is going to continue in potentiality till 50,000 A.D. or a power failure, whichever comes first. Even operating under those moral assumptions, it's hard to say that the condition of potentiality is "permanent" when there's untold eons in which that fertilized egg might be implanted, nurtured, and born.

What struck me, though, was Prof. Outka's assumption that these zygotes / unborn children will be discarded in any event. Why should that be assumed? Setting aside the wishes of the couples involved, I see nothing in Roe or its progeny which requires the state to permit this result. Why would it be constitutionally problematic for the state to assume custody of fertilized ova, where couples have no further use for them? One could argue the takings clause - but in light of the recent SupCt decision in Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington (2003) (the IOLTA case), we focus on what is lost by the owner, not what is gained. Since the net loss to a couple wishing to destroy the unborn zygote is zero, no compensation is owed where the state takes custody. To the extent that some fundamental right to procreate exists, this kind of requirement would not substantially burden that right (at least, not so long as government foots the bill).

Perhaps this is the disconnect in the stem cell issue that many people sense. Sure, experimentation sounds bad, but how can one advocate for just letting these unborn children die? Take away that assumption, and you force the state to make an active decision to kill (which will be more difficult) in order to experiment on the unborn. Moreover, you make a public point about when life begins.

As I think about it, this issue has the virtue of involving the definition of human life, without involving anything which would require a woman to procreate when she doesn't want to. As such, it could present a vehicle for undermining Roe, as it would bring home yet again that the Roe decision effectively defined human life, even where it claimed not to be doing so. Do you happen to know if anyone is thinking along these lines, as Congress and the President address these issues in the coming months (in the brave new world of a potentially pro-life senate)? If this idea hasn't been broached with the pro-life people in DC and elsewhere, perhaps it should be...

Saturday, November 6, 2004

The Morality of Stem Cell Research

By Michael Perry

Rob Vischer writes, in his posting today, that "[i]t is no answer to say that these embryos will be destroyed eventually anyway ..."  But it is a fundamental mistake, I think, to deny the moral relevance of the fact that "these embryos will be destroyed anyway ..."  Why?  Let Gene Outka explain.  (Outka is Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics, Yale University.)  What follows are excerpts from Outka's paper.  (Click here to read Outka's paper in its entirety.)

[Beginning of excerpts.]

I commend as a normative point of departure the conviction that ... "the human individual, called into existence by God and made in the divine image and likeness, ... must always be treated as an end in himself or herself, not merely as a means to other ends."  ...  To regard each person for his or her own sake, as one who is irreducibly valuable, authorizes a sphere of inviolability ...  And it heightens sensitivity to multiple ways we may go wrong, e.g., when we dominate, manipulate, and self-aggrandize.  To affirm inviolability and to abjure domination capture deeply important commitments.  They direct moral attention along lines I take to be permanently valid.

...

I propose to invoke and extend the nothing is lost principle.  I first learned of this principle from Paul Ramsey.  While he was committed to an absolute prohibition against murder as the intentional killing of innocent life, he was prepared to attach two exempting conditions to it.  One may directly kill when two conditions obtain:  (a) the innocent will die in any case; and (b) other innocent life will be saved. These two conditions stipulate what nothing is lost means.  They originally extend to parity-conflicts, where one physical life collides directly and immediately with another physical life, and we cannot save both....  I will argue that it is correct to view embryos in reproductive clinics who are bound either to be discarded or frozen in perpetuity as innocent lives who will die in any case, and those third parties with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, et. al., as other innocent life who will be saved by virtue of research on such embryos.

I grant that this extension at best stretches the nothing is lost principle nearly to the breaking point. For I defend the extension (and perhaps the original principle) as a move to the effect that (a) nothing more is lost, and (b) less is lost, or at least, someone is saved. One reason it is worth considering is because we face a particular instance of a general phenomenon, namely, that novel developments arise, for which no clear precedents suffice to guide us. We should seek both to extend traditional moral commitments and incorporate new developments as cogently as we can. To labor the obvious: some of the controversies we are examining only make sense after the age of in vitro fertilization dawned. It stands behind them, amplifying questions about "end" and "means" that our forebears could not foresee. Unless we are prepared to repudiate in vitro fertilization as such, so that we sympathize with infertile couples but refuse them a right to overcome their condition by any means that science and their financial resources make available, we must take the moral measure of these new possibilities.

...

[R]ightly or wrongly, "excess" embryos are a tenacious datum, for they are a result of the practice as it currently exists.  I welcome the day when such necessity vanishes, and welcome in the meantime "adopting" mothers willing to implant embryos, when the genetic couple consents.  Not to welcome these things belies the claim that embryos as well as fetuses are irreducibly valuable. Nevertheless, it looks as if embryos in appreciable numbers will continue to be discarded or frozen in perpetuity.  They will die, unimplanted, in any case. (Nothing more will be lost by their becoming subjects of research.)  Again, it is the absence of prospects of these innocents that partly extends the first exempting condition.  It is the enhancement of prospects to other innocent life that partly extends the second exempting condition.  (Less will be lost, or at least, someone may benefit.)  These judgments taken together summarize the case I wish to make.

...

My extension goes so far, and no further.  It includes embryos conceived to enhance fertility, but who will never be implanted.  It excludes embryos created exclusively for research, where we intentionally create them, in order to disaggregate them....  The circumstance of in vitro fertilization includes a recognition that "excess" embryos are endemic to the procedure to date.  At a minimum, we foresee this.  Still, we intend in the procedure to alleviate infertility, not to create embryos for research.  Thus a significant continuity holds, despite this difference.

...

How much remains of the injunction to treat persons as ends in themselves when we allow research on frozen and eventually-to-be-discarded embryos?  I reply that the normative force of the injunction diminishes significantly when we take to heart their prospects.  It diminishes for everyone, and not only for those who allow research.  Some seek to witness to the dignity of embryos by refusing to do anything to them other than to freeze them.  They adhere to the norm I mentioned when canvassing conservative views, that we do best to consider first what we do and forbear, and not simply what will happen.  While this norm counts for me across a range of other circumstances, I find in the present circumstance that such a witness threatens to idle in relation to what the injunction paradigmatically summons us to undertake.  It is difficult to specify what interests we protect and promote, for example, when freezing and discarding are all that we can seriously envisage.  To honor potentiality, where there is no hope of implantation, is to honor perpetual potentiality.  It diminishes action-guiding content, either present or future, from the injunction to treat as an end.  It even affects what we say in the theological context to which I alluded earlier concerning providence and our corresponding love.  For we cannot precisely equate the affirmation that our love should start before recipients become self-aware with an affirmation that we should love recipients who will never become self-aware.  To deny equation is emphatically not to disbelieve in providence in both cases.  And it is not to withhold corrsponding love in both cases.  It aims only to acknowledge that our room for exercising fidelity in action over time may differ.  What we can and cannot do in treating persons as ends will be affected by their prospects.  Our love for an anencephalic infant destined to live a few days without self-awareness and our love for an embryo who will live at most in a perpetually frozen state without self-awareness, has less prospective room than our love for a fetus who is a power underway and who will acquire self-awareness by virtue of his or her self-development.  What we can envisage and do, now and later, has greater scope in the latter instance, which is why termination obliterates a future that the fetus now has in prospect, a future that an embryo frozen in perpetuity itself still lacks.

...

I object to an ironic alliance that those on the "right" and "left" sometimes form, to the effect that we confront a single either/or:  We should forbid all embryonic stem cell research or we should permit it all.  There is, I believe, a more nuanced possibility, where we may distinguish creating for research and only employing for research.  The latter allows us to consider the tangled aftermath of in vitro fertilization as a practice in our culture.  Employment for research connects with the datum of discarded embryos, where the original creation of embryos possesses a non-instrumentalist rationale, namely, the promotion of fertility, so that what we intend does not exhaustively concern benefit to third parties, yet the aftermath allows us to pursue benefits to third parties when we may do so without from the start creating in order to disaggregate.  These differences lead me to argue that the nothing is lost principle illumines a morally significant distinction between creation for research and employment for research.

...

Some may worry that the principle may also allow the general "harvesting" of organs or tissues from the living who are, e.g., terminally ill, or comatose, or condemned to die by authorities of the state as criminals.  The specter of Nazi doctors may well appear before us:  If certain people were slated for death anyway, why not experiment on them to the point of ending their lives to acquire knowledge?  These possible extensions differ from the one I propose here because the embryos in question are in physical limbo, without history or prospects....  It is impermissible to destroy any entity for body parts who has an agential history even if he or she does not now have any considerable future, entities for instance whose maturity (their "potentiality" has long since been realized) deprives their genetic parents of authority to end their existence or to elect to donate them for research.  But the "perpetual potentiality" of the embryos in question distinguishes them markedly enough from these other entities.  "Perpetual potentiality," assuming the claims I made about the two-sidedness of potentiality as we focus on embryos and fetuses, leads us intelligibly to find more affinities than differences between fetal cadavers and the embryos in question.  Whatever other extensions nothing is lost may warrant then, in cases of tragic forced choices (I have not considered these at any length), the extension I offer here pertains to a peculiar case by virtue of what the embryos in question currently are and are not.  John Reeder observes in quoting Baruch Brody that "the basic point of nothing is lost is that, as Brody puts it, the one to be killed does not 'suffer any significant losses...in unrealized potential.'"  I claim that "unrealized potential" carries for the embryos in question distinctive finality that resists generalization.

[End of excerpts.]

I find Outka's argument compelling.  But, of course, I may be misguided.  (Wouldn't be the first time--or the last.)  So, let me ask this question--of Rob Vischer, of Steve Bainbridge, of anyone who rejects Outka's argument:

Where, in your judgment, does Outka's argument misfire?

Michael P.

Enlisting Jesus in the Stem Cell Cause

By Rob Vischer

Lalor Cadley seems to suggest that Jesus would be in favor of embryonic stem cell research (see Michael's post below), citing scripture passages establishing his compassion and healing power. One verse she omits is his caution that "as long as you did not do it for one of these least ones, you did not do it for me." (Matt. 25:46) Certainly Jesus weeps for all those who suffer from the various afflictions that are part of life in this fallen world. But that's a far cry from establishing that Jesus would embrace an instrumental vision of human life when it comes to the alleviation of such suffering. If Jesus weeps for those suffering from crippling diseases, he surely weeps for those who never get to see the light of day. Do I believe that an embryo should have identical protection under law as a two year-old child? No. But I still see enormous danger in our headlong pursuit of medical miracles through the conversion of human life into another research tool. It is no answer to say that these embryos will be destroyed eventually anyway (although it does underscore the trouble with the reproductive-therapy industry that has made that destruction inevitable). One of my legal ethics students defended Nazi researchers whose work on concentration camp inmates led to medical advances, arguing that the inmates were likely to die anyway. I'm not equating the two scenarios in terms of their moral significance, but I think the Nazi example highlights the moral bankruptcy of the proffered justification.

Ms. Cadley says that we must tread carefully in this area. What does that mean specifically? Even taking the existing number of available embryos as an unfortunate given, how can we be assured that giving the green light to embryonic stem cell research will not create market incentives to increase the number of embryos available? Is she prepared to create the massive regulatory/enforcement scheme necessary to stem market forces in this area? Is such a scheme even conceivable?

I agree that human suffering is a horrible part of life. I agree that Jesus longs for humanity to be made whole. But that does not settle the moral (or biblical) inquiry. Embryos, in Ms. Cadley's view, should not be treated as "sacred cows." Very well, what should they be treated as? Research tools? Research tools that we should be especially careful with? Research tools, but only if they already missed out on their chance to develop into a baby? Sacred objects generally, with only a few unfortunate ones being treated as research tools? I don't pretend to have the answers to all these questions, but I certainly can't cover over the moral dilemmas inherent in the inquiry with self-serving scriptures about the nature of Jesus.

Rob

The Stem Cell Controversy

By Michael Perry

The following piece appeared in my hometown newspaper--the Atlanta Journal-Constitution--this morning.  The argument that the author makes is substantially the same argument that the distinguished Christian ethicist Gene Outka (Yale University) has made.  I posted Outka's paper several months ago--but no one seemed to read it.  At least, there were no comments in response to it.  Any thoughts in response to the piece below?  Surely this is a discussion worth having ...

The stem cell dilemma:  Proceed with research, but cautiously
Lalor Cadley - For the Journal-Constitution
Saturday, November 6, 2004

This week's re-election of President Bush and California voters' approval of $3 billion for research demonstrate how divided Americans are on the procedure.

Nothing about this issue is easy --- let me say that right upfront. The science of stem cell research is extraordinarily complex. And when we talk about embryonic stem cell research, the issue moves beyond science into ethics and religion, and the field becomes even more highly charged.

I am neither a scientist nor an ethicist, but a woman of faith trying to make an informed decision, one that is morally and intellectually sound.

Scientists are asking for federal funding to do embryonic stem cell research, which they believe holds great promise for curing devastating illnesses such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis. (Stem cells are the basic building blocks for human tissues and organs.) Cures are not imminent, but over the next decade real progress may be made. Adult stem cells are available, used for blood disorders, but they do not have the broad potentialities of embryonic stem cells, many of the researchers say.

President Bush has refused to allow National Institutes of Health funding to create new embryonic stem cell lines. Destroying embryos is off-limits, he maintains, no matter how worthwhile the venture may prove to be.

Experimentation is continuing with existing stem cell lines established before 2001, but the president's decision forbids the creation of new lines with federal money. About 70 lines were estimated to be available --- but fewer than 20, it turned out, were in good enough shape to use in research.

Those who support Bush's decision argue that, even though the embryos in question are "leftovers" --- embryos that will never be implanted in a woman's uterus (and this is important to remember) --- the very fact that they are life "in potentia" means we cannot tamper with them.

Opponents of this ban, and I am one of them, believe that because the embryos will be disposed of anyway, it is wrong not to use them in an effort to alleviate real human suffering. In the hands of researchers, the embryos would be used to give life --- life to living people who suffer with crippling diseases.

Between those who would bar the door, terminate all debate, condemn as murderers those who oppose the restrictions, and those at the other extreme, who would fling the doors wide open with no restrictions, no restraints, no reverence for the sacredness of the work or the implications of what they do, are people like me --- and perhaps you --- struggling to deal with the complexities and come to a decision that reflects not only the knowledge in our minds but also the wisdom of our hearts and souls.

We should and must proceed with embryonic stem cell research, taking our lead from people of science and medical ethicists, not government legislators or ideologues. But we must do so with caution and reverence for the work and with a firm commitment never to misuse the process or the knowledge we gain --- for we are on holy ground.

Jesus was healer

Some opponents of this research have the mistaken notion that scientists will harvest these stem cells from aborted fetuses. That is not the case. The cells come from fertility clinics. They are donated by couples who no longer have need of them, and who choose to donate their surplus embryos to science. There are more than 400,000 frozen human embryos. More than 11,000 of them are available for research. Unless the ban on federal funding is lifted, they eventually may be discarded and with them the life-giving secrets they may contain.

This to me seems morally wrong and frankly senseless --- not a preservation of life but a denial of it. I don't want to claim that God is on my side (there's far too much of that going around these days), but I do believe that Jesus was a man who stood firmly on the side of life. In fact he came to Earth that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10). His entire ministry was devoted to healing --- the crippled, the blind, the leprous, the women bent and bleeding. They came to him and he healed them. He even brought to life people who had died. When laws got in the way, he broke them --- healing a suffering woman on the Sabbath to the chagrin of the religious authorities. Human suffering grieved him, and he did all he could to ease it.

The Hebrew Scriptures also show God as deeply merciful. Skimming through my book of Psalms, I find this: "When the just cry, the Most High hears and delivers them from their troubles. God is close to the brokenhearted. . . . Many are the afflictions of the just; they will be delivered from them all. God will keep guard over all their bones, not one of them shall be broken." And this: "O God, you deliver them in the day of trouble; you guard them and give them life; . . . you sustain them on their sickbeds; you heal them of all their infirmities."

Even Orrin Hatch, the conservative Republican senator from Utah, was persuaded to support embryonic stem cell research. In a letter to the secretary of health and human services, he said: "I am proud of my strong pro-life record. . . . I conclude that this research is consistent with pro-life values [and] should proceed."

God gave us the brilliance of scientists, the wonders of technology. Is it not also possible that this good God gave us these living cells, designated for destruction? Isn't it possible he gave them to us as another source of revelation --- a pathway to miraculous discoveries that will turn mourning into dancing, give life back to innocent people who are crippled, blind, in unrelenting pain?

In our effort to protect life, we must be careful not to idolize the embryo, enshrining it like a sacred cow. We mustn't let the fear of doing something wrong keep us from doing what is right.

Insisting that undifferentiated cells must be preserved only to be destroyed --- at the very least it makes no sense; at most it may be turning our backs on grace.

Lalor Cadley is a spiritual director, adult educator and freelance writer with an office in Decatur.

More on the Election and "Moral Values"

By Michael Perry

[Conservative columnist David Brooks has some things to say in today's New York Times that may be of interest to MOJ readers:]

November 6, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Values-Vote Myth

By DAVID BROOKS

Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.

In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.

This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.

Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues.

Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not.

The red and blue maps that have been popping up in the papers again this week are certainly striking, but they conceal as much as they reveal. I've spent the past four years traveling to 36 states and writing millions of words trying to understand this values divide, and I can tell you there is no one explanation. It's ridiculous to say, as some liberals have this week, that we are perpetually refighting the Scopes trial, with the metro forces of enlightenment and reason arrayed against the retro forces of dogma and reaction.

In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues.

But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man.

The Election and "Moral Values"

By Michael Perry

[Catholic Peter Steinfels has some interesting reflections in his "Beliefs" column in today's New York Times.  Thought that some readers of this blog would be interested:]

BELIEFS

The 'Moral Values' Issue

By PETER STEINFELS

The election of George W. Bush, it seems, turned on moral values.

It seems.

Hardly had the exit polls shown that 22 percent of the voters named "moral values" as the issue mattering most in their choice for president when Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center, called that conclusion misleading. On the Wednesday edition of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Mr. Kohut rightly pointed out that moral values may have ranked ahead of jobs or terrorism because it was an ambiguous, appealing and catchall phrase.

It is true that if the exit polls had constructed an equivalent catchall economic category adding concern about health care and taxes to that about jobs and growth, it would have been the top concern of 33 percent of the voters. If the poll findings had combined concern about terrorism with concern about Iraq, as apparently many voters did, the resulting category would have ranked first with 34 percent of the voters.

To underscore the ambiguity of moral values, consider three of the issues often subsumed under that umbrella. Stem cell research is immensely popular. Gay marriage is not. Legal access to abortion falls somewhere in between.

And surely concern about moral values mixes revulsion at the offerings of Hollywood, cable television, the popular music industry and pornographic Web sites with defense of displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses and of reciting "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance - and who knows what else.

Furthermore, many of these concerns are stimulated and shaped artificially and emotionally by the high commands and local shock troops in the culture wars.

So level-headed observers like Mr. Kohut are wise to warn that no one quite knows what reality lies behind the moral values catchphrase. But isn't it important to find out? The fact that 80 percent of the voters listing moral values uppermost in their minds voted for Mr. Bush suggests that there is some unifying, underlying reality there. Anyone seeking to understand American political culture should be more than a little bit curious, to say nothing of Democrats contemplating the future of their party.

There are, however, several surefire ways to short-circuit such an inquiry.

Comparing the so-called values voters with jihad-driven Muslim terrorists, an equation ventured by not a few post-election analysts, will do nicely, for starters. Loosely tossing around terms like fundamentalism and theocracy is similarly effective at anesthetizing the thought processes. Then there is the leap that fretting about moral values is merely a disguise for ignorance, irrationality and intolerance.

These caricatures cast millions of citizens as ominous Others, alien invaders not from another planet but at least from another era, probably the benighted Middle Ages or the nearly as dark 1950's. Nevermind the evidence of writers and scholars as different as David Brooks, Alan Wolfe and Morris P. Fiorina that Americans are not really as deeply divided as either the metaphor of a culture war or the electoral-vote map of the red and blue states suggests.

Barack Obama, the newly elected senator from Illinois, memorably challenged the red-state, blue-state dichotomy at the Democratic convention. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states," Mr. Obama said, and "have gay friends in the red states." Perhaps he could have added something about finding supporters of the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions in blue states and conservative Christian defenders of church-state separation in the red states.

Fanaticism exists, of course, and stupidity, too. Wild claims and aggressive demands have been made in the name of moral values, often enough by figures competing for public attention. Latching upon these is an easy and tempting way to deaden the kind of empathy and imagination necessary to comprehend another perspective.

A condescending incredulity offers a slightly more sophisticated way to derail any inquiry into the moral values issues. Just treat one's own views as so established and self-evident that any questioning of them can only be a puzzling and pathological "backlash." Are there really still people out there opposed to abortion rights? How incomprehensible!

Whatever one may think of same-sex marriage, for example, it takes a real stretch to pretend that it is not a noteworthy departure from existing social and legal norms. It would also be a long shot to deny that it was the Massachusetts Supreme Court along with local officials around the nation challenging current laws by officiating at same-sex weddings who placed this on the national agenda rather than the religious right or President Bush.

Voters' emphasis on moral values has prompted talk that the culture is undergoing a sharp conservative shift. A better case can be made that the cultural shifts of recent years have almost entirely continued in a liberal direction. On Nov. 2 a significant part of the nation balked. Gay marriage has proved, at least for now, unacceptable. Meanwhile civil unions, which stirred shock and fury in Vermont only a few years ago, have almost reached the edge of being mainstream.

A final way of skirting any exploration of the moral values so many Americans say determined their presidential choice actually has considerable legitimacy. One can challenge the very idea reflected in the exit polls that moral values constitute some distinct category of public concerns.

Are not moral values also at stake in decisions about war, in drawing lines against torture, in addressing poverty or in providing desperately needed housing and health care? It has become commonplace to note that for every injunction in the Bible regarding homosexuality there are hundreds, maybe thousands regarding care for the poor. All of a nation's common life, not just sexual matters or personal behavior, is shot through with moral and ethical issues.

These points are absolutely true. But those who make them should remember that enlarging the framework of the discussion is one thing, trying to change the subject is another. Whatever this large chunk of voters may have in mind by moral values, those things need to be identified and addressed, not simply steamrolled over by pointing to other issues that may be equally moral and equally or even more important.

Suppose that these barriers to pursuing the question of moral values can be overcome. What then? The endgame should not be some expedient concession or cosmetic exercise to garner votes next time around. The endgame should be an honest discussion of the moral stances dividing Americans, each side (and there may be more than two) addressing the contending arguments at their best and not at their worst. It is not unthinkable that a few minds might be changed, and a great many people feel less alienated.

Friday, November 5, 2004

Database of Catholic Social Thought Organizations

By Michael Scaperlanda

I just received news of this exciting project from Michael Naughton:

Dear Colleagues:

It is with great pleasure that we announce the launching of the Database of Catholic Social Thought Organizations a collaborative project of the John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought of the Center for Catholic Studies and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

The Database of Catholic Social Thought Organizations is a unique, online resource that brings together information that can serve people and institutions involved with different areas of Catholic social teaching.

The results of several months of research, it features information from over 400 institutes, organizations and associations from all over the world, who are active in areas related to Catholic social thought and action. It contains both institutes that pursue theoretical research and academic activities on CST-related issues, as well as organizations that are involved in the practical implementation of the principles of the CST.

It is a free, online, searchable database that can help you discover and contact the organizations and individuals that work on areas of Catholic social thought.  Covering all continents and most language groups, its scope makes it an ongoing project, and we are counting on your observations, suggestions and support to help us keep it current and up to date. We will be most indebted for your comments, opinions, corrections and suggestions, as they will enable us to improve and maintain this as a service for you and for the entire Church. If you are part of an organization that would like to be included in the database or if you know of any organization that is not listed, please contact us through our web site.

Sincerely,

Michael Naughton

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