As Mark Sargent noted in his posting, I too attended (most of) the Pro-Life Progressive symposium (“Can the Seamless Garment Be Sown”) here at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis this past weekend. I also join with Mark in congratulating the organizers, especially my colleague Tom Berg, and participants for a greatly successful program, which notably drew a large audience from the community, who were not the typical attendees of a law school symposium. Mark volunteered to post further summaries of the presentations made and his observations, and I for one would benefit in hearing more from him.
Because so much was said that was positive and indeed inspiring at this symposium, it would not have been appropriate for me as a non-participant and harboring concerns to be the first to post on this event. For that reason, I deliberately delayed this posting until after someone else, such as Mark Sargent, who was a direct and thoughtful participant had the chance to relay his impressions of the gathering.
As an observer of the Pro-Life Progressive discussion, I was a sympathetic outsider looking in with great interest. I am sympathetic in that I too yearn for a pro-life witness from the political left. I remain an outsider in that I do not agree with every element of the progressive agenda, at least on the means to the ends (as I share the skepticism well-expressed on this blog by Rick Garnett about over-reliance on statist methods, and have a greater appreciation for free enterprise as the best, if imperfect, engine for economic progress). I look inside with great interest because of my fervent wish for an ever-larger and diverse witness for life; indeed, because of the powerful message for life that would be sent thereby, I’d be tempted to vote for a genuinely pro-life liberal candidate for public office – even over a conservative of comparable pro-life credentials – despite my doubts about other elements of the progressive platform.
Having thus acknowledged my perspective, and having listened carefully to (most of) the presentations at the symposium, I thought I identified three potential dangers that could undermine Pro-Life Progressivism as an authentic pro-life movement.
First, a few participants exhibited an unseemly tendency to depreciate the value of electing pro-life candidates to office and to denigrate pro-life accomplishments. The argument that pro-life candidates (at least of the Republican variety) abandon the anti-abortion cause once elected to office is overstated, objectively false, begs the question of why offering progressive pro-life candidates would serve any practical purpose, and often appears to be a thinly-veiled excuse for ignoring even the most egregious of pro-abortion records of liberal candidates so as to justify casting votes for them.
One of course can and should criticize Republican leaders who sometimes fail to place pro-life issues on the front-burner and fully exercise the bully pulpit of public office to speak against the culture of death. But one legitimately can urge even more attention to the scourge of abortion without denigrating hard-fought victories for the pro-life movement. We must recognize that the battle for life will be won mostly through small successes that build upon each other. At the federal level, pro-life members of Congress have been able to enact a prohibition on the grisly practice of partial birth abortion and continue to fend off the persistent efforts of the pro-choice left to subsidize abortion-on-demand through federal spending. While President Bush was criticized as the Pro-Life Progressive symposium for not speaking more energetically against abortion, he in fact frequently mentions the subject and devoted an entire speech to the matter at the recent anniversary of Roe v. Wade (although the news media tend to ignore those statements). At the state level, pro-life legislative successes continue to multiply, from ensuring greater information to women in trouble, protecting the rights of parents, and providing easier access to alternatives to abortion. While these pro-life successes are not yet the bountiful harvest for which we all pray, the basket is by no means empty.
If those who claim to be building a pro-life progressive movement belittle the hard work of those who for many long years have labored hard in the political vineyard and reaped many victories over the concerted opposition of the party that claims to speak for progressives, this newly-formed progressive voice simply will not be in solidarity with the pro-life movement as a whole.
Second, while some participants persuasively argued that Pro-Life Progressives are better situated to seek common ground with skeptics on the question of life, including those on the pro-choice side, such fora for dialogue must be entered with caution lest they be abused by abortion advocates who disguise themselves or their agenda. The dialogue must be conducted with integrity and always with fidelity to the cause of life.
As a frightening example of the risks posed by naive ventures in the “common ground” direction, one person in the audience of the Pro-Life Progressive symposium raised the possibility of dialogue with Catholics for a Free Choice. Much harm would come to the Pro-Life Progressive movement were it to pursue exchanges with this deceptively-named front for the abortion industry. Asking for dialogue with such a fraudulent and extremist outfit would be tantamount to expecting the abolitionists to have sought common ground with the auctioneers at the slave market. The only thing that could come from such an exchange would be to polish the tarnished public image of pro-abortion groups and abortion industry lobbyists, while distracting and dividing the pro-life movement and thereby suppressing the witness for life. To be sure, one should always be ready to reach out to people of good will who are unsettled on the issue or who are genuinely prepared to reevaluate the absolutism of pro-choice politics. But one must never allow one’s natural and generous desire for dialogue to be cynically manipulated by others to a very different purpose.
More than one participant in the symposium emphasized that, while constituting a welcome beginning, changes in the rhetoric on abortion by certain liberal political figures must be accompanied by meaningful action. While the action that should be expected was not made concrete (which brings me to my third concern below), it at least indicated that more than one member of the Pro-Life Progressive movement is attuned to the risk I describe above.
Third, the Pro-Life Progressive movement, while presenting itself both as a sincere opponent of abortion and broadly progressive on economic and international matters, seemed rather short on specifics about how to advance the pro-life cause beyond words. Indeed, more than one speaker raised doubts about whether anti-abortion legislation—with the eventual goal of prohibiting any violent taking of unborn human life—ought to be pursued. All of us agree that the culture must be changed if we are to realize our hope of one day placing abortion alongside slavery and genocide as universally-acknowledged intrinsic evils. Moreover, some of us will be called to devote our time and talents to reaching hearts and minds, rather than to engaging with politicians and judges. But the pro-life movement as a whole cannot stand by and fail to take such action as is possible now. We must save as many lives as we can today, even if limited restrictions on abortion and enhancement of alternatives are all that can be legislatively achieved at present.
Interestingly, the same symposium participants who were quick to dismiss pro-life Republicans as inconsequential based upon a supposedly inadequate legislative agenda were also the ones who seemed most reluctant to forthrightly endorse legal constraints on abortion as part of the new movement’s platform. If this cognitive dissonance is rooted in an underlying timidity about pro-life politics or an unwillingness to unite with other pro-life activists across the political spectrum in seeking always to accomplish whatever is politically possible, then it will be difficult for this new movement to sustain itself as truly pro-life as well as progressive.
I do not mean to suggest that any one of the three dangers mentioned above, much less all three in concert, were manifested in a dominating way at the Pro-Life Progressivism symposium. But each emerged from time to time. Nor do I think it inevitable that the Pro-Life Progressive movement will succumb to these temptations. Any nascent political movement will be less than fully formed and internally coherent at its birth. Mapping the pitfalls, so that they may be avoided, ought to be welcomed as advancing the cause. Mark Sargent’s earlier posting confirmed that these risks are recognized by those within the movement.
If Pro-Life Progressivism is truly to be a fourth political alternative in the country (along with conservatism, libertarianism, and secular liberalism), then it must be authentically pro-life as well as genuinely progressive. Should it succeed in becoming a viable part of the political landscape, while remaining true to its pro-life soul, we all would have great cause to rejoice.
Greg Sisk
Monday, February 28, 2005
As a further contribution to the ongoing discussion about the responsibilities of Catholic politicians, of both parties and from both ends of the spectrum, and with particular attention to the question of torture and the provocative piece by J. Peter Nixon in Commonweal, I post below (with his permission) some additional thoughts by Prof. John O'Callaghan of Notre Dame. [Note also Professor O'Callaghan's mention of the upcoming conference here at the University of St. Thomas School of Law on Pro-Life Progressivism, which promises to be most interesting and rewarding investment of scholarly attention.]
"Here is a nice piece in Commonweal. The author revisits the question of the role that Catholic teaching should play in the lives of Catholic voters. This return to the question after the election is welcome. One of the points I tried to make in my own post on this question, Sacred Monkeys, just prior to the election, is that very often Catholics only think about these issues as the election cycle heats up. As a result, our reflection is quite often hurried and thus weakened in the heat of the moment. But questions involving the governance of the common good are important enough that we should be reflecting upon them regularly, and when we are not caught up in the maelstrom of our political passions during an election.
I think that the case of the Attorney General and torture is a very good one for the author to raise, and for us to reflect upon. We are accustomed to thinking mostly of abortion and its political ramifications. When in Veritatis Splendor* the pope included torture among abortion and other types of action that may never be done in any circumstance or for any goal, it never occurred to me that in this day and age I would have to face the possibility of my own country engaging in it as a result of government sanction. One ought not to be naive, and think isolated instances of torture will not take place in wartime, just as murder, theft, and all sorts of other crimes are committed by our troops as rare and isolated events. It is, among other things, why we have the Judge Advocate General. But the extent to which some of the abuses that have taken place may have been sanctioned by our government is appalling. I recall that when the scandal broke I thought, as I continue to think, that the Secretary of Defense should resign or be fired because these things happened under his watch. It was enough that they happened on the scale that they did. At that point I did not dream that some of them may have been officially sanctioned, or that there would have been any policy and legal discussions of our government in which they were even contemplated. So much for my own naivete.
I think the author is correct to point out that Catholic Republicans should have raised a voice of concern, if not outright rejection of a candidate for Attorney General involved in the government sanction of some forms of torture. One might of course claim that what was argued was that the various types of acts do not count as torture, and therefore no one was actually advocating what they understood to be torture as such. But this is where we have to recall that with regard to most types of human action neither law nor conscious inner intention creates their kind and moral character, but has to reflect it. The corsair may claim that he is merely testing the sharpness of his blade on the sailor's neck. But of course we know that he is wrong in the "merely." These Republicans lost the opportunity to demonstrate that they are not in the back pocket of their party in the way in which pro-abortion Catholic Democrats are in their own.
In charity, one would want to point out that the Republican party does not have a thirty year history of supporting government sanctioned torture, does not have a plank in their platform supporting torture, does not have a history of a litmus test for national office involving the support of torture, does not have leaders appearing at pro-torture conventions seeking political and financial support, and does not yet have numerous Catholic politicians abdicating their responsibility for political leadership while privatizing their opposition to torture. To the best of my knowledge neither of the senators mentioned said, "I am personally opposed to torture, but...." In addition, the response of the government and the Republican party to this scandal was not to suddenly start advocating all these things, but to correct the abuse. As the Center for Ethics and Culture's Alasdair MacIntyre has argued at length, one of the features of a healthy tradition is its ability to engage in self-critque, and reform in the face of the problems that arise within it. I think it is fair to say that on abortion, there is little or no such health in my own Democratic party. These sorts of differences should also weigh upon our political judgments. And yet one fears that here on the confirmation of the Attorney General, given his role in the formation of policy that allowed for torture, the failure of Catholic Republicans to even raise an eyebrow could be the first step down the road to their own pathology.
If there is a place where I think the author stumbles it is where he simply throws in "collective action-progressive taxation, Social Security, labor unions," and so on. Neither what he wrote before this point, nor after, appears to justify simply throwing these issues in for good measure. It was a concern of my Sacred Monkeys that this sort of move expressed a tendency toward a kind of policy utilitarianism where we lump in all political questions together, as if they differ only in degree, and weigh them for what we perceive to be the optimal benefit. In the Catholic case we end up with a kind of vague sense of overall fit with Catholic teaching, or to pursue the famous metaphor a rather dull, drab, and undistinguished seamless garment, rather than something that is vibrant, colorful, and distinctive, in which absolute commitment to the protection of the life of the innocent is not simply part of the weave, but, rather, the thread that is woven. As I see it, these other questions are matters of political prudence quite distinct from such matters of principle as abortion and torture. It was after all the New Democrats under the leadership of Bill Clinton who tried to make the Democratic party as indistinguishable as possible from the Republicans on these types of issues, ending welfare as we know it, increasing the number of federal crimes punishable by death, and so on, in order to gain political power. "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." We won't be fooled again.
Happily, I think I will try to address that tendency at "Can the Seamless Garment be Sewn? The Future of Pro-Life Progressivism". Little did I think that when I wrote my doctoral thesis "Mental Representation: St. Thomas and the De Interpretatione" that the love of wisdom would lead me here.
Such is love.
John [O'Callaghan]
*"Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, PHYSICAL AND MENTAL TORTURE AND ATTEMPTS TO COERCE THE SPIRIT; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator".(Veritatis Splendor #80) "
Originally posted on the blog for the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture [link here].
Friday, January 21, 2005
For those of you who are in the Colorado area near the end of the month, the 12th Annual Ira C. Rothberger, Jr. Conference, titled “Conscience and the Free Exercise of Religion,” will be held on January 28 at the University of Colorado School of Law. The conference is sponsored by the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law, the Keller Center for the Study of the First Amendment, and the University of Colorado Law Review.
The subject matter for the conference: “The Constitution enshrines freedom of religion but says nothing about conscience. Yet the framers made many references to conscience in describing their aspirations for constitutional liberty, and religious duties are often articulated in terms of conscience. The Twelfth Rothgerber Conference brings together prominent scholars to probe this enduring enigma and to explore other issues about religious freedom.”
The scheduled speakers and topics are as follows:
Martin H. Belsky, Dean and Professor, University of Tulsa College of Law: “A Practical and Pragmatic Approach to Freedom of Conscience”
R. Kent Greenawalt, University Professor, Columbia Law School: “Free Exercise and Parental Custody”
James W. Nickel, Professor, Arizona State University College of Law: “How the Basic Liberties Generate Freedom of Religion”
Gregory Sisk, Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law: “How Traditional and Minority Religions Fare in the Courts: Empirical Evidence from Religious Liberty Cases”
Steven Douglas Smith, Warren Distinguished Professor, University of San Diego School of Law: "What Does Religion Have to Do with Freedom of Conscience?"
Kevin J. Worthen, Dean and Professor, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young Univesity: "Eagle Feathers and Equality: Insights on Religious Exemptions from the Native American Experience"
Sunday, November 14, 2004
John Allen's on-line report, The Word from Rome, which is part of a regular series on events in the Vatican for the National Catholic Reporter, describes the Vaticans informal talk-around-the-water-cooler reaction to the results of the American presidential election.
First, the election of President Bush, which was brought about at least in part by the approval of voters in key states for his endorsement of moral views that comport with orthodox Christian teaching (i.e., opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion) as sharply (and positively) was viewed by Vatican insiders as standing in sharp and favorable contrast with the apparent European antipathy toward permitting individuals with traditional religious beliefs to hold governmental office. In a recent posting, Rick Garnett noted the recent episode in which Italys minister of European affairs, Rocco Buttiglione, a faithful Catholic who agrees with the Churchs teachings on homosexual conduct as being disordered (while eschewing any legal sanction against it), was excluded from his anticipated appointment to justice minister of the European Union.
Second, Vatican leaders are relieved that the Church will not constantly be confronted by the problems attendant to having a professing Catholic president who by his policies and pronouncements regularly contradicts Church teaching on abortion, stem-cell research, etc. (To the extent that the Vaticans relief is because the Church has been spared the scandal of a pro-abortion Catholic in the White House, I certainly share that sentiment. But the Church is not thereby spared from the difficult work of determining how better to engage with and challenge those politicians who claim communion on Sunday but reject it during the week when faced with sanctity-of-life questions. To be sure, we all now can move forward on those questions with careful deliberation and with somewhat lessened urgency, but the questions cannot be evaded nor in the end are they any less difficult.)
Greg Sisk
Saturday, October 30, 2004
I’ve refrained from posting anything on the Mirror of Justice during the past twenty-four hours, wanting to think carefully about the double-barreled complaint that my prior “screed” (Professor Kaveny) tended to “cross[] over into a kind of partisanship” (Dean Sargent). Given my respect for both complainants, and especially my admiration of Mark Sargent as our moderator, I have thought it wise to allow the matter to subside for a while, to permit others to offer their assessments (both through other postings to the blog and the numerous e-mails I’ve received), and to re-read my posts and those of my interlocutors. I do appreciate the encouraging messages I’ve received from so many quarters, even from those not fully persuaded by my words.
Having now taken stock, certainly I am disappointed and saddened that some have taken offense. I want to be liked as much as anyone. Running so badly afoul of a prominent law professor and theologian at perhaps the leading Catholic academy in the nation, such that the expression of my thoughts is termed a mere "screed," is most distressing. Nonetheless, reviewing all of these messages in context, I find it difficult to see where I did anything other than to speak uncomfortable truths and do so emphatically, for which I should not be be chastised. And, without meaning to say that such was the design or intent here, I do worry that the accusation of divisiveness can too readily be invoked to avoid continued engagement with those with whom with we disagree, especially when they confront us with difficult questions.
Importantly, I have never questioned anyone’s character or integrity (other than of course that of John Kerry, who has placed his character directly at issue by seeking public endorsement and by a two-decade record of promoting abortion as his favorite cause). Furthermore, I have not maintained that anyone who cast a vote Kerry’s way was either irrational or manifestly sinful, confessing to Michael Perry that I could not in the end make that definitive and uncharitable judgment. But those concessions and qualifications seem to count for naught to my detractors.
Yes, as Professor Kaveny objects, I have described those making the opposing argument as “Catholic apologists for Kerry.” To me, the description seemed apt, given that it was applied only to those who do not merely cast a private vote in secret but instead have broadcast a public message advocating the election of John Kerry. The messages I’ve received indicate the description resonated as accurate for many others, especially those who in the pro-life movement within the Democratic Party who have felt betrayed by Catholic endorsements of Kerry (“betrayal” is their word and expresses their feelings, not mine, as I have no investment in the Democratic Party). And the Kerry campaign certainly has found reason to be cheered by these affirmations by prominent Catholics, however much that support may have been rhetorically hedged. But perhaps the label is not altogether fair, given that the authors of these messages have expressed chagrin about John Kerry’s position on abortion and the sanctity of life, an acknowledgment that ought to be given credit. In the hope that those expressions of unhappiness by the "hold-the-nose-Kerry-voters" will only grow in number and intensity should he be elected, I will avoid using the label in the future.
Still, in reviewing my posts and the responses to it, the primary basis for the charge of incivility focuses upon my insistence, admittedly with vigor, emphasis, and repetition, that John Kerry’s record not be soft-pedaled or passed over lightly. For that reason, far from concentrating my fire against my interlocutors on this forum, I have devoted most of my attention to exposing that record. I cannot apologize for doing so, especially when others have appeared reluctant to examine it closely. Indeed, I have submitted that those making the case for a vote John Kerry appear less than willing to fully engage with the repulsive details of his record of pro-abortion extremism. Has that sugestion really been wide of the mark?
Admittedly, the truth about John Kerry’s record on abortion is brutal, but it is so precisely because of the ugliness which is unveiled. I acknowledge it is not a pleasant subject. But am I unreasonable to insist that those who seek to justify a vote for John Kerry are obliged to forthrightly acknowledge and engage with that pernicious record? Have I been unfair in perceiving those on the other side as wanting to avert their eyes and speak of that stark record only in generalities (and, if so, I must say that perception is widely shared, at least if my correspondents are any indication)? Especially when the assertion is made that a vote for John Kerry could be justified in terms of his comparatively superior political character and leadership capacity, is it not appropriate to highlight those inconvenient and devastating facts that contradict that evaluation? When I’ve also complained that those who make the case for Kerry too often fail to acknowledge the peculiar harm and painful scandal to the Church’s teaching and witness that would be occasioned by electing a Catholic to the presidency with such despicable views and record, where in their statements was that acknowlegment and evaluation?
In closing this posting, which will probably be my last for awhile, I observe that the Catholic Encyclopedia lays out these facts on its web site masthead: "In the past sixteen months capital punishment killed 98 Americans; the War in Iraq killed 100,000 people; and abortionists murdered 1,750,656 American infants." Even assuming the accuracy of the 100,000 figure, which is contested, a simple comparison leaves no question as to which is the greatest and continuing evil that we confront as a nation. I hope no one will find it divisive or inflammatory for me to highlight these cold, hard, and damning facts. But if so, then I have to think that the fault lies in our discourse as incapable of encompassing and confronting difficult truths, rather than with me.
With sincerity and always with hope,
Greg Sisk
Friday, October 29, 2004
In reading Professor Kaveny’s latest posting, courtesy of Michael Perry, one curious and oddly misdirected allegation stands out for me: “But one of the most disturbing features of the way the Catholic discussion of the presidential election has gone, in [Professor Kaveny’s] view, has been the occlusion of questions of political character and judgment. We seem to be looking solely at campaign platforms, not at the men themselves who will be our leaders. Questions of leadership capacity are entirely folded into analysis of a politician's stand on key issues. In [Professor’s Kaveny’s] view, that is a fatal mistake.”
With all due respect, one wonders where Professor Kaveny has been? What she finds to be utterly lacking instead has been the very axis of the debate as it has unfolded here and elsewhere on the internet and in the media. The central thrust of my own postings to the Mirror of Justice has been that Catholic apologists for Senator Kerry too often frame the question as whether one could vote for a generic pro-choice candidate if the alternative political choice is unpalatable (i.e., “looking solely at campaign platforms”). In doing so, I've contended, they assiduously ignore Senator Kerry’s own ugly record (i.e., looking “not at the men themselves who will be our leaders”). They fail to mention, other than by offhand generalities, his explicit statements endorsing abortion on demand and villifying the cause of life, his legislative votes promoting wider availability and funding for abortion, his enthusiastic political and social collaboration with abortionists, his eager acceptance of campaign money from the abortion industry, etc.
And not to suggest that my own postings at this particular site demand anyone’s attention or are worthy of response, others too have made the same case – consistently and repeatedly. Catholics of conscience, so many have said, at least ought to be forthright in identifying the calamity and taking a hard and searching look at Senator Kerry’s miserable record of placing the pro-abortion agenda and fealty to its promoters at the center of his political career, from the day of his maiden Senate speech some 19 years ago, in which he elevated Roe v. Wade to sacred status, to the initiation of his presidential campaign last year by attending first to his pro-abortion allies.
Who has contributed to “the occlusion of questions of political character and judgment”? Where in any of Professor Kaveny’s presentations, or those of the other Catholic apologists for Kerry that have been cited and linked on this site, is the acknowledgment that Senator Kerry has pledged to make support for Roe v. Wade a litmus test for appointments to the Surpeme Court? Where have they confessed that Senator Kerry regards the pro-life movement as the “forces of intolerance” who ought to be prosecuted vigorously under RICO and other statutes? Where do they admit that Senator Kerry has called for abortion to be made part of the “mainstream of medical practice” (and one need hardly speculate as to what that means for Catholic hospitals and physicians who refuse to cooperate with abortion as a matter of conscience)? Where do they candidly address Senator Kerry’s long and warm embrace of the abortionists and their lobby as his political and social inner-circle? Where do they respond to Senator Kerry's praise of the most notorious pro-abortion organization as a civil rights group? Where do they evaluate his ready acceptance of blood-money from the abortionists to fund his political campaigns?
When at any point in his decades in public office has Senator Kerry ever demonstrated political courage on any issue, whether it be the right-to-life question or otherwise, in a manner that suggests “leadership capacity”? Where in this sorry saga do the Kerry apologists find evidence of “political character and judgment” deserving of reward by elevation to the nation’s highest office?
One week, and dozens of Mirror of Justice postings ago, I posed this question: "Can a Catholic with a well-formed conscience and respect for innocent human life look into the sepulchre of John Kerry’s putrified record of accommodating death, all the while claiming communion with the Church, and then turn away to pull the lever next to his name in the polling booth?" With all due respect, the Catholic apologists for Kerry still are not willing to look before they pull.
Greg Sisk
As Dean Mark Sargent has reported to the participants on the Mirror of Justice, we’re now receiving more than 2000 hits a day, and in light of the e-mails many of us receive and directions to re-postings of our words on other web sites (which is only to be encouraged), we’ve stuck a nerve in the ongoing public discussion.
The growth in correspondence also results in being directed to additional sources of information and internet resources. The more the information flows in, the more it is confirmed that Senator Kerry’s record as a self-proclaimed opponent of those attempting to protect innocent human life is even worse than I at least had originally understood. His own words confirm that he is directly at odds with any understanding of Catholic teaching on the sanctity of unborn human life.
Herewith just a few examples:
In January of last year as he opened his presidential campaign, Senator Kerry spoke to a National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) dinner. Beginning his campaign by touching base with his closest allies in the abortion industry was in itself sadly unremarkable, as Kerry has regularly lent his name and proudly pledged his loyalty to those advancing the war against the unborn. Still, the effusiveness of his words of praise for the abortion advocates and his expressions of contempt for those working to protect unborn human life are astounding. You can read the entire speech here. Below are a couple of excerpts:
With respect to John Kerry’s admiration for the pro-abortion movement: “NARAL is without question the front line defense in this struggle and when judgments are made, the judgment is inescapable that Kate Michelman is one of the most effective and important civil rights leaders in our time. Kate has saved more women's lives and liberated more women than almost anyone and taken on more tough fights than anyone else committed to this cause.”
As for the pro-life movement, while out of one side of his mouth Kerry said “nothing we say here diminishes or disrespects someone else's belief or morality,” he nonetheless blasted those who stand opposed to NARAL: “We need to take on this President and the forces of intolerance on the other side. We need to honestly and candidly take this cause to the country -- speak up and be proud of what we stand for.”
Late last year, at a forum on women’s issued for Democratic presidential candidates organized by, among others, Planned Parenthood (which operates the largest chain of abortion mills in the country), Senator Kerry again made clear his extreme views on abortion. The transcript of the entire forum can be found here. At that forum, Senator Kerry responded to a question about the President’s signing of the ban on partial-birth abortion by saying: “There's no such thing as a quote "partial birth." It is a late term abortion. They've done a very effective job of giving people a sense of fear about it and it's part of their assault on the rights of women in America. It is the first step in their effort – there's nothing partial, may I say, about their effort to undue Roe v. Wade. And I am the only candidate here who has said declaratively, I will support no person to the Supreme Court of the United States whose philosophy is to undue Roe v. Wade. They call it a litmus test; I call it protecting Constitutional rights in America. And we need a president who stands up and does that.”
Of course, none of this is a new direction for John Kerry, for whom the abortion cause has been the signal continuity of his political career. He often tells pro-abortion rallies of his pride that his maiden speech in the United States Senate in 1985 was to proclaim his unwavering support for Roe v. Wade.
In another speech to the Senate in 1994, Senator Kerry made clear that he is not merely pro-choice but approves of abortion: “The right thing to do is to treat abortions as exactly what they are -- a medical procedure that any doctor is free to provide and any pregnant woman free to obtain. Consequently, abortions should not have to be performed in tightly guarded clinics on the edge of town; they should be performed and obtained in the same locations as any other medical procedure.... [A]bortions need to be moved out of the fringes of medicine and into the mainstream of medical practice." More about his record, together with the suggestion that pro-life Democrats could swing the election to Bush in Pennsylvania, may be found in Professor Paul Kengor’s column.
In sum, the more we learn about John Kerry's record on the sanctity of life, the uglier and more despicable it appears. It is no wonder that John Kerry has proven unable to utter even a single word of condemnation of abortion or rebuke to the abortionists. He has never fully expressed any personal opposition to abortion because, well, his own words make clear that he has no genuine qualms about abortion, personally, legally, or politically.
Greg Sisk
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Journalist William McGurn delivered the first Bob Casey lecture in the Archdiocese of Denver earlier this week. He has much to say that is directly pertinent to the discussions we have had on the Mirror of Justice about abortion and politicians and those Catholics, especially when affiliated with Catholic institutions such as Notre Dame (notably Dean Roche), who ask us to look past a politician’s uncompromising support for the war on the unborn when casting our vote. As did the last-Governor Casey, Mr. McGurn is speaking to the consequences of pro-abortion orthodoxy, and the failure of pro-life Catholics to speak more clearly and unequivocally, for the Democratic Party. The full lecture, which is most powerful, can be found here. The following is but a sample from his lecture:
“And just as we now see that abortion is not simply a procedure but the lynchpin in an entire culture given to death, the nature of the Democratic argument to American Catholics has shifted steadily downhill, to the point where it has been largely reduced to the They Are Just As Bad As We Are line of attack.
The rationales, which carry the Notre Dame label, are not merely academic musings that disappear in the faculty lounge ether. They may and do irritate those of us who believe differently. But the consequences do not fall on me. They fall heaviest on pro-life Democrats who are working, with little internal support and virtually zero favorable publicity, to grow little blades of pro-life grass through the party concrete. Of articles such as Dean Roche's, Brian Golden, a Massachusetts Democratic state representative, told me, 'They cut us off at the knees.’”
Tomorrow I will offer some additional thoughts, drawing not only from Mr. McGurn but also from statements by those of a diversity of perspectives as participating on our blog, about whether there is any possibility of Catholic unity to make a meaningful difference on this, the signal social crisis of our time.
Greg Sisk
