Abortion: readers responds
Abortion: readers respond PROS, CONS, & DISTINCTIONS Human Hie bill is consutuiioitcil Washington, D.C. To the Editors: I enjoyed very much the two recent issues dealing with abortion. Permit me...
...when does the fetus become a person, to be unanswerable, and the arguments to be emotional and unen-lightening, i.e...
...However, this relationship occurs only among Protestants and not Catholics...
...Flaherty is that the Court won't listen...
...But I would say that the Catholic church, its hierarchy, established communication networks, and active and committed members collectively comprised a sine qua non of the anti-abortion movement in the U.S...
...Arc you with Christ or against him...
...The Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade constitutes this kind of permissive law and so I do not favor its repeal...
...The most important facts about these two constituencies, however, have to do with the way they differ...
...Wasn't the miracle of Louise Brown that she "began" in a test tube...
...RICHARD STTTH Professor of Law Valparaiso University Catholic before liberal Athens, Ohio To the Editors: I'm not a Catholic...
...And the human life statute defies the Court to reaffirm Roe v. Wade by squarely presenting the issue that infamous Court skirted in 1973...
...REV...
...But in the second and third cases, where the unborn may be handicapped or has been conceived by criminal act, since no one's health is being preserved, abortion can be called therapeutic only by an abuse of that word's true meaning...
...ALL OF THIS might be seen as evidence that Commonweal's "middle ground" approach would have considerable popularity, especially among politicians...
...In fact, the polls do show that ambivalence can be popular...
...All seven of the articles on abortion had many occasional clever and progressive lines...
...Professor John T. Noonan, for example, a recognized constitutional scholar, testified before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers in favor of the bill...
...If it is living, then what kind of life is it, zebra life, cow life...
...To the Editors: The enactment of the anti-abortion legislation would be morally and legally right because it would acknowledge the scientific fact that human life begins at conception and, moreover, would provide legal protection for unborn babies...
...But the point is that if the anti-abortion movement has justice and truth on its side, Catholics could take pride in the leadership role they have played...
...One is therefore puzzled to note that they use the expression thirteen times to characterize what was, in law, only rarely done for purposes of health, and, in fact, almost never...
...The poll offered respondents a list of issues and asked them to pick those that would help them decide how to vote...
...But for politicians, the data point to a very different lesson: the vast majority of voters, with ambivalent views on abortion, pray that they will never have to deal with the issue in their own lives,and generally prefer to avoid the issue in making political choices...
...That survey asked a sample 1,769 Americans what they thought of a constitutional amendment to ban abortions...
...Maybe in the future, Catholics will be used as a bellweather indicator...
...This involves a most sensitive question of public policy - not adjudication or even interpretation...
...To the Editors: Thank you for the fine issue on abortion...
...only 12 percent of college graduates were consistently pro-life...
...And when science has agreed life begins at conception...
...Not all lawyers agree...
...Reagan...
...251, 1 am in a state of shock...
...Henry Hyde, or cliches like "pro-life," "anti-abortion," and "the unborn child...
...That old law protected the unborn baby...
...As he pointed out, the best feature of the bill is that it recognizes u legitimate role for Congress in interpreting and implementing the Constitution, for which there is ample precedent...
...The data suggest that a middle ground on abortion might indeed have some popularity, and that liberals above all others should want to underplay the issue by way of ending the erosion of their working-class base...
...Moving to the next and equally crucial issue of whether this newly legislatively defined human life is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, we must never forget the Court confessed it did not know when human life begins...
...Legislating morality Arlington Heights, 111...
...There is virtually no doubt that a state's rights amendment or the Human Life Amendment would have a substantially greater effect on the number of abortions performed...
...There are two important questions here: one concerns constitutional rights to religious freedom and the second relates to distinctions between state and society...
...The early estimates were that 70 percent of the legal abortions were replacing illegal ones...
...With regard to the New York Times stereotype of pro-lifers referred to by John Fenton, the following can be said: • The coalition between Catholic and Protestant fundamentalists on abortion is a very interesting development and something new under the sun...
...If society has the moral right and obligation to act in collective self-defense against aggression emanating from without (e.g., against Nazi and Communist assaults on decency and liberty), then society likewise has the moral right and obligation to defend itself against aggression emanating from within (e.g., against people who rape and murder children...
...These attitudes have led lawyers and theologians such as Robert Drinan, Charles Curran, and Gregory Baum to appreciate abortion as an ecumenical dilemma and to urge that we should not rely upon the state to resolve moral dilemmas or social problems about which public opinion is so deeply divided...
...The right to choice on abortion is probably the religious freedom under heaviest attack in America today...
...it said nothing about the mother's safety...
...All intermediate changes are in quality and not in kind of entity...
...John Garvey in his Commonweal essay argues that this is a profoundly religious issue...
...7. James Kelly noted that Harriet Van Home cited no studies linking pro-war and anti-abortion attitudes when claiming that the right-to-life activists were "hawks shrieking for blood in the dark days of V ietnam...
...They should take every opportunity to disagree publicly with both those who deny the complex relationship between our sexuality and our need for emotional intimacy and those who deny that the security of a trust-sustaining environment is necessary before physical intimacy can become an effective stepping stone to emotional intimacy and sexual fulfillment MARILYN KRAMER Life & egalitarianism Valparaiso, Ind...
...So there is hope that the experts will eventually recognize that the emotional intimacy necessary for sexual fulfillment not only requires the "inner" sense of security of emotional maturity, but also requires the "external" security of the trust-sustaining environment a loving marriage creates...
...A nodding twentieth century scholar got the impression that New Jersey wanted to protect mothers only...
...The abortion issue is therefore very important for women who have been treated as inferiors not equals, who were not viewed as moral beings having rights to make basic, life-determining decisions...
...The irony is that the public favored a greater degree of permissiveness than allowed prior to 1973, but the Supreme Court leap-frogged public opinion and created a situation more permissive than that preferred by the people...
...It seems to me that toleration is a far greater value to both Catholics and non-Catholics than propagating the theology that independent human life begins with fertilization...
...Flaherty seems to recognize the Congressional role - and even superiority to that of the Court - in fact-finding, but then asserts that the humanity of the fetus...
...As to practice, I agree with his basic idea of returning the matter to the states along with a minimum federal standard of protection, as the Hatch proposal permits...
...On the other side, there is no doubt that the Hyde Amendment has a discernible effect on the actual number of abortions...
...When an abuse of our institutional system such as this occurs, does that end discussion...
...Yet on such "social" questions as the Equal Rights Amendment, pro-lifers were far more conservative than either pro-choicers or the general public...
...As the Catholic vote goes, so goes the nation, or should it be vice versa...
...Both these organizations were interested in preventing involuntary pregnancies through sex education, counseling, and other services, especially programs for teenagers...
...First, the articles reflect a remarkable inattention to abortion from a woman's perspective...
...Even the late Dr...
...My previous understanding was that Commonweal was a liberal Catholic publication...
...Is Mr...
...After all, that same compromise is likely to offend greatly both minorities that feel strongly enough about abortion to use it as a litmus test for politicians...
...Is the legislative public policy-making branch - coordinate with the Executive and the Court - estopped from dealing with the most fundamental questions of society - questions literally of life and death...
...In my view, it is not a contradiction for one to oppose abortion on demand and, at the same time, favor the death penalty for, say, someone who has raped and murdered a child...
...As a result, a whole group of human beings, the unborn, were now denied the right to life that they had previously enjoyed under so many state laws...
...About this latter issue, there can be no reasonable doubt - at conception...
...need only look at the results of the 1980 elections to be further troubled...
...BRYAN M. DENCH In short, abortion - and the related social issues - have badly split the already reeling liberal coalition...
...Over time, a liberal alliance that leans more and more on the wealthy will necessarily become more timid in its economic policies...
...We should remember the forthright 1938 reversing case, Erie, JOHN DOEBELE Therapeutic to whom...
...consistent pro-choicers who vote on the issue make up about 6.5 percent of the electorate...
...Kennedy the hero of old-time economic liberalism, doesn't make it with the social liberals...
...Reduced to their essentials, these numbers show that consistent pro-lifers who vote on the abortion issue make up about 9 percent of the electorate...
...Your authors seem aware of this...
...It also does not, in any way, deny that there are many people in the U.S...
...So, apparently, does the IUD and the low dosage estrogen birth control pill...
...The word "therapeutic," strategically misapplied, served abortion advocates to portray abortion as a "medical" procedure, best left to the technical judgment of physicians...
...The major exception was the article by Peter Steinfels, but even he wants to push back from twelve weeks to eight weeks the right of a woman (according to Roe v. Wade in 1973) to decide what to do about her fetus...
...I beg to differ...
...By accident I came across your issue on abortion, and I was shocked by its contents...
...HAVEN BRADFORD GOW Abortion & intimacy Wausau, Wise...
...I agree with their assessment that the majority of U.S...
...Anderson, the champion of social liberalism, plays badly among many economic liberals...
...Confronting the Court Lewis ton, Maine To the Editors: Francis Flaherty's analysis of the human life statute [.Oct...
...Once that fact is accepted, we can move on to the truly difficult question, the one that pro-lifers in particular must face: under what conditions, if any, is the taking of human life permissible...
...Which branch of government is more suited to establish public policy...
...To the Editors: After reading William V. Shannon's "Middle Way on Abortion" in the Boston Globe [Nov...
...The amendment was enacted in 1868 to extend the old, commonly recognized civil rights of white Americans to a new group of human beings who had previously been denied them, that is, to blacks...
...However, of all the women who currently obtain abortions, the ones who get late-stage abortions are probably the least able and qualified, socially, economically, and psychologically, to become mothers...
...There is no doubt that the people evaluate abortion differently depending on the stage of the pregnancy...
...I am not a pro-choice leader and I would not agree with the extreme assertion in quotes...
...The best line in your special issue was on p. 652, quoting the answer Sir Thomas More gave to the Duke of Norfolk, about conscience...
...To the Editors: I have followed with interest the splendid collection of articles on the abortion issue (John Garvey, last June 19...
...Abortion is quite clearly a matter of broad public concern...
...But Steinfels and I may disagree only in principle...
...Mary Meehan thinks this is a purely secular issue about which biological evidence is conclusive...
...It might be noted that while the abortion issue was not much discussed as it pertains to the Fourteenth Amendment, neither was the alleged "right to privacy" that the Court found lurking in the Constitution...
...Does that not suggest what was understood by "right to life" in those days...
...Perhaps the most powerful piece of evidence on the ambivalence of popular opinion on abortion came in an August, 1980, survey for the New York Times and CBS News...
...I realize there may be a tendency in moral theology to be abstract and general, but on this issue that temptation must be resisted...
...fervently opposed to abortion who are not Catholics...
...Such findings have important implications for those seeking a middle ground on abortion, but it is worth seeing just who these two minorities are...
...The latter is a far more general and abstract orientation from which a number of specific issue positions might logically follow...
...Errors are nothing new, neither among scholars nor Justices...
...In fact, the largest pro-life organization, the National Right to Life Committee, rejected by resolution the ERA and urged states not to ratify it...
...To the Editors: As Commonweal recently argued with considerable passion and thoughtfulness, of all the issues in the political arena, abortion has been dealt with in the most inflexible way...
...for Congress to formulate public policy concerning the value to be placed on this tiny vulnerable defenseless prenatal human life...
...Now, building on the factual scientific issue of when a human life begins, is it inappropriate - unconstitutional...
...Some people want an abortion and feel so desperate they will get one regardless of legality...
...From a liberal perspective, it is preferable to some moderately restrictive law which is illogical, which would not evoke compliance, and which would be neither enforced nor enforceable...
...Somehow, I personally found more gruesome the argument by one author, writing in Family Planning Perspectives, that there should be a graduated fee scale for abortions and that it should be based on a careful measurement of fetal foot size...
...More than three-fourths of NARAL members acknowledge that the actual number of abortions has increased in the U.S...
...Consistent pro-lifers did not much like either man, but they liked Kennedy more...
...To the Editors: The problem with Peter Steinfels's "eight weekers' rights" abortion solution is this: An individual human being begins at conception in the sense that a new cybernetic or self-monitoring system of our species begins at that point and continues until death...
...The plurality, 38 percent, were less than consistent, at least by the conventional views of consistency...
...Catholic mgazines are advocating abortion...
...In the first of these cases, abortion might arguably be called therapeutic because a mother's health is being defended...
...3. James R. Kelly's article, "Beyond the stereotypes" asserts that the right-to-Iife movement takes no position on other issues such as military security or the Equal Rights Amendment...
...There is also the dilemma which concerns what would happen if late-stage abortions were forbidden...
...Pro-abortionists must then face the reality that the fetus, even the embryo, is human life...
...The pro-life constituency is poorer and less educated than the pro-choice constituency...
...Already, the But it must be disturbing to traditional "neoliberals" are trimming their sails on economic liberals, no matter which side economic and redistributive matters, they take in the war between choice and Such a development may be inevitable, life...
...But the very same sample was asked whether it favored an amendment to "protect the life of the unborn child...
...To borrow an analogy from G. Gordon Liddy, it seems that the preponderant majority of one side is playing "hardball" while the slim majority of the other side is playing "softball...
...The August 1980 Times/CKS poll, for example, found that 63 percent of college graduates were consistently pro-choice...
...5. Mary Meehan suggests that if more liberals were to study embryology books, they would understand that the debate over abortion can be resolved without reference to theology...
...To assert with certitude what the Supreme Court will do on any given issue takes a prophetic gift that only the most incautious would claim...
...Are you Catholic or not...
...The Justices read the Fourteenth Amendment so poorly that they ended up with a complete inversion of its original intent...
...Therefore, NRLC has not aspired toward, nor would it be satisfied with, a third-trimester proscription on abortion...
...But there is, it seems to me, a real need to appreciate the positive elements in both the pro-choice position and the movement for greater autonomy on the part of women...
...A recent analysis has also shown that across nations, the existence and strength of an anti-abortion movement is correlated positively with the percentage of Catholics in the country...
...What the ALI recommended as a model statute was that abortion be lawful when a physician "believes that there is substantial risk that continuance of the pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother or that the child would be born with grave physical or mental defect, or that the pregnancy resulted from rape, incest, or other felonious intercourse...
...IN Commonweal's abortion issue, Peter Steinfels cited a variety of survey findings suggesting that the fight over abortion is a conflict between two groups of liberals...
...Of course it may also be true that continuing pro-choice criticism of Catholics for focusing via pastoral plans on abortion only has prodded the bishops to articulate explicitly a broader respect-for-life ideology...
...The American Medical Association was far more protective of unborn life in 1859 than it is today (see 12 Transactions of the AM A 78, 1859...
...I left the Notre Dame conference impressed that the work of these organizations was not the product of state action...
...Ironically, the same 1973 Court noted what they called the "uncritical" reliance of lower American courts on the opinion of Coke on abortion...
...But the 1973 Court misused the amendment to fashion a new "right," the right of women to abortion...
...The lesson here is that some stereotypes do contain at least a kernel of truth...
...FRANCIS X. CANFIBLD Humanae Vitae - have also learned that physical intimacy is the vital stepping stone to the emotional intimacy that leads to sexual fulfillment and bonds the couple in love...
...Frankly, I think the reason many oppose the human life statute is because they are afraid it might work...
...Of course some proposals appear wildly unconstitutional - but there are enough good lawyers and enough history and logic behind the human life statute to give it a reasonable chance at being sustained...
...To the Editors: Raymond Tatalovich and Byron W. Daynes listed three errors in the Supreme Court's abortion opinion of 1973 [Nov...
...ROBERT H. WHEALEY Associate Professor of History Ohio University...
...This may say something about the Protestant base of anti-abortion sentiment...
...The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified at the same time as its ratifying states were adopting anti-abortion statutes...
...As for Kennedy, 30 percent of consistent pro-lifers had favorable views, 44 percent unfavorable views...
...Conservative Democrats are most opposed, and liberal independents least opposed to legalized abortion...
...in Orlando, Florida) and an abortion clinic (Pre-Term in Cleveland, Ohio), it became clear that both organizations were led by sensible, responsible women united by a genuine concern for the many often desperate women who appealed to them for assistance...
...Some, like Rollo May, already recognize that sexual fulfillment depends on emotional intimacy, and many recognize that emotional intimacy requires emotional maturity...
...Unfortunately, better sex education will depend on the sexology experts achieving a more profound understanding of human sexuality...
...At least we will be asking the right question...
...For the calculating politician, the mathematics will vary from constituency to constituency, but it is usually likely to point clearly in one direction or the other...
...Obviously, some women and girls would be motivated to obtain their abortion sooner...
...It was clearly not the intention of the Supreme Court that an eight-month fetus be unprotected...
...That assertion flies in the face of facts now available...
...is a different question from asking when an individual's human life begins...
...although it may involve facts of biology, also involves moral and philosophical issues which the trotting out of those facts does not resolve...
...That interpretation was rather far-fetched and not based on any consensus among independent legal scholars who have considered that possibility...
...The most cogent criticism of Roe v. Wade is that the unelected Court usurped the legislative function of establishing public policy from the elected legislatures of this land...
...When "human life" begins (creationism...
...The results of the New York Times exit poll of 1980 indicated that there was no minority group whose vote resembled the vote of the electorate more closely than that of Catholics...
...I say tentative because things usually become more complicated as they are examined in depth...
...These questions, I submit, will not be settled by science...
...The first is relatively easy to answer objectively: what is the human embryo or fetus...
...JAMES T. BURTCHAELL, C.S.C...
...I was intrigued by the reaction of one state pro-life leader when I told her that my research indicated that about seventy-seven percent of the members in her group were Catholic...
...To the Editors: Congratulations on your courage in tackling the issue of abortion in your issue of November 20, 1981...
...Such a finding is exciting, if only because it flies in the face of so much conventional wisdom...
...The human life statute is such dialogue and I'm not so sure as Mr...
...Over a fourth of them, in my survey, even acknowledge that abortion involves the killing a living creature...
...There are, however, several qualifications, additions, and corrections that I would like to add...
...Such an amendment was favored by 50 to 39 percent...
...Notre Dame, Ind...
...But if we hope ever to achieve moral wholeness, we must work for a community which can intuitively and whole-heartedly protect and care for each of our fellow human beings no matter how small and seemingly alien they may be...
...Pro-lifers are, as a group, low-income people...
...In one survey, I found that 77 percent of the pro-choice activists opposed U.S...
...Pro-choicers who said they voted on the basis of the abortion issue were even more ardent: 44 percent had a favorable view of Anderson...
...I only wish that Commonweal could live up to that high standard in the future...
...Only 62 percent of the public took what the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" lobbies would regard as a "consistent" view...
...Has it come to this...
...However, both the NRLC and NARAL tend toward extreme positions, declaring that all, or nearly all, or no, or almost no, fetal life is deserving of legal protection...
...Whether it should be, and, if so, how, is, as they say, another matter...
...The question is not when an organism, with a historically unique genetic combination, begins its existence, but rather at what point in its development does it warrant the protection of the law...
...in the 1970s...
...However, regardless of any restrictive legislation that may be passed eventually, the number of abortions (and unwed mothers) is not likely to decline significantly until better birth control methods are widely available, and most importantly, until there is better sex education for young people...
...The assignment of per-sonhood to a living member of the human species isn't so radical - it is logical and in keeping with our nation's historical reverence for life...
...23] is unpersuasive and misleading...
...That would be the best way, legally and otherwise, for the Roe v. Wade abomination to be undone...
...If it gets expressed at all, it is by liberal Catholic politicians who say piously that they are "personally" opposed to abortion, but assert with equal piety that they feel bound to uphold "the law of the land" as expressed in the 1973 Supreme Court decision...
...If a class of human lives may be declared non-persons by an unelected Court, then which other group of human lives can be declared non-persons and hence expendable...
...On the other side, the eight-week point suggested by Mr...
...It is not only that women must pay the price for involuntarily-contracted pregnancies...
...Among the public, there is at least a slight relationship between political ideology and position on abortion...
...MARY SEGERS TRAVERS Grounds for reversal Chicago, 111...
...But this turn of events is full of dangers for those progressives who see the primary purpose of politicians as involving the defense and expansion of the economic opportunities of the less well-off...
...since 1973...
...But there are others who would be prevented from having an abortion by such a restriction...
...Because the Court has confessed its incompetence to make a factual determination on life's beginning, due to its perceived lack of consensus, does that foreclose the issue...
...The amendment did not propose to devise or introduce new rights-blacks were not to be privileged over whites-but simply, blacks were to be accorded the old familiar rights of the whites...
...Richard Wirthlin, Mr...
...Truly overwhelming majorities believe that abortion should be allowed in the cases of rape or incest...
...In fact, fundamentalism was, historically, in the Midwest and South especially, a major source of anti-Catholic prejudice and discrimination...
...In the spirit of continuing the conversation initiated by Commonweal, may I offer the following comments and observations...
...Before anything else, they are liberal egalitarians...
...Are not the unborn of the human species...
...6.1 agree'with Meehan that supporting militarism and capital punishment does not disqualify one from defending the unborn...
...Human life...
...Many - expecially those married Catholics who made the effort to understand their intuitive rejection of Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich...
...In general, however, I find the questions raised, i.e...
...Curiously, it is liberalism itself that requires that fundamental human rights be recognized from conception, because only thus can the egalitarian impulse honestly and consistently be carried through...
...Those lawyers, myself among them, who support the statute see this as a healthy confrontation of co-equal branches of government and as an effective way of giving the Court a chance to reverse itself...
...And the articles in the recent November 20 issue, especially the description of right-to-life "pioneers" by James Kelly, were significant contributions to the continuing discussion of public policy on abortion...
...True, anti-abortion laws legislate morality, but only in the same sense that we legislate morality when we outlaw incest, rape, child prostitution, stealing and murder...
...REV...
...The definite analysis of the 1980 Congressional elections has not yet been done...
...This act was designed as a supplement to the common law...
...Rather, they may be informed by science, but it is in the political realm that they will be answered...
...Stcin-fels should tremble in his boots, because he'll have a lot to answer to...
...And pro-lifers were more likely to label themselves "conservative...
...He argues that in Roe v. Wade, the newly discovered right to privacy (where was it hiding the past 150 years...
...In all, 26 percent of Americans were consistently "pro-life," while 36 percent were consistently "pro-choice...
...I saw an example of this kind of potential for cooperation at the 1979 National Conference on Abortion at Notre Dame University...
...Yet powerful majorities are also recorded against Medicaid-funding for abortions for poor women...
...Alan Guttmacher, an avid pro-abortionist, acknowledged that a baby exists at conception, and that "at the exact moment when a new life is initiated (fertilization), a great deal is forever irrevocable-its sex, coloring, body build, blood group, and in large measure its mental capacity or emotional stability...
...But, lacking scholarly expertise and intimidated by the experts, these married couples, for the most part, have remained silent...
...Put in that way...
...If so...
...Ideally, it would be best if there were no law on abortion...
...In 1980, 84 percent of the NRLC were single-issue voters compared to 47 percent of NARAL...
...I agree with Meehan that people should be willing to view the consequences of their actions...
...One must address the question whether abortion is a religious issue...
...Hobhouse) have recognized that not every social issue need be addressed in the political forum and that a healthy liberal society is one in which individuals and groups spontaneously voluntarily cooperate to resolve such problems...
...He would kill it the day before it's eight weeks old, but not the day after...
...Evidently, the Holocaust analogy has fallen flat with the ethnic or religious group to whom it should be potentially most meaningful or relevant...
...Concerning the distinction between state and society, liberals (e.g., L.T...
...The California Medical Association, in the September 1970 issue of California Medicine, observed that it is a "scientific fact" that "human life begins at conception and is continuous, whether intra- or extra-uterine, until death...
...It does appear that the minority who voted for John Anderson were relatively permissive on abortion...
...Special kudos to Mary Meehan whose lucid logic makes me want to stand and clap - even in the privacy of my study...
...It also does not deny that some members in the anti-abortion organizations are of various religious faiths, and some with no particular faith...
...There is, it would seem, a consistent libertarian consensus on the issue: the government should neither prohibit nor encourage abortion...
...Had it not been for the Catholic church, however, there would have been many citizens with anti-abortion sentiments but there would not have been an anti-abortion countermovement of any consequence...
...Both complained that the continual politicization of the abortion issue diverted valuable time, energy, and resources from these other positive efforts to prevent abortion...
...The recent unequivocal and outspoken opposition to nuclear weaponry on the part of many Catholic bishops is certainly not insignificant...
...I remain convinced that abortion should be treated as a social problem, not as a political issue to be fought out by bitterly polarized factions in courts and legislatures...
...However, recent Commonweal articles evince little appreciation of these interests...
...BILL McTAGGART the woman with whom it is so interdependent...
...It is that Catholic liberals, like other liberals, should have the highest respect for the moral autonomy of those (blacks, women, and other minorities) who have long been treated as second-class citizens...
...People in NARAL know the facts of life...
...Steinfels as a reasonable compromise position is probably too restrictive to be acceptable to moderates who oppose some but not all abortions...
...But the pro-choice constituency loathed Ted Kennedy: among consistent pro-choicers, 27 percent had a favorable view of Kennedy, 59 percent an unfavorable view...
...between a primarily working-class group that sees its values under attack, and a middle- and upper-class group that sees itself fighting for freedom and enlightenment...
...NRLC and NARAL tend to see the situation as a dichotomy, but most citizens see it as a continuum...
...KAY MACK monolithically behind the hierarchy...
...Pro-lifers who cast ballots on the abortion issue held similar views of Anderson: 21 percent favorable, 26 percent unfavorable...
...But whatever the precise numbers, it is clear that (1) as far as direct electoral impact is concerned, the abortion issues is decisive with only a small minority, and (2) that minority is closely divided in its views - and just possibly more pro-life than pro-choice...
...Indeed, if one regards abortion from the perspective of the obstetrician-gynecologist's second, unborn patient, no abortion in any case can be therapeutic, since its very intent is to destroy the patient...
...There would be broad support in the public for prohibiting third-trimester abortions except in the most rare of circumstances...
...But there are others whose decision is apparently more marginal, and who might not have an abortion if it were illegal or not easily accessible...
...The consistent pro-choice constituency loved Anderson: 36 percent had a favorable view of him, 27 percent had an unfavorable view...
...In particular they provide a much needed defense of Catholic involvement on the issue and a much-needed corrective to the New York 77/ne.s-NARAL-Planned Parenthood stereotype of typical pro-lifers as "religious fundamentalists, political conservatives, social racists, and single-issue voters...
...I regard the sine qua non assertion as, in no way derogatory to the Catholic church...
...For genuine scholars and for respected judges, the normal course is to review one's work in the light of new knowledge, and if need be, to revise it...
...Majorities are consistently against an outright ban on abortion, and strongly oppose a constitutional amendment to do that...
...There is, however, another complication, and that has to do with the difference between public issues and voting issues...
...It's wrong to kill an innocent human whatever his age for whatever reason, and you know it...
...And how are its interests to be balanced in relation to those of Logansport, Ind...
...None of these findings is surprising, but they lead to an interesting corollary, pro-lifers tended to be more liberal on economic issues than pro-choicers, and just slightly more liberal on such questions than the population as a whole...
...Of course, they could give their children up for adoption, but this would not be an acceptable alternative to many of them...
...It is my conviction that the Supreme Court may not, by a seven-to-two vote, expunge the traditional American sanctity-of-life ethic from our society and tell the people that their elected representatives are powerless to do anything about it save amending the Constitution...
...What now...
...Commonweal readers may welcome a word here on how the Court's first error, as listed by Tatalovich and Daynes, could have been possible...
...Never mind that the vast majority of Americans have decidedly ambivalent views on abortion...
...2. The notion that Catholics are distinctively liberal or inclined toward the Democratic party should be abandoned...
...Predictably, they opposed such an amendment, by 62percent to 29 percent...
...Sadly, the Supreme Court promptly accepted, uncritically, the mistaken view...
...20] calls for one correction in the astute piece by Raymond Tatalovich and Byron W. Daynes, "The Trauma of Abortion Politics...
...While the rhetoric will probably be no less emotional as we attempt to answer this question, at least we will be catling a spade a spade and dealing honestly with the reality of the issue...
...In effect, 1980 was the first year in which, if one wanted to predict the person's vote, it was more useful to know the voter's gender than to know whether the voter was Catholic...
...Whether an abortion facility is available close by is a major determinant of the abortion rate...
...Among those with less than high school education, on the other hand, 32 percent were consistently pro-life, 18 percent consistently pro-choice...
...Yet the closer one moves to questions such as whether abortion should be allowed for unmarried adults who do not want children, or for married mothers who desire no more children, the thinner the majorities get until they actually disappear...
...pro-lifers who voted on the issue liked Kennedy a bit more...
...As you move from extreme liberal to extreme conservative, there is a slight increase in opposition to abortion...
...Among the consistent pro-lifers - those who favored both a constitutional amendment to ban abortions and an amendment protecting unborn life - 34 percent declared abortion a decisive voting issue...
...If she is implying that the abortion issue can, or will, be resolved by embryology or any other other science, I think she is mistaken...
...Once the fact of human life is established, then the protection of that human life is the business of lawmakers...
...Flaherty's flat assertion that the human life statute is undoubtedly unconstitutional...
...In the face of the rising rate of abortions and unwed mothers, their deeper insight is desperately needed...
...the state ought not to pronounce upon it...
...By severely restricting federal funds for abortions obtained by poor people, abortions by Medicaid-eligible women were reduced by 20 percent in those states that didn't step in to pick up the tab with state money...
...That now appears to have been too high, or at least not generalizable, but if it were accurate, it would indicate that 30 percent of the legal abortions would not have taken place had it been illegal...
...Income patterns were much the same: the higher income groups were much more pro-choice...
...Many of our intuitions regarding embryos do not conform to our egalitarian faith, and protection after eight weeks on the federal level might be an appropriate temporary compromise, despite its unprincipled nature...
...This may be a case where the candidates were relatively distinct on an issue but over which the voter groups were not polarized...
...Among consistent pro-choicers, only 18 percent assigned abortion such an essential electoral role...
...There is, of course, relatively little truth to this stereotype...
...Until thinking is further clarified, Peter Steinfcls's position seems to be the only realistic and practical one in a society of such disparate viewpoints as ours...
...Different analysts have come to different conclusions as to the precise measurement of the electoral strength of the two constituencies...
...Permit me to comment on Mr...
...The unborn child is innocent of wrongdoing, while the rapist-murderer has taken the life of another human being...
...Because they were disproportionately in immigrant minority groups that had experienced prejudice and discrimination, and because they had relatively low socio-economic status, Catholics were an important part of the New Deal coalition...
...But opposing abortion is not to be equated with being pro-life...
...The stage for the error was set by an inattentive reading of the history of New Jersey's 1849 abortion statute...
...That political distinctiveness has gradually diminished as the socio-economic status of Catholics has increased...
...To the Editors: I have read with interest, over the years, the pros and cons of abortion, and more immediately the recent excellent issue of Commonweal that deals in some depth with this problem...
...Although more liberal than the others, even Steinfels had to show he was Catholic before liberal...
...Now the status of Catholics is slightly above the national average...
...And no, these laws were not to protect the pregnant woman as much as the unborn...
...However, given that we have had restrictive laws since the nineteenth century, the next best situation is a law which permits individuals to do in conscience what they think they should do...
...On the other side, Jews are actually more overrepresented, proportionately, in the pro-choice movement than Catholics are in the pro-life movement...
...1. It is not so clear that the abortion issue, as Mary Meehan put it, was an "albatross for the Democrats," or that it helped to defeat Jimmy Carter and numerous incumbent legislators...
...But to say that one's fundamental human rights depend on one's quality of life, and that some human beings haven't yet developed enough quality, clashes with our near-absolute modern egalitarianism...
...This was done, presumably, because the ERA was seen as linked to the legal status of abortion and to its continuing to be legally available...
...Francis Flaherty, October 23...
...Well, the new life is a member of the human species and surely Congress is competent to hold hearings and make a determination based on scientific testimony as to the beginnings of an individual's human life...
...And as a lawyer, it baffles me how this approach does nearly so much violence to die Constitution and judicial review as the Court itself did with its incredible 1973 judicial legislating in Roe v. Wade...
...Many married couples have long known this...
...When we make these activities illegal, we "impose moral, ethical and religious values" on those who engage in these acts...
...You can show policy-makers all the polls in the world, but what affects them much more is if you can mount an effective and broadly based social movement that focuses on pressure politics, electoral politics, and public education campaigns...
...military action in Vietnam compared to only 35 percent of the pro-life activists...
...34 percent had favorable views of him, 42 percent unfavorable views...
...Once Congress fills this vacuum, may not other and different legal consequences follow...
...any child could answer this question, but we can fall back on science which knows that this life is genetically programmed to become a particular human being...
...Francis Flaherty's analysis of the legal complexities of the proposed human life statute was simply first-rate...
...1 must admit I still have real problems voting for a candidate who is anti-abortion but wrong on most other issues that arc important to me...
...dionne Pro-choice, pro-life: more on stereotypes Columbia, Missouri To the Editors: The November 20, 1981 issue of Commonweal contained several carefully researched, well-reasoned, and thought-provoking articles on abortion...
...8. The assertion of Professors Tatalovich and Daynes that, "for practical purposes, [the Supreme Court took] the position that protectable life begins at birth" is misleading...
...Flaherty distinguishes Katzen-bach v. Morgan from Roe v. Wade by correctly pointing out that in Morgan the court sustained a legislative enlargement of constitutional rights regarding literacy tests...
...These findings are not really surprising, either...
...The fight over abortion is a battle between classes and worldviews...
...It has defended the taking of human life under certain circumstances, as has society, namely in self-defense, and in allowing for a just war...
...A government of laws and not of men" has a deeper meaning than perhaps opponents of the human life statute understand...
...And it would not have been difficult for the pro-life people to have achieved that outcome...
...Not exactly...
...That will be very useful," she said, "as I approach Protestant leaders to try to encourage more Protestant participation...
...These issues included such matters as whether the government should create jobs for the unemployed and whether the government should control the price of gas and oil...
...Writing of the 1959 proposal that was The right question , Washington, D.C...
...Don't complicate a simple issue...
...Are they not live...
...This is why pro-choicers must insist nonsensically that a magical change in kind of being occurs at some point in gestation or thereafter...
...If particular abortions in concrete situations involve unborn fetuses, they also involve particular women whose interests must be considered...
...Reagan's pollster, concluded that the pro-life position was worth about four points to Mr...
...I'm a leftist historian who, in doing a bibliography for a seminar, felt an obligation to cite Commonweal as representative of a Catholic viewpoint...
...Flaherty's article "Abortion, the Constitution, and the Human Life Statute," [Oct...
...20]/ There was also a very serious fourth error...
...In conversations with the directors of both a maternity home (B.E.T.A...
...The guarantee of a right to life is express in the Constitution and so extending by statute, protection to the preborn may shrink this implied privacy right in favor of enlarging the right to life of the unborn...
...It is one of the finest, contemporary commentaries on the abortion issue that I have read...
...People who believe interracial marriage should be outlawed are more opposed to legalized abortion than those who do not so believe...
...Low-income people are almost always more left on economics than higher income people...
...To the Editors: Your commendable gathering of essays on abortion [Nov...
...Compromise can pave paths in many directions...
...Members of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) are more conservative, politically, than members of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), and this relationship is actually rather substantial...
...My analyses of public opinion data, indicate that there was a slight relationship in that direction...
...Do they not have their being...
...Which branch can be recalled by the electorate if the consent of the governed is too flagrantly ignored or dismissed...
...Steinfels saying that abortion should be made illegal after the fetus is eight weeks old...
...This, the Court did not (because it could not) do...
...Such ambivalence rarely gets expressed directly by politicians...
...The fight over abortion is very much a class struggle, as Peter Skerry has pointed out...
...Two questions, it seems to me, must be asked in order to deal rationally with this subject...
...and virtually the entire issue of November 20, 1981) which Commonweal has recently featured...
...I respectfully disagree with Mr...
...Life, yes...
...Mary Meehan, in her otherwise fine abortion article, strongly implies that being "pro-life" necessarily means that one must oppose capital punishment...
...Yet the polls show even more complexity than that...
...It is unlikely that many people would question that it is a living thing - it grows...
...But this right to privacy if it exists at all, can only be implied in the Constitution...
...t ELEANOR P. MERRICK to influence the relaxation of many state laws, the authors state that "the American Law Institute recommended 'therapeutic' abortion in cases where the mother's or child's physical or mental health was endangered or in cases of rape...
...The death penalty should be permissible for rape-murder, premeditated murder,murder-for-hire, kidnapping that results in death, treason, terrorist bombings, the murder of policemen, firemen and FBI agents in the line of duty, and the assassination of the president...
...In his otherwise thought-provoking essay, John Garvey never once mentions women-women's bodies and souls, women's interests, women's dilemmas...
...I realize that it is fashionable these days to denigrate liberals and to dismiss pro-choice arguments as somehow canonizing irresponsible choice...
...And the same New York Times/CBS poll indicated why President Reagan's stand on abortion in the 1980 election, which represented only a minority view, actually helped him at the polls...
...but only a small percentage of the public actually votes for candidates primarily on the basis of that one issue...
...Once that strategy had succeeded in giving doctors a free hand to abort at will, it was no longer necessary to continue the pretense that anyone's health was at stake...
...the Big Bang theory...
...It did not happen in relation to abolition, suffrage, prohibition, civil rights, or the Vietnam war issues...
...And that is what really matters in determining the course of events in this country...
...We know that the church has never been absolute in its interpretation of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill...
...Perhaps the most interesting side-effect of all this came when those surveyed were asked their opinions of the leaders of two very different kinds of liberalism: John Anderson and Edward M. Kennedy...
...If we believed in natural hierarchy, the fetus could be seen as indeed a person, but one of an inferior sort...
...Your coverage was of such ail-embracing honesty and intelligence that you will probably get outraged mail from every nut in the country...
...You have now convinced me that your editorial line is almost Nantucket, Mass...
...Many liberals have cut their losses by picking up new support from the well-to-do who see themselves defending the values of their class, if not its economic interests...
...I have never hesitated to look at and read the literature of the pro-life movement...
...What is being enlarged is far more important (because it is an expressed Constititional guarantee) than what is being diminished and as so often happens, rights and duties come into conflict and choices must be made...
...I particularly enjoyed and related to (Meu Culpa Department) the article "Catholic Liberals and Abortion" by Mary Meehan...
...It does not give the Catholic church responsibility (credit or blame) for getting the anti-abortion laws on the books back in the nineteenth-century...
...4. Mary Meehan points to the defen-siveness of some Catholic liberals and how they are influenced by the imputation from some pro-choice leaders that the "right-to-life movement is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Catholic hierarchy...
...DONALD GRANBERG University of Missouri-Columbia Women s interests, religion, state power Summit, N.J...
...However, the evidence available thus far is not inconsistent with this hypothesis...
...Evidence from the University of Michigan's Center for Political Studies national election study suggests that people who voted for Ronald Reagan for president did not differ in their attitudes toward abortion from people who voted for Jimmy Carter...
...What do politicians gain when they take a compromise stand that appeases a group on an issue that the group is not likely to care about at the polls anyway...
...I believe this is known as "winning the battle but losing die war," but if liberal politicians learned anything from the debacle, it may prove to have been worth ; it...
...in fact, it seems that the American Catholic church has finally reached some consistently pro-life position in the recent statement by Archbishop John Roach reminding of the immorality of nuclear war, of abortion, and of any kind of economic policy which promotes the arms race at the expense of feeding the poor...
...This is a much larger difference than one would expect to occur by chance, but perhaps the more crucial question now is how people respond to the current military escalation and to military interventions in the future...
...Among those who answered inconsistently on the two amendment questions, 15 percent said abortion was an important voting issue...
...Only 21 percent of consistent pro-lifers had a favorable view of Anderson, 29 percent had an unfavorable view...
...To hold otherwise is nonsense...
...abortion is murder of the innocents, we must protect the rights of the unborn, the right of privacy, the right of a woman to the control of her own body...
...would be diminished by a determination of fetal personhood and hence the Court's denial of personhood to the unborn must prevail...
...adults are moderates on abortion rejecting both extremely permissive and restrictive alternatives, and favoring therapeutic abortion...
...HENRY J. HYDE House of Representatives Liberals & the doss war over abortion New York, N.Y...
...Based on this, I have formulated the tentative hypothesis that the outcome of the 1980 election would not have been significantly different if the word abortion had not been uttered...
...The then-new 1849 act was intended to protect the mother also...
...Listen to pro-lifers talk...
...only 29 percent had an unfavorable view...
...So it appears clear that, in this area, personal morality can be affected by legislation...
...Consider the most frequently asked abortion questions...
...Second, Catholic liberals have, as editor Steinfels remarks, a relatively sophisticated understanding of the relation between law and morality and a profound respect for the differing religious and moral views of fellow citizens in a pluralistic society...
...But I am not so sure that people should be legally compelled to view the consequences of their actions, as in the case of certain laws...
...To the Editors: Thank you for yoor November 20,1981 issue...
...Blacks were more pro-life than whites, the very religious Christians (Catholic and Protestant) were more pro-life, as were older Americans...
...For liberals, abortion has the potential of steadily chipping away at the working-class group that has traditionally been the fountainhead for progressive economic initiatives...
...My new attitude toward Commonweal is parallel to my attitude toward the Carter administration-basically conservative, with some liberal cosmetics...
...Among activists, the difference is more pronounced...
...But six out of the seven writers in the end come out for a constitutional amendment, Rep...
...How could Catholic Commonweal compromise on abortion...
...Rather, they used the criterion of "viability" which corresponded roughly at that time with the third trimester of pregnancy...
...Here we note the games being played by supporters of the abortion ethic...
...9. Finally, the assertion is often made by NARAL and other pro-choice proponents that women who want an abortion are going to get an abortion regardless of its legal status and, therefore, the only real question is the circumstances (safety, cost, stigma, legality, accessibility) of the abortion...
...Attorney Steven Galebach calls our attention to the case of Levy v. Louisiana 392 US 68, 70 (1968) where, in dealing with "illegitimate" children, the court states: "We start from the premise that illegitimate children are not 'non-persons.' They are human, live and have their being...
...Please note carefully what this does and does not say...
...As a lawyer, I resent his self-congratulatory prose about how the legal profession must safeguard the system from such a plainly unconstitutional gambit...
...May not the Congress and the Court dialogue on such an important issue...
...pro-choicers who voted on the basis of abortion were even more anti-Kennedy, with 23 percent having a favorable view, 60 percent an unfavorable...
...In future issues, I would like Commonweal editors to pursue this question, for if abortion is a religious issue, Catholic liberals may feel they have special duties to respect the religious and conscience rights of others - duties grounded in an understanding of First Amendment religious freedoms as well as the Declaration on Religious Liberty of Vatican II...
...Personally, I regard the claim that one is pro-life because of one's opposition to abortion, while simultaneously favoring the deployment of the neutron bomb (designed to destroy life through enhanced radiation while leaving physical structures like buildings and machines intact) as a bad joke...
...If you make murder legal at eight weeks, why not ten weeks, or eight months or eighty years...
Vol. 109 • February 1982 • No. 3
