The bishops & the politics of abortion

...in fact, it appears to be subordinate to them...

...And perseverance is necessary...

...A return to the days pre-Roe v. Wade would be a return to the clinics in sunny offshore islands for the rich and a return to coat hangers and hemorrhage for the poor...

...Alternatively, if they want to keep an oar in politics, the bishops could sit down with congressional leaders who have proven so effective on the issue and ask, "How can we help...

...Martin Luther King, Jr., had referred to civil fights activists as "the anti-segregation people" and "they" and had speculated that the country might reach an "accommodation" on segregation...

...9 With the help of allies like Sen...

...51 for a bill...

...But the pro-life movement, contrary to the image often projected by the media and treasured by many on the pro-choice side, is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Catholic bishops...

...Having tried and lost, the issue can be quietly dropped . . . . " The bishops say that they are pursuing a constitutional amendment in good faith and that they will stay the course as long as it takes...

...9 After Senator Helms and Representative Hyde introduced the first "human life bill" early in 1981, NCHLA lobbied against it within the pro-life movement...

...Whether they win 6r lose the legislative battle, the bishops will still have done nothing to counter this argument...

...Yet it is being taught in an atmosphere of general confusion, against a backdrop of individual bishops issuing personal pastoral statements whenever the spirit -- unfortunately often not the Holy Spirit -- moves them...

...That is unrealistic, for in politics it is hard to build victory on a series of defeats...

...People who serve it often pick up, perhaps unconsciously, a sense of invincibility and an assumption that it is their prerogative to run things...

...Robert Bauman (R.-Md...

...Ronald Fitzsimmons, lobbyist for the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), told a reporter that a heating on it was "a waste of time, since they don't have the votes," then added "that's all right...

...But the bishops' groups, which went all-out for a constitutional amendment that could not pass, did nothing for Hyde-Jepsen...

...The issue hurts Helms with many constituents in North Carolina, which is one of only ten states Commonweal: 172 where legislatures voluntarily fund abortion...

...Speaking of his 1984 reelection campaign, which is expected to be very difficult, he has said, " I f I have to come on home on the principle of the rights of the unborn, then I'll come on home...

...there's nothing happy about it...

...he said that it had "the full support of this administration...

...Most pro-lifers see a constitutional amendment as their ultimate goal, but many were able to shift gears when the 1980 elections gave them a president and majorities in both houses of Congress...

...Of course, they weren't going anywhere if the groui~s that should have been the first to support them refused to do so...

...I characteristics of a self-fulfilling prophecy, by which I mean simply that the more often it is said that the bishops' conference has divided the pro-life movement, the more divided the pro-life movement becomes . . . . It is really time for all the components of the pro-life movement to desist from this vitriolic infighting and to establish some kind of dttente if not entente and refocus their attention on the pro-life cause itself...

...Senator Helms's occasional efforts to restrict federal court jurisdiction on abortion and school prayer--proposals that frighten timid souls at the USCC--are squarely based on Article HI of the Constitution...

...9 After the Hyde amendment (restricting federal funding of Medicaid abortions) was offered and proved successful, the bishops' groups got on board behind it...

...Henry Hyde, the skilled pro-life leader in the House, has also received shabby treatment from them...

...Many liberals who attacked the bill as unconstitutional "forgot" that they favored an expansive view of congressional power under the Fourteenth Amendment on other occasions...

...but explaining it as a long-range strategy would at least assure people that there is method in the seeming madness...

...One critic suggested that possibly the Hatch supporters planned to lock pro-choice senators in the men's room during the crucial vote...

...Roger Jepsen (R.-Iowa) introduced, early in 1983, a "respect human life bill" similar to the Helms measure that was narrowly tabled by the Senate in 1982...

...Referring to her work as a full-time volunteer for the cause, one woman re...

...The Catholic church, after all, has been around for nearly 2,000 years...

...Incompetence is what inspires the bitter remark circulating in pro-life ranks: "The bishops are getting into the peace movement--better go for your bomb shelter...

...Leaked to the press, the Caron memo was cited by pro-abortion forces at every opportunity for the next sixteen months...

...If the issue had been left to Robinson, little or nothing would have happened...

...and Sen...

...At another church gathering, the word of the bishops is law, and someone insists 23 March 1984:173...

...This is precisely what they need to offset their appearance of behaving like liberal Democrats on nearly every other issue...

...Hatch then shifted his support to an even weaker measure, a states' fights amendment proposed by Sen...

...There are two ways the bishops could make up for their deplorable record on abortion legislation...

...The new governor of Wisconsin, Anthony Earl, is a Catholic who claims to be personally opposed to abortion but nevertheless supports public funding of it...

...They could shut down the NCHLA and tell their other committees to keep away from legislation, thus leaving the issue in the hands of people who have genuine competence in politics...

...Hatch supporters steadily claimed that their measure had a real chance to pass the Senate, but refused to be pinned down on names of senators who would support it...

...His thanks for this kind of courage have been frequent sniping and--in the last two years--outright opposition from the bishops' men...

...But she keeps on...

...But in 1979-80, they lobbied against an amendment offered by then-Rep...

...9 Representative Hyde and Sen...

...and 60 to break a filibuster (invoke cloture) against either...

...on each of the two amendments considered before that, 99 senators voted...

...The critics think that key bishops and/or staff of the U.S...

...He said that a series of anti-abortion riders on bills would "annoy them, and we could really be eliminating final votes which could make the difference, which if we didn't annoy them we might get . . . . " It should be said in Gallagher's defense that this inept advice probably did not originate with him...

...Another explanation, suggested by many of their critics, is that they are behaving like a Richelieu...

...But on the bread-and-butter issue of tuition tax credits for parents who send their children to parochial schools, the bishops have been working away--and losing-for many years...

...Robert Doraan (R.-Calif...

...they are "waist-deep in the Big Muddy" and would rather go neck-deep than admit they are wrong...

...The Catholic church is not supposed to be a branch of the Democratic party...

...Incompetence is not, however, the only theory that might explain what the bishops are doing on the abortion issue...

...it has outlasted political parties, governments, even empires...

...The auxiliary bishop of Madison, the Most Rev...

...The truth lies with those who suspect it of being hardly the most efficient or effective...

...But the bishops show no interest in dealing with Senator Helms, and no gratitude for his highly effective leadership against abortion...

...When Senator Jepsen tried to place his measure as a rider on a civil rights bill 23 March 1984:171 last November, his effort was tabled by 42-34...

...As pro-life activist Rev...

...it did not complicate the Hyde case, which pro-life forces won...

...A few examples: _9 In 1975, at a meeting of pro-life lobbyists and congressional leaders, NCHLA lobbyist Mark Gallagher argued against offering anti-abortion riders to bills before Congress...

...Through it all trods the weary and confused faithful, unable to distinguish among doctrine, moral principles, and "prudential judgments...

...Recent lurches by individual bishops into various public arenas and political questions have created tremendous confusion in perceptions...

...The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) has a Committee for Pro-life Activities, that does educational work on the issue...

...All-out support from the White House and the bishops might have made the difference...

...While it was covered, and covered widely, by the American press in November 1982 and in May 1983, there is little being said in public media about it at all today...

...On June 28, the Eagleton amendment was defeated in the Senate, 50-49...

...Or even, one might add, a Francis Spellman or Richard Cushing...

...T HE BISHOPS' STAFF seem to have an obsession with the constitutional amendment route...

...This is of course to be expected, for it is no longer news...

...The bishops never publicly supported the Helms measure or even an end to the filibuster, although some of them privately lobbied for cloture...

...When Helms finally obtained a vote on a modified version of his human life bill in September, 1982, he proved that he was close to a majority...

...The bishops are political blunderers, and the failures of the Hyde, Hatch, land Eagleton amendments are but small example of their inefficiency and ineptness in the halls of Congress...

...The image of a crafty Cardinal Richelieu or Bishop Talleyrand dies hard, but the U.S...

...The bishops & the politics of abortion MARY MEEHAN T HE POPULAR NOTION of Catholic bishops as clever politicians is taking something of a beating these days...

...The critics, who point to a long list of other blunders by the hierarchy on abortion, believe that the bishops supported the Hatch amendment with the expectation that it would be soundly defeated and that the media would call that the last hurrah for the pro-life movement...

...both are extremely cautious in their advice...

...They reasoned that, having power, they should use it on behalf of the unborn...

...After the Judiciary Commonweal: 170 Committee acted, NARAL executive director Nanette Falkenberg issued a statement that said: "We know the legislation will be defeated by the full Senate...

...might some day find "an accommodation on the issue of abortion...

...The "pro-life underground" in the Reagan administration has shown a striking ability to use regulatory powers on behalf of the unborn and of handicapped infants...

...And there is certainly a strong institutional arrogance in their bureaucracy...

...Many of their strongest critics agree fervently with this thought, but they keep wondering: if the bishops want to quit the politics of abortion, why don't they justquit...

...9 The Hatch amendment, which caused a deep split in the pro-life movement, went nowhere in the House...

...i ' NCOMPETENCE is the obvious explanation for this stunning record of failure...

...Of several others, he said: "they obviously, most of them, weren't going anywhere . . . . They were what I call harassment-type amendments...

...it failed to get even a majority, let alone the necessary two-thirds...

...President Reagan's support, although late and not very effective, was at least public...

...John Willke of the National Right to Life Committee, the "bishops' men" slowed momentum for the Helms bill and sidetracked it in favor of the Hatch amendment...

...it helps our fund-raising...

...23 March 1984:169 T HE BLUNT TRUTH is that much of this heterogeneous movement's progress has been made in spite of the bishops' involvement, not because of it...

...George Wirz, celebrated a special pre-inangural Mass for Earl in the Madison cathedral last January...

...9 On several occasions, they refused to support antiabortion amendments offered by movement stalwarts like former Rep...

...The pro-life lawyers fighting the case and other pro-life lobbyists did not agree...

...It is unclear why the bishops fear association with conservatives like Helms and Hyde on the abortion question...

...The bishops could then direct their pro-life efforts to preaching and teaching, counseling and absolving...

...But most movement people ate sane, hard-working, and exceptionally committed...

...Possibly there is no grand conspiracy, but just the ordinary, everyday sins of pride and inability to admit error...

...With several absentees, the measure was tabled by a 47-46 vote...

...It failed to gain even a majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee in April, 1983, and was finally reported to the floor "without recommendation...

...Asked about this in 1981, USCC lobbyist James Robinson said he did not recall one of the Dornan amendments, then complained that every time a representative offers an amendment, "they'd like everyone down here to drop what they're doing" and support it...

...As we know all too well, the American body politic is not fazed by legislation and it will continue to do that which it pleases...

...Viewing the wreckage on the abortion issue, one veteran of the Catholic bureaucracy said, "Would that we had a Richelieu at this point...

...This exercise has in many respects the PHYLLIS ZAGANO teaches at Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y...

...To be sure, the jury is still out on the bishops' effectiveness on the nuclear arms issue...

...Outsiders, especially if helped along by a modicum of anti-Catholicism, may imagine this structure as quite formidable...

...Several senators who normally vote pro-life failed to do so on crucial votes...

...They also know that it is devastating for liberal Democrats with whom they agree on most other issues...

...The Bauman amendment was finally passed over the opposition of the Catholic groups...

...Catholic Conference feel that the abortion issue is a nuisance that results in bad publicity for the church and distraction from other policy matters...

...Having consequently wound up with nothing at all in the last Congress, the bishops compounded their error in this one...

...A third group, the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment (NCHLA) lobbies for a constitutional amendment...

...It includes brilliant philosophers and lawyers and--as in any movement--a few people who, if not certified as loonies, probably could be...

...The Hatch amendment strategy may be a ten- or fifteen-year plan, with the bishops' expecting to lose the In'st few rounds but win the last one...

...Thomas Eagleton (D.-Mo...

...The bill would expand and make permanent restrictions on public funding of abortion, encourage the Supreme Court to reconsider its abortion decisions, and deny federal funds to hospitals that fail to treat handicapped infants...

...Hatch and Dr...

...They may be right...

...bishops may finally kill it...

...Congress has seldom used its powers to restrict jurisdiction, but it is a good tool for restraining the judicial activism that gave us Roe v. Wade and other judicial disasters...

...This constitutional amendment proposed by Sen...

...If these or any other amendments were passed, what difference would it make...

...He says that there are "no grounds on which to say, 'Oh, they're going to drop this . . . . . ' The strategy is: Get to the goal, and do all the steps necessary to get to the goal...

...At a Washington conference last April, National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) spokesman Russell Shaw said that the previous two-and-one-half years in the abortion issue created for him a situation where motives had to be questioned...

...and the "human life bill" and instead backed a constitutional amendment that had no chance...

...That simple phrase would do more to repair the damage that has been done, to make a fresh start, than anything else they could say...

...While Representative Hyde worried about keeping in place the restrictions on public funding of abortion, the bishops again charged over the constitutional-amendment cliff...

...All 100 voted on the balanced-budget amendment in 1982...

...Why behave like Samson, pulling the entire structure down on everyone's heads...

...She hinted at her real assessment, however, when she told them: "It may be the last battle we have to fight in Congress for a long time if we win this one...

...He should have said a requiem Mass for children killed by abortion instead...

...Although this group has a lay board and staff, it is funded by the bishops and it reports to the member of the hierarchy appointed to head it...

...At one church gathering they are told it is all right to disagree with the bishops, because this or that section of the pastoral is a "prudential judgment...

...that while appearing to advance the pro-life cause, they are trying to destroy the political part of it...

...The most effective pro-life lobbyists have followed a populist strategy and used guerrilla tactics...

...If some key bishops or USCC staff are trying to kill the abortion issue--and I am not absolutely convinced of this, although it is hard to understand the record otherwise--their excuse may be that the bishops can be more effective on the abortion issue if they approach it as pastors and educators rather than as politicians...

...The requirement is two-thirds of those present and voting, which means 67 when all 100 senators vote, but fewer when there are absentees...

...Hyde, normally cheerful and conciliatory, was sufficiently upset to write Caron and suggest that he remove himself "from the company of those, such as the National Abortion Rights Action League, who also oppose the human life bill...

...Some observers believe that Jepsen chose the wrong vehicle for his proposal...

...action arm, the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), employs a lobbying director and a general counsel who have great influence on what the bishops do about abortion...

...At times they suggested that it could pass because there would be many absentees...

...Some observers believe that he has been an effective lobbyist when his marching orders have been rational...

...But more than the record of the bishops and their staff make many suspect a sell-out...

...This confusion may be extant among individual bishops and within the NCCB as a whole...

...Actually, three different Catholic bureaucracies deal with the abortion issue...

...Legally, for tax purposes, it is separate from the other groups...

...As Rev...

...These are their special areas of competence--and ones that clearly need more attention, if one may judge by the many Catholics who have abortions and promote the practice...

...Perhaps the bishops are like Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War...

...James Schall, S.J., of Georgetown University wrote in 1982: " I f the Hatch amendment is defeated, the weakest possible case, then it will be easy to say that nothing is 'possible,' so we must accept defeat and 'get on' to other things...

...This is especially so since James Robinson, lobbying director of the U.S...

...Fifty votes were the most he obtained on any single cloture vote, although a total of 52 senators voted for cloture at one time or another...

...Hatch himself conceded that he did not have the votes when he withdrew his amendment in September, 1982, though he claimed that "a substantial majority" of senators would have voted for it...

...by some estimates it was 15 or 20 votes short there...

...AIlTI-ABORTION STRATEGY, A FIRST RESPONSE The church & abortion [perception & reality PHYLLIS ZAGANO M IARY MEEHAN is of course right...

...The bishops' defenders often suggest that outsiders simply do not understand the Catholic bureaucracy and how it works...

...He said that the fate of a constitutional amendment depended on "how a large group of Congressmen who are really in the middle on this issue--frankly don't feel that strongly about it, aren't beholden to their constituents on the issue--are going to come down on it...

...For a parallel, one must imagine that in 1965 a key lieutenant of Dr...

...but whether or not individual bishops and the NCCB are themselves confused, the laity clearly are...

...The late cardinals of New York and Boston had their critics, but no one ever suggested that they were novices in politics...

...Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) would have given Congress and the states the power--but not the obligation--to restrict or prohibit abortion...

...Most of the major pro-life groups--including Ad Hoc Committee in Defense of Life, American Life Lobby, Christian Action Council, Life Amendment Political Action Committee, National Pro-life Political Action Committee, and National Right to Life Committee--supported the Hyde-Jepsen bill...

...The bishops' socialMARY MEIEHAN has written on abortion and politics for The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, the Progressive, and other journals...

...The recent pastoral letter on war and peace is but one example...

...They suggested that the Banman amendment would complicate the pending federal court case on Hyde...

...In a speech to Catho= lic lawyers a few years ago, Robinson referred to the move= ment as"the anti-abortion people" and"they" and suggested that the U.S...

...Although the Catholic bishops did not formally endorse the Eagletnn amendment, their staff lobbied hard for it...

...Jesse Helms (R.-N.C...

...The Office for Pro-life Activities comes under this committee...

...9 The main contribution of the Eagleton amendment may have been to pro-choice fund-raising efforts...

...While this is in many respects the advice Meehan gives, it ignores, as does she, the manifest confusion about the role of bishop...

...Knowing that they cannot let their opposition write the ground rules, they have repeatedly made lightning strikes with appropriations riders and have been creative in drafting other legislation...

...This was wholly unrealistic, because most senators do vote on constitutional amendments...

...It was too little, too late, and quite possibly an effort to provide cover against charges that they had let the movement down again...

...9 The basic arithmetic in the Senate is: 67 votes required for a constitutional amendment...

...Suspicions grow when pro-lifers see some bishops go out of their way to associate with pro-abortion Catholic politicians...

...Yet congressional veterans' voting records and the announced positions of new members showed that the Eagleton proposal could not pass either House or Senate...

...President Reagan endorsed the bill on several occasions...

...And that is exactly what a lot of people are suggesting after observing how the bishops, in the last Congress, insisted on distancing themselves from successful right-to-life leaders like Rep...

...Catholic Conference, stands aloof from the pro-life movement...

...Certainly, however, his vote would have been far higher had the bishops supported him...

...The infighting described by Meehan is real and it is devastating, not only to the possibility of abortion legislation, but to the general perception of the efficacy of the American Catholic bishops in matters of what most would agree to be serious moral questions...

...A deeper question which Meehan does not ask is the more serious one...

...It was never within striking distance of the 67 votes needed in the Senate...

...designed to strengthen the Hyde amendment by making it clear that state legislatures could also restrict Medicaid funding of abortion...

...They also tend to take the long view, sometimes without bothering to explain...

...Charles Fiore remarked at the time, "The church has got to make up its mind--toady to the politicians or preach the gospels...

...To this day the Catholic groups cannot admit they were wrong about the Bauman amendment...

...cently said: "It's like living in a cemetery...

...That, we can hope, is the rationale behind any argument by an otherwise believing Catholic for continuance of Medicaid funding for abortions...

...The original human-life bill, which would have defined the unborn as "persons" for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, was based on a series of civil rights cases...

...Father Edward Bryce remarks that he is the second director of the Office for Pro-life Activities and that there will "be a third and a fourth and a fifth...

...But then Falkenberg sent her members a fund-raising appeal in which she professed to be worried about the Eagleton measure...

...It is a large and very diverse group of people: Catholics, Jews, an increasingly active group of evangelical Protestants, a scattering of agnostics and atheists, conservatives, moderates, liberals, some feminists and peace folk...

...The USCC general counsel, Wilfred Caron, aided this effort with a memo attacking the Helms bill on constitutional grounds...

...And then there is abortion...

...Henry Hyde (R.-Ill...

...Or a Talleyrand...