Correspondence

...I am familiar with the New York case, but in that instance Commonweal has already commented more eloquently than I could: "Bishops have a responsibility to teach and even to enforce the moral law...

...Apart from the fundamental issues of federalism and the separation of powers proper to state legislatures and to U.S...

...Viability has been, is, and clearly will be, one of the pivotal issues in the discussion of abortion...

...o Finally, as to the February 23 editorial, "Strategy Time III," that was the proximate occasion for this extended response to your call...

...Third, in the November editorial Commonweal seems to find an inconsistency between my positions on abortion and on the death penalty...

...o Commonweal's January 26 editorial, "Strategy Time," mentions Bishop Leo Maher of San Diego, seeming to disapprove of his action, but disappointed that it took the headlines...

...I think a careful reading of that speech will reveal that I did not make abortion an exclusively Catholic issue...

...I-and many others like me-are eager for enlightenment, eager to learn new and better ways to manifest respect for the deep reverence for life that is our religion and our instinct...

...I, for one, will give respectful and careful attention to whatever guidelines, in its proper realm of competence as teacher, the committee might offer...

...MARIO M. CUOMO Governor of New York...

...Courts that were involved in the case, the standards imposed by Illinois law were equivalent to hospital standards-far more stringent than experience teaches are required for safe patient care...

...I said in Tucson that here in America-where the law permits women to have abortions and preserves their right not to have abortions-the terrible, hard judgment, which that freedom permits, must be a matter of the woman's conscience...

...The standards . were, in effect, an attempt to do indirectly, by putting clinics out of business, what the law says cannot be done directly...

...I agree that the statistics are sobering, as I think virtually everyone does...

...Other Christian denominations and some non-Christian faiths do not teach as the bishops do...

...I understand their reluctance...

...I have been criticized for making abortion a Catholic issue, especially after my speech at Notre Dame where I spoke at a Catholic university to a Catholic audience about-in part-my beliefs as a Catholic...

...I don't see much attempt by the bishops to explain, defend, or promote it to Catholics or others...

...Certainly, I knew that when I chose public life...

...I did that, as already mentioned, this past January in my State of the State message [see page 198 ]. Senator Brandl also points out that "politicians must enact laws governing a myriad of situations and for millions of people holding a great variety of moral views about the appropriateness of the act...

...o The February 9 editorial, "Strategy Time II," mentions among other things the actions of two bishops besides Bishop Maher-Bishop Elden Curtiss of Montana and Bishop Austin Vaughan of New York...

...None of this is to say that the ethical and legal implications of the medical data should not be explored...

...I will continue to accept my responsibility, and to make other decisions that affect the lives of people whose situations I have no direct experience of-the mentally disabled, people dying of cancer, young people addicted to drugs...

...My instinct as a parent is one broadly shared by parents...

...The point is that whatever public policies might be made in the future should be based on sound scientific evidence...

...I will give the most careful attention I'm capable of to any law on this issue the Legislature sends me...

...On the question of counseling, which the August editorial raises, I believe we should at a minimum be consistent...

...Nothing is clearer to me than my inadequacy to find compelling solutions to all of their moral, legal, and social implications...

...But in each case, my prudential political judgment, formed by examining all the available evidence, is that these actions would not have such desirable effects...

...When the public perception is that they are not simply exercising their teaching role for Catholics, but trying to influence the outcome of an election, there will be publicity...

...The issue of viability is of course a crucial one, and a matter of grave medical and ethical concern because at that point the unique relationship between the woman and the fetus changes in one important aspect...

...I wish more legislators, at both the state and national levels, whatever their religious persuasions, would follow his lead...

...Like you, I believe that the matter merits continuing reflection and debate, and that it does not benefit from obloquy, a word that describes too much of the recent public conversation about this topic...

...I do think there is an element of the absurd or incongruous in men making laws about something they can never experience-pregnancy...

...The bishops, as I understand it, base their opposition to abortion not just on proclaimed Catholic teaching but on the broader lessons of natural law, of laws written in the human heart by God, norms accessible and available to all members of the human family...

...But we've been doing it for a long time, both in the church and in government...

...It is, nonetheless, a problem of public perception, and Commonweal is right to raise it for public discussion...

...Last August 11, in an editorial, "Too Many Abortions," you decried the number of abortions performed annually in our country...

...And I believe further it is possible that in some individual cases such a law might be beneficial, not necessarily as a way of preventing abortions but of helping to provide a minor the support she needs at such a time...

...The same editorial brought up the issue of viability, finding in the language of Roe v. Wade and in the Webster decision "justification for viability testing at twenty weeks...

...My modest wish is that it does not constitute what you have labeled "ducking for cover...

...economy...

...Like Commonweal, I look forward to the putative guidelines to be issued by a committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on responsibilities of bishops, Catholic citizens and officials in the current public debates...

...I did not say that, in every circumstance, the judgment should be absolutely the woman's alone...

...The report the Task Force received in January 1988 from a committee of leading medical and scientific experts in New York state included the following findings: The threshold of fetal extrauterine survival is approximately 500 grams or 23-24 weeks of gestation...

...Commonweal concludes the August editorial with a call to women, arising from the feminist insight, to exercise restraint in relationships with men who will not or cannot share the responsibilities of parenthood, or to become effective users of contraception...

...If strengthened regulations are required to assure this full disclosure, I would favor that...

...I would have wanted to know if a minor daughter of mine had to face the decision, whether to have an abortion or carry a child to term...

...I do...

...I think every male should feel uncomfortable making such judgments...

...When in 1988, we expanded medicaid coverage to some people 185 percent above the poverty level, abortion and some other services were, at my insistence, not included among those covered...

...I am in total agreement with Senator Brandl when he states "the responsibility of a politician...

...That would certainly be presumptuous and contemptuous of people who hold other beliefs and some who hold no religious belief, but still oppose abortion...

...There are abroad some false assumptions about technology 's potential for pushing back the sur-vivability threshold...

...He writes, without specifying, about favoring "some restrictions" on medicaid funding...

...In New York we have some restrictions...

...Here's what I wrote to them [October 28]: "As for my own remarks at Tucson, I assure you that they did not represent any change in my long-held position...

...The editors at your friendly rival, America [October 14], were similarly disappointed...

...Second, Commonweal faulted me for joining eight other governors in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on the case Turnock v. Ragsdale...

...On some points, for example medicaid funding, I might part company with the senator, for reasons already stated...

...To the Editors: Your editorial invitation [February 23] to join Commonweal in a reasoned debate on abortion, particularly in the post-Webster environment, evokes this response...

...Everything I said in Tucson was perfectly consistent with my position as stated in Notre Dame...

...First, Commonweal was apparently disappointed by an answer I gave to a question about abortion after a speech (not about abortion) in Tucson, Arizona...

...The editorial also raises an issue broader and of more consequence than the actions of individual bishops-that is, the moral, not just "Catholic" character of the abortion issue...

...Some do...

...And in October of last year I wrote in America: "The frustration and disappointment some may feel in the aftermath of Webster comes, at least in part I believe, from their reading too much into the decision and its effect on the law...

...But I'm not sure we're in total disagreement...

...But I don't think we can exempt them from the demands of prudence in the political arena...

...For that I believe they deserve our gratitude...

...it is not likely in the foreseeable future that technological advances will lower the threshold for fetal extrauterine survival...

...I too commend Senator Brandl's willingness to state his position and his reasoning publicly...

...Nor did I say that I am incapable of making decisions regarding abortion, even with the terrible complexities surrounding it in the public realm...

...but their office does not confer the power to read souls, or to make apodictic judgments about how a particular moral principle is to be translated into law and public policy...

...The committee also pointed to difficulties of determining gestational age with exactitude, and noted that survival of infants over the threshold depended on a number of factors, including the level of care available...

...That, of course, has advantages and disadvantages...

...Perhaps, that's a work the bishops could join with others of similar belief-theologians, philosophers, religious leaders-in undertaking...

...In December, Commonweal published approvingly a letter sent by State Senator John Brandl of Minnesota to his constituents...

...But there's a broader point to be made...

...In my State of the State message of this past January, I advocated something similar, without focusing exclusively on women...

...The reality or concept of the natural law is not one congenial to our society...

...I hope the Catholic bishops, especially, will join that discussion...

...We shouldn't and don't expect bishops to be politicians...

...That is a sentiment to bear in mind when considering another issue he raises-parental notification/consent, an issue which has not yet been presented to my administration...

...I do not regret nor apologize for being party to it...

...Unfamiliar with all the details of the Montana case, I am reluctant to comment...

...Amen...

...Frankly, I think the charge of evasion against me is unwarranted...

...Likewise, if it were my judgment that the imposition of a death penalty would save innocent lives and make our state a safer, better place, then I would have to be disposed to acquiesce in the Legislature's judgment...

...before this time, the fetal organs, especially the lungs, are not sufficiently developed to permit extrauterine survival even with the most sophisticated technology currently available...

...We have made enormous commitments to prenatal care, to nutrition, to family life education, to a whole array of programs for teens and others that guarantee the choice is free...

...At question was an attempt by the State of Illinois to impose on abortion clinics standards that I viewed as unreasonable...

...I might add that it was not a popular decision, and that those, including the Catholic bishops, for whom it assumably was popular, were publicly silent about it...

...After reading Webster closely, I stated publicly that nothing in the decision changed New York law...

...And, in fact, the State of Illinois withdrew the case, and settled out of court-for reasonable standards...

...I enclose that section of my annual message...

...Only that we should proceed with the caution the facts dictate, and without raising expectations that any law dealing with viability-even if enforced and obeyed- would lower the abortion rate more than minimally...

...I believe I would have, without any law mandating it...

...I see it this way...

...But it seems to me that there has been a reluctance on the bishops' part to pressure or criticize non-Catholic politicians whose position on abortion is not theirs...

...It may further serve to avoid future dashed expectations to point out, as State Senator Brandl did in Commonweal [December 1] that fewer than 1 percent of abortions take place after 23 weeks of gestation...

...to put forward alternatives...

...I am very uncomfortable with having to make decisions about abortion...

...At the end of the speech I gave at Notre Dame, I said this: "The problems created by the matter of abortion are complex and confounding...

...But to write a law for everyone, to consider not just the individual situation but the circumstances of each minor and her family in this state, is a far more complex decision...

...For that reason, I requested the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, which I established in 1984, to conduct a medical inquiry to determine the stage of gestational development at which the fetus can survive outside the womb...

...I've done it every year I've been governor, and will continue to, based on the principles I set forth at Notre Dame, as long as they are applicable...

...I feel fortunate that New York is home to journals like Commonweal and America, willing to undertake the task of easing that inadequacy...

...More than that, I share what appeared in that editorial to be your minimal expectations about the Webster decision's effect on the number of abortions...

...Commonweal deserves praise for continuing to engage in that work...

...Bishop Maher, it seems to me, did not advance with that action the cause he espouses...

...The Ragsdale amicus brief that I joined was in no way an argument for expanding abortion rights...

...An ecumenical effort to do that might help convince their fellow citizens that what they teach to Catholics would be beneficial for them as well, that their teaching is, as I said at Notre Dame, "not just parochial or narrowly sectarian but fulfills a human desire for order, peace, justice, kindness, love, any of the values most of us agree are desirable even apart from their specific religious base or context...

...In a November 3 editorial, "The Politics of Evasion," I was named among some politicians who "rather than engaging in that [political and moral] debate, seem to be evading it...

...As far as I can determine, the process for drafting this statement will not follow the broadly consultative lines of more general statements such as the pastoral letter on the U.S...

...I don't think there's any disagreement that the Catholic bishops of this country have done as much as any group to keep abortion from becoming a non-issue, something that does not deserve and demand our attention...

...In Tucson, I said I felt presumptuous talking about the terrible, hard judgment women make with regard to abortion...

...I say theoretically doable because it remains my judgment that, as I stated in my Notre Dame speech, "the equal protection clause in New York's Constitution has been interpreted by the courts as a standard of fairness that would preclude us from denying only the poor-by a cutoff of funds-the practical use of the constitutional right given by Roe v. Wade...

...Transforming the minds and hearts of individuals, on this issue and on others-the economy, foreign relations, the homeless, the historic struggle of minorities and women, the environment, for example-is an essential, and quintessential American and Catholic, work...

...Perhaps the best I can do right now, is to reflect on some of Commonweal's commentary of the past six or seven months...

...If it were my judgment that theoretically doable legal restrictions on abortion (for example, limitation of medicaid funding) were fair and would engender a greater respect for life in our state, then I would have to be disposed to advocate for such change...

...Illinois, in fact, needed reasonable standards like those in effect in New York, which previously had been challenged and upheld in court...

...For "real freedom of choice," I would point out that women in New York, because of the policies of this state and its budgetary commitments, are certainly free to choose...

...This response to your invitation, may not, I realize, contain everything Commonweal wishes it would, and some things with which it will disagree...

...They would more likely, I believe, merely enable us to ignore the root causes of abortion and crime, and soothe our consciences by allowing us to believe we had done everything possible when we had brought the coercive power of the law to bear...

...At viability, others could, all circumstances being benevolent, care for the child were it born...

...But let me answer some of the editorial's criticisms...

...If we require, as we do in New York state, that family planning centers under Catholic auspices provide women-either through counseling or referral-information about the full range of options available, including birth control and abortion, then it would seem reasonable that other such centers, regardless of auspices, be likewise required to assure that their clients understand the full range of options, including adoption...