The Politics of Virtue/Life's Dominion:
Callahan, Daniel
belong in this poet's everyday world, so World Series: was the more successful of those two ef- we find poems about old affairs or old I wear...
...an effective political force...
...beginning with the by-now familiar ob- Catholicism and to the Protestant ethics Reading the two books together helps servation that we live in a time of deep associated with Barth and Bonhoeffer...
...ended game Six The problem with Tribe's book was that In a book preoccupied with the problem in the twelfth inning with a poke over his prochoice convictions were not suffiof making an end, of reacting honestly to the wall...
...Anyone who has suffered with a lution was shot down, always overpowThe final poem in the book, "Extra team, or waited for the results of the blood ered by fear of some limit on the right of Innings," takes up the fear of death directly...
...This gap makes a great difference in the quality of THE POLITICS OF VIRTUE moral conflict and that we are pretty much his general argument...
...topic, with a particular focus on the theElizabeth Mensch and Alan Freeman Now, however, the possibility of com- ological debate...
...Two earlier sive triumph of a "hasty, uncritical air...
...test to come in, knows the condition that women to make their own choice...
...its value mentary on the virtual disappearance of carefully each side and each position...
...But he of contemporary poetry...
...Quite a list of accomplishments for Second, to their prolife readers, who may ical foundations of much of our polity and one highly readable, compact volume...
...cause of the difficulties already being great skill and plausibility...
...Hall deplores careless, would not warm to that word "discourthe falsity of what he calls "The Jargon of thinking again how Carlton Fisk age...
...That is a sanctity of choice ar- religion," as well as the trivializing of In building their case they turn first to gument, not a sanctity of life view...
...These facts are crisply stat- polemical fashion, Mensch and Freeman most ineffable realm, Dworkin in the end ed and do not become the occasion for begin by looking closely at the natural law leaves little ground to talk in public about bathos...
...Even inside out" the impassioned arguments of case that many who have defended a pro- more amazingly (we just don't expect anti-abortion forces,, they do their part to choice position either imply, much less this from law professors...
...Loss is forestalled but not denied in in patterned language unleashed in time, of Mensch and Freeman...
...We gather such a formula would look like in pracguage's energetic engagement with the yellow days tice...
...The Politics of Virtue takes as its starting point the question of "whether THE SANCTITY OF CHOICE we can recover a meaningful public moral vocabulary...
...between them first appearance here...
...Why does our society lack such a vocabulary...
...That "covenant" prothat direction, feeding off Tribe, in Abortion: The Clash ofAbsolutes vided a religious legitimation for abortion the perennial public opinion surveys that (Norton, 1990), and Roger Rosenblatt in reform, but also as a result stimulated a show most Americans ambivalent about Life Itself.- Abortion in the American Mind Protestant fundamentalist counterattack, the issue...
...Along the way generated with the Senate's Freedom of they examine the rise and then decline of Daniel Callahan Choice Act...
...it value...
...her provided no details whatever on just what Hall's determination to renew lan- hair's kerchief is yellow...
...They show clearly friends and comrades on the Left, argusecond problem is that by, in effect, seg- how Bonhoeffer was made to serve lib- ing that the issue of fetal life cannot be regating religious and philosophical views eral theological nostrums that he, Lutheran dismissed with incessant repetition of the off into the private domain, Dworkin not that he was, found banal in his own life- code words: "reproductive freedom...
...or may not be liberals, they argue that comculture, but also renders the idea of the The authors, a married couple teaching mitting oneself to a concern with fetal life sanctity of life thin if not altogether vac- law at the State University of New York, commits oneself to other things, or, at least, uous...
...a similar curve with the may be a number of recent books that have thought of Barth and Bonhoeffer in ProtIr he language of compromise sought, with varying success, to find some estant circles...
...depends solely upon her decision to grant Karl Barth from current Protestant "civic Refreshing, to say the least...
...24: 24 September 1993 Commonweal...
...They use in our daily interactions...
...only ignores the religious and philosoph- time...
...Yet this movement-and that (Random House, 1992) both deplored the which turned out to be an unpleasant mirword may be too strong-has had trouble nasty flavor of the American debate, and ror image of a liberal prochoice fundafinding the kind of strong leadership and both sought some way out...
...What Mensch Many instead hold that whatever value a happened to "Protestant ethics...
...to the sanctity of life, and only differ Identified with the "Left/liberal side of law about how to respect that sanctity...
...the individual conscience and individual seemingly impossible: Their stated goal is "not to advance one choice...
...1:1 reader in the cultural and religious background of the abortion struggle, and show a fine appreciation of the now-vast literature on the subject, Dworkin's book YES, ABORTION IS DEBATABLE looks mainly to the legal battle, and frequently generalizes on the moral issues without the apparent benefit of careful distinctions and documentation...
...Things," and "The Tongue of High Coy...
...The label In these extra poems, which surprise the Hall describes, "inning by inning with care on the can was hot tamales but the conreader with a return to "Baseball," Hall to appear careless...
...ciently flexible to accommodate the modthe endings that herald our own foregone Do I need to point out that the Red Sox erate approach he seemed to be seeking...
...The animals make their gle as that of contending rights, the fetus cluding illegal abortion...
...His argument is Is Abortion Debatable...
...The first is that it overlooks some which the abortion discussion touches It must be said, however, that simply by important factionalism within the pro- the current controversies over human taking seriously and unpacking from "the choice movement...
...forts, arguing for what he called a "perfriends cheek by jowl with his criticism we eat scrambled eggs from blue and mit but discourage formula...
...By trying to the future...
...There is fresh pressure on Congress to batable subject [was] replaced by abortion LIFE'S DOMINION find a way to deal with abortion in light as a matter of personal choice and mediAn Argument about Abortion, of the coming debate on the Clinton ad- cal expertise," both well suited to stifle seEuthanasia, and Individual Freedom ministration's health-care plan, likely to rious reflection...
...conclusion, the danger of language's mis- go on to lose the Series in the seventh Every possible way to a compromise souse should not be underestimated...
...tarianism, for example) are concerned...
...Rosenblatt's mentalism...
...Mensch and Freeman pursue that question as insightfully as any who THE POLITICS OF VIRTUE focused agenda that could translate into have written on this much-written-about Is Abortion Debatable...
...belong in this poet's everyday world, so World Series: was the more successful of those two efwe find poems about old affairs or old I wear my yellow sweater...
...Buffalo, begin with candid personal rev- to other questions, including who else Dworkin argues, as many now do, that elations...
...Along the way, they fold in a rich essarily stuck with the grim and destrucThere is a two-fold problem with this narrative about the important ways in tive fact of moral incommensurability...
...natural law thought, heavily Catholic in Playing an important supportive role its inspiration...
...This thesis is, Dworkin contends, they bring fresh in- side or the other in the abortion debate, equally applicable to euthanasia and abor- sights to the abortion but rather to explore whether we are nection...
...Rather than tackling against the pregnant woman...
...at the end of our tethers where several comfairly simple: both the prolife and the pro- Elizabeth Mensch and Alan Freeman peting traditions (Kantianism and utilichoice groups share a common dedication Duke University Press, $14.95, 268 pp...
...The legal scholar, Laurence line Protestantism...
...debate...
...They have a convincing Duke University Press, $14.95, 268 pp...
...to seem so self-evident to so many main- the way to a more productive debate in Where Mensch and Freeman immerse the line American intellectuals...
...It is put out of bounds...
...white dishes...
...There has long been an books by prochoice advocates took an covenant with secular culture" in mainunderground movement in irenical stance...
...game...
...Commonweal 24 September 1993: 23 Many of the strengths of The Politics one see why Dworkin's position (albeit uncover the origins of that reassuring of Virtue are missing from the Dworkin with his own twists and turns) has come conviction, Mensch and Freeman open book, though he also is a legal scholar...
...tle and interesting insights about what has implacably hostile academy...
...But by try- they have five children from previous and these intertwined matters in the usual ing to push the issue into a still higher, al- present unions...
...It is by no means the treatment of nonhuman creatures...
...In poetry, penetrating and nuanced, particularly that bay...
...The Dietrich Bonhoeffer...
...But since Jean Bethke Elshtain and politics," the authors have done what the notion of the sanctity of life is itself most people on that side of things have an inherently religious or philosophical consistently, even militantly, refused to do: idea, it is not an appropriate subject for ensch and Freeman do try "especially hard to understand the propublic law but should, instead, be left to the impossible or the life side of this debate...
...promise has some intensified drive behind answer: "abortion as a theologically deit...
...Hall celebrates the cer- tents turned out to be rice pudding...
...Each has had more than one among us may or may not be worthy of it is a mistake to cast the abortion strug- "firsthand experience of abortion, in- moral concerns...
...and the ultimate and decion the abortion issue is in the acceptable middle ground...
...suggests that compassionate actions and emonial calendar of the baseball season The two books reviewed here are more the solaces of dailiness can hold fear at in its relation to human lives...
...they proffer sub- advance that side of the debate within an speak, the language of the sanctity of life...
...On this and Freeman appear to desire is an aufetus has is a result of a right to existence score they offer biting (not bitter) com- thentic liberalism: an ability to weigh conferred upon it by the mother...
...0 also, and most tellingly, have a fine eye for postwar theological and cultural developments...
...argument...
...Themselves legal the conclusion to "Extra Innings," which Hall arrests us in the moment of hope that scholars (and married to each other), they recalls the penultimate game of the 1975 holds off the end...
...Mensch and Freeman Ronald Dworkin include some abortion provisions, and be- pursue the story of that replacement with Alfred A Knopf, $23, 273 pp...
...With that they are off to the races, tradition associated primarily with morality...
...Nor did he take account of the likeworld calls our attention to the rhetoric we inning by inning with care to appear ly opposition of many feminists...
Vol. 120 • September 1993 • No. 16
