Editor's notebook:
Jordan, Patrick
a way in that can also provide an easy way out. But there victims of war and offering nonviolent ways of ending or eas- may be none such, and it would be prudent to...
...Thus my operation there was not much pain...
...PATRICK JORDAN sues...
...All-out war with the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia itself is Eileen's concerns were with the Bosnians, and unfortunately a real risk, probably the primary risk of this operation...
...Could we ac"harvesting these babies for spare parts...
...a committed prolife Senator and Episcopal curing people...
...the unrelenting, coldblooded cleansings in Bosous: introducing more weaponry will only increase the carnage...
...But there victims of war and offering nonviolent ways of ending or easmay be none such, and it would be prudent to acknowledge ing various conflicts...
...a force of between 50,000 have to be willing to face capture and even death, yet who would and 150,000 troops, including 20,000 Americans, has been sug- be strong enough internally and spiritually to carry on their hugested...
...dying may provide an easy way in, there is not going to be an easy of cold...
...Winter 1993), Richard asks why there was no non4: 26 March 1993 Commonweal violent army ready to step into Somalia: "First of all, the nec- priest, I had numerous conversations with him about this issue...
...began to bother me...
...But I had not coincidentally, of an American general, will have the au- imagined we'd probably talk about other things that evening, thority not only to enforce a cease fire by military means, but perhaps even her own recent mugging, experienced while she as well to monitor and maintain the conditions of the Vance- was on the way to evening Mass...
...Now that the ban has been lifted only one thing teaches us that only a physical power can stop another physi- is clear about my own viewpoint: I am ambivalent...
...She administration has now realized that, yes, it is a bad idea ex- was not proposing a well-financed or heavily armed convoy of cept for all of the others, including the idea of doing nothing...
...But there they still are...
...nia...
...I had such wonderful our reading of the situation: that while the Vance-Owen Plan care...
...participating governments, but a group of international volunIf the Muslims and Serbs agree to it, the plan will be the vehi- teers, unprotected and unsecured by force of arms, who would cle for sending an enlarged UN force...
...But in brought to closure, at least temporarily, it is not clear who has 1992, as the matter came up in the Senate, I began to have won and who has lost...
...But as the issue of fetal tissue transplantation research is Earlier, I had been convinced by these arguments...
...some hesitation...
...I still felt out of place at this celebration and stayed only a short These slogans simply did not ring true for me...
...The panel had approved the research in December 1988 with certain safeguards: the tissues could not be sold for profit...
...They lamentCalif...
...But like the bishops' pastoral I had originally been swayed by the view that abortion was letter, Richard raises questions about this presumption and starts a separate issue from fetal tissue transplant...
...I still find them challeng- potential therapies that would come from the use of fetal tising...
...the Rodney King replay...
...It was not a surprise to hear Eileen Egan talking this way...
...those lobwhile...
...Finally, proponents relied heavily on the recommendations of the Fetal Tissue Transplantation Research Panel...
...Proponents dismissed the opposition by All the players were there: Congressman Henry Waxman (D- charging "political interference with science...
...ceptable...
...Yet despite that, I keep returning to my visit with Eileen American troops is not sent to defend Bosnia, then arms should Egan in the hospital: to her lack of despair, to her compashe sent so that Bosnia can defend itself...
...And the ple suffering a variety of ailments describing the amazing bishops' letter and Eileen Egan...
...The new enlarged force under the command of NATO and, She is a lifelong adherent of Gandhian nonviolence...
...No matter what by providing a number of examples of recent nonviolent ac- one's view on abortion, fetal tissue transplantation research could tions which successfully turned back violent, physical force...
...This means not only lifting the siege of Sarajevo visiting her in a hospital room, where she was recovering from and other cities and towns, but taking back territory from the a broken hip, head lacerations, and seven broken ribs...
...They on using federal funds...
...the Reverend Guy Walden, a prolife treated disagreement from members of Congress as an anminister whose own family had benefited from experimental noyance, necessary to placate prolife supporters, rather than fetal tissue transplantation therapy...
...The bishops wrote that "nonviolence is not the way of the weak, the cowardly, or the impatient," and made it clear that "in its practice, the objective [of nonviolence] is not to avoid causing harm or injury 0 ne evening last September, I stopped uptown to another creature, but, more positively, to seek the good of for a brief visit with Eileen Egan...
...Since such claims had as yet no solid scientific support, all the more reason, proponents argued, to put scientists to work REPORT FROM WASHINGTON on the research...
...When Michael T. Kaufman wrote a piece about is a second risk...
...There were also powerful emotional appeals by peoFor my part, that is a lot to think about this Lent...
...Perhaps this executive order lifting the ban on fetal tissue research, National research could be isolated from abortion and the abortion deRight to Life condemned his decision saying it would lead to cision, but could it ever be morally separated...
...That the panel approved so true it's a truism: when the votes are the research with only a few dissenting voices was seen by counted, there are winners and losers...
...the Haitian ferry selves...
...a woman could not IN hat has always been true about politics is designate a recipient for the tissue...
...The argument took a variety of forms: Abortion He mentions instances in Guatemala and Sri Lanka, in the is legal, and probably always will be, so we may as well bring Philippines and the former Soviet Union...
...Ten years ago this spring, the Catholic bishops of the U.S...
...of abortions a year to sustain an adequate level of fetal tissue...
...It will he tempting to help them...
...No doubt, if Ambivalence is little valued when the vote the same panel had reached a different conclusion, research is taken and at the end of the day there is supporters would have charged that the panel was a political room only for unabashed celebration or morose lamentation...
...This enlarged force will have duties broader than the manitarian mission without the threat of responsive violence...
...I repossible only where people were willing to put their own lives cently said in congressional debate, "This is not about taking on the line: "Only through this way," concludes Richard, "can lives, but saving lives...
...As a legislative assistant from 1989 to 1992 for John C. Did we want to become dependent on abortion as a means of Danforth (R-Mo...
...sion...
...essary logistics are difficult to mount," he writes, and "currently, At first, I felt strongly that he should support lifting the ban on traditional armies are the only ones which have the required fetal tissue research...
...proponents as a knockdown, clincher argument...
...informed consent for the tissue research could only be sought after a woman had made the abortion decision...
...Wouldn't it be preferable, in experimenting with Commonweal 26 March 1993: 5...
...ing about the need for an international team of peacemakers to But after initially rejecting the Vance-Owen plan, the Clinton bring relief supplies to the besieged Muslims in Bosnia...
...and many others...
...visions from Sudan, States: Give the Bosnian Muslims the means to defend them- Somalia, and India...
...current contingent of UN peacekeeping troops whose want of She spoke of how the Israeli pilot Abie Nathan had repeatedenforcement powers is in danger of making them as much a ly flown such airlifts into Biafra during that terrible civil conpart of the problem in Bosnia as they once seemed to be part flict...
...I understood them, but therapies...
...But by the time it came to a vote in 1992, logistical capacities...
...Also: Accepting a donated organ from a new culture arise on the ashes of weapons and break the vi- a suicide or murder victim doesn't make suicide or murder acolent spiral of physical power...
...If a UN force with Bosch...
...For me they have formed a sort of self-repeating tape, But if the Vance-Owen plan should fail to be signed, the Serbs a Bruce Willis film spliced with scenes from Hieronymous will continue the carnage on their own...
...This was also a sen- cept a therapy that, if proven effective, would require thousands timent with which I could not fully agree...
...bying to lift the ban never adequately addressed the symbolOn January 22, the day that President Bill Clinton issued the ic sanction of abortion that this research implied...
...But Serbs...
...It hasn't been hard this Lent to cone up with apocalyptic There is another alternative, one that has been steadily re- images on which to meditate: The standoff in Waco, Texas: sisted by the Europeans, the United Nations, and the United the World Trade Center bombing...
...from the start that a deployment of larger forces is a very high- So it was no surprise that evening that Eileen would he talkrisk and long-term operation...
...AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK sinners all, like the rest of us-published The Challenge of Peace...
...The objection is obvi- disaster...
...Before her the other....Christ's own teachings and example provide a retirement from Catholic Relief Services sev- model way of life incorporating the truth, and a refusal to reeral years hack, she had worked for four decades turn evil for evil...
...But deeper than the question of logistics, I was feeling a degree of uncertainty and discomfort that I had says Richard, is the question of how we think: "Our culture not felt before...
...be supported...
...But I kept thinking of all those people in Bosnia...
...But such actions were some good out of it...
...As Senator Strom Thurmond [R-S.C...
...The ease with which research proponents deA few weeks ago I went to a party in Northwest Washington nied any connection between abortion and this type of research held to celebrate the lifting of the ban on fetal tissue research...
...who led the congressional charge to remove restrictions ed that the issue had become "mired in abortion politics...
...lift the sanctions and arm them...
...After all, that was why I was Owen plan itself...
...They THE TISSUE ISSUE never neglected to emphasize that it was a Reagan-appointed TAKE IT SLOW ON FETAL TRANSPLANTS advisory panel with some prolife members...
...of the solution...
...with refugees in all the world's most troubled When I read these words I think of people like Eileen Egan spots...
...A founding member of Pax Christi in this country, a long- and Alain Richard, a Franciscan at Pace e Bene, a nonviolent time editor of the Catholic Worker, a biographer of Mother Teresa center in Las Vegas, Nevada...
...cal force from acting violently...
...Joan Samuelson, a Parkinson's respecting a genuine moral hesitation about the implications patient, who had toiled endlessly to see that research using fetal of medicine becoming dependent on abortions for lifesaving tissue be continued...
...The Muslims, who have clearly been the chief her recently for the Nen' York Times (January 23), there was victims, may press to recover homes and villages that Serbs the Bosnian angle again: "You know," she told Kaufman, "after have seized and overrun...
...In the center's recent newsletter and a co-worker with her, Egan has spent her life caring for the (The Wolf...
...Unlike some of those on the absolutist wing of the peace movement (or those on the realist extreme of the military-policy esOVERCOME EVIL BY GOOD tablishment), I felt then-and do now the challenge of the EILEEN EGAN & HER ILK bishops' letter, most keenly in their discussion about developing nonviolent means of conflict resolution...
...body with only an advisory role...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 6
