Editorials
Kerry, Dear Senator
Dear Senator Kerry... A s the first Roman Catholic nominated for the presidency by either major party in forty-four years, your candidacy has raised much interest and considerable controversy...
...What you think the moral issues are, however, is not clear...
...Trust will not be restored soon or easily...
...So should you...
...Yet too many Americans, including Catholic Americans, think the church will tolerate only one solution to this dilemma...
...Fax: (212) 662-4183...
...Like you, Senator Kerry, Callahan thinks abortion should remain legal and must, in the end, be a personal decision...
...Perhaps, most of all, you think that opposing abortion without seriously under-standing the consequences of overturning Roe is an empty gesture, one that does not really address the cultural and moral circumstances that compel women to choose abortion rather than welcome new life...
...Others have gone so far as to say that Catholics who vote for a prochoice politician should not consider themselves in full communion with the church and are therefore unworthy of receiving the Eucharist...
...To be persuasive in the long run, you must show that more than one path is possible...
...You are right...
...Instead, he embraced an incremental approach, insisting that it not be extended to new territories or states...
...Thirty million American women have had abortions...
...One thing is clear about the abortion debate in the United States: There is no consensus for making all abortions illegal...
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...The Catholic Church has waged a courageous, often thank-less fight against abortion...
...Yet, despite the church's longstanding opposition to legalized abortion, you have made support for Roe a litmus test for anyone you would nominate to the Supreme Court, and you have opposed every effort to restrict or over-turn that deeply flawed decision...
...A s the first Roman Catholic nominated for the presidency by either major party in forty-four years, your candidacy has raised much interest and considerable controversy within the hierarchy as well as among Catholics in the pews...
...The church's prohibition against contraception, which is inscrutable to most Americans and unconvincing to most Catholics, also weakens its case against abortion...
...What sort of political compromise, if any, are you willing to work for and live with...
...Presumably, most of you would answer no, agreeing with St...
...It has been right to do so, and it has provided an invaluable witness to the intrinsic value of life in the womb...
...He thought that once slavery was contained it would collapse of its own inherent contradictions...
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...Why a woman has an abortion matters morally, as does the age of the aborted fetus...
...Worse, the church's refusal to con-done the use of condoms for married couples, even when one partner is HIV-positive, is morally obtuse at best...
...Perhaps you are convinced that translating the church's teaching into law would indeed violate the religious beliefs of Jews and others who have traditionally put the mother's health before the life of the fetus...
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...So far, however, Senator Kerry, you have not bothered to make such arguments...
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...You profess to be a man of faith, and to believe, as the church teaches, that life begins at conception...
...bank...
...Perhaps it is your position, Senator Kerry, that abortion is a constitutional question, one that judges, not legislators, will decide, and that legislation such as the partial-birth abortion ban is therefore futile...
...DEAR BISHOPS Some of you have told Senator John Kerry and other prochoice Catholic politicians not to receive Communion in your dioceses...
...Still, you have defended the right of any bishop to exclude prochoice politicians from Communion...
...You have said that abortion is "a very complicated, incredibly important moral issue that people have to face...
...The church's position on abortion seems straightforward enough: Innocent life is to be protected from the moment of conception...
...Is it your position that this teaching should be enacted into civil law, and that Catholic politicians who do not work vigorously toward this end are not in full communion with the church...
...You need to redouble your efforts at dialogue, not because you are wrong, but because you are right...
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...Catholicism possesses the intellectual and moral re-sources to help craft such a compromise on abortion...
...The church hasn't figured out how to do that...
...Opposition to abortion is not, of course, a uniquely Catholic view, or necessarily even a religious one...
...You have a responsibility to grapple with the practical as well as the moral dimensions of public-policy issues you seek to influence...
...Given your position, it is hardly surprising that many Catholics, as well as other Americans, have doubts about your sincerity and conviction...
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...The abortion issue is broader, deeper, and more complex...
...Are the bishops advocating the recriminalization of all abortions—or something short of that...
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...In a democracy, law must rest on the consent of the governed...
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...You have made a point of identifying yourself as a believing Catholic...
...in short, doing away with Roe would do little to reduce the number of abortions...
...Or perhaps you are convinced that the law is an inappropriate tool to use in changing hearts and minds about a question as deeply personal as a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy...
...Slavery was a great evil, yet not even Abraham Lincoln sought to forcibly abolish it where it was deeply rooted...
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...Or is it that you think the church's opposition to abortion in all circumstances (even in cases of rape or incest), is so rigid and abstract that it is an affront to a rape or incest victim's fundamental dignity...
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...If criminalization is the goal, what penalties would you think just for the guilty...
...In Catholic teaching, exceptions are not allowed even for abortions following rape or incest...
...Not everything sinful need be illegal...
...The give and take of democracy is based on the implicit willingness of adversaries to compromise, even on questions of how best to uphold fundamental morality...
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...As John F. Kavanaugh, SJ, wrote in America (July 19-26), "Some Catholics have wondered whether mortal sins vary according to states and dioceses...
...to pander to absolutist abortion-rights groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and NOW, which insist that the only moral question abortion raises is a woman's right to privacy, and that any limitation of that right is unthinkable...
...That means living with some evils to avoid greater ones...
...Simply put, the church's absolutist rhetoric often under-mines your case against abortion, alienating potential allies and placing impossible demands on Catholic politicians...
...Many secularists as well as religious believers see abortion as the unjustified taking of innocent human life, an act that civilized society should permit only in the most extreme cases...
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...As Archbishop William J. Levada recently wrote, "while bishops have long been engaged in teaching and internal church 'dialogue,' that dialogue has not been effectively engaged for many Catholics in political life and in American culture at large...
...In response, you have resorted to the specious explanation that a vote to restrict access to abortion would impose Catholic doctrine on others, and thus violate the separation of church and state...
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...Nor is there a consensus for subjecting women or doctors involved in abortions to criminal penalties...
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...Would the father be subject to criminal penalties as well as the mother and doctor...
...If morality and law can-not be separated, they are nonetheless distinguishable...
...But let's be frank...
...As such, it is imperative that you find a better way to make your case...
...Thomas that an unenforceable law, or a law that is perceived to be unjust, un-dermines the very idea of law itself...
...Second, as Daniel Callahan wrote in Commonweal years ago ("An Ethical Challenge to Prochoice Advocates," November 23, 1990), "If the prochoice movement presents itself as principally a movement about the rights of women, it is likely to lose in the long run...
...You, on the other hand, are a supporter of the most permissive abortion law in the world...
...Nor is it clear what you realistically hope to accomplish, or are willing to tolerate, when it comes to changing abortion law in the United States...
...Even Rome has weighed in with regard to the question of whether a Catholic legislator who has consistently voted to sup-port unrestricted access to abortion is, by so doing, formally cooperating with evil...
...A way must be found to enlist the good will and eventually the con-sent of these women if abortion law and practice are to change...
...It is about those rights, but it is also about the welfare of families and children, about the obligations of males toward women and toward the children they procreate, and about the family and the place of childbearing within it...
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...Most of you, however, have abjured these tactics, saying you do not want the Eucharist to be used as a weapon...
...Or perhaps you reason that if Roe were overturned, abortion would quickly be legalized by state legislatures and thereby would remain widely available...
...But he warns that prochoice advocates must move beyond a simplistic defense of private choice to engage the substantive moral questions abortion raises...
...Trust the moral issues to public debate," Callahan wrote...
...Complications soon arise, however...
...This is confusing...
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...First, it does not reflect the views of most Americans, who continue to think that, while abortion should remain legal, not every abortion should be permitted...
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...In the aftermath of the sexual-abuse crisis, the credibility of Catholic bishops on is-sues related to sexual morality is greatly diminished...
...There are at least two problems with this stance...
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...If coupled with a genuine recognition of the moral imperative to reduce the number of abortions, any or all of the concerns mentioned above could provide a defensible rationale for keeping abortion legal...
Vol. 131 • August 2004 • No. 14
