The big religion story with voters this year has been white evangelicals. Will they remain supporters of pro-life Republican candidates or will they drift leftward? Despite the thousands of column inches devoted to the topic, it looks like they’ve remained largely in the GOP camp — although anything could happen.
But the real religious swing vote in this and most elections are Catholics. And there hasn’t been enough coverage of the various factors that motivate this large and diverse group.
Catholics are told to consider any number of issues when voting, be it poverty, war or the environment. But abortion, according to the church, is a foundational issue above them all. Some Catholic leaders emphasize the importance of the abortion issue and others attempt to elevate the importance of non-abortion issues. It’s actually quite difficult to properly characterize the importance of the abortion issue within Catholic teaching while explaining that Catholics aren’t directed by the church how to vote in individual elections — even when it’s between a pro-life candidate and a pro-choice candidate. Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has written and spoken a great deal about abortion in the public square and Associated Press reporter Eric Gorski writes about the latest incident in a balanced article:
Chaput, without getting into much detail, called Obama the “most committed” abortion-rights major-party presidential candidate since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion in 1973.
“To suggest — as some Catholics do — that Senator Obama is this year’s ‘real’ pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse,” Chaput said according to his prepared remarks, titled “Little Murders.”
The Obama campaign has been promoting an unusual-suspect sort of endorsement from Douglas Kmiec, a Catholic law professor and former legal counsel in the Reagan administration.
Kmiec wrote a book making a Catholic case for Obama. He argues the Obama campaign is premised on Catholic social teaching like care for working families and the poor and foreign policy premised on peace over war. Democratic efforts to tackle social and economic factors that contribute to abortion hold more promise, Kmiec said, than Republican efforts to criminalize it.
One reader took issue with Gorski’s claim that Chaput didn’t go into detail. Here’s what Chaput had to say in his remarks:
To suggest - as some Catholics do - that Senator Obama is this year’s ”real” prolife candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse. To portray the 2008 Democratic Party presidential ticket as the preferred ”prolife” option is to subvert what the word ”prolife” means. Anyone interested in Senator Obama’s record on abortion and related issues should simply read Prof. Robert P. George’s Public Discourse essay from earlier this week, ”Obama’s Abortion Extremism,” and his follow-up article, ”Obama and Infanticide.” They say everything that needs to be said.
Chaput definitely went into detail about his concerns regarding Kmiec’s activism on behalf of Obama, some of which was included in the AP story:
While applauding Kmiec’s past record, Chaput said: “I think his activism for Senator Barack Obama, and the work of Democratic-friendly groups like Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, have done a disservice to the church, confused the natural priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined the progress pro-lifers have made, and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue instead of fighting within their parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn.”
The article has plenty more details and context, which help provide the nuance necessary for Chaput’s remarks and the position of the Catholic left. And the piece ends with a statement from Catholics United, a group that argues for the importance of issues other than abortion.
The one thing that I wonder about stories involving Kmiec is how his position on abortion should be described. He is definitely personally opposed to abortion and has a history of pro-life activism. But he also wrote a pro-Obama editorial for the Los Angeles Times this last week that seems to argue for an effectively pro-choice governance. He characterizes opposing views on abortion as rooted in religious differences and describes the importance of people with differences coming together:
The way out is to remember that when there are differences among religious creeds, none is entitled to be given preference in law or policy.
Sometimes the law must simply leave space for the exercise of individual judgment, because our religious or scientific differences of opinion are for the moment too profound to be bridged collectively. When these differences are great and persistent, as they unfortunately have been on abortion, the common political ideal may consist only of that space
I’m in the process of reading Kmiec’s book — Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question About Barack Obama — and his thoughts are a bit difficult to nail down. But it seems clear that he is arguing that a country which lacks religious consensus on abortion must default to a pro-choice position.
You can call that a pro-life view but I am not sure how much daylight, if any, there is in practice between Kmiec’s view and that of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (“Abortion is between a woman and her God”). It’s even different than arguments that pro-lifers should be willing to support Obama despite his support for abortion. I’m not sure how to handle the issue, since self-identification is usually preferable. But if Kmiec is arguing that abortion should be legal because of a lack of consensus on the issue, it makes it a bit difficult to call him pro-life. How is that position different from that of pro-choicers such as former Gov. Mario Cuomo or Sen. Joe Biden?
That question wasn’t answered by another article, this time from the Washington Post, that described Catholic electoral divisions. Still, it’s a really interesting piece of reportage with plenty of color about how Catholics are duking it out over abortion. The article begins with a pro-life activist calling parishioners to encourage them to vote on the abortion issue. Then:
“The stakes here are just so much greater,” said Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. “If you’re one of those Catholics who makes abortion the absolute priority — the issue of all issues — and Obama wins, you could say goodbye for the rest of your life to Roe v. Wade being overturned. At the same time, [people] … also think there are other issues and that the last eight years of the Bush administration have raised questions about economic and social justice — core Catholic issues — that simply have to be addressed.”
The reporters explain the importance of the Catholic vote and reveal that McCain is winning them by an increasingly wide margin — now at 54 to 41 percent. The article highlights prominent Catholics who support Obama and gives some of their arguments. For instance:
In [Kmiec’s] recent book, “Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Questions About Barack Obama,” he contends that overturning Roe v. Wade would not end abortion, and that the bigger priority should be addressing “the economic and cultural and social circumstances that force women to believe that they must make a choice against life.”
Again, how is that view different than that of many pro-choice activists? How is that view different than Sen. Barbara Boxer’s or Sen. Hillary Clinton’s?
I realize that this is a difficult question for journalists to answer, but it seems that the designation of pro-life must have some standard. Should Kmiec be given that designation even though his policy views have radically changed? If everybody is pro-life, if everybody is anti-abortion, then those terms have no meaning.
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Comments (27) |
October 19, 2008, at 3:44 pm
Bottom line: If the person is making his argument as a Catholic, then the bishops and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church must be taken into account.
Again, the question: Is Kmiec saying that actual compromises on abortion laws are impossible? Must American laws be to the moral left of those of Europe?
October 19, 2008, at 4:37 pm
Mollie, this is good and fair analysis. Nice work.
Eric is an excellent reporter, but I was a bit surprised that he said +cjc didn’t go into detail about Obama’s abortion views. You can’t stuff everything into a 30 minute talk, and that’s why the archbishop pointed people to the two good Robby George articles.
You are precisely correct to wonder if the Kmiec argument leads in the same direction as the RCRC. As Chaput notes, there really is nothing new in the Kmiec/Cafardi/Kaveny/Catholics United/Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good approach to the abortion issue. It’s a Catholic vocabulary for graceful surrender on the abortion struggle, and it’s been around in various shapes for nearly three decades.
October 19, 2008, at 4:48 pm
The national debate for decades has been basically two sides chanting “our position is good - yours is evil” at each other. That’s what makes looking at these questions interesting:
Mollie’s and Terry’s questions are good ones and ones that I think should directly be asked to Kmiec. Because, to me, there are two different dimensions to the question. One is: what should the law be? The other is: what is the most effective way of reducing the abortion rate? Some would say the two questions are linked and some would disagree. I can imagine Kmiec’s answers might be, for example: “the fight about the law is a distraction to the real issue which is attacking the roots of abortion” to which an obvious counter-argument would be “there are also legal measures which would reduce the abortion rate - why not do both?”.
The fight is happening on a superficial level with many ignoring questions such as: If abortion is criminalized, what should the penalty be for those that murder fetuses and how can that be less than then current penalty for murder?
Or, on the other side, if you believe that attacking the roots of abortion is the best route, exactly what kind of programs and money are you going to put into that effort and how are you going to measure whether or not the programs are actually working?
Or, to expand on Terry’s comment a bit: if you are in favor of some legal restrictions on abortion along with attacking the roots, exactly what measures are you proposing and how are you going to measure which ones actually work?
That’s why this issue cries out for journalism of the highest order. Because we really need insightful and well-reasoned questions to issues such as those Kmiec raised by his statements.
October 19, 2008, at 5:19 pm
An interesting observation about the Al Smith Dinner
How Catholics Are Judging Obama and the Democrats
Oct. 18, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5a4l58
October 19, 2008, at 5:46 pm
Jerry, this is an interesting observation but not a real problem:
Restricting or making most abortions illegal — “criminalizing” is a familiar abortion-rights boogeyman word in this debate — need not impose any onerous penalties on the woman who seeks or has an abortion. That’s a matter for lawmakers, and various forms of homicide already exist with very different forms and grades of penalty. Christian tradition uniformly treats abortion as a very grave evil and a form of homicide; but not always explicitly as “murder.”
One of the pillars of the Kmiec argument — not explored by Eric because of space, no doubt — is that Roe v. Wade won’t end abortion even if it falls. But abortion opponents already know that, and despite Roe’s icon value, the issue for prolifers has always been restricting abortion however it can be done, and protecting the rights of the unborn child to whatever degree possible. So Kmiec et al misframe the debate from the git-go, and most reporters simply accept it without digging deeper.
There’s another question reporters should ask, but never seem to. If Roe’s falling wouldn’t fundamentally change the abortion conflict, why do NARAL, RCRC and other abortion-rights groups defend it so frantically? Here’s one good reason, and it’s overlooked in most reporting. The law not only coerces; it also teaches. The longer Roe stands, the longer the American public gets catechized that abortion is a constitutional “right.”
October 19, 2008, at 7:11 pm
I notice that here in comments and in media news stories it has become almost mandatory to refer to an unborn child as a “fetus.” This is medical terminology which frequently is very dehumanizing.
However, did you EVER hear a pregnant woman while rubbing her swollen belly refer to the child within her as her “fetus.” No woman in my huge family (including my wife) has ever done so. Nor has any woman I have ever talked to on this and related issues ever done so. I have never even seen in movies or TV shows a mother say of the child in her womb: “Wow, the fetus is kicking in there today.”
Consequently isn’t it fair to say that the MSM’s determined use of the word “fetus’ over the word “child” is virtually pro-abortion propaganda??? And isn’t it trashing the real life experience of pregnant women to insist on the word “fetus” when they would invariably use the word “baby” or “child.” This propagandizing-dehumanizing use of the word “fetus” becomes glaringly obvious when you read other MSM stories on medical or science issues where the MSM tries to use the most common and mostpopular words to get across whatever story they are telling. When was the last time you saw a “tumor” called a “neoplasm” or a “stroke” a “cerebral accident” in the MSM.
October 19, 2008, at 8:08 pm
The Catholic bishops of Dallas and Fort Worth issued a pastoral letter on the subject. Here’s a pretty decent article on the letter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
At least I thought it was decent.
October 19, 2008, at 8:46 pm
Please keep comments focused on press coverage of these issues, not your support for abortion or opposition to abortion or what not. I have had to delete a few comments that strayed.
October 19, 2008, at 8:56 pm
This is what one Catholic observed about the abortion debate this cycle. I wrote this after attending Benedict’s Mass at Nats Stadium, Catholic X-Files or Church-State Violation? Who knows , observation/meditation FWIW;
Before Pope Benedict came to America to celebrate Mass in New York and Washington, it was revealed that as a young boy in Germany he had had a cousin with Down Syndrome. One day a Nazi doctor came and claimed his cousin for the Third Reich. Taken to be “cared for†at the “hospital†young Karl Ratzinger never saw his cousin again: one of the host of “useless eaters†marked for extermination by that brutal regime.
My wife and I operate St. Joseph’s House, a daycare and respite care home for handicapped children. As it happened one of the children we care for, a wheelchair bound young lady, was chosen along with three other handicapped folks to carry the gifts up to the altar before the consecration at the Mass at Nationals Stadium in Washington D.C. on April 17, 2008. One of these was James, a 30ish man who works in the Officer’s Club at Andrews AFB. James has Down Syndrome. He was chosen to carry the large host which would become the Body of Christ lifted up before the assembled. As James with great ceremony advanced toward the Pope, his native enthusiÂasm overcame his reserve and he started to run. Simultaneously the Holy Father leapt from his chair and walked towards James with his arms outÂstretched. We have a picture of this moment which I cannot look at without tearing up. What did he see as he gazed so lovingly at James? I believe he saw his cousin. I believe he saw the face of Jesus. And I believe that his great prayer as he elevated that host on that impossibly beautiful day was “As long as you did to these the least of my brethren, you did it to Me.â€
The next day April 18th, a boy was born to of all people, the GoverÂnor of Alaska. They named him Trig.
October 19, 2008, at 11:58 pm
For the record, abortion is not a primary issue in Catholic morality because it enjoys some special status of its own. Rather, the dignity of every human life is the primary issue, the primary right, and abortion is simply the most obvious, direct, and — here is a serious factor — legally affected threat to the dignity of human lives in this country at this time.
October 20, 2008, at 12:51 am
Francis X. Maier:
I’m not sure what is the penalty for someone who procures the murder of a spouse or child. But should that not apply to the unborn exactly the same as the born? If one is consistent, then presumably the same laws should apply. So I’m not speaking about the penalty but asserting that those who report on the religious aspects of abortions should ask the question of those who are against abortion: should the law treat the killing of the unborn any differently than the born? If someone says yes, then I’d want to know on what moral basis they make that judgment. What I really want to see are stories exploring the full set of implications of someone’s position not just the superficial reiterations of pro versus con.
October 20, 2008, at 2:20 am
JohnT:
Is there any way you can make that photo available? Post it online, if it is okay with James and his family?
October 20, 2008, at 2:51 am
Actually it does. There is an automatic excommunication. Not too many actions warrant that stiff a penalty.
October 20, 2008, at 5:47 am
I do not understand Kmiec. Is he saying that if we can’t all agree on something we can’t make a law? That’s just weird.
October 20, 2008, at 12:07 pm
Mollie- I think the underlying assumption of your question is incomplete. In my personal dealings with Kmiec, I know that he remains a devout pro-life Catholic. If it were his decision to make, he would undoubtedly overturn Roe. The nuance needed in this conversation pertains to the efficacy of our political actions in producing desired results.
There are 1.3 million abortions a year in this country. After 35 years and millions of dollars spent chasing the elusive 3 votes needed to overturn stare decisis of Roe- 1.3 is still an absurdly high number. Kmiec is saying that it’s time to turn a corner and realize that more effective and fruitful means exist to combat the moral evil of abortion.
Fran Maier makes an interesting comment:
In essence, Fran concedes that the legality of the abortion debate isn’t solely limited to producing practical results. Rather, he recognizes a second catechetical goal of instructing the faithful. Again, on this point- I’d question the effectiveness of inculcating pro-life values through a legal pursuit of overturning Roe. Faith and Public Life recently released a poll that indicates more younger Catholics are less pro-life today than their older counter parts.
On both fronts of ending abortion and inculcating pro-life values, our strategy is not working. Pro-life Catholics, like myself, are tired of politicians who use abortion as a political issue while doing very little to actually deliver results. I think it’s time that the Catholic and pro-life community held an honest conversation regarding the fruit of our labor. To much is at stake.
October 20, 2008, at 1:17 pm
I wish there had been more coverage of the Al Smith dinner from the perspective of analyzing the Cardinal’s chumming with politicians, particularly the Dem party, which so strongly advocates abortion and other social policies anathema to the Church. The dinner brought great confusion to the faithful I’d say, at a time when many bishops are clearly stating that abortion and the basic right to live have primacy over other moral issues. I would like to think that Abp. Burke would have upset the applecart of tradition and not attended such an event.
October 20, 2008, at 2:19 pm
I remember when that argument was used against the Civil Rights legislation in the 60s. Apply the argument to virtually any agreed upon evil (murder, for example) and the absurdity of the argument becomes instantly apparent.
What we don’t agree upon is whether an abortion is a murder. That’s the issue that must be faced, and the media have colluded for years in avoiding it.
October 20, 2008, at 2:48 pm
Deacon John M. Bresnahan wrote:
Problem is, use of the word “child” would immediately, and correctly, be tagged as anti-abortion propaganda. A real contribution to this conundrum would be to find a third choice that was really neutral as seen by both sides.
October 20, 2008, at 4:30 pm
How about “he” or “she”?
October 20, 2008, at 4:38 pm
While many bishops have instructed Catholics on the moral issues to take into account while voting most (all?) articles and documents have spoken about hypotheticals. For example, if one candidate supports X, and the other supports Y, then Church teaching instructs us to do Z. Here Archbishop Chaput doesn’t beat around the bush and specific mentions Obama by name.
This reminds me of the stories from a few weeks ago about the evangelical churches who are challenging the prohibition against tax-exempt churches and other non-profits from endorsing candidates. I wonder if the IRS will pay the Archbishop a visit?
October 20, 2008, at 5:06 pm
Although many journalists seem blind to it, there is something out there called the pro-life movement. It is one of the great social movements of our history and certain of its leaders have defined its goal: “Every unborn child protected in law, and welcomed in life.” To be pro-life is to endorse this goal of the pro-life movement. Professor Kmiec, thus, is not pro-life. Further, by joining forces with an orchestrated campaign that is designed to blunt the pronouncements of the bishops of the Catholic Church, Professor Kmiec is acting in opposition to the pro-life movement and is actively assisting efforts to roll back the legislative gains achieved after Casey. We in the pro-life movement abhor legalized abortion and will not rest until it is abolished. It is not difficult to see that Professor Kmiec is not one of us. By not recognizing this obvious fact, the press — wittingly or unwittingly — serves the goal of the abortion rights campaign that Professor Kmiec has so enthusiastically joined.
October 20, 2008, at 5:29 pm
Brian W.,
The Archbishop began his remarks with a message to the IRS: He was speaking as a private citizen, not as a Catholic official. He noted that Kmiec had used some of his writings in his book and was thankful to have the opportunity to respond.
October 20, 2008, at 7:46 pm
Just as Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson spoke when endorsing Sen. Obama.
October 20, 2008, at 9:25 pm
James, this finally doesn’t make much sense:
All law inculcates values and orders behavior for the common good. All law teaches, That’s what law does. The fracturing of the heavy social consensus against abortion over the past 35 years has been enforced by courts proceeding from the top down, not from the bottom up, which is one of the reasons rulings like Roe remain, and must remain, a target of the prolife movement. It’s the lack of serious media delving into these details and motives that dumbs down the abortion debate.
BTW, here’s another question the press often doesn’t pursue: Who exactly are those “younger Catholics” who feel differently about abortion? What makes them Catholic? Are they merely baptized and self-identified? How frequently do they worship, affiliate with a parish, donate time and resources to Catholic charitable causes, etc? Because if they don’t do the latter, the former doesn’t mean much beyond a brand label.
October 21, 2008, at 1:35 am
Julia,
I was thinking of abortion in the political context, not of the act itself. Voting for a candidate who favors unrestricted abortion may be sinful, but does not accrue automatic excommunication. Whereas procuring or committing an abortion does.
The point I was trying to make was that, when Mollie said:
she was missing the reason why abortion is so important to the Church. One of my disappointments about coverage of Catholic issues is that the MSM tends to treat Catholic moral teaching as arbitrary pronouncements on isolated issues, rather than acknowledging the principles that underlie and guide the particular moral teachings.
October 21, 2008, at 7:43 am
My parish priest has been pretty apolitical for as long as I’ve known him — since 2002 — but in the past few Sundays he has stressed the importance of the Church’s position on the sanctity of life in his homilies. I wasn’t surprised on “Respect for Life Sunday,” October 5th, but he has continued.
October 21, 2008, at 4:05 pm
Julia (#19), the problem with that is that at some point the reporter would have to say what or whom the pronoun refers to.