Abortion as International Aid

As expected, President Obama, in the first three days of office, reversed the Mexico City Policy which banned funding for NGOs that provide for and advocate abortion.  Although he signed the executive order late Friday, and not on the day of the March for Life,  this is no reason for reassurance, as Deacon Scott Dodge points out.

Well, it looked a lot like politics as usual today with President Obama's signing of an Executive Order that reversed what is known as the Mexico City Policy. It is called this because President Reagan announced it in a speech he gave in 1984 at the U.N. International Conference on Population held in Mexico City. The Mexico City policy stipulates that no monies given by the U.S. government to foreign NGOs can be used to fund abortions or abortion-related services. The rule also prevents foreign NGOs that receive U.S. money from presenting abortion as a possibility to the women they seek to serve. Hence, the policy is known by proponents of abortion-on-demand as "the global gag rule".

It is important to point out that the policy does not extend to NGOs based in the United States because such a denial has been determined to be unconstitutional. The Mexico City policy was in force from 1984 until the first few days of the first Clinton Administration, when then-President Clinton overturned it by another Executive Order issued on 22 January 1993, the twentieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's unfortunate Roe vs. Wade decision. The Mexico City policy was once again put into effect with yet another Executive Order signed by Pres. Bush on 22 January 2001.

I gave a hearty guffaw to the idea put forward by a reporter for NPR, which she no doubt received from the White House Press Office, that by not reversing the Mexico City policy on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, Pres. Obama sought to de-politicize the issue. Wow! That is spin at its worst and least creative and most disingenuous. I agree with Ashley Horne from Focus on the Family that it is not possible to "reduce abortions by channelling more money to the abortion industry". What do we offer the world? Abortion on demand! Who does this offend? All traditional cultures. The gap widens. Besides, the right to life is not a political issue, it is not an ethical issue, it is a fundamental moral issue.

What it means is that the NGOs which promote the dignity of the person will be replaced by those advocating for (e.g. asserting political pressure) and providing abortion services as a means of relieving poverty in the world. Obama stated: "For the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries... For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.”

Additionally, the President apparently intends to fund the U.N. Population Fund.  Jack Smith at the Catholic Key blog explains:

Appended to the president's action was a notice in which he said:

In addition, I look forward to working with Congress to restore U.S financial support for the U.N. Population Fund. By resuming funding to UNFPA, the U.S. will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries.

This action could be even more monstrous than the reversal of the Mexico City Policy. The U.S. government ceased funding the UNFPA after independent investigations found the agency complicit in China's coercive one-child policy - coercion that includes forced abortions.

Following the State Department's own 2002 investigation, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote a letter to Congress saying, "UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion."

Cardinal George had previously urged President Obama to keep the policy intact out of respect for life and for other cultures:

The Mexico City Policy, first established in 1984, has wrongly been attacked as a restriction on foreign aid for family planning. In fact, it has not reduced such aid at all, but has ensured that family planning funds are not diverted to organizations dedicated to performing and promoting abortions instead of reducing them. Once the clear line between family planning and abortion is erased, the idea of using family planning to reduce abortions becomes meaningless, and abortion tends to replace contraception as the means for reducing family size. A shift toward promoting abortion in developing nations would also increase distrust of the United States in these nations, whose values and culture often reject abortion, at a time when we need their trust and respect.

Politics with Conscience

In recent days, two world leaders have taken a strong stand for life against the majority; they are exceptional in resisting the gathering momentum in legislation liberalizing abortion and euthanasia. For these men, conscience is applied to matters of state and not left home in the top dresser drawer.

When the Grand Duke of Luxembourg opposed a new euthanasia bill in his country, the parliament moved to negate his traditional prerogative to veto the bill. Stefan McDaniel notes:

Thus the last non-ceremonial political act by the last Grand Duke of Europe was in defense of human life. You don’t have to be a sentimentalist about Christendom to think that a splendid way to make your exit. (First Things)

Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez, a leftist and a physician, vetoed an abortion bill last month. He subsequently left the socialist party over the issue.

In November, the Uruguayan Senate voted by 17 votes to 13 to make abortion legal if there was a health risk to the mother or foetus.

The bill would also have allowed a woman to end her pregnancy in the first 12 weeks under other circumstances, such as extreme poverty.

But centre-left Mr Vazquez, who is also a doctor, vetoed the bill, saying it was more important to provide support for women with unwanted pregnancies than to enable them to have abortions.

Let's Be For Something in This Election

3:59 Politics and the Election, Revisited

Let’s be “for” something in this election; let’s not play down to the abortion activists and engage in the numbers game, and let's not just be "against" the whole system because we are dissatisfied.

A truly educational response

Missing premise or not, Prof. Lee's response is too narrow, too abstract, and too prone to misinterpretation to be truly educational- I know a thing or two about being too abstract- and is not likely to persuade anyone who does not already agree with him... (from Deacon Scott Dodge's post, Inherent complexity defies reduction)

While it might be argued that Prof Lee's letter to the editor, which appeared in a local newspaper, The Herald Star, only aimed to refute the claim that he and other Catholics are "single-issue" voters, I think that Deacon Scott's point is valid, because at this critical juncture in our history, all that we say or do publicly on the subject of abortion must also attempt to persuade others to the truth.

Our call, as Catholics, is not simply to communicate the truth. We must be concerned with the question of method: How we communicate the truth is much more important than most pro-life activists and apologists realize. Moreover, it is not enough to craft arguments that please and impress those who agree with us. Christ gives us a clear directive when he says, "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation..." (Mark 16:15).

Let's pay attention! What we are called to communicate is good news! Before we open our mouths, pick up a pen, or sit down to our keyboards, it had better be very clear to us that our first job is to proclaim something new, something tremendously good. If we're not up to this task, we would do better to remain silent.

Our method, then, is to find the good news, wherever it may be located (buried or overlooked), and lift it up. This is the heart of fraternal correction and Christian witness.

I myself am guilty of expressing discouragement and waxing polemical when it comes to political questions. This conversation is a good reminder to me that the very first premise, the one that informs all the others, is that I have been preferred, chosen by God to bear his good news -- and not as a result of any good deed I've done or special talent I possess -- God's preference for me is purely gratuitous. From this recognition flows the awareness of another fact: other persons have also been preferred, chosen by God, as well. This dynamic was beautifully described in a witness, given during a CL Summer vacation, a little over a year ago; it is also summed up by Christ's assertion that all the hairs of our heads are counted; and it was articulated in the film, Greater: Defeating AIDS, by Emmanuel Exitu, when Vicky recounts that Rose asked her, "Vicky don't you know that the value in you is greater than the value of this disease?"

Before we speak or write a single word about abortion, or any other evil we encounter, let's remember the infinite and irreducible value of each person. Those who desire the "freedom" to choose abortion are forgetting their own irreducible value. Before they can begin to appreciate the dignity and value of the lives of the unborn, they will need to discover a much deeper affection for themselves and a much broader understanding about where their own value comes from. They will never discover these things if we shun them, insult them, or even deliver fine logical arguments in their general direction.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).

"Chosen" people

Deacon Scott Dodge's recent remarks about Abraham Lincoln (Inherent complexity defies reduction) and the problem of abortion are very helpful. While he does not make any parallels between Lincoln's pre-presidential stance on slavery and that of Barack Obama on abortion, my own discovery (through Deacon Scott's work) that Lincoln's stance evolved, shines new light on questions I have been grappling with. And let me be very clear: Deacon Scott has been consistent (on his own blog and here) in his repudiation and condemnation of Obama, Biden, and Pelosi when it comes to abortion.

For some time, I have wanted to know why, in the end, politicians are "pro-choice," particularly when a majority of voters polled have responded on multiple occasions that they are pro-life, and when "47% of all Democrats agree, 'abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter'" (Democrats for Life, by Kristen Day). The political process is supposed to guarantee that when a majority of Americans are opposed to a particular policy or law, politicians will shy away from supporting it, right?

It is tempting to think that money is the culprit, and perhaps it is. I tried to do some research on-line to discover just how much money Obama receives from pro-abortion organizations, but I wasn't able turn up any easy-to-find figures. This work will have to fall to someone more competent in this area.

Meanwhile, the problem of Abraham Lincoln's "nuanced" position on slavery, as documented by Deacon Scott, offers a fresh angle of approach to my own question. Lincoln, it can be presumed, did not practice politics within the same money-saturated political climate we find today. So, why did he, at one time, support slavery, albeit within limits? The answer to this question could go further toward answering the question that concerns me: How is it possible for a candidate to be personally opposed to something while exercising his or her political power to make the "regrettable" more likely to happen more often, even while those who have elected him or her have expressed their opposition?

Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery evolved over time. It may be that his personal opinion about slavery never changed. Perhaps he began with the belief that the overthrow of that loathsome institution would be impossible, given the cultural and economic situation of the country. Then, when he saw possibilities open up, he reached toward them.

It may be that Obama likewise supports the practice of abortion because he believes it is a regrettable given in our society. His voting and public statements, however, don't leave much room to hope that this is the case.

But, even more likely is the possibility that Abraham Lincoln was a man of his time and culture, that slavery was an evil he, like his compatriots, had grown accustomed to. When a great evil is legal and widely practiced in a given country, it is easy for citizens to make room for it, even if they recognize its evil. Rationalization (it may be wrong, but how else could our economy/culture/all that's good in us survive?) and relativism (not right for me, but for others...) sometimes seem to us the more intelligent, "nuanced," and urbane responses to social ills.

Let's put cynicism aside and assume that Obama means it when he says,

“I'm in this race for the same reason that I fought for jobs for the jobless and hope for the hopeless on the streets of Chicago; for the same reason I fought for justice and equality as a civil rights lawyer; for the same reason that I fought for Illinois families for over a decade… That's why I'm running, Democrats — to keep the American Dream alive for those who still hunger for opportunity, who still thirst for equality.”

— Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, November 10, 2007

Statements like this one reveal Obama's real concern for his fellow human beings, particularly those who are weak or disenfranchized. So, why doesn't he fight, with the same passion, for the lives of those who are weakest and least capable of ensuring their own opportunity and equality? Perhaps he, like Lincoln, believes that while abortion may be evil, the alternative could be worse.

Or he has bought into a mentality that goes largely unarticulated, but which says that unless babies are wanted, let's say chosen, by their parents, then their lives do not carry the same value as the lives of others who are "chosen" by their parents. This line of thinking assumes that it is in the act of being "chosen" by one's parents that a person acquires value.

Of course, this notion, that human value derives from having been chosen, comes to us from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The difference is that for the Jew and for the Christian, human beings are valuable because each has been chosen by God. But in this new understanding of "being chosen," the people who choose are mere humans. The "pro-choice" stance is first of all a rejection of God as the One who gives each one of us value; it is an attempt to emancipate oneself from having been chosen by a power beyond us.

Reason is the need for the Infinite...

As I was doing some research for another project, I stumbled on an interesting article, "My Catholic Faith Pushes Me to Obama," by Kari Lundgren.

In her article, Kari provides a quick sketch of her college experience "as a conservative Catholic single-issue voter":

I quickly joined Students for Life, the campus pro-life group, and began spending Saturday mornings with 6 am mass and an hour drive to Pittsburgh to pray in front of the abortion clinic. That first year I was a bus captain on the trip to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life, as well as head of the Students for Life Prayer Team. I was interviewed on the conservative Catholic TV station EWTN as a young pro-life leader.

...I also volunteered at the local crisis pregnancy center, where we offered free pregnancy tests, infant formula, children's clothing, and other services to help women who were pregnant and needed extra support. I went to daily mass and weekly confession, as I had since high school. I marched in the occasional local abortion protest. I read theology in my free time.

I was, in other words, the perfect Steubenville Catholic student: devoted to my prayer life, diligent in my studies, involved in student life, and passionate about the pro-life cause.

Later, Lundgren experienced a kind of conversion:

...While I prayed for an end to abortion and the conversion of souls, I also saw the depressed ex-steel town in which the university resided, and I felt a disconnect between the spiritual fervency on campus and the poverty surrounding it. I was ashamed to have the money to be a full-time student when the neighborhoods next door to the university were filled with dilapidated houses and people forced out of work when the steel mills closed. Big questions started plaguing me: Was it really enough to make these people observant Catholics, as the general thinking on campus went? Were all of their socioeconomic problems really caused by the fact that they used birth control? Would overturning Roe v. Wade really be enough to solve the poverty, under-education, and chronic unemployment rampant in the town and the world?

These questions led her to reject what we might quickly (if inaccurately) refer to the "Steubenville solution." She found "better" answers to her questions in the rhetoric of the political left.

There are, as of this writing, 168 comments following her article. The commenters split rather cleanly into two camps: Catholics who disapprove of Lundgren's conversion on the one hand and on the other hand, supporters of Obama who cheer her on. Meanwhile, not one person posed the questions that most interest me:

Why, as an undergraduate, did she do all the things she describes herself doing? And why does proclaim the views that she now proclaims?

I am particularly curious about why she was so ardently pro-life as a college student. Because we can work very hard at many righteous and important tasks, but if we lack adequate reasons for doing them, they will eventually exhaust and paralyze us. Do we do them because we feel our efforts will make a positive impact and thus give our lives meaning? Do we do them in order to appear morally or religiously consistent in the eyes of our neighbors? Do we wish to please an authority? Or do we do them in order to find self-fulfillment?

It is the task of educators to propose a positive hypothesis that explains the meaning of everything. The Church provides just such a hypothesis, one that accounts for the questions that Lundgren asks. This hypothesis does not include the explanations that Lundgren lists in her article (that the answer to poverty is to make the unemployed into "ardent Catholics," that socioeconomic problems are caused by people using birth control, that overturning Roe v. Wade is all that is needed" to solve the poverty, under-education, and chronic unemployment rampant in the town and the world"). So, where did she get these inadequate answers to her questions? Why do they remain the only reasons she can give for the Catholic concern for the sanctity of life?

These questions are troubling, especially in light of Lundgren's assertion:

I went to daily Mass and weekly confession, as I had since high school. I marched in the occasional local abortion protest. I read theology in my free time.

In all those daily homilies, in her encounters with priests in the confessional, in the theology she read, did she never encounter reasons other than the ones she listed as the "Catholic" (and unsatisfying) response to poverty and injustice? It is possible. And the fact that it is possible should give us pause.

We can train young people to engage in "correct" behaviors without ever providing them with an education that will adequately give meaning to the whole of life. We can avoid probing their motives when we find ourselves approving of their behavior.

So, now my second question: why does Lundgren write her article? In her opening paragraph, she says, "I'm writing this for my sisters and brothers who still are those kinds of Catholic voters" (that is: "conservative Catholic single-issue voters"). Does she really hope to convince anyone who might disagree with her? In the whole of her article, she never addresses whether there exist Catholic voters who appreciate being called "single-issue" voters (it's actually perceived as an epithet by most ardently pro-life Catholics). And what steps does she take to speak with them about their true concern, that is, the destruction of innocent life?

The assertion that better services for the poor and marginalized will reduce the number of abortions has not been documented with evidence. I can imagine that some anecdotal evidence exists, but there is no hard data to support this claim. It remains on the level of pure speculation and supposition. In fact, abortion cuts across socioeconomic class. It is not merely the desperate choice of the impoverished.

The most intelligent and succint argument in response to the charge that pro-life Catholics are "single-issue" voters appeared in The Herald Star, our local newspaper, in a letter to the editor by Patrick Lee, professor of bioethics at (coincidence?) Franciscan University:

To the editor:

Some suggest pro-lifers should consider life as just one issue among others and not engage in single-issue voting.

But this makes no sense. The differences between the two presidential tickets on taxes, health care, etc., concern means to the same ends (neither side advocates solving such problems by killing poor or sick people). By contrast, the difference between them on abortion is a difference about basic ends.

At stake in this debate is the principle of the fundamental equal dignity of every human being, regardless of inessential differences, the same principle at stake in the 19th century regarding slavery. It was intrinsically unjust to reduce black human beings to the status of mere things for use. Likewise, it is inherently unjust to reduce unborn human beings to the status of mere inconvenient burdens that can be ripped to pieces or disposed of in trash cans.

It is unjust to vote for, or promote, a pro-abortion candidate if another candidate who is not worse on fundamental life issues, is an option - even if that candidate is inferior on other issues. This violates the basic moral principle of the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If a candidate was in favor of killing professors, I would expect my fellow citizens to vote against him even if his positions on health care or economics were superior to those of his rival candidate. Likewise, it is unjust to vote for those who promote killing unborn human beings - indeed, energetically, even to the point of advocating the clearly barbarous practices of partial-birth abortion and killing babies born alive from botched abortions (as Obama has done) - when their rivals do not.

Some object that Obama does not actually endorse abortion because he promises to work to decrease there number. But this argument is fallacious. Obama has consistently supported funding for abortions, and his governmental health care plan would mandate such funding. Since in political office, Obama has done everything he could possibly do to assist the abortion industry, and has even proclaimed his defense of the alleged right to abortion a priority in his presidency.

If a politician in the 19th century took an analogous position on slavery, his claim that he is "pro-choice" would not fly. Imagine a candidate saying, "I do not endorse slavery. Rather, I am pro-choice. But I have been a consistent champion of the right to slavery for the last 10 years. And I will make defense of that fundamental right a priority in my presidency. Of course, I hope fewer people will feel the need to resort to that choice, and so as president I will introduce measures aimed at keeping slavery safe, legal and rare. But, to ensure that slavery remains an option for white men who should, after all, control their own property, I am in favor of funding slavery for those poor whites who cannot afford it." (Patrick Lee, Steubenville)

Lundgren should be crafting an argument to respond to Lee's position, not working to knock down straw men she herself has invented.

So, I'm still left with a question. Why did she write her article? I suspect, in the end, it was for the same reason she went to daily Mass and worked so ardently to put an end to abortion while in college. Perhaps she has a strong desire for justice? If so, she could begin her quest by accurately understanding and representing the Catholic understanding of social justice and the sanctity of life. This exercise would represent a great step toward justice.

Or, perhaps she has other reasons.