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Politics over Faith: The Democrats Choose

The abortion debate is a funny one: every poll suggests that Americans are clearly pro-life, yet the Democrats hold on to their pro-abortion stance as if it's helping them in elections. I wanted to bring up two interesting things. First, the suggestion that Roe vs. Wade is going to become a pyrrhic victory for Democrats. Philip Longman in Foreign Policy magazine (he's liberal):

Meanwhile, single-child families are prone to extinction. A single child replaces one of his or her parents, but not both. Nor do single-child families contribute much to future population. The 17.4 percent of baby boomer women who had only one child account for a mere 7.8 percent of children born in the next generation. By contrast, nearly a quarter of the children of baby boomers descend from the mere 11 percent of baby boomer women who had four or more children. These circumstances are leading to the emergence of a new society whose members will disproportionately be descended from parents who rejected the social tendencies that once made childlessness and small families the norm. These values include an adherence to traditional, patriarchal religion, and a strong identification with one's own folk or nation.

This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry.

The key difference is that during the post-World War II era, nearly all segments of modern societies married and had children. Some had more than others, but the disparity in family size between the religious and the secular was not so large, and childlessness was rare. Today, by contrast, childlessness is common, and even couples who have children typically have just one. Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society.

To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as always happens. But when they look around for fellow secularists and counterculturalists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.

Non-Catholics often see this as a bit odd, since there is no specific creed that they must adhere to in order to be a member of their church. But the Catholic Church is clear: you must adhere to the doctrine (or Truth) of the Church in order to be Catholic. To accept abortion is to reject the teaching authority of God's Church and put yourself as a higher authority of Truth. It is to reject your beliefs and choose apostasy over faith. The sad thing is that these 55 men are doing it for something as horrific and unjustified as abortion.

It's an interesting question. At some points in the U.S. we seem to be running into an even worse moral and spiritual situation by the day. And yet we are seeing more and more studies that suggest the pendulum is swinging back towards morality and faith (such as the one above). Which is the correct perception? It's difficult to tell. This is similar to the Catholic connundrum of whether we are headed for a smaller, more faithful Church or whether faithfulness increases the size of the Church. Right now we know that faithful dioceses see many more priests and religious, but do they see fewer members? Something to ponder as we as a nation move forward. And perhaps a glimmer of silver lining in the dark clouds overhead.

God bless,
Jay