January 08, 2007
Social Justice and Abortion
Social justice is an important area of the life of the Church. It strives to protect the dignity of the human person, which is made in the image and likeness of God. When one says the phrase, what words come to mind? Most would probably say issues like poverty, immigration, just war, labor issues, etc. Indeed, the US Conference of Catholic Bishop’s website (rightly, I think) includes those issues under the topic of social justice. But I propose that the faithful need to start thinking of “life” and “family” issues as the primary subcategories of social justice. To keep this article short, I will only focus on the “life” subcategory. A second article will follow on the “family” subcategory.
The abortion issue needs to be front and center on the Church’s fight for social justice, and it must be seen as social justice. It is clear that the right to life is the fundamental right upon which all other rights can exist. And because the law currently does not allow some to have this right, this issue is of primary importance to fight. Ironically, many who fight for social justice do not assent to this truth, and this includes many Catholics who fight for social justice. I work for a Catholic non-profit organization that helps “the poor” and, sadly, I witness this often. I am frustrated at the extent of this problem, and how little it is addressed. Unfortunately, the divorce of “pro-life” issues from social justice perpetuates this problem, and makes wonderful organizations like Priests for Life look more like narrow-minded, single-issue focused extremists rather than the social justice champions they truly are.
Another reason why the abortion issue is of primary importance is that it is a black and white issue, while most social justice issues are in a gray area. They have to either balance the rights of two different entities, or have several moral options for their solutions. Let’s take the immigration issue and poverty for each example. People have a right to look for work and to provide for their families while being paid a just wage for their labor. On the other hand, nations have the right to protect their borders and enforce their laws. Social justice should lead us toward policies that balance the rights of both of these entities and bring about the most good.
There are several moral options for the question “what is the best way to help lift people out of poverty?” Should we raise the minimum wage? If so, how much? If we do, what negative economic consequences will that bring? Will the new economic equilibrium put in place by raising the minimum wage truly help the poor? There are no black and white moral answers to these questions, and policies that try to bring about the most good should be shaped by fair and sound economic research.
These are examples of gray areas where Catholics can disagree in good faith, and should debate the policy that would bring about the most good. Abortion does not fall into either of these gray areas; there are no opposing rights and the killing of an innocent is never a moral option. Fighting the holocaust of abortion is a black and white, non-negotiable, primary social justice issue; this we cannot debate. Unfortunately, many Catholics involved in social justice see it as a gray issue and the others as black and white. We must work and pray to clear this confusion.
In Christ,
Daniel
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Well said!
I may be jumping the gun here to speak of family, but I would also like to bring our attention to the example of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. We all remember her as someone who spent much time caring for the poor and calling people to personal holiness. We do not primarily remember her as someone who challenged government policy.
There was, however, one circumstance when she did challenge and successfully change the policies of the Indian government. In an effort to control the population, the Indian government mandated a sterilization/contraception/abortion program that included the possibility of bypassing consent of the couples involved.
Mother Teresa, while acknowledging the legitimate need of a society to manage its population, opposed this move. She argued that equivalent results could be achieved through Natural Family Planning which by definition involves rather than circumvents the co-operation of the couple.
She then followed up her words with deeds. Her order taught The Billings Ovulation Method to couples in Calcutta and, like Daniel and his friends, invited the authorities to judge the results for themselves. Her program was so successful that not only did they allow her to continue in place of their contraceptive program, they recommended her approach in other areas.
Now that's social justice.
Posted by: Burnt Marshwiggle at January 9, 2007 11:29 AMI remember another time Mother Teresa challenged the government. At the National Prayer Breakfast in the 1990's she looked President Clinton and Hillary straight in the eye, and told them, "abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace in this nation. If a child is not safe in his mother's womb, there can be no peace anywhere."
It was a triumph of truth in a darkened Culture of Death.
Thanks Daniel. But personally, I am glad that the USCCB is in disagreement with your proposal since it recognizes that your position is similar to, say, devoting all of your efforts to protecting a flower at all costs from wind, sun, rain, drought, etc., all the while ignoring someone taking the soil out from under it. No soil…dead plant.
Focusing all our efforts in this country on making abortion illegal by electing officials who say they are pro-life/anti-abortion on one hand, while on the other hand are big-business, big development, global economy status-quo mongers results directly in the majority of abortions world-wide, and the majority of infant deaths as well.
My fear is that pro-lifers will fight so long and hard to win the day (save the plant) by embracing politicians and programs that steadily “erode the soil” so much that when the day comes that abortion is made illegal in the US (or better world-wide), there will be no more viable biosphere (which is God’s, not ours) for those young lives to live in.
No, the USCCB sees the problem, and tries to deal with it in the only responsible way, namely, holistically.
I'll consider in the holistic approach when pro-choice environmentalists consider voting for an environmentally friendly candidate despite that candidate being pro-life.
Holistic = pro-life people voting pro-choice + pro-choice people voting pro-choice
Lets see some reciprocity first. The Green party in Canada mandates that every member support unrestricted access to abortion. You can be all for reducing greenhouse gases but as soon as you oppose abortion, you are out. How come no one accuses them of "one-issue" or "hot-button" voting?
Opponents of the Roman Catholic Church understand that the pro-life vs pro-choice issue is at the foundation of all other rights issues. Are they really so much smarter than us that we cannot see what they can?
And while we're at it, can anyone provide evidence that the USCCB as a whole believes in this nonsense rather than just Bernardin? The USCCB has put out some very good documents on life issues recently. As far as I can tell, this seamless garment and consistent life ethic seems to be a Bernardin.
By the way the Vatican has said the only reason for voting for a pro-abortion candidate is to keep an even more pro-abortion candidate out of office. I guess the Vatican with its simplistic hot-button one-issue mindset needs to approach things more holistically like Bernardin.
Posted by: Burnt Marshwiggle at January 12, 2007 11:06 AMJack
Terrific analogy, but I'm not sure I agree that Capitalism=prodeath.
In Love
when we were one
Posted by: when we were one at January 12, 2007 03:31 PMThank you all for your posts.
Jack, you have misunderstood my article. I never said that abortion should be the “only” social justice issue we should focus on, but the “primary” issue we should focus on. There’s quite a difference between those words. Also, nothing in my article is contrary to Church teaching, echoed by the USCCB. The material I’ve read from the USCCB has made it clear that there is an order of importance in Catholic Social Teaching; abusing the environment is sinful, and it is more sinful to deny someone a just wage, and it is even more sinful to end the human life of an innocent. These issues are all connected. They are “life” issues and “social justice” issues, but with different weight. Given the current confusion and division in this area, I think it’s unfortunate that there is a distinction made to the first two as “social justice” and the third, most fundamental right upon which the others hang, as a different “life” issue.
Also, you make quite a sweeping statement by saying the global economy status quo mongers results directly in the majority of abortions and infant deaths world-wide. That statement is impossible to defend with empirical evidence. If any correlation may be made with wealth and the gift of life, it seems like the richer a nation gets, the more of a burden human life seems to be, and abortion is the essential back-up to contraception. Abortion is more of a moral issue, not an economic one; as a general rule, poorer countries have more children and more restrictive abortion laws.
Economic policy is a mixed bag; whether it leans more towards socialism or more towards the free market, it has different pros and cons. Let’s take your example of big-business. We know its cons. But it also provides jobs and lowers prices. It provides some service to society, otherwise big-business would be out-of-business.
I agree with you and the Church in a holistic approach to life. I also agree with the Church’s wisdom and logic of the order and weight it gives to life/social justice issues.
Jack, Daniel
Despite the apparent agreement between the two of you, I seem to be getting two very different impressions of the USCCB from the two of you (I am Canadian so forgive my ignorance).
Daniel appears to suggest that USCCB treats right-to-life is more important than just-wage which is in turn more important than preserving the environment. But all three are important (hence the term holistic). This seems like good sense to me. In particular, it would also seem to prohibit voting for a pro-choice, pro-environment candidate over a pro-life, anti-environment candidate.
Jack appears to suggest that USCCB treats these issues as equally important and he personally "hopes for" the election of more pro-environment democrats despite them being pro-choice as well. In particular, it would also seem to allow voting for a pro-choice, pro-environment candidate over a pro-life, anti-environment candidate.
I am now thoroughly confused over the USCCB's position on this issue. I would appreciate some evidence to back up the claims about the USCCB's position.
Posted by: Burnt Marshwiggle at January 15, 2007 04:52 PMThe answer to the question of abortion, in general, is not black and white.
Only the answer to the question of direct abortion is black and white.
The answer to the question of indirect abortion is very gray.
"Q: I heard that in his recent encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II condemned "direct abortion." What is direct abortion? Is there such a thing as indirect abortion, and can it ever be justified?
A: Let's look at what the Pope said: "[B]y the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops . . . I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being" (Evangelium Vitae 62). The Pope defines direct abortion as "abortion willed as an end or as a means." Abortion is willed as an end (that is, as a goal) if one's goal is to end the pregnancy. Abortion is willed as a means if ending the pregnancy is the instrument one uses to obtain some other goal. Abortion would be used as a means if, for example, the child was killed in order to harvest its body for medical consumption, such as organ transplants or tissue research.
An abortion would be indirect if it were used neither as an end nor as a means. If a pregnant woman has a cancerous womb that must be removed, removing it would produce an indirect abortion. The child would die after the womb is removed, but the child's death would neither be an end nor a means.
Whenever a child is actively killed, even as a means of protecting the mother's life, that constitutes direct abortion."
Source: Catholic Answers
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1995/9505qq.asp
(a little ways down)
More on indirect abortion:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/INDIRECT.TXT
The answers to the question of euthanasia are much more settled than those of abortion-in-general.
The USCCB condemns capital punishment more forcefully than it condemns indirect abortion.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/prolife/pastoralplan.htm
Posted by: Patrick at January 16, 2007 11:29 PMPatrick, thank you for the important clarification. Indirect constitutes a very grey and subtle area. Ectopic pregnancy is a common example. Some treatments constitute a direct abortion (scraping the embryo/fetus out of the fallopian tubes) and some constitute an indirect abortion (removing the portion of the tube which contains the embryo/fetus). The subtle principle of the "double-effect" dominates much of the thinking.
To my knowledge, few outside the Roman Catholic Church even understand let alone accept this distinction. Protestants see it as hair-splitting with pharisaical precision. Non-Christians mistakenly assume that the Catholic Church opposes indirect abortion and euthanasia and then when corrected then cannot understand why the Catholic Church opposes direct abortion and euthanasia.
For example, the non-Christian world still does not understand why we made all the fuss over feeding Terry Schiavo while not making every effort feed and otherwise prolong the life of Pope John Paul II. For some reason, the fact that the Pope was already dying while Terry was not dying does not register as a relevant detail to the non-Christian mind.
The moral differences between Terry Schiavo's death and Pope John Paul II's death far exceed the differences between methods of treating an ectopic pregnancy. Given that people (myself included) do not quickly appreciate the differences in the former cases, we have much work to do in teaching the differences in the latter cases.
Given that we have Catholic pro-abortion politicians running for office, Catholics voting for these candidates, and Catholic priests supporting their status as a good Catholic (and calling a bishop a shit-disturber for pointing out the hypocrisy), we have much work to do on the black-and-white issues (abortion, contraception, gay-marriage, capital punishment) before we can accomplish anything on the grey issues like ectopic pregnancies, social justice, just wage, just war, indirect abortion, indirect euthanasia.
The harvest is plenty, workers are few.
Posted by: Burnt Marshwiggle at January 17, 2007 12:19 PMPatrick’s response to you Burnt, is fine. Despite the fact that I may (and have) vote for pro-abortion candidates who have a better environmental record than their pro-life opponents, I am more than a little bit positive that none of their decisions has either directly or indirectly resulted in an abortion, direct or no (but I think their lifestyles have indirectly resulted in abortions around the world – but then, God forgive me, so does mine). But their concern over environmental issues has directly resulted in some (some!) good things.
My problem with this blog is how at least one of its hosts consistently suggests that a faithful Catholic will, apparently under any and all circumstances, NEVER vote for a candidate who says they are pro-choice, regardless of their other policy positions. This is litmus voting; one issue voting. I think that the reason why it is so popular – i.e. this kind of voting – is because it requires very little work (if any at all!) at carefully evaluating policies and positions and how they may or may not effect human life - ALL Life. Granted, the world is a messy and mixed up place, hard to decipher and make sense of much of the time. But that does not excuse the Christian from thinking, and thinking carefully.
Peace
Great responses.
Patrick I also thank you for the clarification. And I agree with Burnt that direct abortion is a black and white issue, and I would say that when people generally debate “abortion”, it is more about direct abortion than indirect abortion.
Burnt, I see where you’d be confused about the USCCB. If you go by their written material, it supports the teachings of the Church. I’ve read 2 documents of theirs about voting and social justice that list the priorities in order: from right to life to respecting the environment.
But the confusion comes when some US bishops are very vocal about public policy on issues like immigration and Iraq, and are not as vocal on the more primary issue of abortion. Especially as a public policy issue, the former two are debatable, while the latter is not. The US bishops have spoken so strongly on the policy of the former two issues, that it seems black and white. Personally, I agree with their stance on immigration, but I know that a Catholic can disagree with that policy in good faith.
I feel that if there was more effort in the catechesis on building a true culture of life, people would naturally understand that paying a just wage, going to war only if it is just, and even saving a tree is all done for the purpose of preserving human life. And allowing abortions fundamentally violates that.
That’s where I feel let down by the USCCB.
