Two recent events on the abortion scene have brought out the divisiveness among Americans as a whole and even among Catholics.
The first event was the leaking of a preliminary draft of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade in early May. This was followed on May 20 by Archbishop Cordileone’s letter to Speaker of the House Pelosi regarding her refraining from communion. Both events have raised the temperature on the abortion and pro-life issue.
What gets my attention among the all the noise and rage being expressed is the false notions of what abortion is really about. This is especially the case regarding who is the real victim of abortion.
‘Victims’
On the pro-abortion secular side, the narrative is all about women’s rights. “My body my choice” is the mantra on signs and in the media. Abortion is projected as just another political issue about denying freedom of expression and individual rights. The victim is the women for not being able to abort her baby.
Another secular argument is that preventing abortions is forcing religious morals and beliefs on others. The victim is the woman who does not believe in a particular morality.
On the pro-abortion Catholic side, (an oxymoron for sure), there are groups like Catholics for Choice that support the secular arguments. Such Catholics, including some in the hierarchy, view abortion as just one of several social justice issues. They equate it with poverty, immigration, and the like. The emphasis on abortion is seen as taking away from serving the other needs of people. In turn, in many instances, those other issues are seen as priorities. The victims are those people who have other needs.
Added to this is the narrative that pro-life efforts can be divisive within the Church. As a consequence, such efforts need to be deemphasized. There is a fear of the Church being branded as “politicizing” abortion and, (as with actions such as Archbishop Cordileone’s), “weaponizing” the Eucharist. The victim here is the Church.
Finally, is the narrative pushed by pro-abortion Catholic politicians. They lament that, as devout Catholics, they are against abortion. At the same time they don’t want to push their personal or religious moral values on others. The victim here is the politician who gets denied communion because of his or her stance.
The victim is the baby
We need to take a real hard look who is the priority victim here. Is it a politician being denied communion? Or is it the pregnant mother? Maybe it’s suffering persons requiring Catholic social justice services? Is it the Church and its image?
I would ask a simple question – Will any of them lose their life if an abortion is performed?
It is the live baby in the womb who can lose his/her life that is being left out in the narratives, discussions, and media reporting. The correct terminology may be zygote, embryo or fetus depending upon the stage of growth. Irrespective of scientific labels, however, it is a live, developing human being progressing toward babyhood that is being killed.
All other issues, arguments and concerns pale compared to this simple fact. Science tells us that human life begins at conception. Women were created by God, physiologically and anatomically to carry and protect that life in a womb. It’s about that life and its protection. While it is true that protecting the life in the womb can be a religious value, it is also a value within the natural and common law.
You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works!
My very self you know. — Psalm 139:13-14
True Fairness
Those who are pro-abortion offer numerous (erroneous) arguments to make their case. One is that it’s not fair to bring a baby into a world in which he/she may have to live in poverty. Another is that it’s not fair to bring an unwanted baby into the world. It’s also not fair to bring a baby into the world that will be a burden on a poor or teenage mother. And, it’s wrong to bring a baby into the world who is handicapped.
But I raise the question – is it really fair to not give her/him a chance to live even with potential negatives in their life? He/she doesn’t even have the opportunity to overcome problems if they are dead.
In the 1950’s a common mantra was “Better dead than Red” meaning it was better to be dead than to live under communism. The pro-abortion mantra appears to boil down to “Better dead than ______ “(fill in the blank) poor, unwanted, handicapped etc.
The Catholic Church has been at the forefront in the protection of life from conception to natural death. To be sure, as faithful Catholics, we should be attentive to the “seamless garment” of service to our fellow man. However, saving babies from abortion and manning food kitchens are not mutually exclusive. We should and can do both.
For those Catholics who emphasize the need for a” seamless garment” I would suggest keeping in mind that an aborted baby doesn’t have the opportunity to receive any of our “seamless garment” social services. Concern must start with the saving of that life.
23 thoughts on “Its Really About the Baby”
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Person Who Can Read: With your level of commentary, I’m starting to think I may cut out Catholic Stand. It tends to just preach to the choir, resents criticism or contradictory arguments, and then – as you illustrate – gets juvenile. Cancel my subscription. Life is too short for platitudes or silliness.
Regis – baby, don’t go. I can change. Don’t leave me like this, not after all we’ve been through together. Let’s make it work. Let’s run away and start over somewhere new. I mean, sure we have our problems, but you’re worth it and this comments section is worth it.
Person a who Can Read. You do the abusive husband thing so well. Sounds like you’ve had practice.
Dear Regis H, The comments for this article are one of the best sets of comments for an article on Catholic Stand. “Ad hominem” arguments are almost always at minimum interesting-because the commenter clearly does not address the substance of what someone says. Re: preaching to the choir: Catholic Stand is catholic – not “cafeteria catholicism” in which someone picks and chooses which doctrines and teachings make them feel good. Guy, Texas
C Crisis, John says “Roe is consistent with this understanding.” My point is that Roe is bollocks, jurisprudential balderdash, and worse. Anything relying on Roe – consistent with it – is sand upon sand, two times zero legally. Another example of this is my reference to the democrats (who said this over a decade ago publicly) “the right to abortion is absolute;” and now, consistent with that, they are saying in multiple state legislatures across America that this “right” is so absolute that it includes the mama’s “right” to murder her child for some time after natural birth. Their position is demonic, consummate evil, but it is also consistent. Guy, Texas
There is an important legal perspective the author has left unaddressed. There are legally defined notions of “personhood” distinct from the concept of what constitutes a “human being.” It is universally accepted that zygotes, embryos and fetuses are not considered “persons” for purposes of census taking, being eligible for government services, being dependents for purposes of income tax deductions, among other things as well. Their “less than” status is embedded in the law and rarely challenged under any other circumstance than abortion. Roe is consistent with this understanding. It’s also curious to note that even in Christianity a funeral for a zygote, embryo or even fetus it is practically unheard of. If they are persons, they ought to be accorded the full respect given to. persons and should have all along.
John, Roe v. Wade is the worst case ever acted upon by the Supreme Court. One of its many egregious errors was saying “we cannot tell when human life begins,” and then in effect passing a law, camouflaged as a decision, that did exactly that-determined when human life begins and, sadly, this judicial legislation said human life begins at birth. Yes, Roe’s (Un) reasoning was used and is used to date by those democrats and some others who pass legislation enlarging the so-called “right to abortion” right up to the moment before natural birth. See my article https://the-american-catholic.com/2022/05/07/professor-charles-alan-wright-roe-is-wrong/ for a discussion of why Roe is, indeed, the absolute worst case ever to come from the S Ct. History has now shown us that Roe is the worst – Americans have now murdered over 63,000,000 babies because 7 “justices” exercised authority they did not have. Guy, Texas
Guy
John makes some valid points and you seem to agree with them. Or at least, can’t think of any way to rebut them.
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https://catholicstand.com/its-really-about-the-baby/#comment-423314
Thanks Guy and Mary,
>“my body, my choice” nullifies vaccine mandates
indeed..Strange how many who used to recite this as a mantra have switched to hustling people into surrendering their right to informed consent.. and to informed rejection of the mRNA jab
>, you’ve not once mentioned the male in any of this
This is a crucial point.. Fatherhood has been under attack ever since the procreative act was rendered optionally sterile with lamentable consequences for mothers, children.. and for fathers.
>.In a pluralistic society where people of many different beliefs have to live together in relative peace, no one moral view – especially one based predominantly on belief in an invisible and mysterious Being who only speaks through select men with no verifiable evidence – should be allowed to dictate the conscience of all on an issue on which reasonable minds can disagree.<
But that is precisely the point.. Can reasonable minds disagree that a person is a person and has inalienable human rights? That was the point on which the slavery question turned. In the end, certainly in the United States and in the UK, it was realised that whatever your religious or philosophical views no person who claims to practice any of the virtues on which any society depends for its coherence and for the thriving of its members can deny the humanity of others.
Also from a self-interested point of view it is clear and becoming clearer to many people that if you attempt to deny the humanity of one group, you will be cutting off the branch on which your own human rights depend."First they came for the Jews".
C.S Lewis points this out in his essay "On Ethics"..that Christ invented no new morality; he came to call us back to what we know in our bones is right and to reject what is wrong. And there are only two choices when it comes to the human person.
He concludes..
"I send you back to your nurse and your father, to all the poets and sages and law givers, because, in a sense, I hold that you are already there whether you recognize it or not: that there is really no ethical alternative: that those who urge us to adopt new moralities are only offering us the mutilated or expurgated text of a book which we already possess in the original manuscript. They all wish us to depend on them instead of on that original, and then to deprive us of our full humanity. Their activity is in the long run always directed against our freedom."
In "Man or rabbit?" Lewis writes;
"a Christian and a non-Christian may both wish to do good to their fellow men. The one believes that men are going to live forever and that they were created by God and so built that they an find their true and lasting happiness only be being united with God , that they have gone off the rails and that obedient faith in Christ is the only way back. The other believes that men are the accidental result of the blind workings of matter, that they started as mere animals and have more or less steadily improved, that they are going to live for about seventy years, that their happiness is fully obtainable by good social services and political organisations, and that everything else (e.g vivisection, birth-control, the judicial system, education) is to be judged "good" or "bad" simply in so far as it helps or hinders that kind of "happiness".
Now there are quite a few things which these two men could agree on doing for their fellow citizens..Both would approve of efficient sewers and hospitals and a healthy diet.. but sooner or later.. the difference in their beliefs would produce differences in their practical proposals.. where the Materialist would would simply ask about a propose action "wiil it increase the happiness of the majority?" the Christian [replies] "Even if it does.. we can't do it. It is unjust".
Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his "Brothers Karamazov";
"Tell me yourself, I challenge you—answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
Even the most hardened materialist at heart knows that this would be unspeakable. It is simply that his head has not caught up with his heart and soul. Because "the desire for God [and therefore for genuine Good ] is written on the human heart" even the materialist is dimly aware both that if he conceeds the power to a small group to decide who may live and who may die, his own life is in jeopardy..(revolutions eat their own children; look what happened to Danton), and also via his own relationships he will know at heart that no institution can possibly be more important than one single person.
It is the job of those of us who understand this, whatever our religious perspective to point these truths out clearly and firmly to those in power before every one of us loses any kind of human right and to prevent us from decending into the kind of dystopian nightmare that even the most imaginative minds have been unable fully to envisage or understand..
warmest regards,
Karen
—————————————————————
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.
https://genius.com/Martin-niemoller-first-they-came-annotated
https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/99sg8n/on_ethics_by_cs_lewis/
"Supposing that we could entirely eradicate COVID-19, if but only one baby had to be ripped apart to achieve this, would the end justify the means? "Aaron Ames
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/what-would-alyosha-do-an-argument-for-religious-exemption
The death of Georges Danton;
https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/execution-of-danton-1794/
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Dear Karen Rodgers, Your comments are scintillating and you speak clearly, reasonably. For comments, I tend to let it all hang out and allow emotions beyond reason to intrude, obtrude sometimes. Dear Mary Mc, I do know from whence you come and speak: I have been involved in prolife work for many years-and YES this includes caring for babies saved several years “post-save.” I have lived to see the tide turn from a majority in the US saying yes to a “right to abortion” to now an ever-growing majority saying no. For me, the strongest most heart-felt voice is not those who, like me, state reason after reason, but those women, thousands of them, who say calmly, vigorously and while maintaining eye contact: “I regret my abortion.” I have told many of them, personally, you are my heroes in the prolife world. And the tide has turned – in large part – because of discussions like these. Thank you Karen, thank you Mary. Guy, Texas [PS, Karen R: are you that Karen R who misses The Socratic Club?]
Thanks Guy,
sorry a bit distracted by the lovely May Crowning we had last weekend..
Yes indeed, I was so inspired by the C. S Lewis essay on the Socratic club in Oxford in the 1950s.. somehow we need to recapture that kind of discourse.
>For me, the strongest most heart-felt voice is not those who, like me, state reason after reason, but those women, thousands of them, who say calmly, vigorously and while maintaining eye contact: “I regret my abortion.”
Heartily agree;
20 year old Natalia who went through a State-sanctioned backstreet abortion last year;
Around 9 minutes;
https://vimeo.com/599438083?mc_cid=b910229421&mc_eid=6ab7fa2857
warmest regards,
Karen
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The “seamless garment” stuff is not sound Christian doctrine, and there is no gospel obligation to “serve our fellow man”. We are to meet the needs of our fellow covenant members, precisely because they are our fellow covenant members. If you want to do more than that, you are free to do so. But let’s stop confusing Christianity with humanism, shall we?
I assume you are being facetious, because:
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35
The Jews already knew God’s command to love your neighbor. That was well-established. So what, as St. John says, makes this command “new”? Precisely because it was not limited to your neighbor, meaning your tribe of fellow Jews in good standing. Jesus meant: Love everyone. Even your enemies. Even the Samaritans. Even the others.
Mary, Although you use the term “women” again and again, we all know you do not speak for all women and you do not speak for all men. It seems your position can also be used for the democrat position that infanticide up ’til birth and infanticide in the first few weeks after birth are part of a “woman’s right” and flow ineluctably from your stated principles and “my body, my choice.” This is not fantasy – over a decade ago the democrat party, with its minions chanting “my body, my choice” stated publicly that the so-called court-created “right to abortion” was “absolute,” and even back then they meant and they knew that they would someday cross the infanticide line in the sand. Your position validates killing young children especially newborns who “impose” on women once outside the womb-actually in some ways in which they did not “impose” while inside. In almost every case the woman chooses, and consents -freely – to the act that results in a baby alive in her womb. Thus, this is not “unwanted pregnancy.” Women, exercising their own free will, do the acts that result in babies – it is the woman who acts – without coercion – to have her baby attach himself or herself to the woman-the babies do not “attach” themselves – the babies exercise no free will. These women knew what can result and they are not “forced” to surrender their bodily integrity. And try to distinguish away and limit your principles as you may, “my body, my choice” nullifies vaccine mandates. Your anomaly point is bogus, in logic and in law: there are a plethora of things the law requires for us to do that are done “without” our permission. Mary, you are simply trotting out the same empty arguments pro-death feminists have chanted for decades-the decades that have seen over 63,000,000 babies killed, 40% of them minority babies whose mamas account for only about 15% of our entire population, with 70% of Planned For-in-the-Hood franchise business locations in or near minority neighborhoods. Whatever you might think or voice in reply, please address this intentional democrat enforcement of its RETA policy – racial eugenic targeted abortion. One last thing: it is statements like yours that have brought so many to the view that abortion is a moral blight on our society and should be outlawed, and now this is a majority of our citizens-so, thank you for again voicing it. Guy, Texas
I’ve heard the arguments for 40 years. I would never have an abortion myself; we didn’t use contraception; I have a bunch of kids and live them all. But you speak like Guy (pun intended) who has never had to worry about a pregnancy and who doesn’t really care about the women who get pregnant, often unintentionally or without consent, so it is easy for you to adopt a rigid position to be imposed on all. Until you factor the actual person who has to bear the burden that you will never have to, I don’t give your arguments a whole lot of credence.
In a pluralistic society where people of many different beliefs have to live together in relative peace, no one moral view – especially one based predominantly on belief in an invisible and mysterious Being who only speaks through select men with no verifiable evidence – should be allowed to dictate the conscience of all on an issue on which reasonable minds can disagree. With that in mind, I reiterate that we are likely to see a compromise eventually that permits termination in the early stages of pregnancy and an enhanced push through education and cultural norms to avoid unwanted and unplanned pregnancies.
Btw, you’ve not once mentioned the male in any of this.
“Manning food kitchens” is pitifully inadequate.
The problem with pro lifers is that they make having a baby so difficult. They oppose paid family leave. They oppose improving the safety net. They oppose improved access to prenatal and postnatal care.
Capt Crisis:
I don’t know where you get your information, but I don’t know of any pro-life groups that oppose those programs.
Admiral Crisis. IQ 500. Knower of all things and all people. Pontificator of the remedy to all social problems. Possessor of a brilliance and charisma heretofore unseen. Wisest of sages. Most articulate articulator. Constipation of thought and diarrhea of words.
Mary
I will let my essay stand as my response to your comments
Tom Collingwood
The real question is do we really respect ” My body, my choice?”.
It is my body and my choice to decide which relationships I enter into .
It is the child’s choice whether they live or die. I cannot imagine any credible argument beig made to say that a child would willingly agree to be dismembered, alive and conscious in order to “rescue ” him or her from poverty or indeed for any reason.
There was no credible compromise on slavery; either a human being is born free or they are not. Here, either on the one hand the child in the womb is an inanimate object or non-human being.. ,both of which propositions fly in the face of science, or on the other, a person and therefore any attack on his or her right to life throws the rights of every single one of us in jeopardy,; they become at a stroke contingent on some powerful person’s judgement as to our usefulness.
warmest regards,
Karen in Cambridge ,UK
It would be an anomaly in the law to require someone to host another body for 9 months without their permission. If someone attached themself to me by a tube so they could live off of my heart, lungs, kidneys and liver for 9 months, I might choose to save their life. But, for their own reasons, someone else might reject the idea of being forced to surrender their bodily integrity for 9 months. I don’t believe the law would require that of someone in any other circumstance. Some moral systems would say the moral choice is to allow the dependent being to impose. But other moral systems very strongly disagree. Should the state make that decision? The issue is compounded by the fact that this scenario is only imposed on women, who are half the population but historically devalued and denied full rights in most societies, largely because they are physically weaker and more dependent due to pregnancy.
Christian women may have the consolation that God is no longer the vengeful and arbitrary God of the Old Testament who permitted or even required women to be relegated to 2d class status, and is instead now a God who loves them and has a plan for their optimal well-being, including giving meaning and grace to an unwanted pregnancy. But many non-Christians, and even some Christians, don’t have that consoling belief. For them, perhaps a majority of the population, the idea of being compelled to bear children against their will is an incredible discriminatory burden and disrespectful offense with no redeeming meaning or comfort.
The effect on women has to be part of the discussion. Especially when the “competing” and dependent life is non-sentient and completely oblivious to its surroundings until well into the 9 month period.
My prediction is that the US will reach a compromise along the lines of where most European and other countries have landed – abortion permitted in the first trimester or a bit longer. That would be somewhat consistent with even the church’s view on abortion until the letter 1800s.