Inconsistency Sabotages the Peace Movement
Reminder: The Consistent Life Network’s blog is for the airing of a wide variety of views connected to the consistent life ethic. Therefore, the views are those of the author and not necessarily of the organization. Political elections are especially likely to elicit sharply differing perspectives from consistent-lifers.
On the Occasion of the 2016 U.S. Democrat Party Convention
by Rachel MacNair
There are many reasons to think Donald Trump’s electability is low. The alienation he causes is deep, including among conservatives who normally are comfortable voting Republican (see for example columns of Ross Douthat, David Brooks, George Will, and the National Review). Still, as long as he’s on the ballot, Trump winning possible, as polling is showing (though it’s not normally reliable until after Labor Day).
Several endorsers of the Consistent Life Mission Statement have signed on to an open letter entitled “Called to Resist Bigotry,” documenting that we have a candidate who’s far more problematic than usual.
What about Single-Issue Abortion Opponents?
I know from two recent pro-life conferences that many pro-life activists that Trump’s nomination is a harmful turn of events. So why might single-issue pro-lifers still vote for him?
Reason 1: The Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court has become a political football ever since it made a political decision in Roe v. Wade, taking the decision regarding abortion laws away from the state legislatures and taking away the right of the citizenry – including women who’ve had abortions – to petition their legislatures for a redress of their grievances.
Roe was a profound betrayal of democracy. The struggle to restore democratic debate, rather than imposition of top-down policy preferences, by elite judges who are out of touch with the harsh realities of abortion, is not a minor thing. Of course, even having the very right to life of human beings subject to democratic debate is a problem, since it should be a given. But at least that would be an improvement over the current intolerable elitist situation.
Trump knows the Supreme Court justice issue is crucial to a large portion of voters, which is why he’s already released his short list of names he might appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court, ones who may be anti-Roe. And even if he’s unreliable on doing what he said he would – he actually prides himself on being unreliable – at least he might still appoint one of those. And he might fight for their ratification, and not decide to negotiate them away in a deal.
But Clinton can be pretty well counted on to appoint judges that will strengthen Roe for decades.
(Neither candidate, of course, is likely to appoint consistent-life judges, which is what we naturally advocate for, but I’m discussing the reasoning of single-issue voters).
Reason 2: Fear of Clinton
Aside from court appointments, what could happen under Clinton?
- There are many things a president can do to block or water down good legislation.
- She could work hard to promote what from our point of view is bad legislation; she would be in an ideal situation to do so, and her strong advocacy indicates that she’s so inclined.
- Executive orders could be issued or maintained, such as pushing abortion legalization on other countries that accept U.S. aid.
- There have been fears that pro-life voices will be squelched under the idea that they’re “hate speech.”
We’ll be hearing much more of these and similar fears through the course of the election. The fears of what could happen under Clinton are very real.
Reason 3: The Closed Mind of Democrats
Democrats have gotten so they won’t give pro-lifers, including pro-life Democrats, a hearing at all. Many are the times when we can’t even avoid being insulted in the most shocking and unfair terms. Much as what Trump gives may be only lip service, he at least gives that much. Occasionally. Some pro-lifers have a sense that they can meet with him and educate him in a way that’s utterly blocked out for Clinton.
This goes beyond the abortion issue itself. Being closed-minded on any topic is not likely to be healthy.
If Trump Wins?
As usual, abortion defenders would blame pro-lifers for any pro-war and otherwise violent policies that Trump implements. This fits their stereotypes, and it’s a long-standing habit. The exit polls may well back them up on this, for the reasons stated above.
But if progressive people had advocated pro-life principles all these years, then this wouldn’t have happened. Tender-hearted people have been told their concerns for the lives of little babies aren’t welcome in many progressive circles. Therefore, they are told, those concerns must be taken elsewhere. Pro-lifers have been chased off. Not merely people whose only concern is abortion, but pro-life peace advocates have been chased off – see, for instance, how the Mobilization for Survival, supposedly a coalition of groups focused on the arms race, rejected the membership of our predecessor group, Pro-lifers for Survival.
As Mary Meehan put it in a classic 1980 article entitled The Left Has Betrayed the Sanctity of Life:
“If much of the leadership of the pro-life movement is right-wing, that is due largely to the default of the Left. We ‘little people’ who marched against the war and now march against abortion would like to see leaders of the Left speaking out on behalf of the unborn. But we see only a few . . . We are dismayed by their inconsistency. And we are not impressed by arguments that we should work and vote for them because they are good on such issues as food stamps and medical care.”
What if peace and justice advocates had included advocacy for nonviolent solutions for unintended pregnancies? If they had included the well-being of unborn babies, their mothers, families, and communities in their peace-and-justice concerns all along, then the politicians who oppose a peace agenda wouldn’t have been able to gain the foothold they have.
This is what we’ve been saying for years, and is now as urgent as ever: the inconsistency of many peace folks on abortion is causing great damage to other issues of peace and justice.
The solution is to be consistent instead. This is sound strategy on behalf of all peace issues: the more peace activists do this, the quicker we’ll make progress on everything.
Varieties of Hawk: Clinton v. Trump on Foreign Policy
Reminder: The Consistent Life Network’s blog is for the airing of a wide variety of views connected to the consistent life ethic. Therefore, the views are those of the author and not necessarily of the organization. Political elections are especially likely to elicit sharply differing perspectives from consistent-lifers.
by John Whitehead
John Whitehead
For an American peace advocate, the two major political parties rarely offer appealing candidates in a presidential election. The 2016 election is no exception to this rule. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees for the Democratic and Republican Parties, respectively, seem dedicated to the continued use of American military force around the world. However they might differ in other respects, on foreign policy both take a hawkish stance.
Hillary Clinton’s many years in public office have given her a substantial record of hawkish decisions. During her eight years in the Senate, Clinton voted in favor of the broadly worded authorization to use military force in response to the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks. This vote led to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. She also voted to authorize military force in Iraq, leading to the invasion of that country in 2003. As Barack Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton was the leading foreign policy official during the administration’s escalation of American involvement in Afghanistan, the targeted killing campaign against alleged terrorists, and the Libyan war.
In the case of the Libyan intervention, media reports indicate that Clinton played a prominent role in shaping the administration’s policy: a dubious distinction in light of how the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi led to civil war and chaos in the country. Clinton’s foreign policy aide Jake Sullivan described her as being “a critical voice on Libya in administration deliberations, at NATO, and in contact group meetings—as well as the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya. She was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi [sic] and his regime.”
Other statements from former colleagues about Clinton are similarly worrying. Dennis Ross, who served on the National Security Council during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, commented, “It’s not that she’s quick to use force, but her basic instincts are governed more by the uses of hard power.” Anne-Marie Slaughter, who served under Clinton as director of State Department Policy Planning, commented “when the choice is between action and inaction, and you’ve got risks in either direction, which you often do, [Clinton would] rather be caught trying.” While some might consider Slaughter’s statement a testimonial to decisiveness, those who wish to see an end to American wars should be concerned by the prospect of a commander-in-chief whose default preference is for “action,” even in the face of risk.
In contrast to Clinton’s substantial public record, Donald Trump’s lack of prior service in public office leaves no guide to his foreign policy stance apart from his public statements—a poor basis for judgment, even when a presidential candidate less mercurial than Trump is concerned. For whatever they are worth, however, Trump’s statements indicate a hawkishness comparable to Clinton’s.
Despite recent claims to have opposed the Iraq War, Trump’s statements on that conflict in 2002-2003 show his position to have been simply a muddle: he once expressed vague support for the war that gave way to equally vague criticisms. Trump’s position on the Libyan war has been similarly confused, moving from support to opposition to support again. His attitude toward the Afghan war is not much clearer. Whatever else these shifting positions demonstrate, they do not show a firm commitment to peace.
Moreover, during his presidential campaign, Trump has infamously made that should alarm peace advocates. He has torturing members of ISIS through techniques such as waterboarding. Trump has also repeatedly called for killing terrorists’ families. The overall impression left by Trump’s public utterances is of a candidate willing to use military force ruthlessly and recklessly.
The choice between Trump and Clinton is a demoralizing one for someone committed to peace and an end to hawkish foreign policies. This choice becomes even more dismaying, however, when viewed in the context of recent electoral history.
Barack Obama has hardly been a dovish president, but peace advocates could at least take some satisfaction in his opposition, while still an Illinois state senator, to the Iraq War. In 2008, this opposition made him more appealing, for many Democratic voters, than Hillary Clinton and contributed to Obama winning the Democratic nomination that year. Obama appeared to be, if not a genuine “peace candidate,” at least less hawkish than Clinton—and of course he appeared considerably less hawkish than George W. Bush. A kind of incrementalism in foreign policy seemed plausible in this context: the Democratic president elected in 2008 was less hawkish than the alternatives and perhaps his successor would be less hawkish still and so American foreign policy could be nudged along in the direction favored by peace advocates.
Yet after eight years of Barack Obama, peace advocates find themselves presented with major party candidates who are both more hawkish than Obama. The apparent incremental progress toward peace under Obama seems to be slipping away in light of the current choices. This should make peace advocates, including those who support a consistent ethic of life, wary of an incrementalism that accepts hawkish candidates because they are somewhat less hawkish than the alternative. Such a strategy might not lead to net improvements in American foreign policy in the long term.
Tom Taylor (left) and John Whitehead (right) holding our banner at the March for Life 2016
Consistent life ethic advocates, and others who care about peace, should consider more radical approaches than choosing the less hawkish major party option. One alternative is to put far less emphasis on precisely who occupies the office of president and instead advocate for reducing the overall power and importance of the presidency as an institution. The tremendous concentration of power, particularly the power of the national security establishment, in a single person’s hands may be far more decisive in shaping foreign policy than the political party to which that excessively powerful person belongs.
Another, non-exclusive, alternative is to renew the peace movement at the grassroots, building an energetic, vocal lobby against war and the national security establishment. If such a lobby constantly challenged hawkish policies when pursued by politicians of either major party, this might serve to change the larger political context in which those politicians operate. A more dovish foreign policy consensus shaped by such a lobby could create better electoral options than “hawkish” and “slightly less hawkish.” Such a cross-partisan goal would also fit in well with the larger cross-partisan philosophy and mission of he consistent life ethic.
Mourning After & Hoping for the Future, We Call for a Consistent Life Texas!
Mourning After & Hoping for the Future, We Call for a Consistent Life Texas!
Thad Crouch (speaking of himself in the third person) offers this report:
Mourning after the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) overturned two of four provisions of Texas law on medical regulations for abortion clinics —while also looking hopefully at two Texas death penalty cases that SCOTUS has accepted for review— the Consistent Life Network (CLN) was joined by spokes persons from a regional Pro-Life group, a state-wide peace group, and a “pro-lifetime” state senator in calling for Texas to become a consistent life state.
On June 28th, the morning after the SCOTUS abortion ruling on the Texas HB2 abortion law, Thad Crouch, CLN board member, facilitated a press conference on the south lawn of the Texas State Capitol. Heather Gardner, executive director of the Central Texas Coalition for Life was the main speaker on abortion while Crouch represented Pax Christi Texas to speak on the death penalty.
Heather Gardner and Thad Crouch at Texas state capitol
Texas State Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr, of District 27 was scheduled to speak, but had to cancel for an urgent matter and issued a written statement. Lucio is known as the Texas “pro-lifetime” senator because he consistently votes in support of both the pro-life cause and issues concerning care for the living, such as funding health services for women and expanding adoption. He also wrote the 2005 “Life Without Parole” law to limit use of the Texas death penalty.
Crouch pointed out that the culture of death categorizes abortion as an issue of reproductive rights, women’s rights, and human rights, and speaks of the death penalty as solely a criminal justice issue, while CLN places both into the context of violence along with war, euthanasia, racism, and extreme poverty.
Senator Lucio’s statement included these words:
“As a pro-lifetime Senator, I remain steadfast in my belief in the sanctity of life. Because God, our Creator, created us in His image, my Catholic faith guides me to support policies that nurture, care for and protect all life — from conception to birth to natural death. This includes the life of the born and the unborn. . . . As a Christian, I pray that we never have the occasion of having the life of a woman be put at risk due to substandard facility conditions while undertaking an invasive medical procedure, such as a surgical abortion. I pray that the life of women is never — ever — put at risk if serious complications ever arise.”
Gardner has trained over 1,500 side walk counselors to help women in crisis pregnancies find loving alternatives to abortion. She explained that while the two provisions of HB2 that require FDA standards for administering abortion drugs and limit Texas abortions to 20 weeks remain in force, SCOTUS struck down provisions that required abortion clinic facilities to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers and required their physicians to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. She is very concerned for the safety of women after SCOTUS granted the abortion industry a pass from those standards to which other Texas surgical centers must adhere.
She asked “Why are low-income women being treated as second class citizens?”
Gardner noted that Whole Woman’s Health, the very abortion clinic which brought HB2 to court, has itself failed health inspections for numerous reasons, including unsanitary rusty instruments that go inside women’s bodies.
To show that the pro-life movement is much broader than the right-wing-Christian-only stereotype, CLN quoted statements from several of our member groups who responded to the SCOTUS ruling, such as Secular Pro-Life, Feminists For Life, All Our Lives and Democrats for Life as well as our friends at New Wave Feminists. Crouch then asked why the pro-choice movement opposed this law when their leaders keep saying they want abortion to be “safe, rare, and legal.” He invited pro-choice people to send him comments with their ideas to make abortion safer and more rare—including ideas to make society more just towards women.
Gardner responded to Crouch’s question about making abortion safe by pointing out that while pro-choice Texans opposed HB2, she actually did met some pro-choicers in favor of HB2 in 2013 when she was present at the Capitol while the bill was being debated by the Texas legislature. She explained that many former abortion clinic workers had conflicted consciences when they pointed out unsanitary conditions at clinics and their supervisors prioritized completing abortions above the health and safety of women.
Gardner has many friends who are former abortion clinic workers, due her role as a volunteer advocate for And Then There Were None (ATTN), an organization that helps clinic workers leave the abortion industry and heal their Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress or their moral injury.
As a matter of fact, when Abby Johnson, the founder of ATTN, left the abortion industry, it was Gardner whom she came to first. The Coalition for Life trains sidewalk counselors to be prayerful, friendly, gentle, and approachable, while offering help to both clinic patients and workers. This way of being of service outside abortion clinics has proven far more effective than carrying signs with scary pictures and being loud and angry. ATTN has so far helped over 150 clinic workers leave the abortion industry.
Responding to “making abortion rare,” Gardner relayed that while many abortion clinic workers truly do want to make abortion rare, the industry does not. Abby Johnson wrote in her book, Unplanned, that her supervisor ordered her to increase the abortion numbers at her clinic because “nonprofit is a tax status, not a business status.”
Gardner then articulated a connection between consistent life stands on abortion and the death penalty by reflecting on friendships she has with former abortion clinic workers. She pointed out that while some people make very bad decisions and harmful actions, even to kill people, “we condemn those actions, but there are people behind those actions.” Further she said, “We have an issue with our justice system that needs to be addressed and the solution is not to kill people.”
Speaking for Pax Christi Texas (PCT), a Catholic group which promotes justice and nonviolent peacemaking, Crouch called the death penalty an important life issue for Texas, which has executed more people than any other state. Further PCT called the death penalty flawed, unnecessary and expensive. Crouch said PCT prays for the victims of crime and their loved ones. He pointed out that Pope St. John Paul II changed the Catholic teaching on the death penalty so that the gravity of the crime is actually not a consideration, but rather the considerations are the sanctity & dignity of life for both the public and the criminal and the common good.
Crouch then told the story of Bishop Daniel Garcia, the auxiliary bishop of the Austin Diocese, meeting Pope Francis at Papal mass on the border of the United States and Mexico. When Bishop Garcia said he was from Austin, Pope Francis said, “Austin, Texas!?! Don’t give up the fight to end the death penalty in Texas!” In May, Bishop Garcia passed that same imperative to PCT and the Respect Life Ministry at St. Ignatius Martyr Catholic parish in Austin when the two groups met with him to discuss this life issue.
Crouch said it broke his heart that when the Pope thinks of Texas he doesn’t think of cowboys, rodeos, or brisket, but the death penalty.
He requested that those who stand for life by working to end the death penalty open their hearts to the possibility of extending their empathy to the lives of the unborn by considering that abortion is a torturous death.
Speaking once again as CLN, Crouch invited Texans to create a consistent life Texas that was consistently pro-life on both abortion and the death penalty:.
“If we merely see only most people as having lives of value worth protecting, and just one category of people whose lives we think are of less value, or don’t deserve protection—whether that’s because of nationality, politics, race, or religion, or whether or not it’s because someone was convicted of a terrible crime, or whether or not they’ve been born yet, or whether they are terminally ill, or whether they are in extreme poverty— if we have just one category the we think is not worth protecting, then we have something in common with the Orlando shooter.”
“Seamless Garment” — Poem by Daniel Berrigan
The beauty of the “seamless garment” image!
No one, not one
exposed to the rude winds of the world,
No one, however lorn or lost, out in the cold.
No one rejected, no one unwanted!
the unborn, the aged, ill, condemned,
the expendable, “lives of no worth”-
no matter the tag,
everyone matters!
If these are expendable, who is precious?
No one is expendable!
Everyone wrapped in a vast enfolding embrace,
a garment designed by God
bequeathed to us we
wear it proudly, tend it, repair it,
cherish it, design it anew,
yes, lend it , offer it everywhere!
a baptismal robe for the twice-born,
the woof and warp of our humanity!
See more on the consistent life of Daniel Berrigan
Reminiscing on the Founding Meeting of the Consistent Life Network
by Carol Crossed
Twenty-nine years ago, March 1987, Consistent Life was born. Patti Narciso and Scott Rains, directors of ProLifers for Survival, affectionately called PS, were the spiritual parents of what was to become and is today, the consistent life ethic movement.
It began as The Seamless Garment Network. Former PS coordinator Mary Rider returned from graduate school to help Scott and Patti, and about 25 people were invited to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, compliments of a LifeWorks grant. The purpose of the gathering was to determine the fate of ProLifers for Survival, an organization that connected the issues of war and abortion. The inspiration for PS had grown out of the discord of single issue politics at a conference of Mobilization for Survival in Washington DC in 1980. MfS was an anti-nuclear war network of more than 65 organizations which was unable to agree on PS becoming a member group.
I still do not know who gave the LifeWorks grant. So being on the Chapel Hill invitation list was like being in an Agatha Christi novel. I heard that Rachel MacNair was invited and that’s all it took for me to mark the 3 days on my calendar. She was an heretofore affinity mate, albeit an anonymous one, from my first experience with her writings about how feminism and abortion rights was a disconnect.
I discovered other luminaries in the peace and justice movement that weekend: Fr. Joseph Nangle, the missionary from Peru who had introduced me to liberation theology in the late 70’s; Ken Maher, a Quaker and conscientious objector; Mary Meehan, anti-Vietnam War activist and author; Catherine Holderread Passmore, Mennonite and film producer; Andy Lipscomb, leader with the Committee of Southern Churchmen. Andy, in his thick Georgia drawl, kept saying profound things, like ‘PS is a keeper’. Juli Loesch, founder of PS, kept us laughing with stories about how she hosted anti-war discussion groups which she called nuclear Tupperware parties.
What began as an intimidating experience for me, ended as a bonding of brothers and sisters who reached down inside my soul and brought up a vision so powerful that my life would never be the same. I was not changed. It’s just that they exposed for me who I was all along and said that was okay.
It wasn’t until we were about ready to go home that The Seamless Garment Network was birthed. The 2 days of discussion were the labor pains necessary for us to realize that it wasn’t enough to be only against the violence of war and abortion, but we needed to expand into the issues of economic injustice, capital punishment, the arms race, and euthanasia. Just like you can look at a child and know its name, we knew our name with not a vote, but with a burst of applause: The Seamless Garment Network. We wrapped ourselves into the cloak of seamlessness, embracing a holistic ethic without political fragmentation or ideological division.
We added racism to our mission in 1993, in response to Rodney King and racial violence. And in 2002, we changed our name to Consistent Life: a Network of Peace, Justice and Life. It was more than our not wanting to answer those numerous solicitations to the Garment Workers Union of America. The name change unraveled the complexities of maneuvering an explanation about symbolism to explain our identity.
We were not and are not a symbol. Today we are over 200 organizations that live and breathe connectedness. We give groups and individuals permission to come out of the stereotypical shadow of partisanship. We allow them to come into the light of social wholeness.
Photo above: Front Row: Cathryn Passmore, Ann McCarthy, Carol Crossed, Rachel MacNair, Scott Raines. Middle row: Martha Yonke (?), Julie Loesch (now Julianne Wiley), Kathy Hayes (?), Faye Kunce, Mary Rider, Mary Meehan and (?). Top row: Kathy H. or Martha (?), Ken Maher, Andy Lipscomb, Joe Nangle, Jack Smalligan, 2 unknowns.
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For more blog posts on the history of the consistent life ethic, see:
First Stirrings in Connecting the Life Issues
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
Ancient Roots of the Consistent Life Ethic: Greece
The Adventures of Prolifers for Survival: Scorned by Mobilization for Survival
Celebrating the Life of Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Berrigan died April 30, 2016, just days before his 95th birthday, from natural causes. We celebrate the long life of this effective consistent-life advocate. Most famous for his long-lasting anti-war activism and many books and poetry on peace and social justice, we always knew him as a dear friend.
Dan and Consistent-Life Activism
Dan was involved in two direct actions in upstate New York that involved both abortion clinics and military weapons facilities. The group was Faith and Resistance, an organization that had an annual pilgrimage to killing centers near Rochester. Berrigan was the keynote for two of these pilgrimages, May 1989 and October 1991.
Carol Crossed reports: “I knew Dan through our mutual nuclear disarmament civil disobedience on the 40th and 50th anniversaries of Hiroshima/Nagasaki. In the fall of 1988, I visited him unannounced at his apartment in New York. He wasn’t home, and so I sat outside his door for several hours, waiting for him to show up. Upon his return, he said he had been visiting AIDS patients at the hospital and asked me to come in for a cup of tea. With trepidation, I asked him if he would lead a Faith and Resistance pilgrimage, protesting a military center and an abortion center on the same day. He said he wondered why he hadn’t been asked before, and quietly said as he sipped his last drop, ‘It’s just my cup of tea.’”
Carol continues: “Within the next two years, Dan sat in at Highland Hospital, Rochester NY, the Seneca Army Depot in Romulus NY, at Planned Parenthood and at the Federal Building in Rochester NY. At the sites, Dan spoke about the spirituality of geography: being present where killing was occurring was necessary to absorb the evil.”
October 27, 1991, Daniel Berrigan sits in to protest Planned Parenthood abortions, soon to be arrested for doing so. Photo from Rochester’s “City” newspaper.
Berrigan Remembrances Include his Consistent Stand
A lengthy obituary in the National Catholic Reporter says: “Berrigan received criticism from the political left for his pro-life views. He was a longtime endorser of the ‘consistent life ethic,’ and he served on the advisory board of Consistent Life, an organization that describes itself as ‘committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today’s world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and euthanasia.’ “I have always made it clear,” Berrigan said in the America interview, “that I am against everything from war to abortion to euthanasia.”
In their obituary on May 1, 2016, Crux magazine noted: “Despite his image as a radical leftist, Berrigan was also an outspoken opponent of abortion. During a 1984 talk at a Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Berrigan denounced what he called a ‘theory of allowable murder’ in contemporary society. Christians should have no part in ‘abortion, war, paying taxes for war, or disposing of people on death row or warehousing the aged,’ Berrigan said on that occasion.”
Crux followed up the next day in a May 2 Crux article on how he embodied the “cultural revolution” of Pope Francis: “nowhere does Berrigan write his theology more clearly than in the area of the consistent ethic of life. Through his activism and writing, Berrigan was abundantly clear that this consistency meant opposing the ‘culture of death’ universally on a range of issues as diverse as war, the death penalty, euthanasia, poverty, and abortion. Why? Precisely because he didn’t consider those to be diverse issues at all. They all dealt with killing God’s creatures. That, Berrigan said in the bluntest way possible, is a sin.”
Quotations from Daniel Berrigan
Reflections (Amherst, Mass.), vol. 2, no. 4 (Fall 1979), 1-2.
I come to the abortion question by way of a long, long experience with the military and the mainline violence of the culture, expressed in war . . . So I go from the Pentagon and being arrested there, to the cancer hospital, and then I think of abortion clinics, and I see an “interlocking directorate” of death that binds the whole culture. That is, an unspoken agreement that we will solve our problems by killing people in various ways; a declaration that certain people are expendable, outside the pale. . . A decent society should no more have an abortion clinic than the Pentagon.”
Signing a 2007 online petition in opposition to Amnesty International’s move to endorse abortion as a “right”:
My moral conviction on abortion and the rights of the unborn are more serious than “a point of view” . . . It’s as close to my conscience as war and the death penalty.
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See the poem Daniel wrote entitled “The Seamless Garment“
Book Review: Defenders of the Unborn
by Carol Crossed
Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-life Movement before Roe v Wade is one of the few books about abortion that I read without dozing off within the first 15 minutes. Maybe this is because I know very little about the movement in the 1960s and 70s. My days were absorbed with petitions and rallies that addressed opposition to the war raging in Southeast Asia. Vietnam was a household word, not abortion. The 1973 Supreme Court Decision, on the other hand, sounded like a comedic line from a The Capitol Steps performance: Roe v. Wade are the two ways to cross the Potomac.
Author Daniel K. Williams, an Associate Professor of History, University of West Georgia, painstakingly writes an objective candid account of the pro-life movement and, in the early chapters, the pro-choice movement. Peppered with statistics which would usually make reading difficult, Before Roe juxtaposes them with critical narrative that shapes the direction of the discussion.
Because Defenders mainly discusses abortion’s early years, when the Catholic Church led the struggle, it can be seen as a history of the Catholic Church’s involvement with defending the unborn. And since the Catholic Church’s public position on issues other than abortion was embedded in a broad scope of human rights, particularly the poor and workers’ rights, the book is steeped in portraying a left wing bent to early pro-life politics.
Historically, much of the Church’s opposition to contraception grew out of Roosevelt’s New Deal politics; it was naturally partnered with human dignity and a living wage. Bishops warned that born and unborn disabled children were threatened by a gross perversion of human rights and the natural law. This liberal Catholic and Democratic constituency was the precursor to pre-Roe abortion opposition, and continued through much of the 1970s, even after Roe was decided.
A Gallop poll in 1969 reported that a full 46% of Republicans favored legalizing abortion. However, only 35% of Democrats favored it. This pre-Roe Republican support for abortion was played out in state legislatures escalating abortion legality. In Colorado, a Democrat was the leader in opposing Republican abortion support. In Connecticut, it was a Republican governor who advanced abortion support. In North Carolina, a conservative legislature backed opposition to unborn rights.
Reagan’s years as California’s governor could be described as tormented on the issue. Many conservatives who supported him wanted to repeal protection for the unborn. That was contrasted with a liberal Democrat whose statement for unborn protection was coupled with opposition to the Viet Nam War and the death penalty.
Despite the rocky road of the Catholic Church’s conflation of anti-birth control and abortion, the pro-life movement leadership was generally left-leaning. This trend expanded in the late 1960s when the right-to-life campaign divorced itself from sectarian language and infused the movement with the social justice flavor. This move provided the opening some pacifist evangelicals needed to publicly connect their anti-war passions and broaden the scope of human rights.
After Roe, the Catholic Church’s role began to publicly fade as the movement pushed to include more women and evangelicals. But it was too little too late for Democrats and social-justice Catholics when in 1979 organizations like the National Right to Life endorsed Ronald Reagan for President. This began the slide from Democrat to Republican, from liberal to conservative.
The epilogue is a brief history of the 1990s: the Supreme Court struggle, the rise of the Christian right, and how the liberal pro-life leaders tried to maintain their relevance through groups like Feminists for Life and Democrats for Life. Williams’ research presents astounding statistics. For instance, 1/3 of all abortions happen in California and New York, the states with the fewest restrictions. Another number: by 1991, Operation Rescue reported 40,000 arrests from anti-abortion sit-ins.
For this latter statistic, Williams uses what could be seen as a biased source. This is a small offense, considering that the book is an otherwise dispassionate account of the nation’s most volatile cultural issue today. It also provides reflection for consistent life ethic followers:
Have we already been where we are trying to go?
Who the Law Targets
by Rachel MacNair
In recent news [in April of 2016], a candidate known for incoherence and failure to understand the basics on a wide range of policies showed these tendencies yet again. He said women who had abortions (if it were banned again in the U.S.) should be punished for getting them. Many abortion defenders, to fit their stereotypes, pounced on this statement as the “real” thinking of pro-lifers. Other news sources reported honestly that both sides in the abortion debate were upset by the remark (Gwen Ifill cheerfully said it was one of the few times the two sides agreed with each other). The candidate did retract the statement saying only the abortionist would be punished, having discovered this is what pro-lifers wanted him to say (and proceeded to contradict himself again later, as is his custom).
The discussion this event stimulated has led to two questions we need to be clear on:
- How can pro-lifers really think abortion is the killing of an innocent child if they don’t want the kind of punishment that ordinarily goes with criminal homicide? Don’t they show they don’t really mean it by saying the mothers shouldn’t be punished?
- If the answer is that pro-lifers regard women as also being victims of the abortionist, isn’t that insulting to the dignity of women and the choices they make?
The Moral Case
The fact is that a large portion of pro-lifers are women who’ve had abortions. The rest of us know such women and have given them a sympathetic ear. Large portions of the movement are given to programs of therapy dealing with post-abortion emotions. The evidence for women being traumatized by the abortion, and being surprised to discover so, is widespread.
Sure, there are women who will never show any such signs, and resent the suggestion that they might. There are others that resent it now but will show such signs of trauma later.
Many abortion clinics push women through a quick assembly-line process, make their money, and move on to the next customer. Pro-lifers are the ones spending our volunteer time doing the lengthy and wrenching task of cleaning up the emotional wreckage they leave behind. So of course the idea that the legal case goes against the money-makers would seem obvious to us.
The Practical Legal Case
Unborn children, though equal in value to everyone else, are different in one huge practical way: the only people who know they exist are their mothers and anybody their mothers tell. With the rest of us, if we were killed our absence would be noticed. And unlike those of us with larger bodies, tiny bodies are easily disposed of without ringing alarm bells.
Accordingly, the person who will most want the mother to be accused is the abortionist. If the mother stands accused, then she’s an accomplice. She’ll plead the Fifth and never testify against the abortionist. She’s often the only witness. Hence, no case at all.
Another point about unborn children is that the death rate in miscarriage is still depressingly high. If mothers were punished for abortions, then it would follow that spontaneous abortions (the medical term for miscarriages) could be investigated to see if they were actually induced. This is a horror story. It’s been bad enough that women suffering after a miscarriage have been treated callously (“don’t worry about it, dear, you can always try for another”). The last thing a grieving woman needs is to have the legal system butting in.
The Consistent-Life Case
Yet abortion, when illegal, has another feature different from the average criminal homicide. Most homicides are done by single individuals, or occasionally by a well-defined small group of co-conspirators, who do their best to hide the fact that they did it, knowing that condemnation is harsh. Abortion shares with executions and war this feature: a large number of participants.
Would we entirely blame the people who directly kill someone in an execution when they wouldn’t have done so but that a judge ordered them to, based on a jury’s decision? Would we entirely blame the judge and jury who are following laws passed by legislators? Entirely blame legislators who are responding to what their constituents want? The responsibility for killing in executions is widespread.
As for war, governments deliberately put people in situations where, as combatants, they’re supposed to kill other combatants. If they’re draftees, how morally responsible are they, and why are they less innocent than non-combatants? But suppose soldiers did eagerly sign up for the task, having been assured it was for noble purposes, only to find out later they’d been lied to? How responsible are the people in government when they have constituents pushing for a war? How responsible are the money-making lobbyists, when the war wouldn’t be available as a money-making opportunity at all unless a large enough group of non-lobbyists said it was? All these people do have moral culpability. But none of them holds it alone.
So in the case of abortion, what about all the people that pressure the mother? If the father of the unborn child beats or threatens to beat her, we can hold him legally accountable. But suppose he only threatens to abandon her, thus leaving her in dire economic straits? We can’t make that illegal, and yet he’s morally culpable in the baby’s death because of what he did. What about the boss who insists? The pastor who advises a wife to do what her husband wants? The parents of a pregnant teenager or woman insist? The baby’s father’s parents? The school counselor who makes arrangements without even asking? The impregnating pedophile who schedules the appointment to cover his crime?
And in executions, war, and abortions, what about all the people who offer the view that violence is a good way of solving problems? They therefore help make violence happen that wouldn’t have otherwise.
Unlike criminal homicide, for which society-wide disapproval is clear, when killing is socially approved (whether legal or not), there are large numbers of participants. Countries where abortion is quite illegal now still have surreptitious ones arranged by someone other than the pregnant woman herself, not regarding her opinion on the matter as relevant.
The moral responsibility for the death of that unborn child is far more widespread than just the child’s mother. The concept of “choice” lays all the responsibility at the foot of the pregnant woman – thus letting everyone else off the hook.
We don’t buy it. Legal or illegal, the responsibility for the deaths of those children falls on many participants. As with war and executions and every other issue of socially-approved deliberate killing, it’s the hearts and consciences of all those participants we need to reach.
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For more of our blog posts on abortion and the law, see:
Why the Hyde Amendment Helps Low-Income Women
What Studies Show: Impact of Abortion Regulations
My Ideas for Post-Roe Legislation
People Are So Much More than their Circumstances
by Lisa Stiller
Lisa Stiller at the Religious Education Congress
I recently had the awesome opportunity to attend the Religious Education Congress, an annual gathering of about 40,000 Catholics that come from all over the country and descend upon Anaheim, California. The event has grown from a conference aimed at religious education instructors to one that has something for everyone – social justice, meditation, spiritual practice, theology, and dance and song.
It was at this conference last month that my commitment to Catholic Social Teaching (CST) really became more than just an abstract “respecting the dignity of all people”- something that sounds good, something that feels good. I am a convert to Catholicism; one of its main attractions was CST, which its adherents call the church’s best kept secret.
CST’s core teaching is about the inherent dignity of the human person and his/her right to life, at all stages, from conception to natural death. In support of this, it teaches us that every person, on the basis of being a human being made in the image of God, is entitled to certain basic “goods,” which work to uphold his/her dignity and to support the “right to life.” These include food, health care, housing, employment, fair pay, clean water, etc.
Therefore, the providing for the “common good,” for the well-being of all (especially the poor and vulnerable) is also at the heart of CST; politically, policies that support the provision of those things that contribute to providing human dignity. Similarly, policies that promote peace and a chance for all to participate in the community also support the inherent dignity of the human person and the right to life.
So, intellectually and even intuitively, this all makes perfect sense. I did my RCIA (Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults, the one to two years of classes and masses that adults have to go through to become Catholic) 20 years ago at that rare church in Las Vegas with a priest who lived and breathed social justice. CST was at the center of most of our weekly discussions. But last month, the teachings took on real meat, real meaning. It took three speakers to open my eyes to the true meaning of the truths behind the social teachings of the church.
I’ve heard Sr. Helen Prejean speak many times; she is an incredibly human, compassionate, and dedicated person. At the same time, amid her talks about horrible crimes, horrible conditions that death row and all prisoners endure, horrible court procedures that condemn innocent people to death, she manages to inject humor. Stories she has told before all come out sounding different each time she tells them. At the end of her talk at the Anaheim conference, after recounting stories about death row inmates that she has walked the journey with, including details about their crimes, St. Helen reminded us that despite their crimes, these were still “children of God.” As such, each had inherent human dignity.
Richard Carlberg (left) and Sr. Helen Prejean (right) at the RE Congress
She asked, “Where is the dignity in the death of Patrick?” This is the death row inmate who Dead Man Walking is based on. Even those who have “committed a horrible act should not have their dignity taken from them.” We concentrate on the crime of the death row defendant, making it easier to “put a monster to death” than a human being. It is this defining of a person by his/her crime, the dehumanization of those incarcerated, that allows us to turn our back to the humanity of the imprisoned. These people are more than their crimes, Prejean said. And they want to be seen as more than their crime.
Fr. Greg Boyle spoke at a workshop on his work with gang members, and how he is able to see the humanity in each. He told us how the young men and women he works with are so much more than their past. “I don’t believe that people are their worst mistakes,” said Javier Stauring, a former gang member who is now working to create peace in areas dominated by gangs. He encouraged listeners to “be there for someone going through a challenge,” to look beyond their crime, their addiction, their appearance, and give them “space to tell the stories of their pain.” In other words, to speak of who they really are.
Quoting from Desmond Tutu, Boyle added that there are “monstrous acts, not monsters.” “There are no evil doers – only human beings who carry more than the rest of us.”
Sister Kathleen Bryant, who works with women who have been trafficked, also reminded her audience that sex trafficked survivors want desperately to be seen as more than sex trafficking victims. Two survivors told stories of how they fell victim to sex traffickers, how long it took for them to make it out, how people never saw or heard them, and how they suffered the bias and rejection common to many sex trafficked survivors. They were “unseen,” and when they finally got out, struggled for acceptance as someone other than how their past defined them. Even in the church. “Survivors are more than survivors,” said one.
Walking out of that last session, I realized that although I had just heard three different stories, they could have all been speaking with one voice. Catholic Social Teaching centers on the dignity of the individual, the inherent dignity of the individual. Human dignity remains intact in spite of people’s decisions, actions, the tragedies they fall victim to. It transcends them.
I thought about how easy it is to assign a person an adjective, as opposed to assigning their actions an adjective. To protect that human dignity, to assure it, the church calls for us to advocate for the common good – especially for the poor and vulnerable. Sr. Helen and Fr. Boyle reminded us that the Gospels preach care for the poor and the oppressed, and that Pope Francis has taken up that call. I thought of how the “victims” or “survivors” of incarceration, gangs, sex trafficking all called for the same things: education, jobs, a way out of the poverty that worked to such them back into the streets. Those things that we are called to advocate for, as they are essential to human dignity.
Seeing the human person, not the crime, the action, the victim. People are so much more than their circumstances. And I realized that if I can do the hard work of seeing this in people, than it follows that all people, no matter what they have done or where they have been, have the same right to life that human dignity dictates. From conception to natural death.
Gives some more depth, and new insight, into what the Consistent Life Ethic is all about.