Debating abortion on-line

Catholic New Times, Jan 30, 2005 by Ira Chernus, Stephen Morris

The following is excerpted from recent e-mail correspondence between CNT member Stephen Morris and Prof. Ira Chernus of the University of Colorado, regarding abortion.

MORRIS: Upon a second read, I discovered an obstacle. There is a problem with your article: you argue that 25 per cent of Republicans support "progressive issues" like "a woman's right to choose." I think the article is fantastic, but disagree with abortion being considered "progressive." To me, true "progress" is realizing the sanctity of all life.

CHERNUS: In my article, when I called a woman's right to choose abortion a "progressive issue," I was making no value judgment. It's purely a descriptive point. If you poll all the people in the U.S. who label themselves "progressive" today, and ask them what issues are most important to them as they face four more years of Bush, a sizeable majority would put on their list protecting women's choice and more particularly, preserving the Roe v. Wade decision. That's just a fact, kind of like the sun comes up in the east. Not sure why you would want to excise that from the article.

MORRIS: The term "progressive" is used by a political group that self-identifies as "progressive," but "progressive" is certainly not a neutral descriptive. You would never hear a Republican call a Democrat "progressive". The connotation is that it is a superior evolution of a line of thought. The language frames the issue: i.e. if you're against abortion, you're really against "progress."

This is certainly one way of conceiving "progress." However I suspect it is rooted in a paradigm of technological mastery over life--what Heidegger calls "gestell." Life has an inherent dignity and is not just stuff, to be manipulated.

CHERNUS: I'm curious about your own position. Exactly how do you want to respect the sanctity of life? Do you want to persuade a poor 15-year-old girl who gave in to her hormones one night, or even got raped in an alley, that she should give birth and take responsibility for another human being for the rest of her life? Because you know darn well that U.S. society is not going to take responsibility for that new human being. Do you want to force her to give birth? That really is a request just to clarify your view.

MORRIS: This is a hard question, granted. However in the case of rape, abortion punishes an innocent fetus for the crime of the father. It's a hard line to tow, I know, but it's also morally problematic to take an innocent life.

And if U.S. society cannot handle the problem of 'unwanted' children, then we should address that issue, rather than turning to death as the remedy. "Abortion is acceptable because no social net exists ..." is a problematic argument because we can apply that same argument to homelessness, euthanasia, etc. What kind of world does that look like? Contemporary Catholic ethics takes an existential tum, asking the question, "Who are we becoming in this decision?"

CHERNUS: I fear that your view leads us to become people who will leave innocent women, often teenagers without resources, and their children, to suffer the price for the rest of us failing to improve society. I don't see how that can be morally justified. It's like telling someone in a burning house that they must stay in the house until the fire department puts out the fire, then saying, well we know the fire department is moving really slow because they are under-funded, but just live with the pain until they get there.

CHERNUS: Please remember that I did not say having abortions is a progressive issue. I said only that preserving a woman's right to have the final choice about her own reproductive processes is a progressive issue. It's not clear whether you want to deny individual women that choice. Even if you are not talking about denying choice by legislation, millions of others are. So whenever you suggest that choice is somehow "anti-life," you are giving at least tacit support to the millions who would impose their personal beliefs on others through legislation. I don't see how that is progressive.

MORRIS: We impose our personal beliefs on others through legislation every day. We personally believe it is bad to rob banks, so we make it difficult for this to occur. If we really believe life is sacred at all stages, we should make it hard for people to kill, or as they say, terminate, even if that involves taking legislative measures.

CHERNUS: There is a huge difference here: In a democracy, you can ban an action by law when there is a broad consensus that the action is wrong. There is a very broad consensus that robbing banks is wrong, so there are laws against it. But when 2/3 of the people think an action is acceptable in some circumstances (as the U.S. public thinks about abortion), there is no mandate and no justification for a minority manipulating the law to impose its private religious beliefs.

MORRIS: What if Germany voted to legalize the camps? Of course that would not make it right. And religion is never (or should never be) private. What if Martin Luther King kept his religious views private?