This blog seems under sustained attack, largely but not exclusively by Republican-leaning Catholics because some, but by no means all, of us favor focusing primarily on the non-legal route to end the scourge of abortion in the United States. For the Republican-leaners, the challenge is obvious: the whole house of cards they set up is predicated on the notion that the Republicans can somehow deliver on the abortion front. The others have no partisan dog in the fight, and are rather motivated what what they regard as moral theological purity, the idea that a non-legal strategy entails cooperating with the evil of abortion. Any compromise on abortion is akin to compromise with murder, with genocide.. take your pick. And while this position may lead to unburdened consciences, it does absolutely nothing to tackle a culture where abortion is rampant. It is akin to sitting on the sidelines, while denigrating those who would step into the mud.
Let us consider the state of affairs for a minute. The “ivory tower” approach argues that since abortion is murder, then it should be punished as (pre-meditated) murder. If you don’t accept that, or if you are willing to engage people who believe it is a valid “choice”, then you are a moral reprobate. Except that this standard is patent nonsense. Hardly anywhere in history when abortion was illegal was it treated with the gravity of homicide in the penal code. And this is for good reason: even though abortion is always intrinsically evil, the moral culpability of the woman making this choice might be greatly diminished. There is a key distinction to be made that often gets glossed over: there is a difference between abstaining from punishment, and declaring something to be a “right” that is opposed to the natural law. The former can be licit, the latter not. So clearly, the positive law does not have to treat abortion as akin to pre-meditated murder, even if the moral gravity is the same.
At the same time, there are those in society, perhaps a majority, who go much further and argue that abortion is a “right”. This cannot be accepted. So how do Catholics deal with this? Some claim that the source of the “right” is a certain Supreme Court decision, and this decision should be overturned. Game over. But not so. The largest states, states that account for the majority of abortions, would retain the legal framework intact— this, combined with ease of travel, makes me think that abortion rates would not change very much upon reversal. But what happens next? It is simply too easy to assert that society must simply criminalize every incidence of abortion, and that’s that. It’s just not going to happen. The barest hint of such legislation would muster the mother-of-all pro-choice backlashes. And what about legislation that falls short of the standard, by, for example, criminalizing some but not all abortions, or by criminalizing it, but with far less severity than murder? These are messy issues that are avoided by a rigid above-the-fray approach that ignores the “here and now” of our society.
I think the answer is to engage the culture, to get one’s hands dirty. Promoting the gospel of life in the real world can be a messy business. Christ never promised otherwise. Christians are called to lead by example. Jesus himself socialized with some of the worst sinners in his society. His fellow Pharisees took him to task for it, but he did it. Staying above the fray is simply not an option.
Look at some of the facts pertaining to abortion. A full 57% of women opting for abortion are economically disadvantaged. In fact, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women). And when asked to give reasons for abortion, three-quarters of women say that cannot afford a child. At the same time, black women are almost four times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are two and a half life times as likely. Almost half of women terminating their pregnancies have had previous abortions, and 60 percent of abortions are concentrated among women who already have children.
So what should we do? Should we stand firm and insist on criminalization? Or should we recognize that a combination of economic and cultural factors lead women to choose abortion too readily? Should we not be trying to change the culture, to promote stable families? Should we not be trying to promote just economic policies that allow the fruits of material success to be better shared? Adopting this latter approach may sometimes mean making common ground with those who do not believe that abortion is always and everywhere wrong. It really angers me when the naysayers claim that that is somehow akin to betraying Christ, to selling out one’s Catholic principles. We are motivated solely by the desire to end abortion, through the most effective means possible, with the firm belief that the “legal strategy” will do next-to-nothing to end abortion. After all, what impact have supposed “pro-life presidents” had on abortion rates? And experience suggests that we will be taken seriously by the pro-choice side, and by the culture at large, when we promote a consistent ethic of life. Again, what matters is persuasion, and we can only do this by example.
Let me anticipate a few objections to what I write. Could this not be consequentialism, making moral judgments based solely on the consequences? No. It does not entail choosing evil in order that good may come of it. I’m talking principally about engaging the culture, promoting just economic policies. These are virtuous endeavors in themselves. Sometimes, it entails voting for a person who is formally cooperating with evil. But a basic principle of moral theology is that an act leading to foreseeable but unintended evil consequences can be permitted if the act is not evil itself, and if the good is proportionate to the evil effects. In these situations, it is imperative to take consequences into account. That is why I appeal to statistics.
As I said, this approach may mean forming alliances with people who support abortion. But since when are we called on to withdraw from all the evils in the world? To pursue peace, sometimes we are called upon to deal with some of the worst tyrants and monsters in the world. The alternative is far worse. Again, proportional considerations.
Others have noted that I often compare abortion and torture, two intrinsically evil acts, and ask if I would be willing to support a non-legal solution to torture. Again, this is a false comparison. If we had a situation whereby the “private right to torture” was grounded in positive law, and supported by a majority, then it would be licit (while never supporting torture) to seek alternative ways to limit its damage. But this is fantasy. In reality, the “right” to torture is the “right” of the government to torture. The government is the acting moral agent. There can be no solution that does not remove this “right”. The same is simply not true with abortion.
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