Now, more than ever, we are seeing the problems with the proposed solution of the American Catholic right – align with right-wing evangelicals and support the Republican party so that they can select certain judges to overturn Roe v. Wade. The problem is, like Icarus, you might fly too close to the sun and come crashing down. Here, the sun is that package of Republicans beliefs and attitudes that have no place in Catholic social teaching. So we have some Catholics defending war, torture, and an aggressive and unChristian neoconservative posture in the world. We have more Catholics embracing all aspects of the theology of individualism, relishing in subsidiarity without solidarity, pushing to purge the government from all aspects of the economy, defending materialism and consumerism, and nodding toward a preferential policy toward the rich. As long as you don yourself in the prolife shroud, everything else is permissable. More damagingly, as the Republican party disintegrates into an angry nihilistic faction, so too does Catholic discourse deteriorate. And so in the eyes of the general public, the pro-life is seen as part and parcel of a bitter and angry cultural movement that mocks social justice concerns and opposes attempts to bring healthcare for all. These people are harming the pro-life cause more than any “pro-choice” politician.
Is there a better way? Well, the Church exhorts us to support the pro-family social and economic policies that would reduce abortions: “One can never approve of abortion; but it is above all necessary to combat its causes.” and “It is the task of law to pursue a reform of society and of conditions of life in all milieux, starting with the most deprived, so that always and everywhere it may be possible to give every child coming into this world a welcome worthy of a person. Help for families and for unmarried mothers, assured grants for children, a statute for illegitimate children and reasonable arrangements for adoption – a whole positive policy must be put into force so that there will always be a concrete, honorable and possible alternative to abortion.” Let’s see the pro-life movement get serious about this, including by aggressively supporting healthcare for all, so that people don’t need to die, or go bankrupt, or remain economically deprived, simply because they cannot afford healthcare – this is a grave scandal.
But there is more. This tactic alone, necessary though it is, will do nothing to affect the legal protection of the unborn. For yes, the Church too teaches that they should have legal protection. And, by the way, if the Catholic right’s strategy does work, and they get the judges they want, and the judges overturn Roe, I fear the backlash will be so great that the states that provide the vast majority of abortions will simply immediately re-affirm the dubious principles of Roe. What kind of victory is that?
There is another way, one that will take a lot longer, maybe even a generation or two. It is about changing the culture. Pro-lifers love comparing abortion to slavery. They would therefore be advised to follow the example of that great abolitionist, William Wilberforce. As Austen Ivereigh puts it:
“William Wilberforce, the great Christian anti-slave trade campaigner, eventually realised that there were too many vested interests and closed minds in Parliament to effect change there. In 1771, following yet another failure of his slave trade abolition bill, he told his followers: “It is on the general impression and feeling of the nation that we must now rely, rather than on the political conscience of the House of Commons”.
From then on, it was a campaign to shake consciences — through stories, town-hall meetings, petitions, boycotts, testimonies (above all, the testimonies). Gradually, over the next decades, people awoke to the humanity of the slaves; and as the value of that humanity rose in people’s eyes, what was once considered a regrettable but acceptable sacrifice for the sake of other benefits – prosperity, trade, and so on – became an insuperable moral obstacle.
The change in the law followed the awakening of consciences. It can happen again.”
Look to the death penalty. Support for the death penalty has fallen slowly but steadily over the years, largely due to Catholic advocacy, especially the example of Pope John Paul II. Death penalty advocates typically did not use angry inflammatory language – instead, the kept pushing the moral point about how the death penalty is not compatible with a true culture of life. Look at the attitude of the younger generation in the polls. The marriage cause is lost. But the abortion cause is not. The young, while dramatically more inclined than their elders to support same-sex marriage, are more ambivalent about abortion. They are open to persuasion. But they will not be persuaded by a group that associates with the direction taken by the current right. Let’s make the right choice.
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