The Catholic Vote & Abortion - here we go again!

Why not work to change the Democratic Party platform to one that is pro-life and pro-family? Only good can come from such a change.

People do not understand pro-life and pro-family in the same way.

If the issue involved forced abortion, we would all be on the same page. Since, prohibitions usually cause unsavory activities to go underground rather than cease, the issue is how deeply should the government involve itself in matters that cannot be controlled without establishing a very strict police-state?

Since American law has practically become a matter solely of judicial interpretation, the fact that the next president will replace another one or two Supreme Court justices means that who we elect will make a great difference.
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nightwalker on Catholic Answers

overturning of Roe v Wade

Even if one bought that ole pig-in-a-poke re: SCOTUS nominees, the overturning of Roe v Wade would NOT bring about the result that so many people suppose: outlawing abortion.

There is WAY too much legal and political work to be done at a grassroots level in every state throughout the US before the overturning of Roe v Wade could have a significant impact on the numbers of abortions performed. There are only a handful of states with laws presently in effect that would be somewhat efficacious in reducing abortions should Roe be overturned. Of course, many would simply travel to the next state to procure an abortion, while others would avail themselves of an illegal drug-induced abortion or illegal clinic. This is just to recognize that, practically speaking, so much work would remain. Efforts at criminalizing abortion would still need to be seriously supplemented.

Of course, the grassroots efforts in many states would, if polling data are correct, be doomed to failure. See: http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm where the data through time reveal attitudes that are intractable. Changing laws, therefore, can only follow long after changing hearts.

The first hurdle, and the biggest historical pig-in-a-poke, has been trying to divine the will of SCOTUS nominees for the past 35 years, figuring out via some mythical litmus test how they'll vote, much less getting them through confirmation hearings in what looks to be a progressively Democratic political environment. Weighing such probabilities is highly problematic, subject to major contingency and is highly speculative.

I came across an abstract of this paper: An Empirical Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings of the Justices of the Rehnquist Natural Court by JASON J. CZARNEZKI Marquette University - Law School, WILLIAM K. FORD John Marshall Law School, Chicago and LORI A. RINGHAND University of Kentucky - College of Law, Constitutional Commentary, Vol. 24, p. 127, 2007, where they wrote: "Our results indicate that confirmation hearings statements about a nominee's preferred interpretive methodologies provide very little information about future judicial behavior."

Bush the Elder learned this lesson with Souter. Conservatives had been similarly burned when Reagan nominated O'Connor.

Reagan's appointee Scalia wrote in his Dissent in PLANNED PARENTHOOD v. CASEY Jun 29, 1992 : Leave abortion to states; Court should get out of this area There is a poignant aspect to todays opinion [upholding Roe v. Wade]. Its length, and what might be called its epic tone, suggest that its authors believe they are bringing to an end a troublesome era in the history of our Nation, and of our Court. Quite to the contrary, by foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish. We should get out of this area, where we have no right to be, and where we do neither ourselves nor the country any good by remaining.

Doug Kmiec takes issue with Scalia's view of what would happen though: Yet overturning the decision does little other than return the issue to the states. Conservative justice and fellow Catholic Antonin Scalia has pointed out that following Roes hypothetical demise, if the states want abortion thereafter all they have to do is pass a law in favor of it. As a matter of constitutional legal theory, I believe Justice Scalia is entirely wrong and that Roe is flawed not just for its displacement of state authority, but more fundamentally, for its disregard of the natural law presuppositions in the Declaration of Independence. As I see it, the self-evident truths of the Declaration have interpretative significance for the meaning of life and person in the constitutional text -- and that meaning makes life unalienable, which means each life from conception is unique and worthy of constitutional protection.

See also, the Ohio Right to Life page at http://www.ohiolife.org/ and scroll down to where it reads: NEW STUDY REVEALS THAT OVERTURNING ROE WILL NOT IMPACT LEGALITY OF ABORTION IN MOST STATES Less Than 10 percent of U.S. Population to Be Affected if Roe Overturned. And follow this link: http://www.overruleroe.com/

See also: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/2008/05/19/abortion-and-same-sex-marriage-as-none-of-the-government-s-business.aspx

where Doug Kmiec further writes:
The same could be true with regard to abortion. Here, the formulation would mean that if Roe were overturned, the matter would not be returned to the states or to the people in their initiative/referenda legislative capacity but would be reserved to the people solely within their own church and family structures. It would be within those nongovernmental communities that the people would decide whether abortion is a matter of individual liberty or the taking of human life. Obviously, as a practical matter, this would leave the abortion decision to a woman and her doctor as Roe itself does, but critically, the law would not then be giving any civil-law approval or constitutional edge favoring one side over the other. Would such reallocation of authority to the people outside of government be more accommodating of those who presently raise religious objection to abortion? Obviously, it does not put the full force of law behind stopping or curtailing the practice, but then it does not endorse it, either. The law would be entirely silent, leaving the people in their individually and voluntarily chosen communities to decide matters for themselves in accordance with their respective beliefs. That this would not be mere window dressing may be illustrated in the Catholic Church's own teaching, which, of course, is strongly against abortion. While the most preferred Catholic position is a construction of the Constitution that affirms the unalienable right to life for all persons from conception onward in the Declaration of Independence, the specific instruction of the church merely calls for the practice not to be "recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority," and admonishes its own believers to not exercise their free will to procure (or aid the procurement) of abortion.

The possibility of reserving sensitive questions over which the culture is deeply divided, and indeed, with respect to which there is insufficient consensus to justify either a positive law or judicial determination has more salience and potential for bridging even profound disagreement than the obscure 1791 formulation of states rights in the 10th Amendment may at first reveal. Published Monday, May 19, 2008 1:03 PM by Doug Kmiec

Douglas W. Kmiec is Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law, Pepperdine University. He served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (U.S. Assistant Attorney General) for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Former Dean of the law school at The Catholic University of America, Professor Kmiec was a member of the law faculty for nearly two decades at the University of Notre Dame.

See http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=27820 wherein Doug Kmiec Reaffirms Endorsing Sen. Barack Obama.

This is the same song and dance we've been hearing for the last 25 years. The court is as conservative now as it has ever been in my lifetime. Nothing has been done with Roe V Wade, and nothing will be done.

The little that was done by this court was a product of commerce law and the gutless judges who were part of the majority opinion neglected to point this out. However, the judges in the minority report did point this out, less us citizens get confused as to whether or not all those Bush appointees really did something with Roe V Wade. They didn't.

You're right about one thing though, all those people who voted in Bush hoping for conservative supreme court justice appointments did get that wish. They just won't get their wish to overturn Roe V Wade. Once you've been appointed to the court you don't answer to anyone so I really doubt a self defined conservative is going to do much to change the entrenched status quo. And then there's always the real gutless approach which is not to hear any cases which may call for a real decision.

Pinning your hopes on supreme court justice appointments to the exclusion of anything else, is short sighted, if not down right irresponsible given the shape this country is already in.
colkoch.blogtoolkit.com

Colkoch wrote: "Pinning your hopes on supreme court justice appointments to the exclusion of anything else, is short sighted, if not down right irresponsible given the shape this country is already in."

Well said, Colkoch; it's not only short-sighted versus war, the death penalty, torture, immigration and other life issues, it doesn't help us reduce or eliminate abortions either. Never has.

Thomas, I am the least to claim to have the wisdom of divinity or the righteousness of divinity to pass judgment on "pro-abortion candidates". Nor do I have the daring to distrust God's wisdom in entrusting human life, at all stages to women, to mothers.

I do not believe that people who trust women's judgment, God's judgment, in the matter of their conceptus, are rightly identified as "pro-abortion". It is not inhumane or irreligious to trust women in this matter, and not to pass judgment on them for making hard decisions that we disagree with.

Being "pro-life" involves much more than being hard-nosed about the single-issue that now defines for most people what "pro-life" means. Becoming more civilized, more humanized, more sesnitized, is not about playing God in judging other people, particularly, by people who can't know what the pressures are that cause people to do what they do.

The hyper culture of male gender dominion heavily pressures and compromises female vulnerability. Greater male sensitivity and self control would go a long way to decrease the violation of women and reflexes of desperation. (The broadcast commercializing of sex drugs is despicable.)

I'm not asking you to judge anyone. Civic responsibility in this democracy does burden you with moral responsibility for your participation in the process of elections.

You wrote:
"I do not believe that people who trust women's judgment, God's judgment, in the matter of their conceptus, are rightly identified as "pro-abortion". It is not inhumane or irreligious to trust women in this matter, and not to pass judgment on them for making hard decisions that we disagree with."

Is the "conceptus" then the "property" of the woman carrying the child, such that she has life or death authority over her/him? Who gives the mother such authority? Clearly, God has given her responsibility, and has entrusted her with a life He has created - but does He give her the right to kill? How do you presume to affirm this?

Does society have the right to protect the common good in any area of life at all? Certainly the Church teaches that that is the primary responsibility of civil government: to promote the common good, and to protect the vulnerable (ever in need of protection against the strong).

Because mothers have the power and the strength to destroy the totally dependent child within them, that power does not give them the right to do so. Might does not make right. The strong are not entitled to abuse the weak, just because they can. Such thinking, which enables abortion, is the opposite of Christian truth.

I urge you, in the name of charity and mercy, to rethink this. If Catholics could be of one mind on this issue, we could change this nation: we could stop this horror, abortion.

Thomas

If only the issue of abortion was so clear cut and simple as you cast it. I agree that abortion is a horror. It is always sad and tragic. And I fear that the public attitude is too easy and flippant toward it. But circumstances compel moral judgments. Perhaps in most of life's choices, a hard decision is about the lesser of evils, not about good or evil. Is judgment sometimes, often, flawed in making moral judgments? Yes. But do decisions sometimes have to be made anyway? Yes.

Making moral judgments in the face of competing moral values can be a wrenching experience. But, making moral judgments is what faith and reason have to do together. I believe that more often than not there are better options that can be made than choosing abortion. I do not presume nor affirm anyone's right "to kill". Not to change the subject completely, in today's reality I find it hard to conceive of such a thing as a "just war", in which killing of innocents is reckoned as so much "collateral damage".

Society, public consensus, has the right and obligation to protect life and the common good, which includes the individual right of conscience to make moral decisions in matters of interpersonal relationships — and to come to the aid of people overwhelmed as to options under difficult circumstances. Forgive me, but it seems to me that you facilely give God all the credit for creating new life without considering the male "contribution". There is hardly ever one side only to moral dilemmas, for example, as to connections of family planning with ecological wasting and population pressures.

Again, forgive me for asking, but you seem so unapologetically one-sided in your judgment that I have to ask, "are you married? Does family planning, permanent ecological degradation and population pressures register on your moral scales?"

"Is the "conceptus" then the "property" of the woman carrying the child, such that she has life or death authority over her/him? Who gives the mother such authority?"

How about if we change this around and maybe you might get a different perspective: Is the 'mother' then the "property" of the fetus being carried in her womb, such that the fetus has life or death authority over the mother? Who gives the fetus such authority?

colkoch.blogtoolkit.com