My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don’t think I have a right to impose my few on the rest of society. I’ve thought a lot about it, and my position probably doesn’t please anyone. I think the government should stay out completely. I will not vote to overturn the Court’s decision. I will not vote to curtail a woman’s right to choose abortion. But I will also not vote to use federal funds to fund abortion.
–Sen. Joe Biden, Promises to Keep (2007), p. 104-105
This is Sen. Joe Biden’s official stance on abortion — a common one among Democrats, whose party platform includes a pro-choice stance as a key plank. Biden was asked to defend his fence-straddling position recently on Meet the Press, and what he said raised the ire of the Archbishop of Denver. The archbishop thinks that politicians like Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are misrepresenting the church’s beliefs on abortion to the American public, and he’s published a letter to set the record straight and expose these politicans’ “flawed moral reasoning”:
Public Servants and Moral Reasoning:A notice to the Catholic community in northern Colorado
To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:
When Catholics serve on the national stage, their actions and words impact the faith of Catholics around the country. As a result, they open themselves to legitimate scrutiny by local Catholics and local bishops on matters of Catholic belief.
In 2008, although NBC probably didn’t intend it, Meet the Press has become a national window on the flawed moral reasoning of some Catholic public servants. On August 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, describing herself as an ardent, practicing Catholic, misrepresented the overwhelming body of Catholic teaching against abortion to the show’s nationwide audience, while defending her “pro-choice” abortion views. On September 7, Sen. Joseph Biden compounded the problem to the same Meet the Press audience.
Sen. Biden is a man of distinguished public service. That doesn’t excuse poor logic or bad facts. Asked when life begins, Sen. Biden said that, “it’s a personal and private issue.” But in reality, modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it. People might argue when human “personhood” begins – though that leads public policy in very dangerous directions – but no one can any longer claim that the beginning of life is a matter of religious opinion.
Sen. Biden also confused the nature of pluralism. Real pluralism thrives on healthy, non-violent disagreement; it requires an environment where people of conviction will struggle respectfully but vigorously to advance their beliefs. In his interview, the senator observed that other people with strong religious views disagree with the Catholic approach to abortion. It’s certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible – but not at the expense of a developing child’s right to life.
Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil. It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong. If, as Sen. Biden said, “I’m prepared as a matter of faith [emphasis added] to accept that life begins at the moment of conception,” then he is not merely wrong about the science of new life; he also fails to defend the innocent life he already knows is there.
As the senator said in his interview, he has opposed public funding for abortions. To his great credit, he also backed a successful ban on partial-birth abortions. But his strong support for the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade and the false “right” to abortion it enshrines, can’t be excused by any serious Catholic. Support for Roe and the “right to choose” an abortion simply masks what abortion is, and what abortion does.
Roe is bad law. As long as it stands, it prevents returning the abortion issue to the states where it belongs, so that the American people can decide its future through fair debate and legislation. In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can’t “impose” their religiously based views on the rest of the country. But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people’s convictions on everyone else. That is the nature of the law.
American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their “pro-choice” beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades. If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly. We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables. Otherwise all of us – from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews – fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.
+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver+James D. Conley
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver
Bookworm,
My point exactly. We have to re-educate the ‘public’. You made some good points.
ImaSwede,
I feel your pain, but consider this:
-Local Woman Says Christian Temple Was A Cult
CBS 13 Sacramento/May 15, 2008
By Laura Cole
– In Sex-Abuse Case, Court Issues Watershed Ruling on Rabbinical Duty
The Jewish Daily Forward/July 10, 2008
By Anthony Weiss
What is a rabbi to a congregant? A therapist? A friend? A conduit to God?
The debate arose in the context of the already controversial case of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler, who lost his pulpit job in upstate New York after allegedly having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a congregant.
-Pastor gets 4 years for sex assault on woman
Frank Seeko Lawrence abused position of trust, sentencing judge says
The Star, Toronto/March 27, 2008
By Peter Small
On Jan. 10, a jury convicted the 59-year-old man of sexually assaulting the victim, while acquitting him of assaulting and threatening to kill her. Jurors also acquitted the father of 11 of sexually assaulting another woman by whom he also fathered a child.
Belobaba ruled that the jury’s verdict means the pastor of Toronto Mount Zion Revival Church is guilty of fondling and touching, as well as five to 10 instances of forced sexual intercourse, between April and December 2003, when the victim was 24. The Toronto-born woman, who cannot be named, gave birth to a girl as a result.
–
StopBaptistPredators.org
Shining light on Baptist clergy sex abuse
[An actual web site].
————————————————–
Moral of the story? ‘Evil’ is to be found EVERYWHERE. Lets not cast stones.
Why is it always abortion? There are plenty of issues of policy (not practice) where politicians of both sides offer positions of significant difference with the Church. And yet, you never see an Archbishop Chaput chastise a congregant-politician over those things. We aren’t talking about not eating meat on Fridays here, but serious issues:
Death penalty — http://www.catholicenquiry.com/faq/what-is-the-church-s-position-on-the-death-penalty.html
The Iraq Ware — http://catholicism.about.com/od/thechurchintheworld/f/popes_on_iraq.htm
Availablity of contraception — http://www.catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp
I could go on — poverty, the environment, divorce…. Hey, isn’t McCain a practicing Catholic and a divorcee? Could it just be that some bishops (Chaput, for one) are Republicans?
New Voice: I will have to agree to disagree — perhaps not for all persons, yet for some persons, the pro-choice moniker equals pro-abortion and seemingly is a polically correct term of disguise for this sensitive issue based on my conversational experience.
Statistically, it would be interesting to know the breakdown of why abortion is the end choice for women and girls. When I hear the reasoning of rape and incest, that would be a very difficult case — yet, perhaps naively, I do not think that rape and incest would be the reason for the majority of women and girls having an abortion. Perhaps I am incorrect.
I have talked with women who thought that their only choice was abortion and years later, they relate that they live a haunted life. (Probably other people are able to report women who are not haunted from having made the same choice.)
Ben:
I would agree to disagree with you — not everyone is ‘Pro Life.’
There are many people who have little or no regard for life which has nothing to do with abortion.
Being Pro-life – one definition is that you support the life of an unborn fetish — regardless of possible defects …. does not make one Anti-choice.
God gave everyone their agency or choice. Once you make one choice, it leads to another choice and perhaps there are fewer choices to choose from as you go farther down any given road of choice — so, I would say that everyone is Pro-choice — the definition is just different as in what one believes are palette of viable choices from the onset.
I can be at the beach. I can sunbathe, walk in the waves, play frisbee, swim in the ocean, collect shells, put sunscreen on or not, walk in the riptide area which warns me of the danger, and so on. Once I decide to walk in the riptide area, my choices become rather limited and the degree of personal danger is greatly increased. — Still pro-choice all the way.
Bookworm has provided a summary which causes one to stretch his/her thinking.
Abortion takes a human life, and therefore is an “evil”, a bad thing that we really strive to avoid, like war.
The question, therefore, is not whether it’s good or bad, but whether it is ever justifiable or necessary to prevent a greater evil.
If you are pro-life, you will say that directly taking the life of a human embryo or fetus in this way can never be justified. If you are pro-choice, you will say that some evils are worse than abortion and therefore abortion, even though it takes a human life, can be justified in a variety of circumstances.
Or it could be agreed that abortion is homicide (I didn’t say “murder” because that implies a degree of malice and premeditation that doesn’t necessarily exist)and the question is whether it is ever justifiable homicide.
We all make choices of right and wrong and some persons base their choices on religious tenets. As a Christian I am pro-life — other Christians are not. That is their choice. And I am neither debating nor casting stones — just laying out my opinion.
I also believe and understand that at the end of my life, I will be held accountable for my choices — and that is a daunting accounting and responsibility because of the many positive and negative choices I have made in my life. Successes, failures, mistakes and sins. That is why there is the Atonement of Christ to make up the difference. There will be ramifications for my choices and in my mind to deny that there will not be ramifications just does not compute.
What one chooses to believe in and then how he/she conducts his/her life, imperfect as it will be while on this earth, is again the agency/choice each of us has been given stewardship over.
Thank you for the dialogue.
Over the years, I have grown a little weary of those (Catholics and non-Catholics alike) who have tried, directly or implicitly (who know who you are) to bully Catholics into becoming one issue voters.
Yes, I realize that abortion is a major issue for the Church, its followers, and many others (myself included), religious or not. What I find so troubling is that these same people want us to abide by the teachings of our Church one on issue ONLY – that happens to suit their agenda, and falls in line with supporting their favored candidates, completely and conveniently ignoring the balance sheet the I and many other Catholics have in front of us. As I noted in one of my earlier post – there are many other fundamental issues (war, poverty, health care, immigration) where most days of the week, it is the candidates across the aisle from the ones C.J. has chosen to discuss that come up woefully short, if not utterly hostile, to things that matter quite deeply to Catholics and their Church’s teachings – any many others. If you think caring for the poor and the sick, exhibiting tolerance and forgiveness, educating children, and living in a world free of unjust wars are trivial issues to Catholics, think again.
I apologize for the typos – it’s been a long day.
Karrie,
Fair enough. I can’t continue this exchange with out a few stats, etc. Rape and incest? Possible justifications for abortion, but…….
Like you, I have often wondered how many women are having an abortion for either of those reasons. I’d guess the % is very small.
I still argue that for [most] Pro-choice advocates, it is simple a matter of individual rights, taking a “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” sort of approach.
Good. I am resisting with all my strength the need to make a smart-ass comment right now…..
The Mouse says …
“Increasing numbers of them [Democrats] are buying into this suicidal notion that the world would be better off without people, and they actually like the idea of killing babies, or anyone else they can find an excuse to kill.”
What an absolutely horrible thing to say. Of course that’s exactly the sort of Christian “love” (aka hypocrisy) that I’ve come to expect. Statements such as that are exactly why so many of us are turned off by organized religion. Hypocrisy is endemic. Spokesmen from the Catholic Church, last great refuge of the pedophile and defender of the idea that starving masses are preferable to sensible birth control, have no room to lecture anyone on morality.
I think the majority of Americans share an opinion that overlaps with my own and Senator Biden’s … we find abortion to be personally repugnant, especially when it’s used as birth control after-the-fact, but still do not want a woman’s choice taken away from her or the federal government legislating in our bedrooms because there are certain circumstances where abortion is the best option and other circumstances where it MUST be available as an option.
Carrying a pregnancy to term is not a zero-risk proposition. There are circumstances where it would be completely immoral NOT to have abortion available as an option (e.g. an anencephalic fetus with NO chance of meaningful interaction with the world, or a medically complicated pregnancy endangering the mother before the point of viability). There are numerous grey areas where I think this choice MUST be left up to the woman who has to carry the child (e.g. a “normal” pregnancy but one that is the product of rape or incest). If a woman that was raped and became pregnant chooses to carry her pregnancy to term, that’s a wonderful decision … but it should not be forced on her if she had no choice about getting pregnant in the first place. Forcing a woman in that circumstance to carry her pregnancy to term is like raping her a second time!
Just like issues regarding the 2nd amendment, there are such polar opposite opinions on the subject of abortion that we’re never going to get anything accomplished other than a never-ending culture war if we don’t seek to find some common ground. That’s why I think Obama’s emphasis on reducing the NUMBER of abortions is such a good way of approaching this issue. The majority of Americans would clearly agree that reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions is a good thing. You don’t find many Republicans seeking common ground like that. Instead you see malicious statements like The Mouse’s that only serve to inflame & alienate.
I think it is time for the Catholic church to start paying taxes… if they are going to be political, let them pay up!
ImaSwede, your hypocrisy is showing. If you want to make the Catholic Church pay taxes for being political, how about Rev. Wright’s Trinity “Church”? How about all the other “non-profits” that are constantly lobbying for this or that hand-out or legislation? You want to silence the Catholic Church because you don’t like the message, plain and simple. I suppose there is something to be said for revoking all of these tax exemptions, but we certainly don’t need govt. spies monitoring church sermons.
Knight, why is it “horrible” for me to point out that this suicidal/genocidal line of thought is growing in popularity? It is. I think it’s absolutely insane, but why would it be a sign of “Christian love” to ignore it?
People! I consider myself an intelligent, open-minded individual. I am also a good Christian. I am however Catholic. Most of you are not therefore your opinions are crap!
New Voice: You are joking about the last line of your post – right?
We can’t be one issue voters. The are so many issues that affect Americans. Why are we bogged down with one issue. What about the economy, the housing market, the wars, taxes and on and on.
We sure don’t need to decide on any candidate based on one issue. I agree with Joe Biden. I don’t have answer to anything for anyone but me. I don’t believe in abortion, but who am I to force some one to think like me. I thought I lived in an America that let’s every one have a free opinion on issues and be able to express them with out someone trying to make me accept their views.
Jacke,
Actually, I have been a one issue voter since 1993 and I will continue as such. If you are dead as in the child’s (Science not faith has determined that life begins at conception) case, social security, the economy and foreign affairs are irrelevant. The logic you used is flawed. For example, (“I don’t have answer to anything for anyone but me.”) The unborn child is paying the ultimate price in each abortion. Abortion is not about “just me” because there are two people involved. (“I don’t believe in abortion, but who am I to force some one to think like me.”) You are forcing the unborn child to succumb to your will. (“I thought I lived in an America that let’s every one have a free opinion on issues and be able to express them with out someone trying to make me accept their views.”) That is exactly what abortion prevents. The child is violently silenced every time. Everyone is not included in this decision. Abortion is not a political issue, but a human rights issue just like slavery and the death penalty and it strikes at the heart of our very existence and way of life. I would encourage you to study the issue from a deeper philosophical standpoint.
If I could change one thing about the abortion debate it would be to get away from the idea that it is a “religious” issue.
Things like tax exemption for churches, aid to parochial schools, faith-based initiatives, how Christmas or other religious holidays should be celebrated in public schools — those are religious issues.
Abortion is NOT a purely religious issue simply because certain religions happen to have strong views about it. No matter what side you are on, I think you have to agree with Mike that it’s a human rights issue.
If you are pro-life it’s about the rights of the unborn child; if you are pro-choice, it’s about the rights of the woman. Either way, you are talking about the rights of at least one human being!
Karrie,
Of course. Sometimes I get a little to much fiber in my diet. If I start to make to much sense, I begin to scare myself.
Thanks for caring.