by Doris Gordon
Many who say they are personally opposed to abortion nonetheless support keeping abortion legal. Such a stance is often taken in the Catholic community, particularly by Catholics in politics. An example is Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. Calling herself "pro-choice," she said that as a Catholic she believes "what Catholics believe on abortion," and asked, "[I]s it right for government to force Catholic beliefs on every other faith?" (The Detroit News, 9/10/02).
Interesting question. To ask it is to concede that the political arena is about forcing beliefs on others by law. Government is not a think tank that makes political-policy suggestions. Government is force. The power of the sword is implicit in all laws, just or unjust. How are politicians going to use that power?
Abortion isn't a victimless-crime debate; to abort a child isn't like smoking pot. The reason I and others object to abortion is that we find it to be homicide (the killing of one human being by another). The proper use of government force is to oppose killing the innocent, not to encourage it, as the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade, by legalizing and protecting its practice.
People show severe intellectual problems in saying both that they believe what the Church believes and that they would deny preborn children legal protection. The Church holds that such children are human persons with rights, yet the "personally opposed" hold that it should be a woman's choice to destroy them. If there is a credible reason for such a position, what is it?
I'm not Catholic
Opposition to legal abortion cuts across the religious and political spectrum. I'm an atheist. I was born and raised Jewish. Catholicism had nothing to do with my coming to understand why abortion is a wrong, not a right, and why it should not be legal.