What Mario Cuomo got wrong on abortion

Mario Cuomo was never the presidential candidate Democrats dreamed of. But the three-term New York governor was long an eloquent spokesman for American liberalism.

"You campaign in poetry," he memorably told The New Republic. "You govern in prose."

In 1984, the same year gave Cuomo gave a stirring keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, he delivered a speech at Notre Dame University in which he attempted to reconcile his Catholic faith with his support for legal — indeed, taxpayer-funded — abortion.

The essence of Cuomo's argument was that abortion rights and religious rights spring from the same principles. You can't protect one without defending the other.

"I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose," Cuomo said. "We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us."

A fine brief for religious liberty. People who favored banning contraception probably never envisioned a differently motivated government would someday mandate the Little Sisters of the Poor pay for contraceptive coverage.

In practice, though, this argument quickly finds itself in a confusing gray area, as the government already codifies as law the beliefs of many faiths. Uncle Sam outlaws theft even though the Ten Commandments say thou shalt not steal. Homicide is illegal even though the Ten Commandments say thou shalt not kill. Many religions teach us to care for the poor. Cuomo would not argue that social welfare spending therefore violates the separation of church and state.

Religious people were at the forefront of fights against slavery and racial segregation. Banning slavery and segregation may "force our beliefs on others," but it is not necessarily enshrining religious doctrine in civil law.

From a religious liberty perspective, why are these laws different than a potential government ban on abortion?

Cuomo merely observed that the Catholic Church teaches that abortion is wrong, and stopped there. He did not grapple with why the church and other abortion opponents believe the practice is wrong, or address any of the rational justifications for opposition to abortion.

Abortion is different from religious doctrines like sanctification, transubstantiation, or the immaculate conception. It is different from religious truth claims like the parting of the Red Sea, Joseph Smith being visited by the Angel Moroni, or the resurrection of Jesus. It differs even from ethical questions like whether a person should drink coffee or alcohol, engage in premarital sex, or indulge in pornography.

If abortion is the unjust taking of innocent human life, then the reasons for thinking it is wrong are also good reasons to consider getting the government involved.

Most people who oppose abortion may be religious, just as abolitionists were once heavily religious. But you can oppose abortion without believing fetuses have souls just as easily as you can oppose slavery without necessarily believing a would-be slave was created in the image of God.

The overwhelming majority of religious people would grant that not all sins should be crimes. But some sins — theft, fraud, slavery, the killing of innocents — are proper objects of public concern.

Cuomo anticipated some of these objections. "It has been argued that the failure to endorse a legal ban on abortions is equivalent to refusing to support the cause of abolition before the Civil War," he said. "This analogy has been advanced by the bishops of my own state."

Amazingly, Cuomo went on to argue, "But the truth of the matter is, few if any Catholic bishops spoke for abolition in the years before the Civil War." He said that American Catholics were a marginal, mostly immigrant population at the time. Their arguments would have carried little weight with the rest of the public. Getting involved in the politics of slavery might have deepened anti-Catholic sentiment.

"It is a mark of contemporary liberalism's commitment to abortion that one of its leading lights should have been willing to support temporizing on slavery to defend it," Ramesh Ponnuru observed in his anti-abortion book Party of Death. "It is a further mark that liberals did not reject, or even take notice of, Cuomo's argument about slavery."

But if you are going to go that far down the road of reducing all moral arguments to arcane theological disputes, it is hard to avoid Cuomo's problematic destination.

Mario Cuomo's Notre Dame speech is remembered as the definitive summation of the "personally opposed, but" position on abortion. With all due respect to the late governor's oratorical skills, that has more to do with people's internal conflicts over abortion than the logical strength of his arguments.

The funeral was held at St. Ignatius on the Upper East Side, one of the most beautiful churches in Manhattan. No doubt the Cuomos avoided any controversy by holding it there -as it is a Jesuit church, it is not beholden to the archdiocese. Cardinal Dolan therefore had no say in the matter (though he did attend Cuomo's wake on Saturday). St. Cuomo supposedly attended St. Thomas Moore, a few blocks away, but St. Ignatius is much larger and has something of a reputation for burying the rich and famous. Other noteworthy funerals include Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lena Horne, who were both parishioners, and more recently Philip Seymour Hoffman and Oscar de la Renta, who weren't. The Jesuits do things their own way, of course.

Heard him as luncheon speaker in NYC one time, to a relatively small (<200) group of people attending an investment technology conference. I couldn’t have left with a worse opinion of him.

Usually people of his prominence, speaking for (high) pay to a group clients will limit their remarks to non-controversial issues. Not Cuomo. He gave a 20 minute diatribe on abortion “rights”, how the Republicans were evil incarnate, and how the upcoming elections (this was right before “W” won his second term) were the last opportunity for decent people to protect womens’ rights.

He was arrogant and smug. He opened by even acknowledging that this wasn’t the venue for a partisan speech. Then opened the assault with: “But if I WERE going to give such a speech, I’d probably say ...”. When he closed after 20 minutes of the most partisan vitriol I’d heard in person, he said “but again, that’s what I would like to say, but this might not be the best place for it.”.

My bet is he didn’t meet with a warm reception at his Maker’s gate. But he’s warm now ...

This is a political site, the majority of Catholic vote democrat, and we are importing more Catholic voters by the millions.

Ignoring you continued reliance on the liberal definition of the liberal definition of Catholicism to make your points, I will remind you that white Catholics voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney in the last presidential election, more so than non-evangelical protestants.

Seems to me that if its a political point that you're trying to make on this political website your disagreement here is with immigration in general, not Catholicism. And even that conclusion is misleading. Both the percentage of US immigrants who identify as "Christian" and the percentage of those who further identity as "Catholic" has been falling significantly in recent years.

Most surprisingly, the percentage of American Hispanics who identified as Catholic has fallen from historically 75-80% to only 55% in the most recent Pew poll (2012).

I count Catholics who are members of the Catholic church, and the Catholic vote hasn’t changed, it is still democrat, and it is a religious denomination, not a race, Catholics were voting democrat long before Hispanics showed up in large numbers.

The fact that there has been movement right by the shrinking number of white Catholics in recent years in America, has no meaning about the Catholic vote and it’s continued loyalty to the democrat party.

Again, I think you're trying to make two different points here. In terms of immigration, you are making the assumption that most immigrants are Catholic, when in fact the latest polling seems to indicate that only about a third are.

You point really should be that Catholicism seems to hold a disproportionate appeal among the economically disadvantaged classes, regardless of immigration status.

Your greater point, I think, is that people who self-identify as "Catholic" tend to vote overwhelmingly liberal. That was not really true in the 2012 presidential election, when the Catholic vote exactly matched the general electorate, 50% to 48% for Obama.

On the other hand, in the most recent (2014) election, self-identified "Catholics" voted Republican, 54% to 45%.

The point that you really should be making is that Hispanic Catholics tend to vote liberal in high majorities. Unfortunately, Catholicism is losing its popularity faster among this group than among whites. I suspect that the popularity of the current Latin American Pope may reverse that effect, but your argument is still against immigration in general, not against Catholicism. Unless, of course, you want it to be for some other reason that you're too polite to mention.

No, I haven’t said anything about what percentage of immigrants are Catholics, although the majority of immigrants since JFK’s immigration law was passed are Catholics, and we all know that most immigrants in America came as Catholics from Catholic countires.

My “real” point is that the majority of Catholics vote pro-abortion democrat and that we have been and are, importing them by the millions.

The Catholics did vote for Obama in 2012, just as they did in 2008.

Catholics Hispanics who become non Catholic Christians also start voting more conservatively and more pro-life.

No wonder Catholic pro-abortion Democratic politicians are treated so royally, just like I pointed out in post 3.

The Catholic vote hasn’t changed, it is still democrat, and it is a religious denomination, not a race, Catholics were voting democrat long before Hispanics showed up in large numbers.

I'm not arguing with your generalizations, I'm just wondering why they warrant such strong opinions against the Catholic faith in general, given the fact that self-identified Catholics as a demographic are not remarkable liberal. As we have seen, they are about average. It is my assumption that your feelings against Catholicism are therefore rooted elsewhere, and that you use the generalizations as a convenient excuse for a different bias that you are thus far unwilling to explain.

On the other hand, this statement is remarkably useless:

Catholics Hispanics who become non Catholic Christians also start voting more conservatively and more pro-life.

First, because I can't help wondering if you have a source. But assuming you do, all you are pointing out is that religious converts tend to take their religion more seriously. How profound.

Why don’t you quit making up things, for instance me saying anything about the Catholic faith, or having “strong opinions” on it?

Catholics are liberal, and they vote accordingly, you say they are average, but they are not average when compared to non Catholic Christians. Catholics vote with the left, the atheists, the non-Christians, the gays, etc., the majority of non-Catholic Christians vote pro-life Christian.

And of course I have a source about Hispanics Catholics who become Protestant Christians becoming more pro-life voting and more conservative.

You seem to want to argue, one way is by continuing to pretend that I am saying things that I’m not, and in the case of Hispanics, wanting to have the option to either deny that they move right, or dismissing it if they do, whichever one that you need, depending on what you find out is the truth about them becoming more pro-life and conservative when they switch denominations.

Why don’t you quit making up things, for instance me saying anything about the Catholic faith, or having “strong opinions” on it?

Please, Ansell. You have a long history of jumping on any thread you see with the word "Catholic" in the title and drawing the same irrelevant conclusions.

And what could possibly by your ultimate point here, except perhaps that in your opinion Catholicism is inferior to one or more other Christian religions (though, really, just one, I suspect)? Got it. Why not save everyone the trouble and just say that? Stand up for your opinions man! The truly great thing about anonymous social media is that we get to say whatever we like and not care what others think.

And of course I have a source about Hispanics Catholics who become Protestant Christians becoming more pro-life voting and more conservative.

That sounds like a study that would be incredibly hard to conduct accurately, but since you're not supplying that source, I suppose we'll have to take your word for it.

However, the real point was that it is hardly profound to observe that recent converts to any religion tend to be the most devout.

I confess to reading (and re-reading) your final sentence/paragraph and ultimately not having the slightest idea what your were talking about. So I'm just going to ignore it. Feel free to try to do a better job of making whatever irrelevant point it was that you were trying to make.

No, I don’t get into Catholic theology.

This is a political site, the majority of Catholic vote democrat, and we are importing more Catholic voters by the millions.

If you are pro-life, and/or conservative, then I hope you will quit defending the left’s voters, and their strategy to end the pro-life movement and conservatism entirely.

People need to learn about the catholic vote and immigration, Lord knows the left knew what they were doing with JFK’s immigration changes, and why it is so important to the left to keep supporting immigration.

At some point you should end defending them, by trying to conceal the information from pro-life conservatives, this not forbidden knowledge.

No doubt you are too uncomfortable to do so, but you are clearly not making the point you want to make here.

If your point is that because Catholicism is the largest religious denomination in the US, the Catholic vote looks a lot like the national average, I agree. But I don't see how that is remarkable.

If you point is that there are other, smaller, Christian denominations that vote more conservatively, I also agree. But, I don't understand the purpose of fixating on that observation, unless you have a proposal to do something about it. I suspect that you do, but also that you are way too much of a coward to make it.

Perhaps you're trying to say that Catholicism (and even Catholics like me -who should know better) are complicit in actively making this a more liberal or a more pro-choice nation? That its all some sort of conspiracy? Last time I checked, immigrants in general voted overwhelmingly liberal, not just the Catholics. The mainstream of virtually all the countries they come from is far to the left of here.

Your most recent tack is to suggest that your purpose is to educate the conservative political junkies who read this website on voting demographics. Let me be the first to assure you that that really isn't necessary. But that was never your real point anyway. Was it?

You really are a dishonest poster, evidently you feel uncomfortable with people knowing how the Catholic vote goes, so you keep deliberately changing my posts and attributing statements and thinking to me that contradict my actual posts.

You do reinforce my point though as you seem proud that the Catholic denomination almost always votes with the non-Christian vote, instead of with the Christian vote that is not Catholic, in fact you seem proud to point out that the Catholic vote so often decides the winner, or at least votes with the non-Christians such as with Obama both times, Obama has never won the majority of the non-Catholic, Christian vote, but he did win the catholic christian vote, I wouldn’t be proud of that, nor try to be concealing that information.

The non-Catholic Christian vote never goes democrat, in fact almost literally never, since it only went democrat in 1932, 1936, and 1964.

Your dishonesty also is reflected in your pretend attempts to mind read, and in your claim that this information is not important to conservative politics, you have already shown that you don’t know it very well, and that you know nothing on how it relates to Hispanics and immigration.

I guess this is news to you, but "The non-Catholic Christian vote" is in no way a monolithic bloc. Even self-reporting Catholics as a group fall somewhere in the middle of all "Christian" voters.

Be honest Ansell: You have an unhealthy obsession with Catholics and the Catholic religion. Your fixation on the liberal definition of Catholic voting patterns is classic deflection. It's quite obvious to the few people who pay even a little bit of attention to you on FR, and (I suspect) the even fewer people who pay any attention to you in real life. This is all you've got, isn't it?

Your posting habits make it clear that you have a deeper issue that you need to get off of your chest. I think you would be much happier if you did, but until I will be here for you, trying my best to help.

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