Breaking: US Bishops set the record straight in today's statement(Legal Protection for Unborn!)

American Papist ^ | October 21, 2008 | Thomas Peters

[NYer]

This is a breaking story - check back for updates.

Thank God for our bishops. They have just released a press release on the USCCB website:

Legal Protection for Unborn, Support for Mothers Both Needed, Say Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Murphy

WASHINGTON—"Our faith requires us to oppose abortion on demand and to provide help to mothers facing challenging pregnancies," Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., said in an October 21 statement. The bishops urged Catholics to study the teaching of the Church, rather than rely on statements and materials from outside groups and individuals.

[Read it here in PDF] [Summary here.]

I had just finished writing this essay in which I sounded the call for an organized response to the recent arguments put forward by pro-Obama Catholics when I discovered the above press release from the US bishops waiting in my inbox, doing exactly what I was hoping for. Now it's up to us to spread their message.

Okay, what are they saying?

• Catholics are not to blindly follow the advice of "outside groups and individuals."

Okay, what are these outside groups and individuals saying?

• The argument that "the Church should accept the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision on abortion as a 'permanent fixture of constitutional law' and should concede that the only way to reduce abortions is to provide more government support for pregnant women is wrong.

Also wrong:

• "The Church's efforts against abortion should focus solely on restoring recognition for unborn children's human rights and that proposals to provide social and economic support for pregnant women distract from that effort."

The first argument is one used by Democrats, the second argument is a straw man constructed by Democrats about those who refuse to vote for Barack Obama and other pro-choice politicians.

I fully agree with the bishops that the second error is to be rejected - will Democrat Catholics now fully agree that the first argument is in error? Are you listening, Nicholas Cafardi? Doug Kmiec? Catholics United? Lisa Sowle Cahill? Because these are the Catholics who have been pushing this argument. By stark contrast, I have not seen anyone seriously claim that the legislative solution is the only one to be pursued. (Okay folks, I'm waiting.)

The Catholic argument for voting Democrat (or, specifically, for a pro-choice politician) has boiled down to "get over Roe" and "pursue alternatives like funding health care". The bishops respond:

The bishops added that legalizing abortion had greatly increased annual abortions in the United States. "The law is a teacher, and Roe taught many women, physicians and others that abortion is an acceptable answer to a wide range of problems."

Clarification 2: FOCA is on the horizon.

The American bishops are coming to terms with the reality of an Obama presidency, and a Democrat-controlled Senate and House that could pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which will in one fell swoop erase all the progress that has taken place against Roe since it was passed. Here is what they say:

By the same token, even the limited pro-life laws allowed by the Court since Roe have been shown to reduce abortions substantially, leading to a steady decline in the abortion rate since 1980. Bans on public funding, laws requiring informed consent for women and parental involvement for minors, and other modest and widely supported laws have saved millions of lives. Laws made possible by reversing Roe would save many more. On the other hand, this progress could be lost through a key pro-abortion proposal, the “Freedom of Choice Act,” which supporters say would knock down hundreds of current pro-life laws and forbid any public program to “discriminate” against abortion in providing services to women.

This statement challenges the canard which holds that legislative actions have been ineffectual in driving down the incidence of abortion. Of course restrictions act to restrict abortions.

Who is getting slapped on the wrist more?

While this statement is a critique of some elements of the republican and democrat solution to the problem of abortion, I submit that it is more a critique of the democrat solution for these reasons:

• It talks about abortion as a non-negotiable front-and-center moral issue. Part of the argument for voting for democrat/pro-choice politicians seeks to marginalize the importance of this issue. Sorry, you can't ignore abortion and claim to be practicing the social teaching of the Catholic Church.
• It is issued not only by the chairman of Pro-Life activities, but also the chairman on "Domestic Justice and Human development." One cannot have either true justice or achieve authentic human development without an especial care for the unborn.
• It spends a lengthy amount of time talking about FOCA, a democrat-sponsored bill that will, following this statement, increase the number of abortions in America and also strike a serious blow to the cause of addressing the social justice issue of our time.

Finally, and most importantly:

• Republicans do commit themselves to caring for women experiencing crisis pregnancies. By the same token, the idea that reversing Roe is the only goal of pro-life activity is not a republican position (read their platform). However, democrats do say that Roe is a non-negotiable and do actively attempt to repeal the restrictions that have slowly been put on it through conservative efforts (again, read their platform).

This statement is a therefore, I submit, confirmation of my thesis that Catholics in the republican party must strive to see that their principles are better translated into practice, but Catholics in the democratic party must seriously address the errors in principle which the democrats have claimed on the issue of unborn human life, while simultaneously addressing the mistaken practices of the party which do not adequately defend unborn human life.

To put it simply: for Republicans, being Catholic on the issue of abortion involves following through on their rhetoric. For Democrats, being Catholic on the issue of abortion involves reversing their rhetoric and changing course on a whole range of legislative proposals they have planned. c

[cpforlife.org]

“What political issue could possibly outweigh this human devastation” of 40 million deaths through abortion? “The answer, of course, is that there is none. … It is time to put away the arguments of political spin masters that only serve to justify abortion killing. We have heard a great deal this year about the need for change. But at the same time we are told that one thing cannot change – namely, the abortion regime of Roe vs. Wade.

“It is time that we demand real change, and real change means the end of Roe vs. Wade.”

Carl Anderson, Knights of Columbus - Annual Report

Pro-Life PING

Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[cpforlife.org]

<> Better 40+ years late than never.

[fishhound]

Thank You

[RobbyS]

Roe is the original sin. As Justice White, who dissented said, it was an exercise in raw judicial power, one based on almost no precendent and whose opinion distorted the historical record. It then disengenuously concludes that
no one can say when life begins, constructs an elaborate thri-mester scheme which is never applied because its companion decision, Doe v. Bolton, through its “health”exception, eviscerates the power of the states to regulate abortion at any stages of a pregnancy.

[Sun]

I ask my fellow Catholics to write a letter to the editor to diocese newspapers in their state, especially the battleground states.

Catholics can make or break an election, and they need to know that the Church is making abortion a top priority when we vote. The Clintons would not have won without the Catholic vote.

Some Catholics who are more liberal than I am, and use the war, poverty, etc. as an excuse to vote Democrat, but they are kidding themselves. Even Bishop Burke called the Dem Party, the party of death. Almost 50 million abortions since Roe, far more lives lost than war, poverty, etc..

You can even include a pro-life quote from the Pope in your letter from this link:

http://www.usccb.org/prolife/tdocs/popebquotes2008.shtml

I recommend the letters be as short as possible, and I don’t know if most Catholic newspapers print letters that mention candidates by name, but you can say to VOTE for pro-life candidates.

Your letters should be written very soon, because most Catholic papers are only published once a week.

[baa39]

Good news, but with the election less than two weeks away, this is probably too little, too late. It’s a shame, actually some might say a scandal, that the bishops have been shirking their duty for decades, or we could now have an educated Catholic voting bloc that would leave Obama with a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. With the media totally promoting him and Americans mostly clueless about who the man really is, if Obama loses, it will be by the Grace of God and lots of prayers.

[hardhead]

About three years ago I began replying to ALL requests for donation from Catholic groups: ‘Because the US Bishops will not take a unified stand against the murder of the unborn, I refuse your request for a donation! If you disagree with this position, don’t complain to me, but to your bishop!’ I do not say I had anything to do with this turnaround, but praise God that it happened!

[NYer]

Good news, but with the election less than two weeks away, this is probably too little, too late.

It is never too late to speak out! God bless them for raising their voices, albeit at the midnight hour.

[Campion]

If Obama wins and FOCA is enacted, every "Catholic" involved in its passage, from Biden down to the most junior member of Congress, must be excommunicated. Formally. By the Holy See.