Why Oveturning Roe is the Most Important Issue
Over at his great blog at The Atlantic, Ross Douthat expresses sympathy for Catholics who voted against the war and economic meltdown rather than against Roe v. Wade:
John McCain did not lose this election because the Catholic clergy failed to anathematize Barack Obama loudly enough, or because Pennsylvanians and Michiganders thought they were voting for Roosevelt or Truman. He lost it because his party flat-out misgoverned the country, in foreign and domestic policy alike, and because of late the culture war has mattered less to most Americans than the Iraq War and the economic meltdown.
As an empirical matter, Ross is surely correct. And he is right to chide George Weigel and other Catholic conservatives for not offering more constructive criticism of the Iraq War, not to mention torture. But as a normative matter, Ross seems to sanction Catholics who voted on “several issues” not just one. This view strikes me as wrongheaded. Overturning Roe (and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton) should have been the top priority of Catholics this election and should still be.
For one thing, nothing in American life is as hidden, brutal, and pathetic as abortion. It is true that war is evil and poverty and economic distress are ills. Yet at least each occurs generally in plain sight. As the late Gov. Robert Casey pointed out, the same is not true of what happens in the nation’s abortion clinics: “on this issue, the media spare us the details.”
To grasp what occurs in abortion clinics, watch the acclaimed 2007 movie “Lake of Fire.” Twenty minutes into the film, a doctor is shown performing an abortion on a young woman who is 20 weeks pregnant. “Splat!” goes the glass case, filled with blood. Inside a steel pan are the contents of the fetus, and not just blood and bone and tissue. As the doctor shows for the camera, there five fingers on a tiny hand; an inch-long foot with five toes; and in the last image, a bulging eye exposed with a dark pupil.
So brutal is abortion that even staunchly pro-choice doctors don’t want to perform first-trimester abortions. In The Washington Post magazine this weekend, a young female doctor decides not to enter the ob-gyn field partly because after witnessing abortions being performed, she found them to be “barbaric,” “jarring,” and “surreal.”
The doctor gave a short lecture on first-trimester abortions. Then she showed the students how to grip the papaya with the scissors to hold the angle of the "cervix" straight on. With one hand, the doctor demonstrated how to administer a local pain killer, at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions. She picked up different sizes of dilators used to widen the cervix and advised against pushing them in too hard, because in a soft-skinned papaya, the dilators might come out the other side. In a woman, more pressure would be needed to slide the dilator past the cervix and into the cavity of the uterus.
The doctor next picked up the suction instrument, a manually operated vacuum suction syringe. It was attached to a cannula, or thin tube, that she inserted into the papaya. She rotated it around the fruit's cavity, pulling and pushing the syringe, suctioning the papaya's contents.
"This is the most important thing and the hardest to learn," the doctor said as she pulled out lots of seeds and juice, what in a real abortion she called the "products of conception," or POC. "You put the POC into a bowl, repeat if necessary, and examine them under a microscope to make sure you got everything," she advised.
There was silence as she passed around photos of a dish with a light under it from a real abortion. It contained something that looked like a cotton ball, a yolk sac, and some blood and tissue. It was hard to make out any parts of a fetus under 3 months old, which, she said, is when more than 90 percent of all abortions are performed.
Granted, many soldiers back off from killing the enemy. But rare is the soldier who in cold blood kills a helpless enemy. Yet killing a helpless, not to mention innocent, human is inherent in the act of abortion, or at least when the mother’s life is not at stake. Bernard Nathanson’s famous 1984 video is instructive on this point.
And last, no disease, accident, or war kills more Americans than the abortion regime sanctioned by Roe. Every day, more than 3,000 unborn infants are killed.
Ross probably agrees that overturning Roe should be Catholics’ top priority. Yet as far as I know, he has not explained why this is so.
My argument does not excuse conservative Catholics who wish to do nothing more than reverse Roe; abortion is the single greatest evil in American life, but it’s not the only evil. Yet I think of our situation as comparable to Americans in the late 1850s. War and poverty and economic distress needed to be fought. But slavery and the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott needed to be fought most of all.
http://www.americamagazine.org/blogs/client/trackback.cfm?D6077204-1321-AEAA-D3D2F61351A49236
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While I think Mr. Stricherz has presented a powerful argument, I also think it is a mistake to say that reversal of Roe must be the primary effort of the pro-life movement. I think it is better to say that the effort must be multi-pronged, with each prong—legal, political, and social—receiving equal weight and coordinated action. There has been too much atomization of the pro-life movement, with some emphasizing Roe over all else (Mr. Stricherz wisely does not take that position), and others emphasizing to the exclusion of Roe the creation of social policies that will result in a reduction in abortions. Unfortunately, some of these emphases have been identified with a particular political party or a particular political philosophy. There are elements in both conservatism and liberalism that can be joined in a united pro-life effort, and the sooner pro-life advocates realize that both major political parties fall woefully short on pro-life issues, the sooner they can create strategies that draw on the best ideas of the diverse coalition. Look at Nat Hentoff, for example. He’s as ardent a leftie as there is, yet he is also a tireless defender of the unborn who puts his politics aside to work in unison with pro-life advocates at the other end of the political spectrum. Hentoff and his colleagues should be the example for the rest of us.
Mr. Stricherz mentions Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL and convert to Catholicism. I think every pro-life advocate should be required to read Nathanson’s “The Hand of God,” an unblinking memoir of Nathanson’s transformation from a physician who performed 75,000 abortions (including one involving his own child) to an eloquent critic of the abortion industry. Nathanson’s description of the abortion procedure, and the clinical detachment he felt performing abortions, is unforgettable. Nathanson’s words also provide a jolting reminder of the loss of innocent life that takes place during each and every abortion.
# Posted By Bill Collier | 11/25/08 9:28 PM
It's refreshingly nice to see a post with a different take on abortion than what is usually posted on 'In All Things'. Around here, prolifers have been told to essentially accept the reality of Roe and move on by blog commentators. We've been told that we are being hysterical about FOCA even though the new President-elect is on record promising to sign it and that FOCA has several co-sponsors including Catholics like Rep. Sanchez who was recently lauded on this blog. I think there was even a comment by a reader who accused prolifers of being one-issue advocates all for the sake of "indulgences". Ummm, right. So, thanks for pointing out the reality of that one issue: it destroys a living human being limb by limb and it destroys women (one of the worst parts of the Wash. Post article was the description of how women screamed during the abortion procedure). It is evil and a society that has become accustomed to habitual evil is perfectly poised to bring about its own self-destruction.
P.S.- The above comments were posted by a prolifer who finds no solace in either party this year. Just in case the comment boxes decide to paint me as a Republican shill, I most certainly am not!
# Posted By Anne B. | 11/25/08 11:18 PM
Overturning Roe is not necessarily the same thing as ending abortion. What part of Roe would you overturn and how?
Overturning the power of the federal government to overturn state legislative majorities is a non-starter. It is the same kind of federalist or "states rights" position used to prolong slavery. I would find it sad if this is really your position.
Overturning the finding of fact that the law does not recognize personhood until birth is harder, because before Roe the penalty for abortion was a fine (which created a market for back alley abortions but did not give rights to the unborn). Unless the unborn have legal recognition, which can only come from CONGRESS, regulating abortion is a violation of the privacy rights of the woman.
Creating rights for the child has its own problems, since once you do so, the child has equal protection rights to have its death counted as a murder or manslaughter - as well as giving parents the right to sue if the child dies for any reason. Granted, most courts will not award a judgement when a natural miscarriage occurs, but most insurers will simply settle - making Obstetric care in early pregnancy difficult to get (which was one of the reasons Roe was decided as it was).
You need to abandon the notion that Roe was wrongly decided or somehow evil before you move forward. I will grant that it is unfortunate and tragic, but given the facts of the day, it was decided correctly.
The burden is on those who would change the current status quo to describe how that would be. Emotional appeals to overturn Roe will not cut it. You must be specific about what you want or you will get NOTHING. What exactly do you propose? Failure to answer is a signal that you do not deserve to be taken seriously - especially in your contention that Abortion is the most important issue. It cannot be if no viable proposals to stop it are being offered.
# Posted By Michael Bindner | 11/26/08 2:30 AM
My compliments on a fair-minded, thought-provoking view on a charged issue. That said, I will stand with Ross Douthat. Obama won because George W. and the Republicans mis-governed this country, and many of us were not willing to avert our eyes, as certain James Dobsonish bishops wanted us to do.
Two specific criticisms. One is George Weigel's outlandish, laughable comment that the division was between states where the culture of life prevailed, or the culture of death.
The culture of life, exemplified by unrepentant racist states like Alabama and Mississippi, or Texas, a state whose blatant materialism is matched only by its bloodthirsty eagerness to execute as many as possible. If that is the culture of life, Sarah Palin is a great thinker- which will probably be a Weigel column in 2012.
As for the basic contention that overturning Roe should still be the top priority, I ask, for how many more decades? For how many decades should every other issue be put on hold, and how much misgovernment be tolerated?
# Posted By Bill Kurtz | 11/26/08 10:45 AM
Stricherz is right. The argument is simple. Anyone against child abuse, sexual assault, rape, murder, etc. would advocate that people be protected and justice provided under law. Abortion is no different. Yes, lets do everything we can to help pregnant women, but stopping there fails to get real legal protection for people before birth. And that's Obama's failing. He refuses to support legal protection and ultimately leaves babies before birth subject to death. Real pro-lifers support overturning Roe and allowing life to be protected in all cases.
# Posted By Steven Ertelt | 11/26/08 12:50 PM
There is a glaring omission in the comments that overturning Roe-v-Wade is ''the most important thing''. Those who make this statement seem to then take it for granted that, if one believes that overturning Roe is the priority, that you must automatically vote Republican and not Democratic. Why? I very much want Roe overturned but the Republicans' track record is that they are great on pro-life rhetoric and very short on actual action. It seems pretty clear that they use the abortion issue and pro-life rhetoric as bait to draw Catholics away from the Democrats but have no real intention of actually doing anything to end abortion. For the past 25-30 years the Republicans have dominated the White House, and controlled Congress, often enough to have made a significant difference on the abortion issue. But the truth is that they have acted a little and demagogued a lot. So,the question remains, exactly what have Republicans actually done to deserve, let alone demand, the vote of pro-lifers?
# Posted By Mark Wood | 11/26/08 10:23 PM
I'm sorry that Anne B. missed my poor attempt at sarcasm with the "indulgences" remark. It probably was inappropriate, but it was meant as an illustration of the attempt to turn the clock back in the continued lamentation about Roe.
Can I agree with Stricherz (and who are you? I see nothing about you listed in contributors but as I looked through your list of postings I see a consistent theme)that abortion is an ontic moral evil and yet believe with Binder that in this nation with our decided split about its morality that it will never be outlawed again? At least in some form or in some circumstances. This is not to say that we should accept the status quo, but as Binder challenges, what laws do you and Archbishop Chaput and other propose that have a chance of reaching national consensus and that will diminish the desire and ability to secure an abortion for a woman who for any number of reasons does not want to have a child? I have never seen put forth a serious proposal for all of the anguish about this. Can you help me?
# Posted By DaveP | 11/28/08 8:56 PM
Dave P. and Michael Bindner question whether I have a proposal to restore some legal rights to unborn children. As a matter of fact, I do. Here it is:
1) Overturn Roe and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton
2) Lobby states to return to the emerging national consensus before Roe and Doe were decided in 1973:
a) abortion should be legal in the hard cases (rape,
incest, life of the mother, severe threat to
the mother's physical health)
b) abortion should be illegal in the easy cases
(economic, social, and family reasons)
This plan has two benefits. First, it would enjoy public
support; more than 60 percent of Americans oppose abortion in the easy cases. Second, it would extend legal protection to about 90 percent of unborn infants; these are the ones aborted for the ''easy'' reasons.
# Posted By Mark Stricherz | 12/1/08 5:00 PM
Mark,
More specifics please. What does "illegal mean"? Before Roe, abortionists were fined, which created a market for back alley abortions, but did not recognize the life interest of the infant. Would you go back to that?
Are you a "federalist"? Meaning, do you wish to overturn the power of the federal government in this area, as well as the areas of gay rights, the rights of the accused, the establishment clause, racial justice, the rights of immigrants, women's rights. Note that overturning federal rights in Roe would take everything else with it.
Would you redefine the status of the fetus? How and when? Would you start at conception, and thereby ban invitro fertilization? Would you ban amnio, et al? Would you ban birth control methods that prevent implantation?
Who would go to jail? What about rights to sue for malpractice if the fetus died? (Note equal protect means that if a person is a person, you can sue if you are a survivor).
# Posted By Michael Bindner | 12/2/08 12:15 PM
Anne,
It is not your association or lack thereof with the GOP which concerns us. It is the Bishop's association with the National Right to Life Committee - and its association with the GOP.
# Posted By Michael Bindner | 12/9/08 11:30 AM
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