Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey joins The Anchoress in addressing their fellow Catholics. I’m no longer a Catholic, and haven’t been one for many years. I have serious disputes with Catholic theology. (Although I reject the argument by some (many?) Protestants that Catholics are by definition hell-bound. Certainly they’re no more condemned than a lot of Baptists I’ve known… but that’s a post for another day.) One thing I continue to admire about the Catholic church is it’s dogged determination to defend life. And that’s the focus of this open letter, which with I heartily agree:
A few months ago Doug Kmiec, a former official with the Reagan administration and prominent Catholic, made a public endorsement of Barack Obama and stated that Obama’s noble intentions on a full range of social issues made the Senator’s stance on abortion negligible. As Obama addressed every injustice, righted every wrong and wiped the tear from every eye, Kmiec seemed to reason, all of the complex social ills of the ages, from poverty, to war, to the death penalty and human rights would be suitably resolved and abortion would simply fall by the wayside as an issue.
Except, Obama has said himself that his very first act as President will not be some sweeping anti-poverty legislation; it will not be an end to war. “The first thing I’d do as president” Obama told NARAL, “is sign the Freedom of Choice Act“.
Kmiec’s argument might sound compelling to some – Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput admits to having reasoned similarly about Jimmy Carter in 1976 – until one considers Obama’s priorities. Under the heading of “human rights” Obama has made it clear – despite suggesting that the question of when a baby gets human rights as being “above” his “paygrade” – that in his mind a “woman’s right to choose” is a most basic human right; a singular priority. So passionately does Obama believe this that the Senator, who rates a perfect 100% with NARAL, unhesitatingly supports the procedure known as “partial birth abortion,” – an act so nakedly inhumane that his own running mate voted to ban it in 2003. And beyond that savagery, Obama has clearly articulated his position that a baby born alive during an attempted abortion should be refused medical attention.
Logically, then, a President Obama – whose presidency, we are told, will usher in a heyday for fundamental human rights – will always support abortion, even at its most extreme, even when its very definition changes to infanticide. We have already seen Obama protect infanticide in a disturbing attempt to protect abortion in Illinois, and nothing he has said since shows any change of heart on this question.
The “abortion reduction agenda” which Obama mush-mouths and others, like Kmiec, seem to interpret as they wish, is a kind of “trickle down social economics:” once poverty is eradicated – presumably through higher taxes, higher energy prices, higher unemployment and the redistribution of wealth – once all of the priorities of war, famine, capitalism and injustice are taken care of (this would include absolutely ensuring “a woman’s right to choose” in any circumstance) and all the complex and messy matters of humanity have been sufficiently resolved, well, then the abortion issue will simply melt away.
Excuse us, but we see this as nothing more than fantasy – the mirror image, in fact, of another fantasy, one that holds that a reversal of Roe v. Wade will simply “solve the problem” of abortion. In each case, the fiction is misplaced because it refuses to look at the human heart. President Bush said in 2005, “a true culture of life cannot be sustained solely by changing laws. We need most of all, to change hearts.” He was given grief for that by some pro-lifers, but he was quite correct. Abortion has always existed, and it will always exist, as long as something remains broken within the human heart.
And this is what I mean by my serious disputes with the Catholic faith -
I would say, “Give consideration to your eternal salvation.” Because to vote for a person who has expressed a fanatical determination to not only support abortion as it exists now but to remove all limitations on it through the Freedom of Choice Act, and to extend it without any recourse, throwing out all of the efforts of citizens over the last 35 years to place reasonable limits on abortion, that voting for a person who has expressed his determination to do this to Planned Parenthood, to NARAL — that you make yourself a participant in the act of abortion. That’s gravely wrong, and you mustn’t do it because your eternal salvation is tied up in that important choice.
The bible seems clear to me on the point that once saved – by grace, through faith, and not by our own works so that none may boast – no one can pluck us out of His hand; our salvation cannot be lost. Nevertheless, I appreciate the seriousness with which the Catholic church takes abortion, and I think they are right to do so. They are absolutely correct to defend their doctrine from attacks from within. If a person professes Catholicism yet blatantly disregards this essential teaching of the faith (in spite of Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to redefine it, the Catechism is clear) then they should find another church with doctrine more in line with what they believe.
