Perhaps the most absorbing element of this election season is the spectacle of abortion activists and media analysts grappling with both Gov. Sarah Palin’s decision to spare the life of her Down syndrome child and her teenage daughter’s decision to continue her pregnancy and marry the father of her unborn child.
As a group of talking heads on television expressed their amazement at the state of the Palin household, I thought of William May, my moral theology professor at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and his penchant for poking holes in the tortured logic of abortion advocates. May could nail the source of abortion supporters’ present discomfort in a nanosecond: Palin’s family choices directly challenge arguments that justify abortion as the “lesser evil.”
Since the ’60s, reproductive rights activists have presented abortion as perhaps the best solution for the scourge of teenage pregnancy, inner-city poverty, gender inequality, and the suffering experienced by disabled infants and their families. But May didn’t buy those arguments: “If abortion is the ”˜lesser evil,’” he used to tell our class, “then the alternative ”” keeping the baby ”” constitutes the ”˜greater evil.’ But how can that position be proved?”
The answer is that it’s impossible to prove that abortion constitutes the “lesser evil.” Catholic moral theologians like May have labored for years to explain both the logical inconsistencies and the moral dangers of the “lesser evil” argument. Now, the Palin family is providing an assist.
Thank you for this article.
I was active with my diocesan churchwomen’s board during the early 1970’s when Roe vs. Wade was decided. Shortly thereafter, our bishop wrote a careful Pastoral Letter urging compassion while pointing out that “the fact that abortions are now legal in no sense alters the Christian’s obligation to hold fast to the moral teaching of the Church.” He referred to the Anglican statement from the Lambeth Conference of 1958 as the most current and definitive statement.
Regrettably, these teachings have been gradually overturned over the years, most vividly illustrated by the Interfaith Letter of April 29, 1996 and signed by Presiding Bishop Browning, urging the members of Congress not to overturn President Clinton’s veto of the proposed ban of the partial-birth abortion procedure. What also had changed was the benefit of a Pastoral Letter or any other effort to convey this information to parishioners for their reflection. Such is the attitude of the modern institutional church toward the person in the pew. The only comments I am aware of when Bishops are questioned about abortion range from “we agree to disagree,” “our position is not widely understood,” or similar evasions.
When I read about the Interfaith Letter in The Living Church (it was not mentioned in our diocesan magazine), I was able to obtain a copy only to discover that on the same date Bishop Spong appeard before a House Subcommittee and made a forceful appeal for legalizing “assisted suicide,” which was broadcast on C-SPAN. Again the institutional Church remained silent and, as far as I know, has allowed his testimony to stand.
So in one remarkable day the Episcopal Church declared publicly its indifference to the fate of the unborn and the dying – an enormous risk especially for poor women, often the caregivers but always the mothers. Is this the legacy our Bishops wish leave?
For reasons that escape me, a large portion of our population has developed a deep misanthropy that manifests itself in many ways, chief among them enthusiasm for abortion and euthanasia. It goes so far that the only deaths they appear to rue are those of convicted killers and homicidal terrorists.
Yes, MM, it does appear that this is the legacy TEC’s bishops wish to leave. Most appear to have joined this cult of death, this loathing of Mankind.
I don’t know if it’s a loathing of Mankind or a loathing of inconvenience. I am sure those who favor abortion in an inconvenient situation (single mother, poverty, don’t want a baby just now, abnormal fetus, etc.) would be quite happy with a pregnancy that fit in with their “life plan”. Just as long as they get to control the circumstances it’s all fine.
@Pam — Isn’t that what’s at the heart of this issue? Control? And isn’t that what’s at the heart of Man’s originals sin in the garden?
Justice Blackmun’s own clerk, who wrote the Roe v. Wade decision for him, referred to it as “Blackmun’s Abortion” due to its specious reasoning. It will be overturned simply because it was poorly written and not good law. Blackmun was weak. His own wife worked on him to come to the result he did. She was affected by D.C. liberals with whom she dealt socially. She wanted to be invited to their parties.