I do not have to always agree with you, or with everything you say (well, if I could, we'd be the same person, wouldn't we?), to appreciate your monumental thoughtfulness and expressiveness. Plus the whole excellent-writing thing.
Since I’m not sure even *I* agree with everything I say, B, I’m not sure your doing so *would* make us the same person! Seriously, ever since I started writing, one of my driving impulses was to try to make different perspectives and worldviews (at least in their more reasonable forms) more intelligible to one another. Your appreciation means a lot to me. For what it’s worth, I suspect that you will agree with virtually every important element in my next piece—and *this* piece I wrote in part to help make *that* piece intelligible to other people, if that makes sense!
I do my best to be kind whenever I have the chance, and it seems to take less effort than it used to. Maybe I hang around with a better class of person than in the past.
(Though of course, as I like to note, my favorite thing that my Robert has ever said to me, about me, is: “You’re nice. Not as nice as you think you are, but nice.”)
Can’t stand Trump. Voted Cruz in 2016. Voted for him in 2020 to keep Biden out. Probably not voting for him in November. Still, even for strategic purposes or balance of goods analysis I cannot countenance voting for full-party-line Democrats. Its compass is fundamentally anti-truth, anti-freedom, and anti-life and all its alignment with catholic teaching is incidental dressings as a fulcrum to achieve power it will then abuse much to the harm of catholic interests. It’s hard to say who will be worse but if Trump is worse it won’t be my fault for failing to cast a ballot against. There isn’t a “reason I’m voting” sub part of the ballot. A vote for Kamala is a vote FOR Kamala however it’s spun. I recommend no Catholic do that.
As I’ve written to previous commenters, Andrew, I have no brief in favor of voting for Harris! That said, I will defend the right of all Catholics, in accordance with principles of Catholic moral theology, to form a prudential opinion that the overall likely negative effects of either major candidate winning are bad enough to warrant voting for the other candidate to defeat them. People who consider Harris the greater threat may licitly vote for Trump (I think their prudential opinion is crashingly wrong, but Catholic moral teaching doesn’t forbid them to reach that conclusion), and people who consider Trump the greater threat may licitly vote for Harris (although they certainly don’t *have* to, and I support their right also to consider their ends best served by voting third party).
I've always liked that twist you put on the Star Wars meme, but... if the choice is between Jar-Jar and Jabba, I'm not sure Jabba loses. Jar-Jar was the clumsy naïf who let himself be manipulated into giving Palpatine "emergency powers". Jabba... well, he's not a politician, but he at least seems to know how to run an organization. (Which, um, is more than can be said for Trump.)
I don’t disagree with anything you say, Peter, either about Star Wars or about Trump. As far as the meme goes, I think for most reasonable people and most ordinary politicians, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, and Jar-Jar are humorously cartoony hyperbole. Whereas Jabba as Trump, particularly in the context of his lecherous humiliation of Leia, is … well, it’s funny, but it’s significantly less hyperbolic.
Have you considered the Catholic doctrine of freedom of conscience in regard to the pro-life question? I am personally pro-life, but I do not espouse the the making of laws to coerce citizens to protect unborn life at all costs. Does "pro-life" necessarily include prohibiting abortion by law? The U.S. bishops could concentrate on teaching and supporting moral choice in Catholics, distinguishing moral choice from forcing positions by law. The U.S. government is obliged to protect the rights of its citizens, including pregnant women. Does the Catholic Church consider the rights or the conscience of the woman who is pregnant? How do you deal with the question of freedom of conscience?
The answer to your question involves a distinction in Catholic teaching between moral teaching and Catholic social teaching (CST). Moral teaching has to do with right or wrong in individual moral choices; CST has to do with questions of the common good as they relate to the organization of society, laws, government, the economy, etc.
Morally speaking, the Church understands the wrongness of procured abortion with respect to the sanctity of human life. From a CST perspective, the Church teaches, as a matter of the common good, that the state is obliged to defend the sanctity of human life and in particular that every member of the human family deserves the protection of law. Unborn human beings are members of the human family, and in the judgment of the Church they have the same right to the protection of law as other human beings.
To answer your question, then, while I think it is possible to be pro-life in a moral sense while supporting permissive abortion laws, from a Catholic perspective this would be a dissenting point of view.
I believe, in accordance with CST, that in a truly just society the unborn would have the same protection of law as other human beings. That said, I recognize that we are very far from a truly just society in many ways—and I believe that some anti-abortion regulations that have been passed since the overturning of Roe v. Wade have harmed rather than promoted the cause of justice. We need legal and economic structures that support women and alleviate the pressures that move women to choose abortion. I also believe that we cannot move toward justice on this issue solely through legal means. We need to convert people’s hearts, and ultimately to change the culture, as well as work to change laws.
So I think the situation is complicated, and for these reasons, as well as the ones I’ve spelled out in this essay, I think it is wrong to tell Catholics that they are always obliged to vote for the less pro-abortion candidate.
Not really, but thanks for the distinction between the two threads of Catholic teaching. In my view value for individual freedom and freedom of conscience is necessary for the common good in the U.S., the basis with equality of our Constitution. Does CST consider the dignity of women to be an element in the common good? And is their freedom of conscience constitutive in that dignity?
The answer to your two questions, Paula, is yes. At the same time, Catholic moral teaching as well as CST insists that our freedoms must be understood in relation to the rights of others. You may have heard the saying, “Your personal liberty to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Now, it must be acknowledged that the fact that the fetus’s nose (along with the rest of it) is growing inside the mother’s body, and sustained and nourished by the mother’s body, makes pregnancy and abortion a special case. I think pro-lifers have too often glibly glossed over this point. Pope Francis has compared abortion providers to assassins. There is a definite element of truth in that analogy (with an implied argument that just as society should not allow assassins to go around killing people, neither should we allow abortion providers to provide procured abortions). But also a significant disanalogy, because the people targeted by assassins are not living and growing from another human being’s body! So the Church’s teaching is clear, though I recognize that the reality is complicated.
You have put the "special case" very clearly. The human being in question is inside the citizen who does not want it there. What is the State's duty to its citizen? In Roe v. Wade the State did recognize both the woman's right to freedom of conscience and the State's interest for the common good. Why do you think that solution was unreasonable? As I said before the morality of the pregnant Catholic woman is vitally important and the business of the Church to form and to support. The business of the State is to protect the rights of its citizen. Doesn't Dignitatis humanae say something about the freedom of the individual conscience being sacrosanct even when it may be in error?
I'm a Catholic who definitely doesn't support Trump. Like you, I can point out plenty of negative points against him. His fans who have cult-like devotion to him scare and concern me. They either deny that there's anything wrong with him or minimize any wrong-doings.
I don't see how voting for Harris is pro-life though. The claim that pro-life laws prevent women from getting treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies is not true. That's medical neglect on the part of the hospitals. The law speaks against it. https://www.liveaction.org/news/four-women-pro-life-dnc-fact-check/
Harris tried to pass the Reproductive FACT Act that would require crisis pregnancy centers to post ads promoting where abortions are free or at low costs. Thankfully, the law was struck down.
When the Center for Medical Progress attempted to expose the illegal selling of body parts from aborted babies, Harris as California's Attorney General worked with Planned Parenthood to raid evidence of the act. She gave access to the undercover videos to National Abortion Federation lawyers. Harris wrote a bill with Planned Parenthood so recording conversations undercover with so called health care providers would be criminal. She wouldn't investigate the allegations of trafficking the human body parts.
"In 2016, she argued that a Texas law requiring abortion businesses to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers and for abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their facility 'undermines both public health and a woman’s right to choose.' The law was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2016."
Harris also put forth the "Do No Harm Act" in 2019, which would force doctors to do abortions and transgender surgeries regardless of their beliefs. The bill attempts to put religious charities that don't support such practices out of business. Also in regards to transgenderism, Harris says she wants the Equality Act to be enacted, which would get rid of protections for personal beliefs regarding gender ideology.
I wish that third parties had just as much of a chance of winning as Republicans and Democrats. The American Solidarity Party is in line with Catholic beliefs. I've voted third party each time that Trump has been on the ballot.
Thanks for your comments, Jenna. I hope it’s clear that I have not endorsed voting for Harris! Voters in 2024 have four choices, not one or two: voting for Trump, voting for Harris, voting third party, and not voting at all. I support the right of Catholics to make any of these choices—to vote for the viable candidate they consider less objectionable (Trump if that is Trump, Harris if it’s Harris); to vote third party (e.g., American Solidarity Party, mentioned in this essay); or not to vote at all. I think one of these options, voting for Trump, is the least prudentially defensible, and I’ve argued at length in my follow-up piece against that particular choice—but that is my opinion; I’m not saying it’s a sin to vote for Trump. Nor is it a sin to vote for Harris. It is always morally legitimate to vote for the least objectionable viable candidate!
As a pro-life Maryland Catholic, the thing that I am most disappointed about in this election is that my state overwhelmingly voted to enshrine abortion into the state constitution, even though we already have, most unfortunately, some of the most permissive abortion laws in America. Yes, I knew it would pass, but not by so much (74%). I was expecting something more like 54%. This is especially egregious considering that American Catholicism basically started in this part of the country. We must continue to pray and stand up for life in all its stages, changing the hearts and minds of all.
I do not have to always agree with you, or with everything you say (well, if I could, we'd be the same person, wouldn't we?), to appreciate your monumental thoughtfulness and expressiveness. Plus the whole excellent-writing thing.
Since I’m not sure even *I* agree with everything I say, B, I’m not sure your doing so *would* make us the same person! Seriously, ever since I started writing, one of my driving impulses was to try to make different perspectives and worldviews (at least in their more reasonable forms) more intelligible to one another. Your appreciation means a lot to me. For what it’s worth, I suspect that you will agree with virtually every important element in my next piece—and *this* piece I wrote in part to help make *that* piece intelligible to other people, if that makes sense!
Utter sense. As always, I’m happy to hang on your every word.
You are so kind I can’t stand it!
I do my best to be kind whenever I have the chance, and it seems to take less effort than it used to. Maybe I hang around with a better class of person than in the past.
(Though of course, as I like to note, my favorite thing that my Robert has ever said to me, about me, is: “You’re nice. Not as nice as you think you are, but nice.”)
The people we live with have a different perspective on our strengths and weaknesses than the rest of the world.
Can’t stand Trump. Voted Cruz in 2016. Voted for him in 2020 to keep Biden out. Probably not voting for him in November. Still, even for strategic purposes or balance of goods analysis I cannot countenance voting for full-party-line Democrats. Its compass is fundamentally anti-truth, anti-freedom, and anti-life and all its alignment with catholic teaching is incidental dressings as a fulcrum to achieve power it will then abuse much to the harm of catholic interests. It’s hard to say who will be worse but if Trump is worse it won’t be my fault for failing to cast a ballot against. There isn’t a “reason I’m voting” sub part of the ballot. A vote for Kamala is a vote FOR Kamala however it’s spun. I recommend no Catholic do that.
As I’ve written to previous commenters, Andrew, I have no brief in favor of voting for Harris! That said, I will defend the right of all Catholics, in accordance with principles of Catholic moral theology, to form a prudential opinion that the overall likely negative effects of either major candidate winning are bad enough to warrant voting for the other candidate to defeat them. People who consider Harris the greater threat may licitly vote for Trump (I think their prudential opinion is crashingly wrong, but Catholic moral teaching doesn’t forbid them to reach that conclusion), and people who consider Trump the greater threat may licitly vote for Harris (although they certainly don’t *have* to, and I support their right also to consider their ends best served by voting third party).
I've always liked that twist you put on the Star Wars meme, but... if the choice is between Jar-Jar and Jabba, I'm not sure Jabba loses. Jar-Jar was the clumsy naïf who let himself be manipulated into giving Palpatine "emergency powers". Jabba... well, he's not a politician, but he at least seems to know how to run an organization. (Which, um, is more than can be said for Trump.)
I don’t disagree with anything you say, Peter, either about Star Wars or about Trump. As far as the meme goes, I think for most reasonable people and most ordinary politicians, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, and Jar-Jar are humorously cartoony hyperbole. Whereas Jabba as Trump, particularly in the context of his lecherous humiliation of Leia, is … well, it’s funny, but it’s significantly less hyperbolic.
Have you considered the Catholic doctrine of freedom of conscience in regard to the pro-life question? I am personally pro-life, but I do not espouse the the making of laws to coerce citizens to protect unborn life at all costs. Does "pro-life" necessarily include prohibiting abortion by law? The U.S. bishops could concentrate on teaching and supporting moral choice in Catholics, distinguishing moral choice from forcing positions by law. The U.S. government is obliged to protect the rights of its citizens, including pregnant women. Does the Catholic Church consider the rights or the conscience of the woman who is pregnant? How do you deal with the question of freedom of conscience?
Good question, Paula.
The answer to your question involves a distinction in Catholic teaching between moral teaching and Catholic social teaching (CST). Moral teaching has to do with right or wrong in individual moral choices; CST has to do with questions of the common good as they relate to the organization of society, laws, government, the economy, etc.
Morally speaking, the Church understands the wrongness of procured abortion with respect to the sanctity of human life. From a CST perspective, the Church teaches, as a matter of the common good, that the state is obliged to defend the sanctity of human life and in particular that every member of the human family deserves the protection of law. Unborn human beings are members of the human family, and in the judgment of the Church they have the same right to the protection of law as other human beings.
To answer your question, then, while I think it is possible to be pro-life in a moral sense while supporting permissive abortion laws, from a Catholic perspective this would be a dissenting point of view.
I believe, in accordance with CST, that in a truly just society the unborn would have the same protection of law as other human beings. That said, I recognize that we are very far from a truly just society in many ways—and I believe that some anti-abortion regulations that have been passed since the overturning of Roe v. Wade have harmed rather than promoted the cause of justice. We need legal and economic structures that support women and alleviate the pressures that move women to choose abortion. I also believe that we cannot move toward justice on this issue solely through legal means. We need to convert people’s hearts, and ultimately to change the culture, as well as work to change laws.
So I think the situation is complicated, and for these reasons, as well as the ones I’ve spelled out in this essay, I think it is wrong to tell Catholics that they are always obliged to vote for the less pro-abortion candidate.
Does that answer your question?
Not really, but thanks for the distinction between the two threads of Catholic teaching. In my view value for individual freedom and freedom of conscience is necessary for the common good in the U.S., the basis with equality of our Constitution. Does CST consider the dignity of women to be an element in the common good? And is their freedom of conscience constitutive in that dignity?
The answer to your two questions, Paula, is yes. At the same time, Catholic moral teaching as well as CST insists that our freedoms must be understood in relation to the rights of others. You may have heard the saying, “Your personal liberty to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Now, it must be acknowledged that the fact that the fetus’s nose (along with the rest of it) is growing inside the mother’s body, and sustained and nourished by the mother’s body, makes pregnancy and abortion a special case. I think pro-lifers have too often glibly glossed over this point. Pope Francis has compared abortion providers to assassins. There is a definite element of truth in that analogy (with an implied argument that just as society should not allow assassins to go around killing people, neither should we allow abortion providers to provide procured abortions). But also a significant disanalogy, because the people targeted by assassins are not living and growing from another human being’s body! So the Church’s teaching is clear, though I recognize that the reality is complicated.
You have put the "special case" very clearly. The human being in question is inside the citizen who does not want it there. What is the State's duty to its citizen? In Roe v. Wade the State did recognize both the woman's right to freedom of conscience and the State's interest for the common good. Why do you think that solution was unreasonable? As I said before the morality of the pregnant Catholic woman is vitally important and the business of the Church to form and to support. The business of the State is to protect the rights of its citizen. Doesn't Dignitatis humanae say something about the freedom of the individual conscience being sacrosanct even when it may be in error?
Would you please answer the question? Thanks.
I'm a Catholic who definitely doesn't support Trump. Like you, I can point out plenty of negative points against him. His fans who have cult-like devotion to him scare and concern me. They either deny that there's anything wrong with him or minimize any wrong-doings.
I don't see how voting for Harris is pro-life though. The claim that pro-life laws prevent women from getting treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies is not true. That's medical neglect on the part of the hospitals. The law speaks against it. https://www.liveaction.org/news/four-women-pro-life-dnc-fact-check/
Harris tried to pass the Reproductive FACT Act that would require crisis pregnancy centers to post ads promoting where abortions are free or at low costs. Thankfully, the law was struck down.
When the Center for Medical Progress attempted to expose the illegal selling of body parts from aborted babies, Harris as California's Attorney General worked with Planned Parenthood to raid evidence of the act. She gave access to the undercover videos to National Abortion Federation lawyers. Harris wrote a bill with Planned Parenthood so recording conversations undercover with so called health care providers would be criminal. She wouldn't investigate the allegations of trafficking the human body parts.
https://www.liveaction.org/news/biden-drops-out-race-endorses-kamala-harris/
"In 2016, she argued that a Texas law requiring abortion businesses to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers and for abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their facility 'undermines both public health and a woman’s right to choose.' The law was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2016."
https://www.liveaction.org/news/biden-drops-out-race-endorses-kamala-harris/
Harris also put forth the "Do No Harm Act" in 2019, which would force doctors to do abortions and transgender surgeries regardless of their beliefs. The bill attempts to put religious charities that don't support such practices out of business. Also in regards to transgenderism, Harris says she wants the Equality Act to be enacted, which would get rid of protections for personal beliefs regarding gender ideology.
https://catholicvote.org/president-harris-what-catholics-need-to-know/
I wish that third parties had just as much of a chance of winning as Republicans and Democrats. The American Solidarity Party is in line with Catholic beliefs. I've voted third party each time that Trump has been on the ballot.
Thanks for your comments, Jenna. I hope it’s clear that I have not endorsed voting for Harris! Voters in 2024 have four choices, not one or two: voting for Trump, voting for Harris, voting third party, and not voting at all. I support the right of Catholics to make any of these choices—to vote for the viable candidate they consider less objectionable (Trump if that is Trump, Harris if it’s Harris); to vote third party (e.g., American Solidarity Party, mentioned in this essay); or not to vote at all. I think one of these options, voting for Trump, is the least prudentially defensible, and I’ve argued at length in my follow-up piece against that particular choice—but that is my opinion; I’m not saying it’s a sin to vote for Trump. Nor is it a sin to vote for Harris. It is always morally legitimate to vote for the least objectionable viable candidate!
As a pro-life Maryland Catholic, the thing that I am most disappointed about in this election is that my state overwhelmingly voted to enshrine abortion into the state constitution, even though we already have, most unfortunately, some of the most permissive abortion laws in America. Yes, I knew it would pass, but not by so much (74%). I was expecting something more like 54%. This is especially egregious considering that American Catholicism basically started in this part of the country. We must continue to pray and stand up for life in all its stages, changing the hearts and minds of all.