It is, writes Julianne Wiley, “a good example of the usefulness of academics in the production and distribution of moral equivocation” in her amazon.com review of Voting and Holiness. (It’s now the third on the list.) The book is a collection of essays by Catholic heavy-hitters, many of whom she identifies as “Catholics for Obama” leaders, in support a position relativizing or sidelining mainstream Catholic political concerns Obama’s policies cannot satisfy. For example:
*Lisa Sowle Cahill opposes the protection of human rights for the unborn as an electoral priority; . . .
*Richard Gaillardetz asserts that Catholic can vote for candidates who support abortion, so long as their policies align with the common good.
*M. Cathleen Caveney argues that intrinsically evil acts may not be gravely evil;
*Bryan Massingale deplores the bishops’ comparison of abortion with slavery, since — he claims — the “personhood” of slaves and unborn babies was not historically, and is not now, the relevant issue.
Julianne, who writes under the name Juli Loesch Wiley (here’s her wikipedia entry), is not pleased. In any case, here are some of her essays readers may find of interest:
Warm and Living Love, a review of William Virtue’s Mother and Infant.
Marty’s Novena, on the life and death of her very difficult uncle.
The Delightful Secrets of Sex, on fertility and contraception.
Jesus’ Genealogy: The Woman Problem, on Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.
Both This Way, on “Lady Gaga and her truthful video.”
The Well-Connected Mother, on, ah, motherhood.
She comes to you for an abortion, answering the question “What do you say?”
Thanks to Richard Stith of Valparaiso’s law school for the lead to Julianne’s review.
October 4th, 2012 | 3:24 pm
*M. Cathleen Caveney argues that intrinsically evil acts may not be gravely evil;
The name is M. Cathleen Kaveny (not Caveney).
It is just a fact of moral theology that intrinsically evil acts are not necessarily gravely evil, and an act that is not intrinsically evil may be more gravely evil than an intrinsically evil act. Any lie is intrinsically evil, but not all lies are gravely evil. (“No, honey, you don’t look fat in that.”) See Professor Kaveny’s article Intrinsic Evil and Political Responsibility in America.
October 4th, 2012 | 4:59 pm
Be careful, be careful. You are gently drumming on the evil you refuse to name.
October 4th, 2012 | 5:16 pm
I’ll take the careful moral reasoning of the authors of this book over Ms. Wiley, thank you. And um, I give you credit for even naming her, as she has been associated in the past with Pax Christi and the consistent ethic of life movements.
October 4th, 2012 | 5:25 pm
A 250-word review of a 270-page book can only hint at issues without describing and analyzing them adequately. Some of what’s on that list I would not in fact disagree with: these topics could be good discussion-starters in a student seminar.
However, with its marketing as an election-season guide, and its lack of full disclosure — almost every contributor is an active member of the Obama re-election team — the package as a whole is tendentious and more than a little devious. This does not increase my confidence is the editor and publisher.
I do regret my misspelling of Dr. Kaveny’s name. Such errors are usually typos on my part, but this time I see, to my chagrin, that I copied the misspelling from an citation in Facing Ethical Issues (Paulist, 2002), and repeated in Daily Kos.
October 4th, 2012 | 7:54 pm
@David Nickol
Prof. Kaveny is correct that the category of intrinsically immoral acts is not the same as those of gravely immoral acts. And when people conflate the categories it is appropriate to point out the conflation.
Notwithstanding her article in America, some things are pretty clear. It’s pretty clear that the issue where the term is most often deployed is abortion. In the case of abortion it is clear that we’re dealing with an evil that is both intrinsic and grave. It is clear that it happens on a very large scale. It is clear that its protection is enshrined in our laws at the highest level (and that that has very much to do with the scale of it). It’s also clear that one of our political parties is, at least at the national level, entirely committed to maintaining that legal protection, and does not even care to maintain the “safe, legal, and rare” language anymore. Mr. Obama is no exception, to put it mildly. I won’t say that the other party is perfectly pro-life – certainly not – but if you listen to serious pro-abortion political commentators, they’re terrified of Republican victories because they understand how much the current abortion regime is imposed from the top down (via the SCOTUS, principally), and they know that there’s not guarantee that that situation will last forever.
In short, Prof. Kaveny is right on some of the moral theology, but her conclusion is simply negative: that saying ‘intrinsic evil’ doesn’t end the conversation. She’s right about that, but she does nothing to justify her suspicion that “the candidate more likely to reduce the actual incidence of abortion is also the one more committed to keeping it legal?” I think that’s a serious question in principle, but not in our actual situation. I don’t think a Catholic is depraved for voting for Obama on the grounds Prof. Kaveny outlines, but I think he or she is seriously mistaken about our actual situation.
I mean, suppose that by giving more funding to Medicaid than Romney would, Obama contributes to some decline in abortions (presuming that regular health visits and birth control would avoid some pregnancies that would end in abortion). How does that plausibly compare to the massive, long-term enabling of abortion on an enormous scale that is embodied in one or two well-chosen Supreme Court appointments? One may dislike that SCOTUS nominations operate on this calculus, but if one ignores the reality and thinks that the real issue is in the question Prof. Kaveny raises, one has one’s head in the sand.
October 4th, 2012 | 11:22 pm
“I mean, suppose that by giving more funding to Medicaid than Romney would, Obama contributes to some decline in abortions (presuming that regular health visits and birth control would avoid some pregnancies that would end in abortion).”
Having been a former medicaid maternity care auditor, I am of the conviction that Medicaid does not result in regular medical visits, but it makes society responsible for the foolish whims (“a baby will love me”, and I’ve read that on medical records) of the immature and irresponsible to engage in sex outside of, indeed without even thought of, marriage as a necessary precondition.
What most people don’t understand is the fact many unwed mothers become pregnant INTENTIONALLY because it is regarded as a form of emancipation or validation and a right.
October 5th, 2012 | 10:29 pm
The answer Juli wrote for ‘Harper’s’ in 1992 to the question, “She comes to you for an abortion. What do you say?” is the best short pro-life argument I have seen. I thank God for her witness to a consistent pro-life position.
1. You are a complex, easily damaged, and sensitive individual, and so is this newly conceived life. Did you know that some research has found emotional or physical trauma in more than 90 percent of women who abort?
2. Are you aware that your son or daughter is developing beautifully, responds to a variety of stimuli, and is already sensitive to pain?
3. Are you considering abortion because of other people in your life? Your husband? Boyfriend? Parents? Employer? Is it fair that you will be subjected to physical, emotional, and spiritual
trauma because they possibly have an anti-child attitude?
4. Did you know that it’s against the law for anyone to discriminate against you for being pregnant or having a child?
5. Is the father of the baby a responsible and loving person? Does he care about you? Does he care about his baby? Could he rise to the challenge of fatherhood?
6. Is there even one woman in your life whom you love and respect: Grandmother? Sister? Teacher? College roommate? Do you trust her enough to ask her to help you? Would she stand by you and your child during this pregnancy and afterward?
7. (After woman sees video interviews with couples eager to adopt her baby) Do you feel drawn to any of these people? Could you place
your little one in their arms? Are you aware that you’re carrying a wanted child?
8. Would you abort: If you knew that this were the only baby you would ever conceive? If you knew this child were uniquely gifted in some way? If you knew this child were destined to make one other human being supremely happy?
9. Would aborting your baby conflict with other values in your life? A belief in nonviolence? An ethic of “live and let live”? A commitment to natural or holistic living?
10. Do you believe in the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?” Would you want someone to turn against you
and physically destroy you because they weren’t ready to deal with you at this time?
11. Do you believe in God? And that God made you? Do you believe that God made the baby you are carrying? Did God allow this new human to come into being for some purpose?
12. If your circumstances were different and you didn’t have the problems you have now, would you want this baby? If so, can we start there and work backward together, attacking the problems rather than the baby?
13. Do you remember that line from the Desiderata, “You are a child of the Universe, as much as the trees and the stars: you have a right to be here?” Can you say it to your child?
October 6th, 2012 | 8:07 pm
Is it right to manipulate people?
1. Did you know that 90% of all statistical claims are made up on the spot?
2. Not true, by the admission of the pro-life movement, that is only the case after week 20. Abortions after week 20 are thankfully extremely rare.
3. Is it fair to tar people who favor a woman’s right to choose as “anti-child”?
5. The question of whether the father is a responsible person may lead someone to have an abortion. People who have a devoted husband are less likely to consider having an abortion than a teenage mother, for example.
8. Unsubstantiated appeal to emotion, and probably factually incorrect.
October 7th, 2012 | 6:32 pm
#1 Questions about a woman’s relationship with her conceived child— her physical, emotional, and moral relationship —are not manipulative. Questioning is a classic hueristic approach: it encourages deeper, wider, more responsive thought. Should women be afraid of thought?
#2 Recently proposed humane legislation such as the DC Pain-Capable Child Protection Act has typically put the developmental age for pain perception at 20 weeks, but only because at that point it is scientifically indisputable. There is evidence that pain begins much earlier. Sonograms of “selective pregnancy reduction” — a procedure performed around Week 12 of a pregnancy, involving a fatal injection of potassium chloride into the chest of a twin or triplet chosen for destruction— often show the child jerking back sharply from the touch of the needle. Abortions at Week 12+ kill hundreds of thousands. This is not a negligable number.
#3 Concerning a boyfriend, parent, etc. influencing a woman to abort: at whatever level this negative influence is being exerted, it is certainly anti-child. If I were to influence someone to terminate you, it would certainly count as “anti-Maximilian”.
#5 True: a man’s response to the duty of fatherhood can be the make-it-or-break-it factor in an abortion decision. Therefore such questions should be asked. They sometimes elicit positive answers.
#8 If you think it is “probably factually incorrect” that a child might be uniquely gifted, you’re missing that it is the very nature of human life to be a unique gift. Spend a minute pondering Psalm 139: “fearfully, wonderfully made” applies, not just to the planned, perfect and privileged, but to us all.
October 8th, 2012 | 12:22 pm
1. That was not a “question”, it was a factually incorrect statement (which I note you haven’t backed up with evidence) about unspecified “some research”. Isn’t it interesting that for a woman to make the “right” decision from your perspective, she needs to be told factual untruths? And then you actually defend that by saying that it is “thought”?
2. The manipulative manifesto you cited mentioned neither the 12 weeks or the 20 weeks. In any case, my inquiry didn’t show this to be “indisputable”, even after 20 weeks, only that there is some fairly good evidence. But of course it fails to mention this, because it does not have the best interests of the woman in mind.
3. No, it’s ridiculous to state that someone is “anti-child” for wanting people to have a choice – and it exemplifies the poisonous and hateful rhetoric that is employed by some opponents of abortion. Children should not be having children, in my view, despite the pro-life movement’s glorification of teenage and single motherhood to prevent abortion.
5. Then it should be removed from the manifesto, because this is not an attempt to help women make their choices, but a manipulative attempt to move women in one direction and one direction only.
8. If it’s a “unique gift” that everyone gets, the gift is not unique. And it’s rather typical that you throw a Bible-verse in my direction. I am fortunate enough to be an atheist, so I am not going to force any religion of mine on other people.
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