Pro-Lifers and '08

I have a Current up about the Douglas Kmiec and Andrew Bacevich endorsements of Obama, and what, if anything, they tell us about the fate of the "Catholic vote." But I wanted to make another point on the subject as well. I'm an enormous admirer of Professor Bacevich, but I wish his Obama-endorsing piece hadn't stacked the deck so much; specifically, I wish he'd made a more detailed case for why issues of war and peace ought to outweigh the abortion issue for pro-life voters in '08, rather than claiming, implausibly:

... only a naïf would believe that today’s Republican Party has any real interest in overturning Roe v. Wade or that doing so now would contribute in any meaningful way to the restoration of “family values.” GOP support for such values is akin to the Democratic Party’s professed devotion to the “working poor”: each is a ploy to get votes, trotted out seasonally, quickly forgotten once the polls close.

You hear this sort of thing frequently from pro-lifers who have grown disillusioned with the GOP, and there's some truth to it: A lot of Republican leaders could care less about Roe and would prefer, if anything, to see it upheld, and even if Roe were overturned abortion would remain legal in most of the country. Nonetheless, it remains the case for all the pro-choice sympathies of leading GOPers, the Republican Party nearly succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade fifteen years ago, and would have if one man - Anthony Kennedy - hadn't changed his mind about the issue at the last minute. It also remains the case that the Bush Administration has seemingly brought to Supreme Court within a single vote of undoing what Kennedy wrought in 1992. It further remains the case that while overturning Roe wouldn't magically restore us to some Ozzie-and-Harriet wonderland, returning control over abortion law to the hands of the voting public remains a necessary goal for any pro-life, socially-conservative politics that takes itself seriously as a change agent in American life. And it further remains the case that to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 is to give up on overturning Roe for at least a decade, probably for two, and possibly for all time. These realities may not require pro-lifers to vote for John McCain, but they deserve more serious consideration that Bacevich affords them.

Comments

And it further remains the case that to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 is to give up on overturning Roe for at least a decade, probably for two, and possibly for all time.

Only if you think Scalia or one of the other anti-Roe justices will retire during an Obama administration. My guess is that is unlikely given the ages involved.

Stevens will almost certainly retire in an Obama administration, and potentially Ginsburg as well, but that won't change the balance of the court on the abortion question. Kennedy, Breyer, and Souter are all at least 68 years old, so it would take an extended Democratic run in the White House to "defend" all those seats.

Posted by right | March 28, 2008 1:13 PM

Additionally, even in a McCain administration, the odds of successfully replacing Stevens with an anti-Roe Justice would be pretty unlikely given the likely Democratic majority in the Senate.

Posted by right | March 28, 2008 1:17 PM

The one pro-Obama, pro-life argument I find compelling (not neccessarily persuasive, but compelling) is this:

The pro-life cause is hurt by the polarization of our politics. This is because a bunch of people who are not strongly pro-choice and who - due to their faith or the fact that they have children of their own - are potentially sympathetic to the pro-life message, refuse to listen to the pro-life message because they hear it from "the enemy" on the other side of the aisle.

So if you buy the whole argument about how Obama will return civility to our national conversation, then you might be inclined to believe that letting some of the steam out of the boiler will give a bunch of people the psychological breathing room they need to listen respectfully to the pro-life message and many of them will change their minds.

Posted by sd | March 28, 2008 1:18 PM

"Could care less?" = they do care at least a little

You mean to say "couldn't care less." That means something different of course than "could care less."

Posted by hopeless pedant | March 28, 2008 1:48 PM

Conservative Republican Catholic scholar endorses Obama

Date created: 3/28/2008 1:42:46 PM
Last updated: 3/28/2008 1:43:31 PM

One of the nation's top conservative Republican Catholic legal scholars has endorsed Democratic Senator Barack Obama for president.Advertisement

Constitutional law professor Douglas Kmiec , who served in the Reagan administration and in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, says he believes Obama can unite the country and inspire Americans to overcome racial and religious divisions.

Kmiec supports the Catholic teaching that abortion is a grave moral evil, but also considers the war in Iraq to be a life issue. Kmiec says the church was troubled by arguments for a "pre-emptive war" that has proven costly in both lives and treasure.

Kmiec, former dean of the Catholic University law school, now teaches at Pepperdine University.

copyright AP

Posted by Long Tall Texan | March 28, 2008 2:11 PM

Conservative Republican Catholic scholar endorses Obama

Date created: 3/28/2008 1:42:46 PM
Last updated: 3/28/2008 1:43:31 PM

One of the nation's top conservative Republican Catholic legal scholars has endorsed Democratic Senator Barack Obama for president.Advertisement

Constitutional law professor Douglas Kmiec , who served in the Reagan administration and in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, says he believes Obama can unite the country and inspire Americans to overcome racial and religious divisions.

Kmiec supports the Catholic teaching that abortion is a grave moral evil, but also considers the war in Iraq to be a life issue. Kmiec says the church was troubled by arguments for a "pre-emptive war" that has proven costly in both lives and treasure.

Kmiec, former dean of the Catholic University law school, now teaches at Pepperdine University.

copyright AP

Posted by Long Tall Texan | March 28, 2008 2:11 PM

Conservative Republican Catholic scholar endorses Obama

Date created: 3/28/2008 1:42:46 PM
Last updated: 3/28/2008 1:43:31 PM

One of the nation's top conservative Republican Catholic legal scholars has endorsed Democratic Senator Barack Obama for president.Advertisement

Constitutional law professor Douglas Kmiec , who served in the Reagan administration and in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, says he believes Obama can unite the country and inspire Americans to overcome racial and religious divisions.

Kmiec supports the Catholic teaching that abortion is a grave moral evil, but also considers the war in Iraq to be a life issue. Kmiec says the church was troubled by arguments for a "pre-emptive war" that has proven costly in both lives and treasure.

Kmiec, former dean of the Catholic University law school, now teaches at Pepperdine University.

copyright AP

Posted by Long Tall Texan | March 28, 2008 2:12 PM

Ross is right that it is entirely possible that we are close to seeing the overturn of Roe (that depends on whether Roberts and Alito prefer to hollow Roe out or overturn it outright) and that it almost happened in 1992.

But he's terribly wrong about the possibility of any sort of a socially conservative pro-life politics taking hold. The truth is, if there was any chance of that happening, we would have seen it in the 16 years after Casey-- pro-lifers were mad and energized; pro-choicers had an opportunity to become complacent, and with over a million abortions a year, pro-lifers would have been able to make whatever arguments they think were most likely to persuade the public that this is a horrible practice.

And yet, pro-lifers have made no headway at all. And that's because outside of the devoutly religious Christian communities, there just isn't a lot of support for banning abortion. There's plenty of people, to be sure, who are morally opposed or wouldn't have one themselves or who would like the government to do more to discourage it, but not a lot of support for bans.

So this is the pro-life high water mark. Overturn Roe and it will be the pro-choice community's turn to energize, and the media will soon fill up with stories of women who commit suicide or are beaten by their husbands or disowned by their parents as a result of the unavailability of abortion.

The reason all those Republican higher-ups don't want Roe overturned is because they know that pro-lifers have not even begun to be successful at persuading the American public to buy into a socially conservative politics.

Posted by Dilan Esper | March 28, 2008 2:16 PM

Would McCain really appoint justices who would overturn Roe? Remember, he wants the Court to sustain campaign finance reform, which rules out most of the obvious "conservative" names. Now I am sure there are potential justices who would both sustain campaign finance reform and overturn *Roe* but they are relatively few in number.

Posted by David T | March 28, 2008 2:33 PM

I know it makes no sense to a devout movement conservative like Ross, but isn't it just possible that sane pro-lifers take a look at the strong likelihood that a McCain presidency would involve the needless slaughter of a couple of million Iranians and reject that option out of hand?

When you place that up against the vague hope that somehow, some way, Roe v. Wade would be overturned, Kmiec's position isn't hard to understand even for a minute.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | March 28, 2008 2:44 PM

Dilan, that's because your allies have made it bloody impossible to persuade the American public. Did you know that it's illegal to pray or pass out pamphlets in the vicinity of an abortion clinic in Massachusetts? Hell, technically it's illegal for a passersby to _walk_ within a certain radius of the abortion clinic unless you work there or are trying to get an abortion. If the government tried to introduce an anti-abortion message into high school health classes, even with emphasis on contraception, many social liberals would be among the first to protest.

Posted by Hector | March 28, 2008 2:47 PM

If Kmiec were saying ONLY "This war is such a disaster, nothing is as important as bringing it to an end," I could understand him holding his nose and voting for a man he knows is his foe on every other important issue.

I can respect any conservative who believes that getting U.S. troops out of Iraq is worth losing ground on abortion, taxes, or ___ (fill in your favorite conservative cause).

My quibble with Kmiec is that he doesn't even acknowledge the importance of what he's giving up. If he's still a conservative, he has a duty to look us in the eye and say, "Obama is all wrong on abortion, but frankly, that has to take a back seat for now. Getting us out of that military quagmire takes priority. I KNOW he'll pack the Supreme Court with liberals, I KNOW he'll raise taxes and spending, I KNOW he'll be a disaster in all kinds of ways, but he's right on the one issue I care about most right now."

By pretending that Obama would NOT be a disaster for conservatives on all those other fronts, Kmiec makes be suspect that either...

1) He has some kind of personal animosity toward John McCain.

2) He's shifted leftward on a wide range of issues, not just the Iraq War.

3) He's delusional about just how far left Obama would try to take this country.

Posted by astorian | March 28, 2008 2:51 PM

Dilan,

Isn't there some tension between your argument that the public opposes bans, and your argument that in a post-Roe world argument women would commit suicide or face spousal and parental abuse arising from the unavailability of abortions? Returning the issue to the states would be unlikely to result in a ban in even the most conservative states, but it would allow differing levels of regulation in different parts of the country, and it would give greater political legitimacy to whatever legal framework was put in place in each state, because each framework would have been implemented through the normal workings of the democratic process.

I suppose your point might be that pro-choicers would be mobilized, and would seek to use relatively isolated anecdotal incidents to generate broad opposition to meaningful regulation of abortions. But from a pro-life standpoint, that's not much different than the status quo, except for that in the status quo the pro-choice side has the added benefit of being able to invoke Roe/Casey when challenging restrictions that have been enacted into law (meaning by definition that the restrications had a significant level of popular support).

Posted by legitprop | March 28, 2008 2:54 PM

One can't help but feel from the likes of Kmiec and bacevich - and I hate to psychoanalyze, since I really don't know their motivations - an eager desire to finally, finally latch on this wave of hope, to jump outside of the conservative box. It just seems that way. But perhaps I'm wrong.

Catholic moral teaching does not mandate a vote for McCain. It is not even clear what a President McCain would proactively do to further the cause of life, or even if he were so minded, what he could get past a Democratic Congress. But one thing is clear: you will get a maximalist pro-abortion position with Obama. For all the soothing rhetoric and likeable demeanor, it's extremely hard for me to give him a pass on his explanation for his vote against BAIPA given the uniform complexion of the rest of his voting record and positions on abortion and life issues. This is not to say there are no circumstances under which a Catholic could vote for Obama, only that his unbending position on this fundamental moral issue raises a high bar that has to be hurdled.

It would be nice to hear more from Kmiec and Bacevich taking seriously this problem.

As for which justices are likeliest to go, don't assume anything; Stevens and Ginsburg may be the likeliest departures, but on Inauguration day we'll have 7 justices over 70 years old, and at that age, even with the wonders of modern medicine, you just don't know.

Posted by Richard | March 28, 2008 3:02 PM

There's no guarantee that a Supreme Court justice appointed by a President Obama would vote to preserve the Roe v. Wade decision. In addition, there is no guarantee that a justice appointed by John McCain would vote to overturn Roe. After all, part of the current pro Roe v Wade faction on the Supreme Court consists of justices appointed by Republican presidents.

Moreover, a justice appointed by Obama is likely to have qualities of intellectual open-mindedness and skepticism toward the liberal and conservative orthodoxies displayed by many of the Court's current members. An Obama appointee could very well be a wild card on issues like Roe v. Wade. So while you are more likely to get an anti-Roe majority with a McCain appointment, it's possible that an anti-Roe majority could emerge with an Obama appointee also. A Clinton appointee on the other hand will probably preserve the pro-Roe majority on the Court.

In addition, while Obama has a strongly pro-choice voting record, there is no indication in his writings that he is a diehard Roe v. Wade supporter. Obama strikes me as someone who is cognizant of the main shortcoming of Roe v Wade, which is that it took an area that properly belonged to state legislatures and made it almost exclusively property of the federal courts. A President Obama would be disappointed by an overturn of Roe v. Wade, but would respect an overturn centered around arguments that abortion controversies are something for state legislatures to decide.

Posted by eltoro | March 28, 2008 3:05 PM

P.S. I do agree that the majority of Americans are not in favor of banning abortion. But it is also true that most favor significant restrictions. More than obtain under the current, essentially unlimited regime. Many simply do not realize how permissive it is under Doe/Casey (even with the very tiny restriction on PBA of Carhart).

Which is another way of saying I'd happily take my chances with the electorates. We wouldn't get 100% of the pie. But we would save some lives.

Posted by Richard | March 28, 2008 3:09 PM

"There's no guarantee that a Supreme Court justice appointed by a President Obama would vote to preserve the Roe v. Wade decision."

Guarantee?

No. Only death and taxes are guaranteed.

But it's betting odds. Easily.

Justices can surprise you. But vetting has reached levels never seen before. And who is the last justice you can name who showed unexpected "growth" to the right in any real fashion?

Posted by Richard | March 28, 2008 3:15 PM

But we would save some zygotes

Fixed it for ya.

Posted by snarky | March 28, 2008 3:15 PM

"Justices can surprise you. But vetting has reached levels never seen before. And who is the last justice you can name who showed unexpected "growth" to the right in any real fashion?"

Richard,

You are making an assumption that it takes a right-leaning justice to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. I argue that a left-leaning justice could also vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, particularly if that left-leaning justice possesses the qualities of intellectual open-mindedness and skepticism about political orthodoxies. There are pro-choicers out there who would argue that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, not because they oppose abortion, but because they agree that abortion issues should be decided by state legislatures.

Posted by eltoro | March 28, 2008 3:27 PM

The government has a far more direct responsibility for issues like war (and torture) than on abortion. The president and Congress could outlaw abortion tomorrow and it would continue. OTOH, the president could say the war is over tomorrow, and it would be.

It's not a matter of which is worse - abortion vs unjust war. It's a question of which issues our politicians are directly morally accountable for.

Until the government begins kidnapping women and sending them off to secret detention centers to undergo forced abortions, there's simply no equivalence between these issues as far as direct accountability of our politicians.

Posted by Peter Bautista | March 28, 2008 3:30 PM

Kmiec is in a snit about McCain's centrist moves and Bacevich about his strong national security stance on Iraq. Both of them have lost it as conservatives.

Should Obama or Clinton win, they would appoint at least two liberal judges that would unquestionably tip the Supreme Court well to the left on Roe-Wade among many other matters.

Even McCain could go wobbly and appoint wishy-washy legal centrists, though one can hope that he would have the backbone to appoint people comparable to Roberts and Alito.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | March 28, 2008 3:31 PM

Dilan, that's because your allies have made it bloody impossible to persuade the American public. Did you know that it's illegal to pray or pass out pamphlets in the vicinity of an abortion clinic in Massachusetts? Hell, technically it's illegal for a passersby to _walk_ within a certain radius of the abortion clinic unless you work there or are trying to get an abortion.

Um, Hector, the First Amendment exception that deals with protests in front of abortion clinics (I believe the cases are named Schenck and Marsden) is limited to court injunctions, based on actual proof that protestors are physically blocking abortion clinics, and it is limited to allowing a buffer zone so that women can access the clinic.

If the law that you claim exists in Massachussetts actually exists and says what you claim, it is clearly unconstitutional and unenforceable.

In any event, why do you assume that the only place to have an abortion protest is in front of the doors of an abortion clinic? As far as I know, you can protest across the street, or at the National Mall, or in a public park, or wherever. The point is the pro-lifers aren't persuading enough people, not that the only place for an effective protest is in front of a clinic.

Posted by Dilan Esper | March 28, 2008 3:58 PM

Returning the issue to the states would be unlikely to result in a ban in even the most conservative states, but it would allow differing levels of regulation in different parts of the country, and it would give greater political legitimacy to whatever legal framework was put in place in each state, because each framework would have been implemented through the normal workings of the democratic process.

What you are overlooking is that in the current world, there is no cost for pro-lifers to take a maximalist approach, and as a result, many states have passed abortion bans already which will automatically take effect if Roe is overturned. So if Roe is overturned, we don't start from a blank slate where public opinion can gel. Rather, abortion will suddenly be illegal in a lot of places and clinics will close down. So the suicides and abuse will happen.

Further, opposition to abortion is concentrated in the Bible Belt, and pro-lifers are savvy and will know how to write restrictions that seem anodyne but effectively ban abortion, so it is quite plausible that there will be regions in the country where abortion will be illegal for the long term.

Posted by Dilan Esper | March 28, 2008 4:02 PM

Ross: Nonetheless, it remains the case for all the pro-choice sympathies of leading GOPers, the Republican Party nearly succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade fifteen years ago, and would have if one man - Anthony Kennedy - hadn't changed his mind about the issue at the last minute.

Or if the Democrats hadn't blocked Bork -- there's no way Bork would have changed his mind on Roe. Heck, if Reagan had succeeded with Douglas Ginsburg (a much stronger intellect than Anthony Kennedy), Roe probably would have been overturned as well. It's only because Reagan had to settle for his third choice . . .

Posted by John Doe | March 28, 2008 4:08 PM

Dilan,

This is from an 'amicus curiae brief' (it's all legal gobbledygook to me) filed by the Catholic Action League in 1999, in protest of a MA senate bill. (The current law expanded the no-loitering zone to 35 feet).

"Senate Bill 148 would prohibit, with limited exceptions, all persons from knowingly entering or remaining in an area within 25 feet of any entrance, exit, or driveway of an abortion facility, even if the area includes a “public right-of-way”. None of the exempted conduct would permit an individual to use the area in question for any expressive or non-expressive purpose other than for ingress and egress.
"In effect, the Bill would criminalize the act of stepping into and remaining within a section of any sidewalk or street abutting an abortion facility – regardless of who is involved, regardless of their intent and motivation, and regardless of the circumstances. Thus, the Bill would impose within designated areas of public property a total ban on a broad range of public conduct in an infinite variety of contexts....
"Chief O’Leary, who testified in support of the Bill, admitted that all individuals remaining within the zone, including those quietly praying, would be subject to arrest."

As I said: it's illegal to enter or remain in an area 35 feet around an abortion clinic unless you are conducting business there.

Posted by Hector | March 28, 2008 4:11 PM

It would not be politically advantageous to overturn Roe vs. Wade. To do so would energize the pro choicers enough to get a lot of office holders voted out of office.
However, I am, deeply concerned about Obama's stance. He voted to allow after birth abortions.
In Illinois, if the the abortion is unsuccessful, the infant is denied food, liquid or medical treatment until it dies.
I do not know, but I would venture that he is against the death penalty for murderers.

Posted by Stewart | March 28, 2008 4:27 PM

I am pro-life, but over time I have come to believe that the most effective way of saving lives is to have church outreach programs that convince mothers of the value of their unborn children; whether Roe vs. Wade is overturned or not has thus become secondary to me and perhaps even a distraction from what I consider the real goal, because it's something that many of us don't have much control over at this point(perhaps by simply being outnumbered by those who disagree with us). I also am concerned that many Christians like myself will falsely believe that we have completed our moral duty just by simply passing a law. I like Obama's idea of 'engagement'; I think we can make more progress by befriending young women in crisis, by being mentors to girls through programs like Big Brother/Sister, by giving them the moral support they need to make the right decision(ie. not getting an abortion). This of course takes more time and on-the-ground effort than many are willing to commit, but it's the right thing to do. Perhaps these Catholic leaders are starting to consider this strategy as more effective as well...just a thought.

Posted by kristi | March 28, 2008 4:41 PM

OK, Hector, I looked it up. The previous law prohibited blocking clinic entrances (news flash, Hector, it has never been constitutionally protected to block the entrance of a business) and required protesters to stand 6 feet away from people entering the clinic. That was upheld by the lower courts and not reviewed by the Supreme Court. I think that was actually constitutionally questionable, because without a showing that protesters are harassing women entering clinics-- as opposed to simply saying "please reconsider your decision" or the like-- I don't think Supreme Court precedents permit this sort of a buffer zone.

But that having been said, Gov. Patrick in November signed a law requiring all protesters to stay 35 feet away from a clinic. Here's a prediction, Hector: it's under challenge now, and it will be struck down.

In any event, you didn't address my main point, which is that there's no reason why you HAVE to have your abortion protests in the form of interference with the desperate women entering abortion clinics. If your message were really so compelling, you could present it in the town square or the public park or on television and newspaper advertisements and it would persuade people.

I happen to think protesting in front of a clinic is and should be protected free speech, and the Supreme Court caselaw supports my view in most instances. That doesn't make it an honorable protest tactic rather than a crude form of bullying that just makes the protesters look like jerks.

Posted by Dilan Esper | March 28, 2008 5:11 PM

There is no serious chance of abotion being outlawed in the United States. What is past is past. Turn the page.

Posted by Miande | March 28, 2008 7:03 PM

Reading Professor Bacevich's piece in The American Conservative made my heart break. This man-- who has a distinguished military career himself and sacrificed a son just last year to the Iraq War-- has more credibility on the issue of foreign policy than just about anyone else who has pontificated ad nauseam (Victor Davis Hanson comes to mind), except perhaps for John McCain, who also has a distinguished record and whose son is currently serving in Iraq. But let's face it, there are a number of neo-cons who've been beating the drums for war and calling the shots on strategy, who probably have no business serving in those roles. And it's also an interesting question-- why don't conservatives treat the war as a "life issue" every bit as important as abortion? Why do we find it more alarming to think of the unborn being killed than 19 year-olds being shipped to the Middle East to protect our oil? This IS a good question, and Bacevich is right to raise it.

But my answer to that-- and the reason why I will continue to accept the grand bargain with the neo-cons-- is that it's a safe bet, judging from experience, that we WILL be back in the Middle East at some point whether during Obama's presidency or shortly thereafter. The region is a powder keg, and Obama's election will not alter our policy there in the long run. McCain recognizes and accepts this; Obama seems oblivious. Contrary to Bacevich's argument, the TRUE realist here is McCain, not Obama. On abortion, Bacevich makes a number of flawed assumptions. There's no reason why, if another Alito is nominated to the Court, we cannot overturn Roe v. Wade; and this would be truly monumental because it would finally provide some protection to those among us who are indeed the weakest and most vulnerable. We DO need to pursue change through the law as well as practice-- a country as comfortable and prosperous as the United States has no excuse for sanctioning by force of law the murder of innocent babies? We need to provide better care for the mothers who believe abortion is their only option; but we also need to change the law of the land. Obama will set this effort back by decades, possibly.

Posted by MD | March 28, 2008 7:18 PM

'TRUE realist here is McCain"

McCain is too stupid to know the difference between Al Qaeda and Iran.

Posted by Mark | March 28, 2008 7:39 PM

Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the vast majority of abortions occur early enough that they'll always be legal. The actual number of lives to saved by bans is probably less than the number of excess deaths in Iraq.

Moreover, there's a moral difference between a government that fails to stop wrongdoing and a government that is actively engaged in wrongdoing. The Dems with respect to abortion are the former, the GOP with respect to war, torture and greed are the latter.

Posted by Consumatopia | March 28, 2008 8:22 PM

"There are pro-choicers out there who would argue that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, not because they oppose abortion, but because they agree that abortion issues should be decided by state legislatures."

Eltoro,

Could you please name some prominent examples of these pro-choicers? I can't think of any, especially any in political leadership positions.

The assumption in some other comments here is that the Republicans are the only ones hiding their true feelings about abortion to get elected. I suspect there are cynical pro-life Democrats who make the right noises to get ahead in their party, but if they did not think they needed to cater to pro-choice groups, they would support more restrictive abortion laws.

Posted by Kevin Jones | March 28, 2008 8:32 PM

I guess my point is that God provides us with free will, regardless of man's laws. Thus, even though we may outlaw guns, people are still going to be tempted by sin and kill other people; they would just do it using other means instead. Temptation is a fact of life that no amount of laws can prevent. In fact, I think we as Christians need to be suspicious of government laws; God sets a much higher standard than man, and Gods laws, unlike man's, are immutable. We need people to always be wary of the govt's laws, lest someday the govt. decides to do a China and make forced abortions the rule of the day. Thus rather than trying to use the government as a bully-pulpit for our stance, I think we need to trust only God-given scripture to convince people of the value of unborn children. This means being more active in the trenches, where you can really witness the effects of your actions. Politicians and politics tend to twist things into perversion, no matter what good intentions some of us may have.

Posted by kristi | March 28, 2008 8:52 PM

Re: Would McCain really appoint justices who would overturn Roe? Remember, he wants the Court to sustain campaign finance reform, which rules out most of the obvious "conservative" names.

I fail to see the connection. A "strict constructionist" judge would (ideally) believe that he ought defer to the legislature's will in both matters (banning abortion; regulating campaign finance), since the Constitution mentions neither abortion nor campaign finance. Of course a rightwing activist like Scalia would be first and foremost concerned with what furthers rightwing causes, not with the Constitution.

Re: Did you know that it's illegal to pray or pass out pamphlets in the vicinity of an abortion clinic in Massachusetts?

Hector, the whole "Operration Rescue" gig helped turn people against the pro-Life cause. Heck, it almost did that to me back in the days when abortion protestors were blocking not just clinics but other medical facilities and sometimes roadways, and endangering their own children by jumping out in front of traffic with them shouting "God loves babies!" I am not exaggerating here. I don't know where you were in those days, but I witnessesed these appalling antics firsthand in Ann Arbor when I was in college. Those sorts of tactics are profoundly self-defeating and the pro-Life cause has yet to recover from the damage Randall Terry and his ilk wrought on it.

Posted by JonF | March 28, 2008 8:58 PM

Kristi,

I agree with you need to do more to support women and children before we can do anything about abortion rates in this country. Howvere, changing the laws is part of the solution too. The law is a moral teacher.

JonF,

Maybe, but given that it's a normal thing for labor unions to protest outside company HQ and pacificsts to protest outside military buildings then why shouldn't pro-lifers be able to protests outside abortion clinics.

I wasn't of age in Randall Terry days....I'm mid-20s now.

Posted by Hector | March 28, 2008 9:07 PM

Hello Snarky,

But we would save some zygotes

Fixed it for ya.

And what is a zygote?

A zygote has the same chromosomes that I or you have.

It is human + and it is alive = he/she is a human life. I don't have the luxury - or the right - of trying to pick an arbitrary point in time when it magically becomes "human."

hello Eltoro,

You are making an assumption that it takes a right-leaning justice to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. I argue that a left-leaning justice could also vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, particularly if that left-leaning justice possesses the qualities of intellectual open-mindedness and skepticism about political orthodoxies.

I reluctantly employed the shorthand of right-left language, but I'm not comfortable with it. What is wanted is an originalist/textualist who knows and practices the virtues of judicial restraint - not in preserving unprincipled precedent, but in restraint from growing or affirming unsustainable aggrandizements in federal and especially federal judicial power.

I have no idea whether a McCain-appointed justice would strike down Roe/Doe/Casey. I hope so. I would like to think so. But I think it's betting odds it would never happen with Obama's or Hillary's nominees. It seems evident both would employ a litmus test, just as Bill Clinton did.

There are pro-choicers out there who would argue that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, not because they oppose abortion, but because they agree that abortion issues should be decided by state legislatures.

This is true - but there are very few of them. And I cannot imagine any surviving the vetting process at an Obama or Hillary Justice Department.

I'm not necesarily sold on McCain, who is certainly not a perfect candidate on Catholic moral principles - which must guide me if not all others here. But Obama consistently supports a position of intrinsic moral evil, and that presents a high bar to overcome.

Posted by Richard | March 28, 2008 10:19 PM

JonF writes: "Hector, the whole "Operration Rescue" gig helped turn people against the pro-Life cause. Heck, it almost did that to me back in the days when abortion protestors were blocking not just clinics but other medical facilities and sometimes roadways, and endangering their own children by jumping out in front of traffic with them shouting "God loves babies!" I am not exaggerating here. I don't know where you were in those days, but I witnessesed these appalling antics firsthand in Ann Arbor when I was in college. Those sorts of tactics are profoundly self-defeating and the pro-Life cause has yet to recover from the damage Randall Terry and his ilk wrought on it."

Those were the very least of their tactics. Lifers would follow counselors and other clinic personnel home. They would routinely vandalize building locks. They would grab and claw at women trying to enter the buildings. In Boston in the 80s these people were demented, violent, shrieking beasts - a long way from Hector's romantic notion of peaceful praying folk.

I volunteered as a safety escort at one clinic (my then girlfriend was working there) because the protestors and their aggressive tactics frightened a lot of women. I was told to wear long sleeves with thick fabric because the zombies (it fits) were quite capable of scratching me. It was far from unusual for them to commit legal battery, and I'm quite happy to say I wasn't shy about returning the punishment.

Hector again: "Maybe, but given that it's a normal thing for labor unions to protest outside company HQ and pacificsts to protest outside military buildings then why shouldn't pro-lifers be able to protests outside abortion clinics."

They can and they do. They just can't interfere with the legal rights of others, which they were doing constantly and egregiously, which is why buffer-zone statutes have been upheld.

Perhaps if the lifer movement hadn't been overrun with full-blown crazies in the 80s things would have been different.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | March 28, 2008 10:28 PM

Jon F: "A 'strict constructionist' judge would (ideally) believe that he ought defer to the legislature's will in both matters (banning abortion; regulating campaign finance)..."

Well, I didn't say it was *logically* impossible for a judge to sustain both restrictions on abortion and restrictions on campaign finance, only that there seem to be few judges who do so. On the current Supreme Court, I don't know if there are any--certainly the ones who are most vehemently against *Roe* are also the ones most vehemently against campaign finance reform. (And those who are suspected of wanting to overrule *Roe* but who for now are content to interpret it narrowly--Roberts and Alito--are also suspected of wanting to throw out McCain-Feingold but for now are content to interpret it narrowly.) Justices who are willing to be consistently deferential to legislatures seem to be very rare indeed.

One other point: It is often said that overruling *Roe* will just leave the question of abortion to the states. This is not necessarily true. Unless the Court narrows its current broad interpretation of the commerce clause--as reaffirmed in the medical marijuana case-- overruling *Roe* could mean that Congress could outlaw all abortions where (for example) the medical instruments used are in interstate commerce, etc. Not that Congress as currently constituted would outlaw abortion, but if a future Congress wants to, there will be no consitutional obstacle. So it is wrong to say that overruling *Roe* would remove abortion as an issue in *national* politics.

Posted by David T | March 28, 2008 11:05 PM

"But one thing is clear: you will get a maximalist pro-abortion position with Obama."

Exactly. There are things about him I find appealing, but that's a clear turn-off. He's not moderately Pro-Choice or in favor of some kind of compromise. He's intensely Pro-Choice and a darling of NARAL. A possible test of how far he'd be would be the Brownback-Kennedy "Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Condition Awareness Act." NARAL has deemed it acceptable so he can support it and still be Pro-Choice, but I'm not going to lay bets on him doing so.

"The actual number of lives to saved by bans is probably less than the number of excess deaths in Iraq." Consumatopia

In 2003 there were about 47,497 abortions committed after the fifteenth week. (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5511a1.htm) That number has probably dropped since then, but I think an estimate of 160,000 such abortions from 2003 to present should be fair. This is indeed lower than most estimates of Iraqi death count. However it's unclear if reducing Iraqi deaths is even Obama's goal and I'd argue that it's reasonable to assume his main goal is lowering US death counts. Going by that 160,000 is larger than the US death count by a large factor. (Between 30 and 40 times)

"Further, opposition to abortion is concentrated in the Bible Belt" etc Dilan

To an extent. However among "plurality Pro-Life states" you have Idaho, Indiana, South Dakota, and Missouri. The most Pro-Life state is Utah.

http://www.surveyusa.com/50State2005/50StateAbortion0805SortedbyProLife.htm

There are two states Kerry won where over 40% of people identify as Pro-Life. (Pennsylvania and Michigan) The majority of Americans favor banning late-term abortion, requiring parental consent, and requiring husband's be notified.

http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=119

You think any Democrat would get the nomination for President with those views? Do you think Roe v Wade would even allow all those things? Would you?

Posted by Thomas R | March 28, 2008 11:58 PM

Thomas R writes: "He's not moderately Pro-Choice or in favor of some kind of compromise. He's intensely Pro-Choice and a darling of NARAL."

So what? There isn't the slightest indication that the lifer movement is sincerely interested in "compromise." Most of them gag over a "life or health of the mother" exception."

Sure, you'll accept small compromises "for the time being," but the clearly stated goal of the lifer movement is and always has been the virtual elimination of abortion rights in this country.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | March 29, 2008 12:38 AM

"The majority of Americans favor banning late-term abortion, requiring parental consent, and requiring husband's be notified." Thomas R

Proof, please. Oh, and husbands (plural) not husband's (of the husband or husband is), please.

Posted by jc | March 29, 2008 1:41 AM

There is one obvious problem (other than the scientific aspects) in claiming that "life" begins as soon as fertilization of the egg takes place (which is, sadly, effectively the extreme pro-life position). If you claim, as this position requires, that all cells are living, it leaves you in the awkward position of not being able to clip your toenails without destroying "life". Obviously, one could achieve a degree of logic and realism by acknowledging that life is hardly present so early on, but then one would have to admit that early abortion is not, actually, destroying a life. Incidentally, it should also be noted that the Bible does not provide any direct warrant for considering abortion evil or immoral.

Posted by rossd | March 29, 2008 1:47 AM

Re: Maybe, but given that it's a normal thing for labor unions to protest outside company HQ and pacificsts to protest outside military buildings

I agree with you in principle. But the problem is that the abortion protesters back in the 80s crossed the limits of the acceptable (some of them by several miles) and so we now have these restrictive laws.

Re: It is often said that overruling *Roe* will just leave the question of abortion to the states. This is not necessarily true.

I agree. However I strongly suspect that in a post-Roe world the GOP would definitely not want to nationalize the issue further since it woudl work against them, but would remain content to let it be fought out at the state and local issue. The Democrats on the other hand would try to nationalize the issue, and if we had a Democratic Congress and president we might even end up with pro-Choice legislation enacted into law by Congress.

Posted by JonF | March 29, 2008 7:22 AM

Moe,

Of course I want abortion to be fully illegal, eventually, with a few exceptions such as for the life or health of the mother. WHy shouldn't I? I believe it's wrong. I'm sorry that you got scratched by the 'zombies', but look, it's better than getting your brains sucked out by a vacuum tube, isn't it? Or getting torn out of your mother's womb and flushed down the toilet. There was extremism in the anti-slavery movement, too, wasn't there?

RossD,

A toenail clipping will never develop into an adult, while an embryo will, therefore they aren't comparable. The _natural_ course of events for an embryo is to develop into a person. I would probably place implantation instead of fertilization as the beginning of 'human life' but even in that case the vast majority of abortions should still be illegal. As for the religious case against abortion:

--The 'Didache', which is apparently accepted as scripture by the church of Ethiopia, explicitly condemns abortion.
--Abortion was condemned universally by the early Church Fathers including Tertullian, St. Ambrose, etc. Tertullian equates it to murder.
--The date of Christmas was chosen to reflect the idea that Christ was conceived on Good Friday (and thus born on Christmas) to have exactly 33 years on earth. This means that life was viewed as beginning at conception.
--"I was a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me." Psalm 51:5
-- The apocryphal 'Apocalypse of St. Peter' which was popular in the early church, although it never made it into the Bible, describes the vision of abortionists suffering in hell.

Posted by Hector | March 29, 2008 9:56 AM

One thing no one has mentioned is that Bacevich's son died in Iraq, which probably colors his perceptions of which issues are more important.

Posted by Glaivester | March 29, 2008 9:58 AM

Hector, first, you haven't offered a single Biblical quote that denounces abortion. Do you serious want to offer apocryphal texts to support your position? The early Church fathers say many things, but they do not replace Scripture as a source of authority. if you want a respectable theological counter, Thomas Aquinas explicitly held that the human embryo did not possess a spiritual soul and was not a human being (homo) until forty days in the case of males or ninety in the case of females.

The date of Christmas actually reflects an riginally pagan festival, as, for that matter does Easter, but both are utterly irrelevant on the issue in hand. Finally, the quote from Psalm 51 is not anti-abortion, nor should it be read literally. It is simply a rhetorical way of talking about the inherent sinfulness of human beings.

As for toenail clippings and embryos - sorry, but you are ducking the point here. You have not shown any evidence that, immediately after the fertilization of the egg, the product of that fertilization is alive in any sense. Can you show that it is sentient or possesses any cognitive function? if not, it is, effectively as "alive" as the toenails which you clip on a regular basis.

Posted by RossD | March 29, 2008 10:44 AM

Seriously, RossD? Seriously?

Of course the embryo is "alive." What kind of moron would argue otherwise? The question becomes whether or not it is a "person" worthy of protecting. This is the question that Peter Singer and others ask. This is what you are asking by whether or not it is "sentient or possesses any cognitive function." Of course now you are in the tricky position of defining when the fetus magically becomes a "person." In fact, it becomes so difficult that you might just end up with Singer's position, i.e. it isn't a person until it is well outside the womb-- a proposition that many would argue is infanticide.

Posted by Derrick | March 29, 2008 11:20 AM

Hello Ross,

Well, a) Aquinas was also wrong about the Immaculate Conception - not every single word he wrote is taken as doctrine; and b) Even so Aquinas still opposed abortion in the first 40 days.

Posted by Richard | March 29, 2008 1:27 PM

TheBannedMoe:

I volunteered as a safety escort at one clinic (my then girlfriend was working there) because the protestors and their aggressive tactics frightened a lot of women.

In other words: Operation Rescue harrassed women. Whereas you and your girlfriend helped kill women.

Posted by Richard | March 29, 2008 1:33 PM

However it's unclear if reducing Iraqi deaths is even Obama's goal and I'd argue that it's reasonable to assume his main goal is lowering US death counts.

Actually, Obama's main problems with Iraq are the opportunity costs (the resources we use in Iraq could save more lives elsewhere) and the institutional flaws in our foreign policy (the bad reasoning that got us tangled in Iraq could entangle us in future wars). I think, in both cases, the number of lives hanging in the balance exceeds 50K.

Moreover, I'm not sure it's such a foregone conclusion that progress (from your perspective) cannot be made on the abortion front with Obama as president. No, you won't get Roe v. Wade (not right away), but Obama did say this

I think there is a large agreement, for example, that late-term abortions are really problematic and there should be a regulation. And it should only happen in terms of the mother’s life or severe health consequences, so I think there is broad agreement on these issues.

The votes against specific bills people are talking about above seem to be because he didn't like some details or language in the bill. Maybe he's just being disingenuous about that, but it's no secret that some supposedly pro-life legislators intentionally put forward poison-pilled abortion regulating bills, refusing to offer compromise bills that would presumably improve the status quo from their perspective, just so they can gin up outrage.

Posted by Consumatopia | March 29, 2008 2:22 PM

Richard quotes and writes: "I volunteered as a safety escort at one clinic (my then girlfriend was working there) because the protestors and their aggressive tactics frightened a lot of women.

In other words: Operation Rescue harrassed women. Whereas you and your girlfriend helped kill women. "

The clinic in question only did first trimester abortions, chuckles - and I don't think any of the fetuses qualified as "women" legally or culturally or by any other rational measure.

I'd quite readily run over a thousand 1st trimester feti with a John Deere tractor in order to save the life of one 5 year old child. You know - children of the sort Dumbya Bush and John McCain have gleefully sacrificed in order to advance "America's interests" while the huge majority of "social conservatives" cheered.

If and when Roe v. Wade is overturned I'll be volunteering to drive women from Wombslave States to Free States. It'll be like the good old days.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | March 29, 2008 2:59 PM

Derrick, from your post, it seems the moron advocating the "it's a live" position is you. Define life, and explain how immediately after the egg is fertilized you have a living organism, rather than a collection of cells moving towards "life".

Richard, I agree that Aquinas was wrong or questionable about many things. My point in raising his name is simply to point out that big names, such as the Church Fathers, are not infallible, and that their positions do not trump scripture. Scripture simply offers no position on abortion, and people who try and argue from the tiny range of quotes (like Psalm 51.5) that mention conception are fundamentally glossing over this awkward fact.

Posted by RossD | March 29, 2008 4:29 PM

Well, RossD, it's been a few years since high school bio class, but I seem to remember some characteristics of life as feeding, growing, moving, etc. The fetus seems to fit that bill. When we speak of "killing" the fetus, even if we deny that the fetus has any sort of right to stay alive, we at least acknowledge that it WAS alive. No, RossD, please explain to me what, exactly, a cell or collection of cells is, if it is not life. But wait, you protest, how is that any different from a toenail?! Well, I think most sane people would, for example, see the difference between, say, a seed and a leaf, as far as their respective status as life goes. A leaf is not an independent organism, it will not grow into tree. As I stated before, you are confusing terms. What you are trying to argue is that the fetus is not a person, i.e., it is not sentient, isn't self aware. OK, fine, this is what Singer does. But this leads Singer to accept that infanticide may be morally acceptable. Are you OK with that? Or better yet, why doesn't RossD give us his definition of when "life" begins (whatever you even mean by this term)?

Posted by Derrick | March 29, 2008 4:54 PM

Re: Do you serious want to offer apocryphal texts to support your position?

The texts Hector cited are not Scripture, but they were accepted by the early Church as orthodox (that is, worthy of being read as they did not contain false teaching)

Re: The early Church fathers say many things, but they do not replace Scripture as a source of authority

For traditionalist Christians like the Orthodox, the copts, the Roman Catholics, the Fathers do indeed have authority similar to Scripture and in no wise inferior to it. Of course they are not infallible, and are not to be read with a rigid literalism (and neither is the Bible), but they certainly do provide us evidence of what the ancient Church taught and believed. On the topic of abortion you will find some equivocation about when in the process of gestation abortion becomes murder (and I think there's valid reason to debate that today too), but none of them ever located it past the 40th day.

Re: The date of Christmas actually reflects an riginally pagan festival, as, for that matter does Easter,

Both claims happen to be "urban myths". Easter is dated according to the Jewish Passover, period. I used to believe that Christmas took the date of the Saturnalia, but I've seen that debunked. In fact, the date of Christmas was worked out from the Jewish calenadr, based on the events described in the beginning of Luke (the high priesthood of Zechariah, John the Baptist's father). The ancient Church probably got the date wrong because they got the year wrong and the Jewish calendar does not accord well with the Roman calendar, but they were making an honest attempt to find the right date, not simply usurp the Saturnalia (which not a very imporant feast in those regiosn of the Enmpire where Christianity flourished).

Posted by JonF | March 29, 2008 5:45 PM

One can't help but feel from the likes of Kmiec and bacevich - and I hate to psychoanalyze, since I really don't know their motivations - an eager desire to finally, finally latch on this wave of hope, to jump outside of the conservative box.

Not all conservatives are neoconservatives or supporters of the war. Just because Bacevich doesn't adhere to mainstream Republican opinion doesn't mean he's no longer a conservative, in name or in fact.

Posted by pb | March 29, 2008 8:12 PM

Hector:

JonF-- arguing from the pro-life side-- basically gets the clinic protest issue right. I think the classy thing is to leave desperate women entering clinics alone, especially since your movement is constantly saying that these women are victims and shouldn't be punished if abortion is made illegal. There's something inconsistent between that and trying to harass a woman entering an abortion clinic.

But I would also say that the First Amendment protects many classless protests, and that includes a protest next to an abortion clinic, so long as the protesters don't harass the patients and don't block the entrances. If you want to pray, or have a candlelight vigil, or say (nicely) "please reconsider your decision", that's clearly constitutionally protected.

But the reason we ended up with these laws and injunctions is because that isn't the reality of abortion protesting as experienced in America. Rather-- and unlike most of the union protests you compared this with, which are peaceful-- abortion protests tended to attract a very hardline type of activist type who wanted to "save the babies", which meant using any means necessary, including blocking the clinic entrance, calling women and doctors murderers, following people home, threatening clinic workers, and, in some instances, even bombing the clinic. You can see this horrid and evil form of reasoning in Richard's posts, earlier in this thread-- he clearly thinks that the pro-life movement is justified in doing anything (or anything short of a clinic bombing) to stop abortions.

In response, legislatures and courts acted to protect access to clinics. Some of these laws and injunctions have been overbroad, but you should have no doubt that the reason that this occurred at all is because the protesters went way too far.

JonF is totally right about the effect this had on the pro-life movement. It gave it a bad name. And the reason is because-- as we have argued ad nauseum before-- the pro-choice movement contends that the pro-life movement is not simply pro-life but is also anti-feminist, and the pro-life movement denies that and says it is solely motivated to protect life. One of the pro-life movement's key positions is that women shouldn't be punished for having abortions because they are often vulnerable and desperate. And yet, these protesters, in their zeal to "protect life", were harassing these vulnerable and desperate women in their worst hours. You can imagine how this didn't exactly play well with the squishy American middle.

For this reason, the National Right to Life League and other mainstream pro-life organizations have never advocated these tactics. And they are very smart in this respect.

Again, I think you should have a right to have a protest at an abortion clinic as long as women and workers can get in and out and are able to go about their business in safety. But the classy thing to do is to have your protest somewhere else. There is a history here.

Posted by Dilan Esper | March 29, 2008 9:28 PM

JonF - I agree with you that the Fathers of the Church enjoy great respect among various denominations, but I do not see that they are considered as authoritative as scripture.

On the authority of apocryphal texts, I have to remind you that the early church accepted a remarkable variety of works that are no longer considered acceptable or orthodox. Consider the popularity of the Shepherd of Hermas, for example. Overall, if we went back to the early church, we would probably find a disturbing variety of positions that are no longer held seriously. Not all of them would be bad, but I think it's fair to say that people citing the Fathers of the Church and the early church in general tend to do so very selectively. This does not inspire much confidence in such interpretations as a guide for one's conduct.

On the dates of Easter and Christmas - there is much happy debate on why and how the dates were fixed. I should have been more precise and connected Easter with Eostre, a pagan goddess attested by Bede (yes, more dubious old church scholarship!). However, the date itself is fixed using the calculation of the Alexandrian church, which happens to link to the date of the Jewish passover, but is not calculated using it. Christmas takes December 25th from the Roman festival of the Dies natalis solis invicti, not Ssturnalia, although remnants of the Saturnalia may have been transferred into the 12 days of Christmas.

Going back to the definition of life: if one accepts motion, feeding and growth as the definition, and on that basis considers that the taking of life is murder, you have so minimal a definition that those who attack abortion on those grounds ought, to be consistent, to be anti-war, against the death penalty, and vegetarian. Are they? No, not usually. The key here is to define what constitutes human life, and for that you need more than a thinly veiled restatement of Aristotle's position (motion, feeding, growth). Such a definition, sooner or later, is going to demand some acknowledgement of consciousness as the dividing line - and that's where the issue of the egg/fetus/formed child becomes important. Many people would object vehemently to partial birth abortion as murder, but would find it ridiculous to consider a newly fertilized egg as possessing human life.

Posted by RossD | March 29, 2008 10:15 PM

"I wish he'd made a more detailed case for why issues of war and peace ought to outweigh the abortion issue "

is that a joke? can you possibly make that case? i dont think any rational human being could possibly make that case.

Posted by matthew | March 29, 2008 10:35 PM

matthew quotes and writes: ""I wish he'd made a more detailed case for why issues of war and peace ought to outweigh the abortion issue "

is that a joke? can you possibly make that case? i dont think any rational human being could possibly make that case."

That's because you're not a rational human being. Those of us who are are quite able to distinguish between stopping the development of a 20 week old fetus and delberately slaughtering walking, talking, and thinking human beings whose loss will affect family members and ripple out in any number of ways.

Our society, plain and simply, recognizes the distinction every single day and has done so traditionally. If parents lose an 8 year old child to murder people fully understand if they have long-term problems afterwards. Lose an 8 week old fetus to a miscarriage and people will think you're mentally ill if it renders you useless a week later.

That's how it is. That's the reality behind the weird, wacky, religion-based obsession of the fetus fetishists. Deal with it.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | March 29, 2008 11:36 PM

Christmas takes December 25th from the Roman festival of the Dies natalis solis invicti

To speak as someone who works in the field, this is exactly correct.

The god Sol Invictus or "the unconquered sun" was extremely popular in the Roman army, and his major festival was the day of his birth, December 25th. The selection of that day as the birth of Christ has to be understood as politically useful, after the conversion of the emperor, in bringing much of the army into allegiance to the new religion.

Posted by DivGuy | March 30, 2008 9:09 AM

Dilan,

First of all, I don't take part in abortion protests, at or away from clinics. There are enough people out there who do, that I don't feel like I need to. Second of all, your arguments are similar to those who would tell labor protestors or war protestors not to obstruct traffic etc. The point of a protest, in large part, is to make it difficult for society, or for some aspect of society, to function. The point of people protesting outside military recruiting center is to make it difficult for the army to conduct its business. And so it goes with abortion clinics.

You seem to be under the impression that a woman has a right to an abortion, and that no one should try and prevent her from getting one. On the contrary, no one has a right to an abortion, and it is no kindness to a woman in desperate straits to stand by as she puts her spiritual and emotional welfare in jeopardy.

I don't support violence against clinics or the people who work in or patronize them, because I think such people are for the most part motivated by ignorance and not by malice. But I think simply writing a letter to your congressman is about as silly and ineffective way to affect the incidence of abortion as anything else. I don't have a problem with people protesting outside abortion clinics or trying, as intensively as the law allows, to persuade women to reconsider their decision. Those of us who believe that abortion should be outlawed believe that this would pursue the ultimate good of the pregnant woman as well as her child- for her own good, not for ours, and not just for her child's.

You seem to be under the impression that the kindest thing you can do to anyone is to let them do whatever they want. Not so. Oftentimes the kindest thing that you can do for someone is to prevent them from doing what they want, or what they think they want. When abortion is eventually outlawed again, it may become necessary to place a police detail in every hospital to keep them from carrying out illegal abortions. I wouldn't view that as a bad thing, but as a good thing.

Posted by Hector | March 30, 2008 9:53 AM

RossD,

The Didache, Apocalypse of Peter, etc. aren't scripture, but they were viewed as divinely inspired by many in the early church, and were popular documents among early Christians. This suggests that did in fact reflect the opinions of the early church. Moreover, many religious traditions in that part of the world also condemned abortion, including the pagan Greeks, the Jews, the Mandaeans and the Zoroastrians. If you believe that in the pre-Christian era God revealed Himself in different ways to different peoples, then there is good ground for believing that abortion is wrong based on the argument from shared morality.

My church (Anglican) believes that 'scripture, tradition and reason' are ways that we can arrive at the truth. The arguments against abortion rest primarily, of course, on natural reason (i.e. not pure reason, but reason informed by our understanding of natural human desires, inclinations, feelings, teleogical goals, etc.) But there is secondary support from both scripture and tradition to buttress the case from natural reason that abortion is wrong.

There's no necessary reason for those of us who oppose abortion to be against the death penalty, war, etc. For example, I think that _innocent_ life ought to be protected, to the extent that we are able to do so. I don't think that enemy soldiers, officials of a tyrannical regime, criminals, etc. are _innocent_ in the same way as an unborn baby is, and therefore I don't have the same problems with war and the death penalty that I do with abortion.

Regarding the date of Christmas, from wikipedia:
"This date is nine months after the traditional date of the Incarnation (March 25), now celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation. March 25 was considered to be the date of the vernal equinox and early Christians believed this was also the date Christ was crucified. The Christian idea that Christ was conceived on the same date that he died on the cross is consistent with a Jewish belief that a prophet lived an integral number of years.[18]"

Posted by Hector | March 30, 2008 10:08 AM

Re: I should have been more precise and connected Easter with Eostre, a pagan goddess attested by Bede

You would be correct about the etymology of the English word, but incorrect in trying to expand your claim beyond that. In most languages (English and German are the main exceptions) "Easter" is not "Easter" but some local variation of the Greek "Pascha", itself derived from Hebrew "Pesach", meaning "Passover". The date of Easter is also determined by the ancient Jewish calendar and its dating of Passover. All of this was worked out in the ancient Mediterranean (where no one ever heard of Eostre) long before Vortigern the Saxon ever set foot in Brittania. Also, the Eastern churches still do use Passover as a determinant for the date of Easter, which is why Orthodox Easter rarely conicides with the Western feast day; this discrepancy was created by Pope Gregory's reform of the Western calendar in the 16th century. Does anyone wish to make the claim that the Pope was motivated by concerns over Anglo-Saxon goddesses?

Re: Christmas takes December 25th from the Roman festival of the Dies natalis solis invicti,

The Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun was the winter solistice, which is decidedly not December 25. Your claim relies on correlation (both holidays fall in the same week, more or less) and it's like claiming that the Canadians established their Dominion Day by using the date of our Indpendence Day (or of France's Bastille Day). Moreover the Dec 25 date arose first in Asia Minor (3rd century AD I think), not in Rome.

Re: Although remnants of the Saturnalia may have been transferred into the 12 days of Christmas.

The Twelve Days are the festal period between Christmas and Epiphany, the latter festival being set even earlier than Christmas was (In Armenia Christmas is in fact celebrated on Epipahny).

Posted by JonF | March 30, 2008 1:13 PM

Hector writes: "When abortion is eventually outlawed again, it may become necessary to place a police detail in every hospital to keep them from carrying out illegal abortions."

Um, Hector, that's remarkably stupid. I know that your brain stops functioning when the topic of abortion comes up, but have you ever been in a hospital? How exactly would having a "police detail" somewhere in a huge facility prevent a doctor from performing an abortion behind closed doors?

You might as well suggest that when SuperChristians once again outlaw sodomy in this country that a "police detail" be present in every apartment complex to prevent illegal sodomy from taking place. The mere suggestion marks you as some sort of hopeless idiot. Smarten up.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | March 30, 2008 1:20 PM

"Could you please name some prominent examples of these pro-choicers? I can't think of any, especially any in political leadership positions."

Kevin Jones,

I can't name any prominent examples. I do know that I and many other grass roots people would fit this description. We are aware that one of the greatest sources of discontent on the abortion issue stems from the Roe v. Wade ruling itself, since it took the abortion issue completely out of the branches of government directly accountable to the electorate. On the other hand, in European countries, where laws allowing abortion came as a result of a democratic consensus, the abortion issue doesn't generate anywhere near the level of controversy that it does in the US.

As a result, pro-choicers of my mindset would support an overturn of Roe v Wade, if the overturn were based on the concern that abortion should be an issue decided by legislatures, not the courts. I grant that we are not represented by our current political leadership, but it doesn't mean that we don't exist.

Posted by eltoro | March 30, 2008 1:25 PM