OPINION: A Plea to Catholic Obama Supporters, Part III

In 2008, Catholic voters can put an end to what is arguably the worst intrinsic social evil in America since the existence of slavery.

BRITISH COLUMBIA (Catholic Online) - In this third and final article in our series, we go in search of the likely practical consequences of an Obama and a McCain presidency. With regard to the protection of the lives of unborn children, who can really lay claim to the title of the most trustworthy "Lifesaver" of the unborn? Catholic Obama supporters like Doug Kmiec contend that their man, although stridently in favor of a woman's "right" to have an abortion, would do no worse than McCain in this regard, and probably even better. Let's examine their main arguments.

5.Neither McCain nor Obama would really be in a position, as president, to take actions of practical consequence that would significantly reduce the abortion rate in this country. Even the overturning of Roe v Wade would not save lives: it would merely return the issue to the state legislatures.

This argument is manifestly false. The irony is that it is being put forward by some Catholics at the very moment when the Pro-Life cause is potentially on the verge of making its biggest legal breakthroughs, given that we are only one Supreme Court Justice away now from finally overturning Roe v. Wade. Do not just take my word for that; read what Sen. Obama himself had to say about this matter:"With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a women's fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe v. Wade. The next president may be asking to nominate that Supreme Court justice. That is what is at stake in this election."

Moreover, we need to remember that once Roe v. Wade is laid to rest, many state legislatures would quickly pass more restrictive abortion laws, which would surely significantly reduce the number of abortions in the USA.In his recent article for Catholic Online, Doug Kmiec raised the spectre of an altogether different result from the repeal of Roe v. Wade: that "given the tragic example of international practice [e.g., in China] it might facilitate in a radical state abortion mandates that, because of the reversal, would no longer be checked by the women's individual autonomy right the Court articulated in Roe." This fear is simply groundless: any Pro-Life majority on the Supreme Court that struck down Roe would surely strike down any such radical abortion mandate laws too, and on the same principle: the inalienable human right to life.

The real situation we are in -- what is truly at stake in this election -- was clearly outlined for us by Patrick J. Buchanan in Human Events, so again I will quote him at length. He wrote:"This election is America's last hope to reverse Roe v. Wade. Upon its outcome will rest the life and death of millions of unborn children. The great social cause of the Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus, of the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, of the entire right-to-life movement hangs in the balance.Why? It is not just because Obama is a pro-choice absolutist who defends the grisly procedure known as partial birth abortion, who backs a Freedom of Choice Act to abolish every restriction in every state, who even opposed a born-alive infant protection act.

Nor is it because Joe Biden is a NARAL Catholic who has been admonished by bishops not to take communion because he has, throughout his career, supported a woman's right to abortion, the exercise of which right has ended the lives of 45 million unborn.Nor is it even because McCain professes to be pro-life, or Gov. Palin is a woman who not only talks the talk but walks the walk of life.No. The reason this election is the last chance for life is the Supreme Court. For it alone -- given the cowardice of Congress that refuses to restrict its authority -- has the power to reverse Roe, and because that court may be within a single vote of doing so.Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and Chief Justice Roberts appear steeled to overturn Roe and return this most divisive issue since slavery to the states, where it resided until January 1973.

And John Paul Stevens, the oldest, and perhaps most pro-choice justice at 88, is a likely retiree in the next four years. And there is a possibility Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at 75, a survivor of cancer, could depart as did justice Sandra Day O'Connor.Thus, in the first term of the next president, there is a strong probability that one or two of the most pro-Roe justices will leave the bench. Replacement of even one of these two liberal activists with a jurist who has a Scalia-Roberts-Alito-Thomas record on the U.S. appellate court could initiate a challenge to Roe, and its rapid reversal.

Not only would that decision be a stunning, perhaps irreversible victory for the pro-life cause, it would return the issue of abortion to congress and to the states, where numerous legislators are prepared to curtail if not outlaw abortion on demand in America.Overturning Roe would re-energize the pro-life movement in every state. In some, like California and New York, where it could not wholly prevail, some restrictions -- i.e., no abortions after viability -- might be imposed. Requirements such as for parental notification before a teenager has an abortion and that pregnant women be informed of what the procedure means and the trauma that often follows could be written into law.If Roe goes, all things are possible. If Roe remains, all is lost."

President McCain would probably replace Pro-Choice judges with Pro-Life ones (unless he wants to risk committing political suicide within his own party); President Obama would certainly do the opposite. He has promised to do so, and his entire career voting record on the Life issues should convince anyone that he would keep those promises. The bottom line, therefore, is that if Obama wins, the Supreme Court will retain, and possibly expand its pro-abortion majority, sealing the protection of abortion rights into law for a generation to come. If McCain wins Roe could be gone by the end of the decade.In short, this election is as pivotal to the issue of the killing of unborn children as the election of 1860 was to the future of the institution of slavery. We dare not miss this opportunity finally to put the law on the side of the human right to life.

6.During times of general prosperity abortion rates tend to decline. We also know that many abortions are the result of economic hardship. Sen. Obama's economic and social policies would be so much better for poor and underprivileged women than those of Sen. McCain that they would result in at least as great a reduction in the abortion rate as the latter's half-hearted attempts to promote legal restrictions on abortion. In other words, just being "Pro-Birth" does not mean that one is effectively "Pro-Life." Lives are truly saved when mothers in situations of severe hardship are given proper social support and aid. That is precisely what Obama's policies will effectively accomplish.

This is the view generally put forward by Prof. Doug Kmiec. No doubt, in one respect he is right: a truly Pro-Life position must go beyond just support for legal restrictions on abortion. The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made this abundantly clear back in 1974:"It is the task of law to pursue a reform of society and of conditions of life in all milieu, starting with the most deprived, so that always and everywhere it may be possible to give every child coming into this world a welcome worthy of a person. Help for families and for unmarried mothers, assured grants for children, a statute for illegitimate children and reasonable arrangements for adoption -- a whole positive policy must be put into force so that there will always be a concrete, honorable, and possible alternative to abortion."

On the other hand, it is also impossible to be truly Pro-Life without also being Pro-Birth. One cannot provide care, nurture and social justice for persons who's very right to life itself is not protected -- and who are not permitted even to be born!Still, Prof. Kmiec has asked us to weigh and balance the overall likely effect on the abortion rate of a McCain and an Obama presidency. It's a fair challenge.First, we shall plug into our estimates the best-case scenario for the Obama supporter. Suppose that as many as half of all abortions in the United States occur primarily for reasons of economic hardship (probably an over-estimate, as I shall explain later -- but let it stand for now). Then suppose that Obama's economic policies will dramatically succeed, cutting the nation's poverty rate in half (a feat that no administration, Democrat or Republican, has ever accomplished, to the best of my knowledge -- but again, let it stand for now). Thus if there are about 1.2 million abortions per year in the USA now, Obama's successful economic and social policies should reduce that rate by roughly half of the half who have abortions primarily for reasons of economic hardship. In other words, the overall abortion rate should fall by about 25%, saving the lives of approximately 300,000 children per year.

However, we also need to factor in the effect of the social and cultural changes that an Obama presidency would usher in. For example, with the help of the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress (majorities that he would almost certainly inherit), Pres. Obama would be in a position to appoint pro-abortion judges to the Supreme Court and the federal courts, enact legislation overturning the partial birth abortion ban and outlawing parental consent provisions (see the Democratic Party Platform for details) and eventually, once a secure pro-abortion majority was attained on the Court, pass the national Freedom of Choice Act (something that he has promised Planned Parenthood that he would do) establishing abortion on demand as the law of the land in all 50 states. All this could be accomplished relatively quickly, within a single term, in fact, given the congressional balance of power. Surely, these measures would create considerable social momentum for the pr-abortion cause, and have a profound effect on the social mores of the wider culture. The net effect both of the new permissive laws, and this profound cultural shift, would surely be a significant rise in the abortion rate, a rise that would at least offset the beneficial effect of Obama's economic policies.

I say this with some confidence because I have lived in Canada for many years now, a country that has gone through a dramatic shift of cultural values on the abortion question over the past 25 years, ever since the Canadian Supreme Court struck down that nation's abortion laws, and effectively established abortion on demand throughout the land. There is no longer any major party in Canada that proposes any significant restrictions on abortion rights. Moreover, for several decades now, Canada has had in place economic policies very similar to those proposed by Sen. Obama (e.g., government funded health care for all, taxation of the wealthy at higher rates than in the US, and a stronger social welfare safety net). In short, Canada is like a national laboratory for many of Obama's social and economic policies! I am not relating this to criticize those polices: in some respects, I would support them. But the question before us is: what would be the net effect of these legal, cultural, and economic changes on the national abortion rate? The fact is that Canada's abortion rate has been consistently higher than that of the United States. For example, in 2005 in Canada there were 28.3 induced abortions for every 100 live births (according to StasCan), while in the USA in 2004 there were 23.8 abortions for every 100 live births (according to CDC Abortion Surveillance). But if Prof. Kmiec's Neo-Marxist analysis of abortion rates were true, then Canada consistently should have had a much lower abortion rate than the US, since the economic hardship of the poor has been relieved to such a greater extent in this Obama-esque nation!

Now let us look at the likely effect of the socio-economic policies of a McCain presidency on the US abortion rate. First let us suppose that Sen. McCain's main economic policies will be enacted into law, and that they will have no net effect at all on the poverty and unemployment rates, and therefore will provide no relief at all of the kind of economic hardships that allegedly lead to as many as half of all US abortions. (This is probably unfair to Sen. McCain, given that, unlike Pres. Bush, he has a plan for extending health insurance to many presently uninsured Americans, a plan which may effectively help about half of them join the ranks of the insured -- again, see my article for Catholic Online on this issue. Moreover, unlike Sen. Obama, Sen. McCain supports significant reductions in the relatively high US business tax rates, an economic approach that has already been tested by many other nations, and usually produces substantial growth in job creation, and substantial reductions in unemployment -- as in Ireland over the last two decades, for example. But let our anti-McCain bias stand for now, lest Obama supporters think this comparison is "rigged" in some way). So, assuming that McCain will not help the poor at all, the abortion rate among those seeking one for reasons of economic hardship should remain unchanged during his presidency.

On the other hand, we have to factor in the net effect of the social and cultural changes that a McCain presidency would usher in (just as we did for Obama). McCain would probably appoint mostly Pro-Life judges to the Supreme Court and the Federal courts, which would lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade (probably in his first term) and at least half of the state legislatures would then quickly pass more restrictive abortion laws, to varying degrees. Thus, in addition to new legal restrictions on abortion, the social and cultural momentum for the Pro-Life cause would surely be significant, and lead to a substantial reduction in the number of unborn children killed in the USA throughout the McCain era. If only half of the states passed new laws effectively cutting the number of abortions in those states only by half, and the other half of the states kept their laws unchanged -- in addition to the shift in cultural mores caused by the new social momentum for Life -- then a 25% drop overall in the national abortion rate during a McCain presidency, saving the lives of approximately 300,000 children per year, is surely not an unreasonable estimate. Moreover, the social and legal foundations would have been laid for an even better Pro-Life future: namely, a national abortion law, or a Human Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

Please remember that this comparison is based on best-case-scenario economic results for an Obama presidency, and assumes only mediocre economic results for a McCain administration. Moreover, it is based on the dubious proposition that as many as half of all abortions in the USA are caused primarily by economic hardship. In the real world of course, while many of the poor (especially poor black Americans) have abortions for primarily economic reasons, many middle class and even wealthy white Americans simply utilize abortion as a back-up birth control method. They have recourse to abortion, for example, when an unplanned pregnancy gets in the way of their career aspirations, or when an unplanned pregnancy is the result of an extra-marital affair, or of a pre-marital sexual relationship, or when it is simply a "lifestyle" choice, because the couple does not want the time and energy burden of raising another child. The crypto Marxist analysis of abortion rates assumed by Prof. Kmiec is just an exaggeration of the facts. The behavior of the middle class and the upper class also significantly affect abortion rates. Dramatically reducing poverty will indeed reduce abortion rates among the poor, but surely not in the nation overall when coupled with the expansion of legal abortion rights and the triumph of more permissive social mores.

A Final Word

In the light of these considerations, I make an earnest plea to Prof. Kmiec, and to other Catholic Obama supporters please to rethink what you are doing, and pray about this matter more deeply. One does not have to be a Neo-Con, or a single-issue Catholic (i.e., those who believe abortion should be the only political issue of concern to Catholics), nor does one have to demonize Sen. Obama's character (only our Lord knows why he is so greatly deceived on this matter), in order to appreciate that Sen. Obama's election to the presidency would be the most serious setback to the Pro-Life cause since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. Merely by appointing pro-abortion justices to the Supreme Court and the Federal bench, he could effectively secure abortion rights in the law for a generation to come. Add to that the other abortion-related platform proposals of his party, and the promises he has made to Planned Parenthood, and the capacity to keep those promises with the help of Democratic majorities in Congress, and we will surely see a continuation, and probably even an expansion, of the veritable "slaughter of the innocents" that is going on in our midst in America every day. In short, the election of 2008 is a turning point in the struggle for the dignity of human life, and in that respect, it is like 1860 all over again. This is not a matter of partisan party politics: it is a matter of life and death for millions of innocent human beings. That is why the Church holds this issue in the highest priority, and bids us to do the same.

It is crystal clear that Catholics who argue for an Obama presidency are in direct violation of the teachings of the magisterium regarding voting and issues related to the dignity of every human life: first, by failing to articulate clearly any morally "proportionate reason" for pulling the lever for their stridently pro-abortion presidential candidate (see instalments one and two of this series), and second by de facto giving up the cause for the legal protection of the Right to Life. As the US Bishops stated in their excellent 2007 document "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" (sections 37 and 32):

"In making these decisions, it is essential for Catholics to be guided by a well-formed conscience that recognizes that all issues do not carry the same moral weight and that the moral obligation to oppose intrinsically evil acts has a special claim on our consciences and our actions...."Pope John Paul II taught that when a government official who fully opposes abortion cannot succeed in completely overturning a pro-abortion law, he or she may work to improve protection for unborn human life, "limiting the harm done by such a law" and lessening its negative impact as much as possible.(Evangelium Vitae, no. 73). Such incremental improvements in the law are acceptable as steps toward the full restoration of justice. However, Catholics must never abandon the moral requirement to seek full protection for all human life from the moment of conception until natural death."

In 2008, Catholic voters can play a pivotal role in putting a stop to this carnage (for carnage is quite literally what it is if you know the facts about abortions). We can put an end to what is arguably the worst intrinsic social evil in America since the existence of slavery. For we Catholics are among the "swing" voters in this election, which means we have a chance to make a real difference to the future of the Pro-Life cause this time around -- and that means to the lives of millions of children yet to be born. All we have to do is resolve not to compromise any longer, in the voting booth, on the greatest human rights struggle of our time.

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Dr. Robert Stackpole is an Associate Professor of Theology at Redeemer Pacific College and the Director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy

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