New Oxford Review
Where Do We Go From Here?
January 2009
When the U.S. bishops convened their annual meeting in November 2008, one of the top agenda items was abortion in light of the recent election. Francis Cardinal George of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued a brief, mostly to-the-point statement on behalf of his brother bishops in anticipation of the pro-abortion presidency of Barack Obama.
It appears that the bishops learned their lesson from last year"s "Faithful Citizenship" debacle -- for the most part. Not a few bishops would still prefer to soft sell the Church's teaching against abortion: Bishop Blase Cupich of Rapid City, South Dakota, for example, warned that "a prophecy of denunciation quickly wears thin," and that it is preferable to be seen as "caring pastors." Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha likewise counseled against "being deliberately divisive now, or creating divisions by our actions." But where abortion is concerned, the battle lines have already been drawn.
Going against these equivocations, Cardinal George states plainly that "the fundamental good is life itself," that "abortion is a medical procedure that kills," and that Roe v. Wade was "bad law" that is in danger of being "enshrined in bad legislation" in the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). No hemming and hawing about weighing other, lesser concerns. Still, he couldn"t resist throwing a shout-out to those other, lesser concerns, saying of his brother bishops, "We want to continue our work for economic justice," and the "reform [of] laws around immigration," and "better education and adequate health care," blah, blah, blah. C"mon, Your Eminence, stick to the topic!
Cardinal George warns against interpreting the election as a "referendum on abortion." What, then, are we to make of the election of Obama, whom Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver has labeled "the most committed 'abortion-rights" presidential candidate of either majority party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973"? Obama is a co-sponsor of FOCA, which would codify Roe v. Wade as federal law, eliminate all state restrictions on abortion, and mandate taxpayer funding of abortion. Obama pledged in a 2007 address to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that "the first thing I will do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." As is well known, Obama"s vice president is Joe Biden, a pro-abortion (Catholic) senator from Delaware.
Cardinal George expresses concern that, under FOCA, "parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed." But the people of California voted down just such a parental-consent law in this election -- the second consecutive time the people rejected such a proposition. Cardinal George also warns that FOCA would overturn laws that ban partial-birth abortion and protect infants born alive after botched abortions. Yet the people voted into office a president who supports partial-birth abortion and opposed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.
Cardinal George is also worried that FOCA "would deprive the American people in all fifty states the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry." Yet in this election, the American people rejected all modest to severe restraints on abortion. Aside from the failure of the California parental-notification proposition, a potentially paradigm-shifting constitutional amendment in Colorado that would have defined "personhood" as beginning at conception went down to electoral defeat, as did a South Dakota proposition that would have eliminated abortions in that state save for cases that present a "risk" to the mother"s health prior to 20 weeks gestation. Sure, many pre-election polls indicated that the majority of Americans favored restrictions on abortion. But the American people have spoken, and judging by the cold facts, it appears that the American people don"t want even modest restrictions on abortion.
With the humiliating failures of the prolife cause at the state and national levels (we haven"t even touched on congressional losses of prolife votes or Obama's pro-abort cabinet appointments), it"s difficult to see how this election could not be considered a referendum on abortion.
James Cardinal Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See, called Obama"s abortion agenda "apocalyptic," warning that, with Obama"s election, we as a nation have entered into a long night in our own Garden of Gethsemane. Referencing Pope Paul VI"s prophetic 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Cardinal Stafford said, "If 1968 was the year of America"s 'suicide attempt," 2008 is the year of America"s exhaustion."
Yet Cardinal George concerns himself with "modest restraints" on abortion. Is that good enough? By piddling around with "incrementalism" and talk of "reducing" abortions, have we lost sight of our goal of abolishing abortion in America?
Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, called Obama"s election "one of the most devastating blows to American civilization that we have ever undergone" -- and he insists he does not "speak in hyperbole." Fr. Euteneuer says that, as a result of this election, we have lost the blessing promised in Psalm 41:1-4: "Happy those concerned for the lowly and poor; when misfortune strikes, the Lord delivers them. The Lord keeps and preserves them, makes them happy in the land, and does not betray them to their enemies. The Lord sustains them on their sickbed, allays the malady when they are ill." Will God continue to bless America as we continually reject Him in our rejection of the least of our brethren?
Fr. Euteneuer rightly calls for repentance: "Alas, we all need to get on our knees and repent from the very depths of our hearts for the plague that we have just invited onto our beloved nation." We faithful prolifers will do just that, as we should -- but how many of our countrymen who voted against life will join us? Indeed, how often has our prolife example been followed by those who are obstinate in their support of the murder of the unborn? Why has our prolife witness failed on the big stage?
The fundamental question we pose is this: Have we exhausted the electoral option in our fight against the scourge of abortion in the U.S.? Where does the prolife cause go from here?
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