Abortion, The Undying Question

Blumenthal

 

A shrewd observer of the American scene once said that Americans never solve their most pressing problems. Instead, “they amicably bid them goodbye.”

The abortion problem, growing more fractious by the year, has not been so easily dismissed. There are reasons for this, some of them explored in a lengthy essay that first appeared in Bloomberg News. The Hartford Courant, grown timorous in the matter of opinion, editorial or op-ed, printed the Bloomberg piece, written by Ramesh Ponnurru, on April 2 under the caption “Case for fetal-personhood thesis,”

The piece is long, not fit for consumption by folk who have been nourishing themselves for years on the brambles and thistles found in Twitter. The Courant has put up a pay wall, but the Ponnurru piece, well worth reading may be found in full here.

The abortion problem always has been a “to be or not to be” question that has prompted deep dives into metaphysics and legal theory. One legal theory holds that the fetus is not a “person” in the legal sense, but even this theory has lately been fairly and effectively challenged.

The metaphysics of fetal life – what is the fetus? – is commonly settled, as are most metaphysical questions, by experience and common sense, about which another shrewd observer of the human scene once said, “There is nothing  so uncommon as common sense.”

It is, putting a few kooks aside, nearly universally agreed that the fetus is human life, as opposed to, say, bird life or fish life. Every pregnant woman, whether or not she carries a fetus to term, knows that just as mighty oaks spring from acorns, so live human beings spring from human fetal life.

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut, a too fervent Planned Parenthood political shuttlecock, was once a harmless and helpless fetus. Blumenthal has gown accustomed to advertising his humaneness at every opportunity, and no one would wish to argue that Blumenthal is not fully human. But he is also a former Connecticut attorney general, an adept politician, and a lawyer. We know that lawyers are paid huge sums to dispute before the bar both metaphysical and legal givens.

Blumenthal, who would never argue that chickens are not produced from eggs laid by hens, sometimes appears to be defending – under the flag of women’s rights -- a meta-political position that human life in the womb is somehow less precious than chickens or eggs.

We may agree, politely or not, to disagree about the legal personhood of the fetus -- a question that, everyone but Ponnurru seem to concede, may properly be decided by U.S Supreme Gods in black robes -- but there is little disagreement that abortion ends human life. Ultrasound, which provides visible snapshots of fetal development, does not help those who argue, unpersuasively, that the life destroyed by abortion is other than human life.

All these considerations, and many more, come into play when the question of abortion is tossed around by politicians trawling for votes.

One of the “many more” considerations that shape discussions concerning abortion are numerous religious prohibitions. The Catholic Church – but not solely the Catholic Church – looks upon abortion with a baleful, basilisk’s eye. In Connecticut, Catholic U.S. Representatives John Larson and Rosa DeLauro perceive that bishops and orthodox rabbis are worthy but wrongheaded and hopelessly behind-the-times opponents. What do bishops and rabbis know of the serpentine ways of politics, eh?

In a piece in Time: The weekly Newsmagazine published in December 1943, we find the following quote, “Winston Churchill suggested to Stalin the possibility of the Pope’s being associated with some of the decisions taken [at the Teheran conference]. ‘The Pope,’ said Stalin thoughtfully. ‘The Pope, how many divisions has he?’”

None. And bishops have no divisions either, which means politicians, Catholic or not, have and will ignore the theological and scientific arguments brought to bear on the abortion controversy when neither science nor theology supports politically opportune views.

However, there is one thing Catholic theologians and people whose lives courageously embrace common sense agree cannot not happen: Prominent Catholic politicians cannot support, without causing a scandal in the faith, views that contradict the settled mind of their Church on matters such as abortion while, at the same time, claiming to be faithful and orthodox Catholics. Battalions should never be permitted to determine important sociological and religious questions.

Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees who thought to catch him in a political pincer is relevant to the question of abortion. He was asked should Jews, like himself, pay the imperial Roman tax? To answer yes was to offend an active Roman resistance in Jerusalem; to answer no was to court disaster from brutal Roman officials. Jesus’ answer -- Give to Caesar what is due him, and to God what is due Him -- is NOT a clever evasion.

Caesar did not then, nor does he now own the souls of men. When one grows tired of searching for the separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution – it is not there – one may turn to scripture to find it.

Catholic theologians and bishops have been warning Catholic politicians and thought leaders for centuries that they cannot support heterodox views and yet remain orthodox Christians. Further, they cannot receive the Eucharist while banishing themselves from the communion of believers on matters essential to belief. And the priests and bishops who inconvenience such people are more than good shepherds. They are theologically and scientifically right -- in every sense of the word.