Abortion—Again—As Litmus Test

This was originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Forty-nine in a Series

In my last post on the Catholic Right I explored the Vatican's obsession with using abortion as a political litmus test. Just recently at a Jesuit college in New Jersey, the absurdity of this position played itself out once again.

On January 14, 2008,, LifeNews.com reported the following:

A Catholic College in New Jersey is coming under fire from a pro-life group for allowing pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to hold a rally there last week. On Wednesday, St. Peter's College, a Jesuit Catholic institution, allowed Obama to address a large crowd there.

Media estimates indicated Obama greeted more than 4,500 people at the rally, but Patrick Reilly, the president of the Cardinal Newman Society, said the college was irresponsible for giving a pro-abortion politician a forum there.

"It's irresponsible for a Catholic college and its leadership to host a political rally for an aggressively pro-abortion candidate," he told LifeNews.com in a statement Monday.

"Such events curry public attention at the expense of public morality. In so doing, they demonstrate reckless disregard for the most vulnerable human lives and contribute to the general decline of Catholic higher education," Reilly explained.

Nonsense.

Again, there is an easily detectable fear of debate found within Patrick Reilly's reaction. If anything, St. Peter's College deserves high praise for allowing those who disagree with the Church biological issues, but appears closely allied with them on economic issues speak on their grounds.

As I observed in Part Fort-eight of this series:

And so out of a combination of fear, reaction and yes, isolation, the faction that now controls the Vatican gives aid and comfort to those who share their dislike of modernity; neoconservatives and others who look disapprovingly upon the Enlightenment and its progeny. They do so at the expense of the natural born mostly for the protection of the fetus and embryo. The Vatican and their allied neo-orthodox Americans such as Richard John Neuhaus have made abortion such a litmus test issue to the points where one's position on "life" is too narrowly defined as "abortion or not." Other "life" issue, such as healthcare insurance for children and curing disease are unjustifiably given the short shrift. That the hierarchy might now be pulling back slightly from that position does not excuse the radically poor judgment and abandonment of all else.

Obviously, the Newman's Society's Patrick Reilly wants no such pull back (the Cardinal Newman Society's advisors reads like a Who's Who of the Catholic Right, Including Richard John Neuhaus). He, like many other more reactionary Catholics, seeks to stifle any discussion of what it means to be "pro-life" beyond the context of abortion and at times, stem cell research.

But over the last few years, the need to stifle has increased; so much so that dissenting Catholics are now being threatened with denial of the sacraments as well as excommunication; two heavy-handed moves lauded by the most militant of the Catholic Right.

This is myopic approach is turning away mainstream Catholics from the Church. Worse -- abortion and all things biological slowly became an obsession, especially with those in the Church who never approved of the positive changes of Vatican II.  This obsession eventually became an opportunity for Catholic economic conservatives to erode the Church's profoundly held values of distributive justice.   Crackpots like Michael Novak replaced the caring voices of   Bishop Mugavero or a Cardinal Suenens. Now we have Fr. Richard John Neuhaus help elect anti-choice Republicans by working with Pope Benedict in attempts to muzzle pro-choice Catholic candidates for office.

But if Senator Obama can be prevented from speaking at a Catholic college or university, so to can Senator Clinton, former Senator Edwards and even former Mayor Giuliani -- who are all pro-choice.  But it is the grouping of Clinton, Obama and Edwards who present a special problem for the Catholic Right. All three have presented the electorate with similar economic and healthcare plans intended to help middle-class, working-class and poorer families on scale far greater than anything offered by the anti-abortion GOP presidential contenders.

The greatest irony of all may be that the number of abortions would more likely to go down during the presidency of any of the main Democratic contender than the leading GOP candidates -- who are all antiabortion.  One study has demonstrated that the number of abortions performed has a direct correlation to economic well being. Where abortion has been made illegal and contraception discouraged, poorer women still seek the procedure. It concluded:

In fact, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women). And when asked to give reasons for abortion, three-quarters of women say that cannot afford a child. At the same time, black women are almost four times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are two and a half life times as likely. Almost half of women terminating their pregnancies have had previous abortions, and 60 percent of abortions are concentrated among women who already have children.

As well as this:

The data for the abortion ratio are even more stark: here, the decline under [the] Clinton [administration] is double that of the overall Republican average. So, there we have a seeming paradox: the largest decline in abortion took place under the sole Democratic presidential regime over this period [1980-2007]. And yet the pro-life movement is strangely silent, and still hitches its wagon to the fortunes of the Republican party.

If an anti-abortion Republican is elected, he might get to appoint an antiabortion justice to the Supreme Court who would grant the Catholic Right and their allies their wish: to overturn Roe v. Wade. But this will not end abortion. Instead, it will be outlawed in most states and driven underground. And nefarious forces such as organized crime will be waiting with open arms.

The Catholic Right: A Series, by Frank L. Cocozzelli