Written by Roger Buchanan   

THE ABORTION WAR; CATHOLIC VICTORIES, PROTESTANT DEFEATS

OVERVIEW
The abortion war may go the way of the Civil War. General Lee lost the Civil War at Gettysburg in July of 1863 but managed to hang on for nearly two years before finally surrendering at Appomattox in April 1865. The American abortion war had it’s Gettysburg in 2013. The pro-life forces out gunned, out argued and overran the pro-choice opposition. Pro-life victories at the state level include over 200 abortion restrictions and forced the closure of 53 abortion facilities in 2013 and two more in the first weeks of 2014. A Personhood Amendment, a Catholic doctrine that will end all safe and legal abortions without regard for the life and health of the mother, is on the ballot in North Dakota. Given these achievements and the relentless advance of pro-life forces in 2014, the Appomattox of the abortion war may be in sight. It is time to ask, how did it turn out that Protestants and humanitarians are close to losing the abortion war?

The Fort Sumter moment in the abortion war occurred in January 1973. Thanks to the passion of young Sarah Weddington, the Supreme Court fired a shot that soon would be heard around the world. The Court embraced a realm of privacy and thus enabled a radical historical change in the way women experience themselves and their personhood. Prior to this legal transformation women were second class. They had little or no control over when they got pregnant, and they had little or no control if it seemed in their best interest to terminate a pregnancy. They were subject to the fate of illegal and mostly unsafe abortions. In a history changing decision, the Supreme Court, with the twin decisions of Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade, made it safe and legal, for the first time in history, for women to take complete control and ownership of procreation. It was a new day for the family and for women. Religious traditions and men in particular were left having to adjust to this new reality. Catholics drew up battle plans for pushing back and Protestants, with a few courageous exceptions, looked the other way unmoved by what had happened. Women could control the timing and outcome of pregnancy. And, they acquired the new found freedom and responsibility whereby every child is a wanted child. This gave women more power, more dignity and more self determination than ever before. Many viewed these legal developments as the beginning of a new era with profound benefits for women, marriage and child rearing. The promise was exciting.

January 1973, when the Roe decision was announced, was a call to arms for the Catholic Church, and in particular the official counsel of Catholic Bishops. A few years earlier Church doctrine was repudiated by the Griswold decision which sent both church and State away empty handed in a battle over birth control. Church doctrine was repudiated a second time by the Roe decision. The Court found for women a realm of privacy, a privacy to use birth control and have an abortion, a privacy isolated from the doctrines of the Church and State lawmakers. However abortion, unlike birth control, is more public and thus vulnerable to the regulatory powers of the State. The Catholic Church took full advantage of this fact and used it to mount a vigorous and many-pronged attack on the very core of the Roe decision. For the Catholic Church there is no realm of privacy or any other right by which a woman can elect to terminate a pregnancy. Official Catholicism mounted a massive counter attack with an amazing degree of success. The size, scope and power of this so-called pro-life movement is rarely appreciated. The elements of their success constitutes an abortion war that takes no prisoners.

First pause at this point to note a certain irony. While the Catholic Bishops successfully developed a winning strategy for obtaining legislative victories, their very success cost them the support and respect of many of the Catholic laity. The abortion war became a war of the generals and not the foot soldiers. The Catholic laity heard the message of the High Court and not the marching orders of the Holy See. The message of the Bishops was not favorably received by many in the pews. This absence of lay Catholic support may yet prove to be a fatal development as the abortion war continues.

Catholic laity practice birth control and have abortions at rates that equal or exceed the rates for the general population. Many Catholic scholars at prominent Catholic universities have taken note of the actual behavior of the Catholic laity and have called for some official rethinking, but this hasn’t changed the effort of the Bishops who continue to achieve in law that which their own constituents have disavowed to a very alarming extent.

SUCCESSFUL CATHOLIC STRATEGIES

How did the Catholics succeed and why did the Protestants and others fail? Catholics succeeded by taking control of the vocabulary: a fetus was transformed into an unborn child; abortion became murder; and those who were opposed to a woman’s autonomy called themselves pro-life instead of the more accurate term, anti-abortion. Abortion providers were transformed from being a service to women to an “evil industry” in the service of a “culture of death.” Doctors who performed abortions were demonized and given the unsavory title of abortionist and murderer. Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of women’s health care in the country, and the only available provider for many women, but also a major provider of abortion, was condemned in a campaign to defund not only abortion but all of the other services to women that agency provides. The pro-life passion has been so focused on the fetus that the pain and cost for women has not been a consideration.

The term “pro-life” deserves some scrutiny. Interpreted broadly, both sides in the abortion war regard themselves as pro-life. However, those who oppose abortion have attempted to capture the high moral ground by using the term “pro-life” to apply only to protecting the fertilized egg and subsequent fetus, not to the life of the mother. Nor do they believe that women have a right to follow their own conscience, no matter what the circumstances, in making a decision that opponents of abortion believe is immoral. Their position should be more accurately called pro-life/anti-abortion. However, since this is an awkward construct, the conventional term “pro-life” will be used in this discussion with the reader’s understanding that pro-life is anti-abortion. “Pro-life” is about the fetus, but it is anti-life with respect to a woman’s privacy and conscience.

It has been Catholic strategy for Bishops to stay in the background while a multitude of new organizations take front line battle positions in the name of pro-life. The following is just a partial list of the organizations at work taken from a recent Priest for Life email:

Priests for Life, the largest Catholic ministry focused on ending abortion, is actually a family of interrelated apostolates, including Deacons for Life, Seminarians for Life, Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, Rachel's Vineyard, the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, African-American Outreach, Hispanic Outreach, Youth Outreach, Political Responsibility, Prayer Campaign, Life on the Line Media Outreach, and the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues. All of these are organized under a larger umbrella of Gospel of Life Ministries.

One successful Catholic pro-life strategy has been a largely uncontested campaign to capture another critical high moral ground. What could be more virtuous than being the defenders of God’s most precious and innocent unborn little ones? No one can upstage this achievement. The pro-life movement has managed to retains this advantage by ridiculing pro-choice women as selfish and uncaring people who think more of themselves than of the god-given new life implanted in their womb.

The Catholic view that from the moment of conception the potential fetus is sacred was chiseled in stone and no longer open to theological discussion by the decision of Pope Pius IX. On October 12, 1869 he settled the century old ensoulment issue by declaring that the soul enters the body at conception, not weeks later or at quickening. The Pope’s declaration came at a time when abortion was illegal in all of the states of the United States. It is important to understand the the Pope’s papal bull, Apostolic Sedis, declared that a full and complete human being comes into existence at conception. Consequently, what God has created, let no one disturb, let alone abort; abortion is murder. Today this Personhood doctrine is bearing fruit as the adoration of the fetus and the campaign to eliminate all (legal) abortions regardless of the circumstances.

The Bishops also turned to a long-term, trusted strategy, pressuring the politicians. The Catholic view or church and state departs from the Protestant and general American tradition of separation of church and state. For the Bishops it is fair game to use the enforcement power of law as a means for imposing their belief system on secular culture. A case in point is the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act. This Act is a Catholic document passed into law by the Pennsylvania Legislature. The Abortion Control Act violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. It also violates the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment by prohibiting women of faith from acting on their own beliefs regarding abortion. But no Protestant or secular interest has challenged this Catholic violation of the Constitution in court.

PROTESTANT FAILURES IN THEOLOGY AND POLITICS

What have Protestants, humanists and secular interests been doing during 41 years drama of progressive pro-life victories? Pro-choice advocates have protested the assault on Roe but have little to show in the way of political success. There are no state laws pushing back on pro-life victories. A precarious one-vote advantage in the Supreme Court- more a matter of luck than strategy- does little more than encourage pro-lifers to push harder the next time.

Where have Protestants and other failed? First and foremost, they did not grasp the central finding of Roe. No, the central finding was not a right to abortion. The central finding of the Warren Supreme Court was the existence of a realm of privacy that is so basic as to include a woman’s right to birth control and abortion, at least until the late stage of pregnancy. They acknowledged that the word privacy is not in the Constitution but it has a long history in Constitutional law. The lower court in the Roe case found privacy to be a Ninth Amendment unenumerated right. The Supreme Court, citing primarily the Fourteenth Amendment, constructed a realm of privacy as a statement about human existence. The Court affirmed that there is in this nation a realm of privacy and from that space humans make fundamental decisions, including decisions about birth control and reproduction and they do so with freedom from government intervention.

Protestants, woman’s rights groups, and advocacy organizations have not fully embraced this radical fundamental statement of what it means to be human. Unfortunately this high moral road has not been heavily traveled nor has it transformed the abortion debate. A theological treatment as to the centrality of privacy has yet to be written. Today with privacy questioned and under attack in so many circumstances of life, a profound understanding of privacy is all the more essential. Our retreat from Roe has not served us well

With privacy on the side burner, Protestants, woman’s groups and advocates have chosen to talk about a woman’s right to make a choice about pregnancy. However the concepts of “right” and “choice” are often both white and middle class. For many minority and low income women, choice is only a word where economic and cultural restraints prevail. The word “choice” is spoken in isolation of strong Constitutional arguments. Consequently the claim of choice is often both narrow and shallow with little persuasive power. The largely forgotten words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are not strongly embraced by the public as they view and evaluate the abortion war. Likewise these famous historic words fail to restrain legislators as they craft legislation aversive to women. The strong Constitutional argument for the freedom to choose remain unspoken, In the abortion war, the pro-life forces have turned choice into selfishness.

The Catholic victory and Protestant defeat occurred when Catholics made “When does life begin?” the all important question. They answer assertively that full human life begins at conception, and have sold state legislators on the idea. Very few Protestant or scholars of note have not pushed back challenging this doctrinal assertion, but the secular world has spoken. Biologists, for one, disagree. For them life is a continuum. Both the human egg and the sperm are alive at conception so it is misleading to ask when life begins, but that is a mere technicality. The Catholic assertion that life begins at conception supports their argument that abortion is murder. At best, that claim is ambitious, generating much convoluted conversation.

The more relevant question that has not been seriously addressed by Protestant and humanists is: “When does a full and complete human being come into existence? When phrased in this way Protestants and secular humanists have a more compelling position. The Catholics answer to this expanded question is to either avoid it or repeat the same old doctrine: a complete and full human being comes into existence at the moment of conception. But for most others-Protestants, Jews, and non-believers- the moment when a full and complete human being comes into existence is at birth. The implications for abortion are obvious.

Perhaps Protestants should take a clue from Catholic laity. Catholics have a rate of abortion that is equal or greater than the general population. Devout Catholics may not be comfortable with having an abortion, but not all Catholics believe they have murdered a child. Moreover no State has charged a woman with murder if she has an abortion within a stated time frame. The State doesn’t call it murder and neither do a significant portion of Catholic laity. Many Catholic moral philosophers and theologians past and present do not support this Vatican’s position. However, in the abortion war, the notion that abortion is murder has been sold so well to the public that many Protestants, particularly Evangelicals believe it. Many legislators are also on board supporting this questionable assertion or at least they feel compelled to vote accordingly.

There is, however, a very different understanding of the fetus that is an affirmation of fetal life but does not insist that it is a full and complete human being. This alternative understanding, crucial for a debate on abortion, has not been articulated and put into the public and legislative arena. Advocacy and women’s groups have not prevailed in affirming that real human life begins at birth and to legislate differently is morally objectionable.

Differences in the administrative structure of Catholics and Protestant is another factor in Catholic success and Protestant defeat. It is hard to imagine a priest getting in trouble with his congregation if his preaching dutifully supports the official position of the Church but he will get in trouble with the bishop who controls his placement if he does not. A priest can talk against abortion and even those who disagree will support him knowing the priest’s loyalty.

Most Protestant clergy, on the other hand, are employed “at will” by the individual congregation. This means they can also be fired at will. Every Protestant pastor knows that there will be at least one pro-life supporter in his/her congregation. It is hard to imagine a pastor taking on a fight that could very well cost him/her employment and career. Nor can Protestant pastors, with the exception of the Unitarians, rely on a clear and unambiguous declaration of their denomination supporting an abortion right for women. Clergy in a local congregation know full well the wrath of “clergy killers” but only a few are encouraged by admirers and supporters of the Supreme Court ’s Roe decision. Priests approach the condemnation of abortion with confidence. Protestant clergy approach the support of abortion with apprehension. Career vulnerability makes a difference in how the abortion war is playing out.

Protestants have faced defeat on critical issues of church and state as Catholics implant their doctrine into the laws of the State while Protestants sit quietly on the sidelines with hardly a whimper of protest. Take for example the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, now 25 years old. If there was ever a law that violated both the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the United States’ Constitution’s First Amendment, this is it. But Protestants never raised the question of the First Amendment and did not take the case to court. The Abortion Control Act is unchallenged as a First Amendment issue.

When legislation proclaims in law that childbirth is preferred over abortion, for whom do they speak? They don’t speak for the faith position that champions a woman’s rights. Nor do they speak for women who elect to have an abortion. How is it that women who have a right to abortion don’t count when legislators make their righteous pronouncements that childbirth is preferred over abortion? Women’s rights are not reflected in the language of the law. Abortion rights, and respect for abortion, do not exist in the Catholic scheme of things. When laws are written, Catholics are heard from loud and clear. But where are the Protestants? Silent and absent!

There is a very significant statement in the Roe and subsequent court decisions that has been never challenged or faulted by Protestants or others. The Courts have stated that the states have a rightful interest in the unborn child (fetus) and can legislate accordingly. This assertion is a Catholic position. Two challenges to the presumed authority of the State are appropriate. One challenge, not yet explored, questions the state’s constitutional authority to have monopoly power in determining the well being of the fetus without regard for the wishes of the mother. Most certainly, the fetus does not belong to the State! But when the State assumes ownership of the fetus they wield a power not in a State’s Constitution. A second challenge to the prevailing view of the court regards the authority of the State to preempt the religious faith position of a pregnant woman who has a legitimate and rightful interest in her fetus. At the very least she has some say in the matter but she is treated in law as if she has none. A pregnant woman’s faith may give her pregnancy a special meaning, indeed it may mean for her a realm of privacy protected from the State’s intervention. A woman does not abandon her vested interest in the fetus nor surrender her privacy right to the state should she decide to have an abortion. A woman’s realm of privacy, affirmed in Roe, does not suddenly disappear at some point in pregnancy. When this overreach of the State is finally addressed the court may determine that a woman, and not the State, has total say in the management of her fetus.

Undoubtedly one of the greatest weaknesses of Protestantism and Protestant denominations is their ambivalent attitude toward abortion itself. Among the denominations that allow for abortion, with the exception of the Unitarians, a moral permission for abortion is always qualified by some specified circumstance such as rape, incest or the health of the mother. But there is no theology or no moral principle that makes one abortion permissible and another abortion prohibited. If every fetus has a compelling right in life, as relentlessly proclaimed by pro-life, how is that life forfeited when circumstances such as rape or incest or the health of the mother are present? Such questions are not answered. Protestant denominations display a moral failure by an attitude toward abortion that is a declaration of one sort or another and no justification for the position adopted, an attitudes characterized by ambivalence and indecision. A reference to tradition is also lacking. There is no Protestant tradition whereby the denomination is justified in telling a woman which abortion is permissible and which is not. It is inconsistent with the Protestant tradition for women to be told how to manage their pregnancy. It is ironic when Protestant women are subjected to the voice of an authority that comes from either the congregation or the denomination. When women confront the attitude and rigidity of their Church and congregation, Protestant women join their Catholic sisters in having a very limited right to the exercise of their conscience. Often the complexity of abortion becomes a matter of shame and guilt. Women facing a difficult decision deserve better.

Protestants have been beaten badly when it comes to the political process. Interview state legislators and they will tell you that the pro-life lobby has been as active as bees at flower blossom time. But with the exception of the Unitarians, what Protestant denomination has sent a lobbyist to state government to address questions of procreation? Where has been the voice of the state’s council of churches supporting the rights of women as granted by the courts? The fact of the matter is, without fear of pushback from non-Catholic faith communities, State governments, prodded by pro-life spokespersons, have passed and continue to pass all manner of restrictions on abortion. Protestant denominations demonstrate their irrelevancy by remaining totally and pathetically silent. In this environment pro-life organizations have free reign to proudly promote their agenda with legislators while Protestant denominations are noted for their absence. It would be hard to fault a legislator for assuming that all of Christianity is opposed to abortion for that is all they hear. To make matters worse, Protestant theologians, off in their own world, have no sense that they also, along with women, have been defeated. There is nothing more irrelevant than theologians writing for each other in splendid isolation from the forces of dehumanization at the hand of government.

Yes, women’s advocacy organizations are heard from but they do not speak the language of theology and they do not control the language game imposed on the conversation by the forces of pro-life. When new restrictions are crafted, woman’s advocacy organizations are easily pushed aside supported only by unorganized public opinion polls. They are on their own, abandoned by organized religion.

Protestants have a built-in strength that is also their weakness. In the Protestant tradition each individual is encouraged, indeed, required to do their own believing. A central voice does not emerge. The only external power to which Protestants are accountable is the Bible. This belief system results in a decentralized power structure. Catholicism with its centralized system of dogma and beliefs is very different. For Catholics there is a moral authority in the Church’s hierarchy. A Catholic can embrace the beliefs of the Church because they trust the integrity of its theology. In the abortion war the Catholic Church has a strategic advantage; it speaks with one voice, Protestants speak as many individuals. This difference in the authority structure makes all the difference. There may be many pro-life organizations but they all speak the same language and they are all supported by the same theology. The Bishop’s choir is large but they are all on key. Protestants have a harder time speaking and a harder time being heard. Evangelical Protestants, strangely enough, have adopted the Catholic pro-life position and theology. On the other extreme the Unitarians speak a very different message. Protestant denominations are all over the map trying both to lead the flock while at the same time articulating the wisdom of their constituents. It is an awkward position to both lead and heed.

Protestant feminist theologians may acquire credentials at prominent and liberal schools of theology, and they may articulate the new understanding of women that grows out of a realm of privacy articulated in the Roe decision. They ask critical questions concerning reproductive justice. But their witness is slow to trickle down to denominational structures and local congregations. It is noted that female clergy and male pastors who have been influenced by the feminist theological tradition are not as yet political activists speaking back with power to the anti- feminine posture of their denomination and certainly not speaking back to the anti-feminist posture of State government.

Catholicism, as we noted above, has a more effective political structure. When the vatican proclaims and the Bishops speak up, pro-life organizations take their orders and march forward. Since the abortion war is about power politics, Protestants will remain ineffective until such time as a massive ground swell of support invades popular culture. Such a ground swell happened in the abolitionist movement, the temperance movement and to some extent in the civil rights movement. But the abortion war is not yet a Protestant movement of history changing proportions.

Unfortunately Protestants have missed the boat when it comes to the greatest weakness of the Catholic position. For Roman Church the fetus is glorified and woman are ignored, treated as mere incubators without a conscience. When Catholics speak loudly about ending all abortions there is no word of concern for the women involved. They don’t seem to understand or care that some women will die if all abortions are abolished. Also they don’t seem to understand or care that if all abortions are illegal, the illegal abortion business will flourish.

Protestants have been busy with issues surrounding but not specifically targeting abortion. They talk endlessly of family values as if we were still living in the middle of the previous century. Father knows best, the man is the head of the household and women are helpmates. Protestants too often still cling to the view that It is OK for a woman to be subject to her husband but not so OK to be an independent full human being with convictions, ambitions and autonomy. No wonder Protestant don’t speak up for women, their view of women is closer to the Catholic Church than to the understanding of women articulated by the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.

It is often stated that both Catholics and Protestants have a concern for the poor, but their respective concerns are expressed very differently in the abortion war. This difference amounts to a profound Protestant advantage that has not come into play. Protestants have been defeated by not showing up where they are needed. It is understood that the poor have very unequal access to abortion. This fact doesn’t bother anti-abortion Catholics and it doesn’t seem to bother Protestants either. While Catholic inspired pro-life is closing abortion clinics where are the pro-women Protestant campaigning to open abortion clinics in poor and rural areas? Protestants lack the sensitivity and moral courage to speak for the poor who are profoundly impacted by the inequality of services for women.

The Catholic-driven Pro-life anti-abortion crusade is winning the abortion war. Roe v. Wade has not been overturned but it has been pushed aside. For pro-life, their progressive victories have been an easy advance. Protestants have walked away largely unaware that they have been defeated. The Appomattox climax in the abortion war can not be long in coming unless corrective action is forthcoming.

Protestants can regroup and stay in the abortion war in support of women and women’s advocacy organizations by doing the following:

Honor the place of conscience in moral decision making including abortion decisions.
Define and defend a realm of privacy for both men and women and how privacy defines what it means to be a woman engaged in procreation decisions.
Denominations must adopt positions that support clergy and laity to be advocates for women and their decision-making.
Challenge laws that violate the Establishment Clause and the Due Process Clause of the First Amendment including laws that gives the State an interest in the fetus that overrides a woman’s interest.
Challenge the doctrine and legal consequences of the fertilized egg as a full and complete human being whereby abortion is not murder and a Personhood Amendment is not feasible.
Challenge the Hyde Amendment, laws that delete abortion coverage from insurance and support the return of taxpayer supported abortions.
Adopt policies that honor abortion as a decision women are fully capable of making at any time during pregnancy.
Adopt policies that prohibit a State’s intrusion into the affairs of women such as requirements for an ultrasound, and the requirement that a woman be subjected to unscientific medical prejudices or that rape must be reported to the police or a Federal agency.
Advise lawmakers that abortion restrictions are not in the public interest and that poor and rural women deserve equal access to a full range of reproductive services.
Advise lawmakers that restrictions on late term abortions are medically ill-advised and may cost women their lives.

For Catholics the fetus (God’s innocent unborn) has a right to life and all other rights, but the rights of women are not honored. With women radically marginalized in the Catholic position, the door is opened for Protestants to speak for women and be heard, but they are not yet speaking very clearly or very loudly or as one voice. In this critical arena Protestants are in a state of hibernation, waiting for their Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks or a revival of Sarah Weddington’s passion to spark a “Reproductive Freedom” movement for our day.

Rev. Roger Buchanan
Pennsylvania Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice