Man Bites Blog

On a day when conservative scholar Wayne Tolefson, (who recently published a book against embryonic research with that “bigot ” Robert George) published a thoughtful critique of Marc Thiessen’s torture defense, over at Vox Nova, Morning’s Minion decided to post a nearly year-old symposium from National Review on the ethics of waterboarding, that generally had a favorable view of the practice.

First, let me say that the symposium in specific, and National Review’s endorsement of torture in general, are despicable. The symposium itself seems to be a “Coalition for Fog,” more trying to hopelessly cloud the issue than mounting a clear defense of it. Moving on…

MM tacks on this cricticism of Franciscan University Professor Patrick Lee’s entry:

Lee finishes with an adolescent rant about those damned ”lib-uh-rals” who have only lately discovered the concept of moral absolutes. He fails to realize that he is engaging in the exact same kind of moral relativism. It’s incredible that a chaired professor at Franciscan University could deliver such a diatribe.

Wow, that must be some awful stuff… Let’s take a look:

Liberals have for decades not only denied that there are moral absolutes (specific, exceptionless moral norms) but also denied even the existence of objective moral truth — and have labeled defenders of such moral truths “right-wing extremists.” Have they now seen the light? If so, then perhaps we can now discuss not only why torture is wrong, but also the moral truth regarding intentionally killing unborn human beings, denying unborn human beings equal protection under the law, funding research that involves deliberately dismembering some human beings for the benefit of others, and attempting to coerce health-care workers to violate their consciences.

Torture is wrong — but if, and only if, every human being possesses a profound and inherent personal dignity.

Wait a minute… Isn’t this essentially the “consistent ethic of life” or “seamless garment” position? Isn’t this just the mirror image of the “pro-lifers don’t care about children once they’re born” argument, except not quite as personally nasty?

Lee’s paragraph isn’t moral relativism; it expresses a hope that a discussion of torture would lead to a more frank discussion of abortion and embryonic research.

Wouldn’t this be a good thing for a pro-life Catholic? If not, why not?

Will Saletan writes a piece outlining that if you go to the website suggested in the Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad, it includes videos from families where a mother was induced prematurely and gave birth to babies that did not survive for long.

Saletan concludes from the absence of any mention of health problems for the baby that the induction was for the mother’s health. He also asserts that inducing at 32 weeks is a risky thing to do for the baby.* This conflicts with the Tebow story that you should persevere no matter what.

Now, Saletan is pro-choice, but is usually fair. Though he’s not above the occasional cheap shot.

So, I’m not sure if he means this piece to be a Kinsleyesque consistency gotcha. The subhead, “the pro-life case for pregnancy termination” suggests as much, though I’m pretty sure Saletan doesn’t write the headlines.

If it is, then I’m not sure what the point is. Usually the point of a consistency argument is to demonstrate that the target does not hold a position for the reasons it claims, but for some other, less noble reason. For abortion, it is typically used to demonstrate that pro-life people aren’t really pro-life, but just want to control women and their sexuality.

But this case doesn’t get there. In one case, the pro-life group applauds Pam Tebow for carrying her dangerous pregnancy to term. In another case the pro-life movement promotes a story of women who were induced early, perhaps for their own health. And this proves….. what, exactly?

If anything, I would think this would be complimentary to pro-lifers, since it demonstrates that we don’t have this cartoonish fetish to fetuses above all else. We acknowledge that there is some balancing between the health of the mother and the fetus. We’re not the caricatures you’ve made us out to be.

But that’s not the tone the piece takes, it reads more like a Gotcha! piece. I suspect it’s because Saletan doesn’t care for Pam Tebow’s brand of being pro-life. But I don’t think her message is that mothers must be willing to sacrifice themselves to carry their pregnancies to full term. It’s that she decided to devote herself to carrying her child, and she’s glad she did.

The main difference is that the procedure Pam Tebow refused was abortion, and the procedure the other women accepted was induction. Which leads to the astounding conclusion that pro-life people oppose abortion!

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*There’s some serious problems with both these assertions, as this father of a child born at 31 weeks can attest. Saletan’s medical conclusions from the video here makes Bill Frist’s long-distance diagnosis of Terri Schiavo look like the pinnacle of clinical diligence.

But I’ll stipulate these points for the sake of this post.

In the dotCommonweal thread I alluded to below, the following concerns about the Tebow ad were raised:

• It would be wrong to imply that it is likely that those who choose life will be rewarded with a Heisman Trophy winner
• The message should be that all life is sacred, not just that of a Heisman Trophy winner.
• It would be better to represent a wide range of outcomes.

Well, yeah. The ad is not designed to be an air-tight self-contained comprehensive presentation of the pro-life point of view.

It is a single story that may get people to start thinking and asking questions. And when they do, it’s up to the rest of us who consider ourselves to be pro-life to be there with answers.

In 2006, after stumbling to an 83-79 regular season record, the St. Louis Cardinals went on a surprising postseason run culminating in a World Series title.

I’ve commented before that I found the Cardinals’ run something less than captivating.

Perhaps part of the reason is that between almost every inning I was treated to testimonials from Sheryl Crow, John Danforth, Michael J. Fox, and parents of children with diseases that I needed to vote for a constitutional amendment declaring that embryos were not persons, and that the state would never interfere with them being used for research. These ads were 95% funded by a single family that stood to materially gain from the amendment’s passage.

These ads annoyed me. Yet it never occurred to me that the thing to do was to pressure the network showing the baseball playoffs and World Series to stop showing these ads. Or to mumble threats about the impact the celebrities’ advocacy would have on their careers. Or to contemplate how I would shield my children’s eyes from these terrible ads.

I just kind of figured that seeing ads that piss me off, even ads advocating what I consider the legalized killing of innocents, was part of the price I paid for living in a free society.

How silly I was, since as the links above show, this is not how those in favor of abortion (and in this case, please don’t tell me that blocking a woman from sharing her story is “pro-choice”) react when the tables are turned. (Though I should note that there are some reasonable voices on that side).

But I suspect that if I were to have chosen that course, I would have been dismissed as a freedom-hating crank who cannot handle views other than his own.

But maybe it’s for the best, since the controversy has done more to publicize Tebow’s story than a single ad ever could. Even if CBS yields, anyone who now follows the news knows Tebow’s story.

And they also know that the abortion industry is desperate to keep you from hearing that story. That the right to abortion is so delicate that it requires blowing away almost every other right we hold dear. At this point, I almost hope they do keep it off the air.

In this thread at Catholic and Enjoying It, the question was raised about why some find it necessary to rain on Massachusetts Citizens For Life, and I thought I’d answer..

Let me start by saying that anyone who labors on behalf of the unborn deserves our prayers and respect, and MCFL certainly has mine. It is an absolute scandal how many Catholics are willing to keep themselves at arm’s length from the pro-life movement, and criticize their efforts from the sidelines, and I certainly don’t want to be a part of that.

Nevertheless, we can all sometimes lose sight of the forest for the trees, and can use the benefit of outside perspective to get us back on track.

Continued below the fold…

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The Principle of Double Effect, at least according to Wikipedia, states:

This set of criteria states that an action having foreseen harmful effects practically inseparable from the good effect is justifiable if upon satisfaction of the following:

• the nature of the act is itself good, or at least morally neutral;
• the agent intends the good effect and not the bad either as a means to the good or as an end itself;
• the good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect and the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm.

Emphasis mine.

Many in the Catholic blogosphere seem to read that as, “If you determine that an act that has a negative effect has a greater positive effect, or is better than some alternative course of action (or inaction), you may (or even have a positive duty to) proceed with the act as if the negative effect does not exist.”

Take the healthcare debate. As the Stupak and Nelson amendments were being debated, some in the Catholic blogosphere thought this was an opportune time to argue that Catholics should accept a health care reform even in the absence of these amendments, under the principle of double effect. Or to call those who insisted on such amendments hypocrites.

This may or not be the case. What is the case is that those who were working to add pro-life amendments to health care reform were working to minimize (or eliminate) the harm. And this type of commentary served to undermine those efforts. This isn’t minimizing the harm.

A statement by Cardinal Avery Dulles was often referenced to justify this position:

To vote for an appropriations bill that includes some provisions for funding abortions would not be so gravely sinful as to warrant excommunication under Canon 1398. The vote might arguably be licit if the funding for abortion were only incidental and could not be removed from a bill that was otherwise very desirable.

Emphasis mine again.

This is not the type of statement that lends itself to being followed by, “QED” in arguing for he acceptability of health care reform that includes funding of abortion. It would be difficult to imagine weaker language Cardinal Dulles could have used.

Yet, commentators wrote things like “Dulles applies” as if a bill clearing that bar was sufficient to establish its morality. That’s pretty far from what Cardinal Dulles said.

And today, we have the spectacle of pro-lifers celebrating the election of the pro-choice Scott Brown as Senator of Massachusetts.

It does seem that Brown was the least bad option, and I can understand why pro-lifers would be pleased to see that seat one by someone who could not be relied on to always vote for expanded action to abortion.

But there ought to be a limit to such joy. And it seems to me that dreaming of turning the Right to Life March into a rally to seat a pro-choice senator exceeds those limits.

Like Just War Theory, The Principle of Double Effect is not a series of hurdles we must clear before doing what we really want to do. It should guide what we do, and when we do apply it and choose an action that has a negative effect, we should do so with a heavy heart, always acting to minimize the harm of the bad effect.

Tuesday’s blog post:

Envision us all at the March for Life with our signs. One I had thought of: “MA = 41st vote”. If you have any ideas for signs, please let me know. I can also see everyone from all over the country, at the top of Capitol Hill, turning left to the Senate to go in and demand that Scott Brown be seated now before there are any more health care votes.

Imagine that.

Only 37 short years after Roe v. Wade, pro-lifers can march on Washington and demand the seating of a Senator whom his pro-life supporters concede supports Roe v. Wade.

MLK’s got nothin’ on us.

I shudder to think what we might accomplish in another 37 years.

At XX Factor, Jessica Grose links to New York Magazine’s write-up of the recent abortion from teenage character on Friday Night Lights. It includes this sentence.

Other than Becky’s mom railing at the state-mandated pro-life speech that the doctor has to deliver, there’s not a single reference to the cultural war that still rages over this intensely personal issue. Instead, there is just Becky’s intensely personal journey:

Emphasis mine.

The author uses the adjectival phrase “intensely personal” twice in the space of two sentences. In addition to likely angering his high school composition teacher, this demonstrates that he expects this phrase to do some work for him.

In this case, it seems that “intensely personal” is designed to pre-empt any moral criticism from an outsider. This is a journey for the character and character alone, and everyone else can butt out, thank you very much. It seems to serve the same purpose that “prudential decision” sometimes serves in Catholic discussions — to make a decision off-limits to moral analysis.

But, when you think about it, “intensely personal” is almost tautological in its meaninglessness. What experience do we have that could not be described as “instensely personal”?

This is manifested in the next XX Factor post where Amanda Marcotte ridicules the idea that Tiger Woods suffered from sex addiction. I am inclined to agree with Marcotte (now there’s a rarity) that Tiger is in more need of penance than therapy.

But could Tiger’s experience also be considered “intensely personal?” Sure. That doesn’t meant that his behavior was not objectively wrong. Or that the rest of us can determine that.

So even though this post is intensely personal, feel free to criticize it.

Ramesh Ponnuru points to this article from Harold Pollack about the horror of the government not paying for abortions.

It includes this howler:

I have written before about people I respect who hold pro-life views, and the need for mutually respectful dialogue on these issues. I have less respect for people who use economic pressure to restrict abortions among low-income women, when more privileged Americans would not for a moment tolerate such restrictions applied to people like themselves.

Punnuru notes that that’s a pretty low threshold to disqualify oneself from respect. But I’d like to make two more points:

1. Given the logic of this paragraph, I have to assume that Pollack is a an ardent supporter of educational vouchers for poor children to attend private schools. To do otherwise would be to use economic pressure to restrict access from poor children to something that has made a great difference for upper and middle class children? It appears Pollack is ambivalent about the idea. (Scroll to 10:08). I guess this logic only applies to important things killing unborn children, not to trivial matters like education.
2. If providing access to abortion is as crucial and fundamental a matter as Pollack claims, why can’t he and like-minded people start a fund to pay for them? How could the North Carolina fund Pollack mentions run dry?

If the problem really is poor women’s access, that is a problem that it is entirely within their power to remedy. That they seem uninterested in doing so demonstrates the lack of sincerity of their claims of concern for poor women.

There’s been a bit of a tempest over at the Mirror of Justice blog of Catholic legal scholars that started with this post from Michael Perry on 12/24.

IMO, this is another example of a “play to the crowd” type post. Yes, some opposition to homosexual conduct is rooted in bigotry. But not all of it, and in particular, not the opposition form Prof. George and others who might comment on MOJ.

Yet, for those sympathetic to Prof. Perry’s point of view, it is quite comforting to dismiss the opposition as bigots. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Prof. Kaveny, whose post I hilighted in my last “playing to the crowd” post, got involved in this disagreement.

In any instance, this is what I wrote to Prof. Perry:

Prof. Perry,

I’m not sure if this is will be helpful or throw gas on the fire, but I though I might take a stab at explaining why Prof. George took such great offense at your 12/24 post.

You explained the purpose of your post as such:

What, then, was my point? That there is this similarity between many who opposed interracial sexual conduct and many who oppose same-sex sexual conduct: Their visceral–yes, visceral–opposition is rooted in a deep-seated emotional aversion to–a disgust at–the conduct, which some of them will then naturally try to rationally vindicate by constructing arguments that those who do not share their emotional aversion regard as, to put it charitably, farfetched.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think a fair paraphrase of that is to create an association for the reader between disapproval of homosexual conduct and unexamined bigotry — the same type of bigotry that fueled the anti-miscegenation laws. I don’t think it is difficult to imagine why this would be offensive to someone who disapproves of homosexual conduct but does not consider himself a bigot. I think even the most careful reader of your 12/24 post would find it difficult to escape the attempt at this connection.

I am quite sure that there are some who oppose homosexual conduct because of bigotry. Just like there are all sorts of people who hold all sorts of positions for bad reasons. Some ads against Proposition 8 tapped into anti-Mormon bigotry.

But if Prof. George were to write a post on MOJ about the association between approval for homosexuality and anti-Mormon bigotry, and then engaged in some armchair psychoanalysis about how they came to that position, I suspect you and others who do not condemn homosexual conduct would be offended.

I’m not in charge of MOJ, but my understanding was that it was a place to engage the best arguments for opposing points of view, rather than associate those points of view with the worst motives. And if it’s not, then it’s little better than the rest of the web.

Taking on the worst arguments for the other side may be emotionally satisfying, and may win approval from the crowd of those already convinced, but I don’t think it moves the conversation forward.

Perhaps those on the right are guilty of this as well. But in the past year, I have noticed a lot of this strawman-bashing from the Catholic left, e.g. casting those who prioritize abortion as not caring about anything else.

I think we would have a more fruitful discourse if we could resist the temptation to simply point to the worst of our opposition, and instead engage the best.

At dotCommonweal, Cathleen Kaveny posts a superficially appealing argument:

Saints don’t have to be perfect.

And in canonizing Pope Pius XII, the Church really doesn’t mean to endorse his approach to Nazism. And in canonizing Pope John Paul II, the Church really doesn’t mean to endorse his handling of the Maciel case. But their whole lives cannot be reduced to one position, one action, one set of judgments, as John Allen carefully explains to us.

Mmm. I thought that was essentially the argument made by Notre Dame about the commencement invitation–rejected by many of those who are likely to support the canonization of Pius XII and JPII.

Oh. . . but it’s there’s a difference. Obama was a commencement speaker –not a candidate for sainthood.

Saints don’t have to be perfect. But commencement speakers apparently do.

A-ha! Those silly pro-lifers are so focused on a single-issue that they would canonize people involved in other evils before they would tolerate a commencement speaker who disagrees with them on their issue. She shoots; she scores!

But hold on a minute.

I think it’s safe to say that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be considered the secular equivalent of saints in America. We’ve erected vast monuments to them in Washington, D.C. for example.

It is also true that they held slaves.

If a bishop today were to invite someone who held slaves for dinner, that would be a great scandal. Let alone inviting him to speak at the most prominent Catholic institution in the country and receive an honorary degree.

Yet, we are still capable of appreciating the greatness of Washington and Jefferson as presidents and leaders.

In short, nuance and holistic views may be more appropriate in considering the historical view of a person than in granting contemporaneous honors. Because contemporaneous honors do send a message that a person’s objectionable acts are not a big deal or somewhat tolerable. Especially when we are in the midst of a cultural dispute over that very issue. It can also send a discouraging message to those who are engaged in that dispute.

Yes, it sounds absurd that there would be a higher bar for commencement speakers than for canonization. But in certain contexts, different dimensions take on greater or lesser importance.

On the face of it, passing health care reform with language like the Stupak amendment would represent the best of all worlds. We would address a crucial social problem, and also undermine society’s acceptance of abortion. Sounds like a win-win.

But this post from Jessica Grose gave me pause:

I found this very upsetting, not just because I am pro-choice, but because the reason my peers are anti-choice is they have no sympathy or empathy for people who become pregnant accidentally. It’s not because of their more stringent religious or ethical beliefs—they’re anti-choice out of spite. “They feel much more strongly about personal responsibility than the generations preceding them: Didn’t use birth control? The burden’s on you,” Senior writes.

If support for the Stupak amendment is built on callousness toward the plight of women with unplanned pregnancies, then maybe it’s not such a victory at all. But then, this would be difficult to reconcile with its inclusion in a bill whose main purpose is to provide health insurance to those who can’t afford it.

But then I clicked through to the New York Magazine article that Grose mentions, and saw that this was not a theme of the article, and there are no poll results suggesting the thought process Grose takes on here. It seems that Grose’s preferred narrative (”pro-lifers are a tiny minority hijacking the political process”) has become inoperable, so she has instead substituted another one that is flattering to her side (”People are only pro-life because they don’t care, damnit!”).

One passage jumped out at me:

But Harris raises a very real and terrible dilemma for those of us who are pro-choice: Engage these questions and you play into the hands of the pro-life movement; refuse to engage in them and you risk living in a political vacuum.

Read more: Just How Pro-Choice Is America, Really? — New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/features/62379/index3.html#ixzz0YNteZePX

If engaging in a question puts you at a disadvantage, it may be time to at least consider the possibility that you are incorrect on that question.

There has been much guffawing in the last couple days about the RNC having a health insurance policy for its employees that covers abortion.

Indeed, who can forget John McCain wagging his finger at companies that purchase insurance with abortion coverage for their employees? Or Sarah Palin’s intimation that Barack Obama palled around with abortionists by having insurance coverage that covered abortion.

What’s that? That didn’t happen. Hmmmm, perhaps something else besides basic hypocrisy is going on, so that if we took our eyes of the hypocrisy scoreboard long enough, we would notice.

And what is happening is the establishment of a new standard. Before it was acceptable for companies that wished to appeal to pro-lifers to have health insurance that covered abortion. Now, it is not, and the RNC got caught.

From a pro-life perspective, whether one considers oneself a Democrat, Republican, or neither, this is a good thing.

Matt Yglesias voices a sentiment that has been replayed in various forms over the past week:

The big losers here, however, will be the set of poor women who really may not be able to get together the few hundred dollars that would be needed.

Emphasis mine.

Oh, if only it were legal for all these people who care so much about these poor women who are being shut out of the abortion clinic to somehow pull together some funds to pay for them! Darn that Stupak and the bishops, and Nancy Pelosi for buckling to them.

What’s that? Under Stupak, it would still be perfectly legal for NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List, and everyone else who’s been spending the last week rending their garments over the plight of poor women who won’t get the abortions they claim they need so much to get their own money together to pay for them?

Well then, that means we have to read Yglesias’s statement in a different light.

What Yglesias is essentially saying is that in a post-Stupak world, such getting together of funds won’t happen. That’s right poor women, all these people who are currently all over the airwaves and internet outraged on your behalf aren’t willing to pony up any of their own funds to help you in your plight.

They are more than willing to have the rest of us pay for it, but if the problem really was that poor people would not have access to abortions, that is a problem that is completely within their power to solve.

But they don’t want to. Because it’s not about poor women. It’s about the morality of abortion. If health care coverage doesn’t pay for abortions, then abortions aren’t just another medical procedure. And abortion rights advocate want very much for abortion to be considered something without moral consequence.

Poor women are just a tool. Because when it comes down to it, the anti-Stupak folks are not willing to put their money where their mouths are.

With friends like these….

“If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one!”

We’ve all heard that slogan before. Pro-lifers know that it elides the question that abortion and society’s acceptance of it is an injustice that must be confronted, but it is impossible to deny the slogan’s appeal. You don’t like abortion. Bully for you. But why should that impact my behavior?

But as the Stupak amendment debate has shown, the abortion lobby is not content with those who dislike abortion simply refraining from it. No, we must all be implicated in it — we must support those who have abortions, and our tax dollars must go to pay for it.

It’s amusing to read the apocalyptic language surrounding this amendment — you would swear it required all women to be artificially inseminated on their 18th birthdays, and every two years thereafter until they turn 30, and give birth each time.

Looking at the post I linked yesterday, this tells us a lot of what we need to know:

They could, in theory, pay out of pocket for a “rider” that would extend their coverage to include abortion. But Stupak-Pitt foes say the rider option is a charade, because most insurance companies won’t even offer it. Businesses don’t like to sell products that don’t have a market, and the market for something like an abortion rider—essentially a plan for an unplanned pregnancy—is notoriously slim.

So, let me get this straight:

• Society’s acceptance of abortion is such that the failure to include it in health care is a travesty.
• There is no market for abortion riders.

What this also ignores is that there is absolutely nothing stopping all the people who are currently tearing up about how poor women are having their rights taken away from establishing a fund to pay for those abortions. If the idea of a poor woman not being able to afford an abortion is really such a heart-rendering issue, then there should be no shortage of willing donors to help them out.

But that’s misses the point, of course. Then you and I aren’t paying for it. We are not coerced into being implicated. That’s no fun.

I’ve been trying to come up with a snappy slogan of my own to capture the irony of those who claimed that the abortion rights movement was all about being left alone now going into shock at the thought that the government won’t pay for abortions. Maybe, “Like abortion? Start your own fund to pay for them.” But it’s not quite snappy enough, and doesn’t quite echo the original.

Suggestions welcome.

At least, that seems to be the logic of Meredith Simons at the XX blog:

Remember those conservatives who don’t want the government interfering in health care plans?
Right, well, it turns out what they meant was they don’t want the government interfering in health care plans, except when it comes to abortion. At that point, the government can interfere to its heart’s content.

Now, this doesn’t describe me, since I wasn’t dead-set against health-care refrom. But it seems like the following represent a perfectly coherent position:

• The government should not be involved in health care.
• If the government is involved in health care, it should be in line with the values of the public, including not paying for abortions.

According to Simons’ logic, anyone who opposed the invasion of Iraq had not business protesting Abu Ghraib. After all, if they had their way, the troops wouldn’t even be over there, how dare they say how they conduct themselves.

Apparently when Simons envisioned government taking over health care, it wasn’t government of the people, by the people, and for the people; it was the government of her and the people she knows and like, who would have no problem with the government paying for abortions. But that is not the people of America — as the title of her post suggests, she has to choose (in an ironic reprise of the abortion lobby’s key buzzword) between health care and abortion. Those who have any difficulty with this choice have revealed much about their values.

This is very good news, and hats off to Rep. Stupak and the other pro-life Democrats for their hard work in making this happen. In my mind, they are heroes.

Amanda Marcotte asks:

When confronted with abortion oppponents who demand that any health care reform bill should explicitly exclude abortion coverage—which would mean that somewhere between half and 87 percent of insurance companies who cover it would have to stop doing so—I have one simple question to ask them: If the Democrats conceded to your demands and stripped 87 percent of women who are currently covered of their abortion coverage, would you support health care reform?

My answer: Yes.

I suspect I’m not the only one, which makes yesterday’s defeat of the amendment preventing funding of abortions a tragedy rather than a victory.

I try to understand.

I understand that Commonweal thinks that abortion is used too often as a dividing issue, and that they are generally supportive of President Obama and health care reform. I don’t even know that they are altogether incorrect about those positions.

Still, I would kind of expect a magazine with a Catholic identity to occasionally let it slip that the current culture around abortion is not a good thing. But you won’t find it in the current editorial on health care reform and abortion, which refers to abortion opponents as if they were odd aliens from another culture. It refers to the US as “a nation where access to abortion is a constitutional right” without pausing to consider whether it should be considered as such. It acknowledges that, “Any direct funding of abortion by the federal government would be a catastrophic political mistake,” but leaves unsaid whether that is because it would be harmful on its face, or because it would give the GOP a talking point.

All in all, if you took away the masthead, this editorial could have probably been published by Planned Parenthood without much protest from their membership.. Some Commonweal readers might see this as a positive sign of common ground; I see it as the salt losing its flavor.

I also have to take issue with the conclusion:

If those on either side of this conflict insist on using health-care reform to further their own agenda-either to expand access to abortion or to further restrict it-they will not only damage the health of the nation as a whole, they will discredit their own cause as well.

Reading this, one would think that pro-lifers were waiting in the shadows and thought, “Aha! — we’ll use health care reform to further our agenda.” Also, I thought that this was what Commonweal Catholics thought the pro-life should be doing — simultaneously expanding access to necessary government services, and curtailing the culture’s abortion license. To Commonweal, are there any circumstances under which it is appropriate to move to restrict abortion?

That the editorial goes for a false balance is bad enough, but the wording — “either to expand access to abortion or to further restrict it” — gives the idea that there already quite enough restrictions on abortion, thank you very much, and heaven knows we don’t need more, especially in the midst of a health care debate!

Commonweal has been know to express grave concern that bishops’ statements about abortion might lead some to conclude they are supporting the GOP. In that same spirit, I express concern that if Commonweal continues to write articles in which they distance themselves from those opposed to the current abortion regime and are indistinguishable from a Planned Parenthood press release, some might draw the conclusion that the don’t give a damn about the unborn.

For an example of how one can support President Obama, health care reform, and the unborn, see Micheal Sean Winters here.

Dear Senator McCaskill,

I am pleased that Congress and the White House are working to enact health care reform that will ensure that the millions of uninsured will receive health care coverage.

Nevertheless, I am concerned that I may not be able to support this reform because as Micheal Sean Winters reports, the Senate committee recently voted against an amendment that would have preserved the long standing compromise that federal funds not be used for abortion established by the Hyde Amendment.

I understand that though you share my Catholic faith, you are pro-choice. Nevertheless, I hope you understand why many would be concerned about making abortion funding part of health care reform, and the value of having a reform that pro-life individuals could support.

I ask you to join fellow Democratic Senator Bob Casey from Pennsylvania and 19 House Democrats in working to build health care reform that those opposed to abortion can support without reservation.

John McGuinness
Maryland Heights, MO

To its credit, the Obama Administration is putting together policies aimed at reducing abortions. The current plan is to package together contraception with aid to pregnant women. Since they consider contraception immoral, Catholic bishops and Baptist ministers are trying to get the two proposals separated so that they can support the aid to pregnant women.

The reaction?

Atrios: Mocks the idea of common ground.

Matt Yglesias:

It’s precisely because of stances like this that it’s very hard to take the “abortion is murder” crowd seriously when they say abortion is murder. Their revealed behavior indicates that they don’t actually find abortion especially problematic, but just place it on a spectrum containing a general aversion to women controlling their own sexuality

– excerpt from linked article –

Atrios sees this as a reason to mock those who advocate seeking “common ground” with abortion proponents. I think we’re arguably seeing here the real fruits of seeking common ground in good faith—their real views are smoked out.

Each post gave way to long a long common thread devoted primarily to trashing pro-lifers.

Now, I know Yglesias at least is smarter than this. It seems difficult for me to believe that he could have shared an office for a year with Ross Douthat and emerged wit such a simplistic view of the pro-life position.

Yet, he is happy to comfort his readers’ prejudices that pro-lifers are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites who really just hate women. And on what basis? Because they are trying to influence an abortion reduction bill so that it emphasizes means they do not consider immoral.

Conor Friesendorf has been looking at unhelpful discourse. I nominate this series of posts. They will not convince anyone; the only thing they will do is back up people who don’t like pro-lifers.