Garry Wills talks about abortion, the ultimate 2008 campaign "wedge issue"

i have the utmost respect for garry wills... he's a devout catholic which, to some, would be an immediate black mark, but he is far from the stereotypical catholic dogmatist, and, in fact, is perhaps the most thoughtful, rational and utterly sensible thinker on weighty issues i've ever run across... i read his book, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, a number of years ago and was vastly impressed... in it, he methodically and objectively takes the reader through the deliberate and calculated lies promulgated by the catholic church throughout the late 19th and the whole of the 20th century... needless to say, he isn't the vatican's favorite son...

in this la times op-ed, adapted from his book, Head and Heart: American Christianities, he does a similar outstanding job of separating the contentious issue of abortion from the hysteria of the evangelical christian and catholic religious abortion extremists, and frames the entire subject in the clear light of history, fact and reason...

What makes opposition to abortion the issue it is for each of the GOP presidential candidates is the fact that it is the ultimate "wedge issue" -- it is nonnegotiable. The right-to-life people hold that it is as strong a point of religion as any can be. It is religious because the Sixth Commandment (or the Fifth by Catholic count) says, "Thou shalt not kill." For evangelical Christians, in general, abortion is murder. That is why what others think, what polls say, what looks practical does not matter for them. One must oppose murder, however much rancor or controversy may ensue.

But is abortion murder? Most people think not. Evangelicals may argue that most people in Germany thought it was all right to kill Jews. But the parallel is not valid. Killing Jews was killing persons. It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons. Not even evangelicals act as if it were. If so, a woman seeking an abortion would be the most culpable person. She is killing her own child. But the evangelical community does not call for her execution.

[...]

Much of the debate over abortion is based on a misconception -- that it is a religious issue, that the pro-life advocates are acting out of religious conviction. It is not a theological matter at all. There is no theological basis for defending or condemning abortion. Even popes have said that the question of abortion is a matter of natural law, to be decided by natural reason. Well, the pope is not the arbiter of natural law. Natural reason is.

[...]

[E]vangelicals take shortcuts. They pin everything on being pro-life. But one cannot be indiscriminately pro-life.

If one claimed, in the manner of Albert Schweitzer, that all life deserved moral respect, then plants have rights, and it might turn out that we would have little if anything to eat. And if one were consistently pro-life, one would have to show moral respect for paramecia, insects, tissue excised during a medical operation, cancer cells, asparagus and so on. Harvesting carrots, on a consistent pro-life hypothesis, would constitute something of a massacre.

[...]

Given these uncertainties, who is to make the individual decision to have an abortion? Religious leaders? They have no special authority in the matter, which is not subject to theological norms or guidance. The state? Its authority is given by the people it represents, and the people are divided on this. Doctors? They too differ. The woman is the one closest to the decision. Under Roe vs. Wade, no woman is forced to have an abortion. But those who have decided to have one are able to.

Some objected to Karl Rove's use of abortion to cement his ecumenical coalition, on the grounds that this was injecting religion into politics. The supreme irony is that, properly understood, abortion is not even a religious issue. But that did not matter to Rove. All he cared about was that it worked. For a while.

this should be required reading for every 2008 presidential candidate, their campaign staffs, and every voter who intends to make a voting choice based on a candidate's position on abortion...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet