Roman Catholic Bishops Finding It Hard To Find Senate Sponsor for Stupak-Pitts
11/23/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
The Catholic Church is facing an uphill battle in getting the Stupak Amendment into the Senate version of the healthcare legislation. So far, no Senators have been willing to step forward and endorse the amendment as it is written. The realization that they could end up killing the healthcare reform package entirely as the Women’s Caucus and others coalesce around Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to kill the Amendment, and the damage that the battle itself has done to the Democratic Party may have finally struck Senators that they could end up risking a lot only to gain nothing in supporting the Roman Catholic Church’s orders to get the amendment written into law.
While it is often portrayed as being nothing more than an extension of the status quo, the reality of what the Stupak-Pitts Amendment would do has not really penetrated the shell that it was put into. In the end, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment would make it nigh on impossible for women to actually get coverage for an abortion. It would certainly create problems with regards to abortion coverage when it comes to terminating a pregnancy that may not be viable, but is not a threat to the mother’s health.
Currently, the Roman Catholic Bishops are hopeful that Democrat Bob Casey might be willing to sponsor the amendment, and they are hoping that language offering to beef up prenatal care and increase the safety net for women with unwanted pregnancies will draw in support. The unfortunate problem becomes that many abortions occur in the United States where it is a woman choosing to abort a feotus that is not viable, but not a threat to her life.
The decision by Pope Benedict XVI to involve the Catholic Church in politics flies in the face of his predecessors Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Pope Paul threatened to excommunicate two Catholic priests who were involved in anti-government and anti-war activities in the late 1960’s. Pope John Paul II demanded all ordained Catholic clergy either leave the Church or leave politics. In politicizing the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict has abandoned the views of both Paul VI and John Paul II. Given that John Paul II could become a saint, this creates an even trickier situation for Benedict as it could be seen as unholy.
The Bishops are willing to accept different language to that of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, but worry that could result in the Conference Committee simply removing that language entirely after the final votes are in.
In an appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Bishop Thomas Tobin refused to get into specifying what kind of punishment should be enacted to ensure that the edict against abortion be followed. Matthews, a practicing Catholic, is also pro-life, but he is also adamantly against, as can be heard in his tone, to the interference of the Catholic Church in American politics. Bishop Tobin failed to understand that Matthews’ pushing of him on the issue of what kinds of punishment the woman should face for having an abortion was central to the discussion. Bishop Tobin also failed to grasp that the reason murder and theft are part of the legal codes has to do with the writings of John Locke and are considered to be natural law. The taking away of a person’s life, liberty and property without due process is a violation of natural law. A person committing adultery is not a violation of natural law, though it is immoral. The stance that life begins with conception is also in opposition to almost 2000 years of Catholic teaching.
The lack of support in the Senate could doom the Stupak-Pitts amendment given the opposition to it, and the possibility that it could sway enough votes to end up killing reform entirely. Given that, any Senator who decided to support it could find himself out in the cold sitting on the Postal Committee listening to people complain about the US Post Office.
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The big mistake the Pro-Life community has made is a refusal to challenge the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade in the courts, since that is where ultimately the issue has to be decided. The question is: Do the unborn have rights under the Constitutionj or not; is the question of abortion merely a religious question or can it be demonstrated in the courts that the unborn are persons and have are protected by the Constitution of the United States? That will take some time to make its way through the courts. It took the African-American community 58 years to bring about the reversal of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Suprme Court decision that legalized segregation. But no one in the Pro-Life community is willing to tackle the issue in the courts, the only place that the issue can be decided.
It is a matter of Embryonic Law, a totally new development in American Law. What has to be shown in the courts is that, while a woman has, legally, absolute dominion over her own body, she has only a trust dominion over the body of her unborn child. It is a matter of Divided Dominion, a totallly new dimension in American Law. Until and unless the question of the unborn is settled in the courts, as a constitutional issue, the national debate on the question will continue
Father Clifford Stevens, President, The National Organization for Embryonic Law
Prove to me exactly when the soul enters the body, and then we will talk. Nothing about faith. Nothing Biblical or non-Biblical that cannot be proven through science. Should your side fail to do so, then the courts should rule that abortion shall be legal up until the point where life is sustainable outside the womb.
I am going to be blunt here. I do not approve of abortion for birth control reasons. However, I also know that to make it illegal is to condemn women to a life of horror. It can also be to condemn that very feotus that is so precious to people advocating against abortion rights to a life of pain and misery. I do not mean that the feotus is going to suffer from a bad family, but rather many feotuses are often aborted due to the deformities that it has. Finding families for those children is impossible. Most people adopt healthy babies, they do not want ones suffering from feotal alcohol syndrome. Then what happens? The mother cannot give the baby up for adoption, but she cannot care for it on her own. And there are far worse.
Then there are the women backed into a corner where they will damage themselves just to be rid of the feotus.
I do not hear from people opposing abortion about how to make it rare. How to encourage women to give children up for adoption, or how to find ways to care for those whose parents cannot care for them due to disabilities. Rather than fighting to ban abortion, why not fight to make it so that society can take care of those in need? Why not fight to create societal safety nets for families in this situation?
The middle ground in this debate is to find ways to make abortion less necessary. Helping mothers with prenatal care is a strong first step.
The fact that the anti-abortion movement is more concerned about ending this practice than they are in helping to stop it through real societal means is more of an issue to me than anything else.
If you help the mothers and make it so that it is possible for them to get help, have healthy children, and to give children up for adoption, then abortion will dwindle until it is only used in the most essential of times. If you do not, then all you do is condemn several souls to suffer, including the child that you helped “save”, and in so doing committed a far graver sin.
It is not a question of “ensoulment”, it is a question of “personhood”. The existence of the “soul” is not in question, since it is not a legal concept. Personhood is. There are over 200 embryonic sciences that can demonstrate that the life in the womb is a human life. It is a scientific and legal question, as far as the courts are concerned, but that has ato be demonstrated in the courts,not by public opinion. Public opinion supported segregation and child labor at one time, but both are now outlawed by American Law. It may take 25 years of recourse to the courts to bring about the reversal of Roe V. Wade, but it can be done. Most people don’t know the three methods of abortion, with their medically antiseptic names. . Dilation et Curretage, etc. These are barbaric practices that “to be hated need but to be seen”. But the issue has to be brought into the courts before the rights ot the unborn can be decided in American Law.
Father Clifford Stevens
President, National Organization for Embryonic Law/
No, Mr. Stevens, it has everything to do with when the soul enters, and when the person begins. Once you can prove when a person is a person and not a mass of cells, let me know. I do know that it cannot happen until the brain develops. However, I should like to point out that it could also be said that the person does not begin until the brain has been programed.
Sei – What is needed is a new legal and medical definition of gestation: “”A human subject in a state of somatic and organizational repose, wilth an integrating and organizational principle distinct from and separate freom the body of the mother.” And there is a body of evidence suppoarting the claim that “the integrating principle is a human person in the unfolding of its innate human potential, gradually experiencing, expressing and revealing the blossoming of its distinctly human powers.”
Father Clifford Stevens, President, National Organization for Embryonic Law.
Father Stevens,
Thank you for moderating your tone this time. I removed your last one since it was rudely worded. I would love to debate this with you, but I am rather busy right now. I will put my argument simply- making abortion illegal will not stop it from happening. Stopping doctors from performing it will not stop it from happening. IF you would spend your resources on making it unnecessary via contraception, and providing a true safety net for those who are in need of help, that would make it so that abortion would be the ‘bad’ option and people will choose instead to not have an abortion.
The solution is finding and answer to the problem, not banning the symptom of the problem. The problem is not indifference to human life, but the terrible conditions which create that.
Solve this problem by finding a way to make abortion safe, legal and unnecessary except in the most extreme cases of deformity and as a life saving medical procedure. Other than that, all you are doing is condemning more and more souls to suffering, pain, hardship and sin.
Sei – If abortion is the taking of a human life, and it can be demonstrated that the unborn have rights under the Constitution, the law has protect that life as it would protect the life of a child already born. There is precedent for that in English Common Law. stealing is against the law and so are a lot of other crimes, but that does not prevent people from stealing. If abortion is the unjust taking of a human life, it cannot be tolerated by law – and that does not mean that compassion should not be shown to those who have abortions. I enjoy our conversations and I think this kind of give and take is healthy and necessary. It is through this kind of debate that issues are resolved and that is the genius of our country.
Father Clifford Stevens, President, National Organization for Embryonic Law.
Father Stevens,
You have to prove that a human being exists from conception. You talk about personhood, and yet, it is impossible to define a person as being anything when the brain does not function even at the level of a worm. You are, incidentally, creating a very difficult issue when it comes to defining sentience. After all, many of the same tests that you apply to a person- a human being- can be applied to animals even as low as protozoa. Ultimately, you would be required to never eat, drink, or breathe in order to prevent harm from coming to something that has even the most basic spark of life. I am absolutely serious on this issue, incidentally.
You mentioned theft in response to what I proposed as being important. I am also serious about the fact that, if you fixed many of society’s ills, you would reduce and contain theft as well. The same goes for murder, assault, rape, and other crimes.
Basically, Father Stevens, you must define when a person becomes a person. The problem with that is even scientifically you cannot prove when the brain is sufficiently developed enough to exist as a sentient entity. There is a trigger point where the brain and body are developed enough to be defined as a person, but it is not right off, and it is within a few months of birth. Unless you can prove a date before the point where the body is developed enough to survive on its own by which to define life separate from the mother’s life, then there is a problem determining if a feotus is a human being.
I have studied a large number of scientific and theological works on this subject. I am not a specialist in this field, however. You have to find a way to prove that a person exists prior to that twenty-second week or your definition is based on nothing more than faith. The problem is, in all the evidence I have seen, I have yet to find that evidence either scientific or spiritual.
Sei – Of course you have to prove that human life begins at conception and you have to do it from the embryonic sciences. But that is a matter that has to be brought into the courts, and eventually to the Supreme Court. We are talking about “human” life; in its beginnings,yes, but a human life. Every scientific study affirms that human life begins at conception, it is not only a religious conviction. It is a matter of faith, yes, but it is also a matter of law. Murder is contrary to my faith, but it is also against the law. Libel is contrary to my faith, but it is also against the law. I claim that abortion is not only a matter of faith, but a matter of constitutional law as well. If it is only a matter of faith, you are right, it has no place in the legal arena, since we have a separatin of Church and State, and no religious teaching, insofar as it is merely a religious teaching has any place in American Law. That is the heart of the whole issue: is abortion the attack upon a right protected by the Constitution of the United States. I claim that it is, but that is something that can be decided only by litigation. That is why I am usually silent on such matters. My work belongs in the courts and not in the public arena, but I do break my silence once in a while. If you’re interested, some of my writings are on the website of Priests for Life, in which I discuss the constitutional issues in the abortion question. I would be very interested in your comments and I do appreciate our conversations.
Father Clifford Stevens
Father Stevens,
I feel that we will continue to circle the subject. It is nice to have a pleasant and respectful conversation about this issue. It is far from being a simple issue, as it is often portrayed. Instead, it is a complex one fraught with problems.
One of those problems is that I have met far too many clergy willing to lie in order to win their power. I will make that clear right now.
However, another problem is other faiths. Certain Shinto faiths, I have heard, have maintained that an infant does not become a person until the age of three months. I have found many shamanistic faiths which would peg it at eighteen to twenty-two weeks for when the embryo’s life energy becomes separated from that of the mother. It is not just me that you much convince, nor the courts, but all people. I weigh issues carefully, and reweigh after a time in case of new data.
Making abortion illegal will simply add to the pain. It is necessary to solve the problems underlying why it happens. Unfortunately, even from you, all I hear is a drive to make it illegal instead of making it unnecessary except in the case of medical emergency. I listen to the Catholic Church constantly lie about issues that affect me personally, and constantly insert faith into a public policy debate. I listen to Baptists push their faith onto others, and lie about their motivations. What I do not hear is people working hard to fix the problems of society rather than trying to gain power from it.
I believe in preventing problems instead of punishing them. Why not work to fix the problems which cause women to feel it necessary to have an abortion rather than make it so that a woman not only feels it necessary, but her only options are those that may very well cause greater suffering?