Societal Triage
Fr. Rob has an excellent post on the "seamless garment" argument and the moral relativism that it employs.
Just today you can see this moral relativism and the issues Fr. Robb talked about in in various articles and editorials.
And what about all of the other issues the Catholic Church views as priorities? Why don't we see Catholic Republican politicians criticized on some of them (such as the death penalty or the Iraq war) [source]
andThe weekly National Catholic Reporter, a leading voice of liberal Catholics, took issue in an editorial last week with "those among the Catholic laity and hierarchy . . . who argue that abortion trumps all other issues in the upcoming election."
The editorial reminded Catholics that there are "other issues -- war and peace, immigration, tax cuts, housing, the death penalty, economic justice, welfare reform, the federal deficit, civil liberties, education, health care, crime, and on and on." [source]
andAs a lifelong, practicing Catholic, I have been appalled by the Catholic Church's discourse regarding Catholics in public life. Why is no one calling to prohibit Catholic politicians from receiving Holy Communion because they support the death penalty or voted for the Iraq war, two positions that are in direct opposition to the Vatican? It is disheartening to see the anti-abortion movement consistently dominate Catholic political debate at the expense of Catholic social teaching as a whole. [source]
These types of arguments when advanced by Catholics I find to be extremely irritating, especially since these arguments can not pass even a casual glance compared to what the Church teaches. Cardinal Bernadine first proposed the seamless garment argument which entailed naming a list of about sixteen social issues. These included abortion, homelessness, poverty, problems in countries overseas, capital punishment, nuclear disarmament, and others. In effect giving these issues equal weight or that at least is how how it has become to be used.
Abortion = Death penalty = War in Iraq = etc
This algebraic statement can only be evaluated as true under moral relativism.
Abortion - always wrong in every circumstance
Death penalty - "rare" necessity of the death penalty today and requires prudential to determine
War - can be just and requires prudential decision to determine
Death Penalty - 859 Executions since 1977, with 71 in 2002
Abortion - 44,000,000 Executions since 1973 with 1,313,000 in 2003
So every half hour as many children are aborted as are executed on death row in a year.
Medical triage was developed from the need to prioritize the care of those injured. If a medical team was rushed to an area with 70 casualties instead of an area with over a million casualties then there priorities would be seen as disordered. Even if abortion and the death penalty were exactly morally equivalent, societal triage would require the brunt of its effort's to be on abortion. This does not mean that we don't work towards both eliminating abortion and making the death penalty rare. If we truly work towards a culture of life where we don't kill our children we will also be a culture that will not want the death penalty in most circumstances. Every state has legalized abortion, but not every state even has the death penalty and some of those states that do rarely exercise it.
Unlike the Roman guards at the crucifixion we must rip the seamless garment in two and work towards the goals it entails by the priorities they deserve. A society willing to kill its children is a society that will become and has become warped in other ways. You can judge a society by how it treats its prisoners and how it treats its most innocent members, the unborn. Looking at these realities it is hard for me to understand why these morally equivalent arguments are used in the first place? Fr. Rob ponders the same thing and I concur with what he say.
As I said above, I do not doubt the sincerity of many Catholics who are concerned about things like the death penalty. And by saying that issues like the death penalty are of less importance than abortion I'm not saying they are trivial. They are just less important. But I cannot help but wonder at the motivations of some of the advocates of the so-called "seamless garment" approach. Why is it that their seamless garment always seems to result in downplaying, or even dismissing, the protection of the unborn? Why is it that protection of the innocent always ends up on the fringes, the tattered edges, of their "seamless garment", if not trimmed off altogether? I cannot help but think that, at least sometimes, it is because they really think that issues such as the death penalty, poverty, saving the whales, etc., are more important than the lives of unborn children. I cannot help but suspect that, for such people, voting for the Democratic Party, and what it represents for them, weighs more in the balance than innocent human life. I hope that this is not the case, for those who do so are indeed selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.
Tom of Disputations has some thoughts on the subject in a post called "What I like about grave evil." Well what I like about Disputations is the quality of monkey wrenches he is able to throw into a discussion.
Known as 
Peace, Jeff.
I think you're stretching a bit to suggest the Seamless Garment approach is "moral relativism." I think it speaks of consistency in our approach to life. If a person thinks they have the Number One issue well at hand, and can slack off a bit on the subsidiaries, and that makes them feel better, hey: knock yourself out.
When people tire of the anti-abortion approach, it is often because the movement has so little new to say to convince those on the fence on ths issue.
One example I can recall is that my own commitment to pacifism and the Seamless Garment approach would draw respect from liberal friends who stood far from me on abortion, but rather close on the death penalty or peace issues. They were intrigued in the polite sort of way that is less common in the bloggerhood.
Personally, I think the Iraq War overshadows the abortion issue on a Right to Life front. I think we need to realize that abortion numbers are not very closely linked to presidential politics. If we're going to take Fr Rob's pragmatic approach and talk numbers, a Republican administration losing its grip on foreign policy could well spell a bloodier bath than the numbers of abortions we could reasonably hope to curb.
He has a good essay, but not a perfect one.
Just a quick search found the examples I gave today of what is exactly moral relativism. Those people equated the death penalty to abortion as equal.
I strongly disagree that the pro-life movement has nothing little to say to those on the fence. Every year the polls should an increase in pro-life attitudes. And even if what you said was true - would it matter? When are we to cease doing good?
Are you truly a pacifist in the real meaning of the word in that war is always wrong? I hope that is not is what you meant.
People that know me know my views on both abortion and the death penalty. And I have convinced some to shy away from an eye for eye view of justice and for something more in line with what the Holy Father teaches.
I also totally disagree with your view of abortion and Presidential politics. It is only appointments to the Supreme Court which will likely overturn legalized abortion. Those justices that will soon retire will determine if we are going to kill 1.4 million people a year or not. Electing Mr. Kerry will ensure that we will have abortion for many years to come.
Do you really think that the Iraq War will result in more deaths than those killed in abortion this year? I have questions about the prudence of the war and the results myself. I hope that true peace is the result in Iraq and that the years of terror and mass graves is in their past and that hopefully self-rule might spread in the Middle East.
I sometimes wonder if 'unborn people' wouldnt be a better term.
I like the triage approach you mentioned. It's practical, but we also can't get so focused on one issue that we make no progress on others.
Steve,
I had hoped I had made the point you made in my post. Again it is not a case of either/or but that the culture of life must be advanced at all levels. From caring for those who need help to advancing the dignity of human life whether someone is in a womb, a cell, or in a bed with a feeding tube.
Yes Jeff - you did make the point very well. I was just being an echo in the room, but it didn't come across all that clearly.
Todd,
In your comment you said:
Personally, I think the Iraq War overshadows the abortion issue on a Right to Life front. I think we need to realize that abortion numbers are not very closely linked to presidential politics.
Looking at things from a different perspective, a nation that believes it is okay for a mother to wage war against her own child - which is a destruction of perhaps the most natural and intimate bond in human life - will hardly be disposed to treat people from other nations in a humane way. Why would I care about an Iraqi civilian I have never met and with whom I have no immediate or natural bonds, if I don't even respect the life of my own child? This was a point Mother Teresa made at the National Prayer Breakfast in DC in 1992.
Of course, I might still have a vague sense of philanthropy - a "We Are The World" trumpet blast now and again - but that would likely disappear as soon as my own comfort zone was threatened. ("I love humanity; it's people I can't stand.")
Todd:
If we're going to take Fr Rob's pragmatic approach and talk numbers...
If you concluded that my essay was about "numbers" or pragmatic issues, that's a serious misunderstanding of it. Nowhere in my essay did I approach the issues involved from the standpoint of "numbers". A couple of commenters did, but not me.
I think a demarcation needs to be drawn between the actual "seamless garment" idea and its current proponents, Consistent Life (formerly the Seamless Garment Network), and those who misuse the term to excuse their dereliction of duty concerning abortion.
I have been a supporter of the "seamless garment" for many years---going back to my Feminists for Life days---and have subscribed to their magazine, "Harmony". The magazine consistently has more abortion-related articles than those on any other topic, issue after issue. Does that sound like putting abortion on the backburner?
What I do see happening is that liberal Catholics, of the sort who will vote for Kerry, will excuse their support by some vague appeal to the seamless garment theory, an appeal which, IMHO, is an attempt to justify ignoring abortion as a human rights issue because somehow the other issues are being addressed. I am very familiar with the sort of conversation in which the standard response to any reference to abortion is either "What about the death penalty?" or "Bush is a warmonger."
"Seamless garment" theory seems rather simple-minded to me. Firstly, it equates doctrine with prudential judgment. Secondly, it presumes that the public policy prescriptions of a particular political philosophy (socialism) are infallible.
Abortion is wrong in every circumstance? You don't really think that's true do you? You would force a woman to have the child of her rapist? You would force a woman to have a child, even if she could die in childbirth?
The problem with the anti-abortion crowd is that they have convinced themselves that a foetus has a life seperate from the woman who carries it. Wrong in every way. Perhaps, one day, when they invent the artificial womb, the foetus can be lovingly extracted, and grown in a machine. Then we can put all these children in loving ophanages and raise them to be good Catholics.
Rape is wrong because it is a violent act against an innocent person.
Abortion is wrong because it is a violent act against an innocent person.
The word foetus is just Latin for baby. Why are people so afraid of the truth? Why hide their acts behind Latin terms and euphemisms. And the life of the child is separate from the mother, but relies on the mother to continue living. Sometimes babies die in a miscarriage. The mother didn't die so their was a separate life that dies. A baby after it is born will not survive by itself. It still requires the parents to care for it.
If you truly cared so much about women dying then what about the ones that die every year in safe legal abortion clinics. Those that are forever sterilized by inept doctors. Those that die from breast cancer induced abortions. You would allow a mother to have an abortion even though she could die from it, so what is the difference.
Of course abortion is wrong in every circumstance. The reproach, "You would force a woman to have the child of her rapist?" makes about as much sense as "You would force a woman to go on feeding her abusive ex-husband's child?" (We'll leave aside that pregnancy very, very seldom results from a bona fide violent, unwilling rape.) The baby wasn't responsible for his father's crime, and in the West we don't punish people because their parents injured us. The abortion doesn't take away the rape, it's only a further violation.
Abortion is wrong in every circumstance? You don't really think that's true do you? You would force a woman to have the child of her rapist? You would force a woman to have a child, even if she could die in childbirth?
Deliberately killing an innocent baby is always wrong.
The child of rape is still a child of rape and is innocent of any crime him/herself. Why should the child be killed for the sins of the father. Additionally abortion also leaves traumatic scars both physically and mentally. Why folks believe that going through an abortion is a quick feel-good fix to a rape is beyond me. It's just more violation of the body!
Secondly, Catholic doctrine does not say that the mother must die to save the child. A mother may receive medical treatment (chemotherapy for example), even if she is pregnant.
"Never and in no case has the Church taught that the child's life must be preferred to that of the mother. It is a mistake to formulate the question with this alternative: either the child's life or the mother's. No; neither the mother's life nor the child's may be submitted to an act of direct suppression. For the one and the other the requirement can only be this: to save the life of both the mother and the child." --Pope Pius XII, Nov. 27, 1951