This Scares Me

I read a bone-chilling article this morning (nod of acknowledgement to Mike Flynn for posting the link). The terror began right at the headline: "So what if abortion ends life?" If you have the stomach for it, let me walk you through the main points. (Article quotations are in italics.)

In the first paragraph we read:

"I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice."

OK... what? I can't imagine what philosophical underpinnings could support this view. (She never does defend her position: lots of asserting, no supporting.) I suppose she's intentionally trying to be provocative. And if so, she's succeeded, but not surprisingly. Most morally reprehensible statements are provocative.

Next she presents us with her main principle:

"Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always."

The author merely asserts this principle without trying to prove or support it in any way, and makes the typical pro-abortion plea to "life is complicated." But let's address these "complicated" questions. How can any human being have any fewer basic, starting-point, natural rights than any other human being? What makes the mother of the unborn child "the boss" in such an absolute way? My boss doesn't have the right to kill me. Why should the mother's life and desires "automatically trump" the rights of her child? Is the child's status as "non-autonomous," presumably meaning "unable to decide or care for itself," the factor which renders it right-less? How is the child in utero any different from a one-year old (or even some 16-year olds) in that respect? Does the author think the mother's rights "trump" those of her children to the point of infanticide? I would be interested to see her explain herself--I know it's not the point of her article, but perhaps it should have been.

Well, we have to make choices, she says, and they're always difficult:

"But we make choices about life all the time in our country. We make them about men and women in other nations. We make them about prisoners in our penal system. We make them about patients with terminal illnesses and accident victims. We still have passionate debates about the justifications of our actions as a society, but we don’t have to do it while being bullied around by the vague idea that if you say we’re talking about human life, then the jig is up, rights-wise."

Here the author points out other instances in which society takes life, be it war, capital punishment, or (apparently) euthanasia, and argues that, since the conversation doesn't stop at "You can't take a human life" in these cases, it ought not stop there in the case of abortion. Which, of course, is a straw man argument, because the argument against abortion has other essential pieces to it. The major premise in the argument against abortion is not, "It is always morally wrong to take human life," but rather (as Blessed Pope John Paul II put it in Evangelium Vitae) "The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end." That's the argument, dear author, which applies to all of your above-mentioned cases, and applies differently. Address that. 

But she would rather not. Instead she'd rather continue to arbitrarily assert the rights of one person over another.

"And I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing."

How simple it is to sacrifice other people's lives for your own ends! Of course, if someone were, say, to want the author's job, or her car, or her wallet, and see hers as "a life worth sacrificing," the author would naturally object that this is unfair, immoral, unconscionable, etc. Would she find any comfort in her would-be murderer telling her, "Please, understand, I believe you are a human life... but for what I want, for what I feel is right for me and my circumstances, you must be sacrificed"? Would such a statement lead her to call this a morally acceptable act? I doubt it.

It used to be a commonly accepted principle, stated in one of our nation's founding documents, that "all men are created equal." The author of this article denies that. I hesitate to speculate at her motives, but I can't help but wonder what the direction of her thinking is: does her desire to legitimize abortion lead her to conclude that "all life is not equal," or does she first hold this maxim then conclude from there that it's morally acceptable to "sacrifice" children for the sake of their mother's desires?

There seems to be a trend in some sectors of public thought away from reasonable decision-making--there is a revolt against rationality. How else can you describe an argument that says, "Yeah, this is contradictory--so what? Whatcha gonna do about it? This how I feel, so this is what I'm gonna do." Ah, there it is! The appeal to feeling and desire as the governing factor in morality! "Life is just so complicated, who can know these things, so let's do what we feel like." They've fallen to David Hume's assertion that "Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions." We don't let our intellects guide our desires; we let our desires determine how we will rationalize our choices. But why bother rationalizing in the first place if reason doesn't decide the matter? Doesn't that just make it a charade? And if we let desire decide the day, then what actually ends up deciding the day is not desire itself, but the size and strength of the one desiring. Whoever can enforce their feelings gets their way. Might makes right. Nowhere is this more evident than in the statement that a mother, whose child is more dependent on her than any thing that depends on any other thing, can kill that child if she desires. Why? 'Cause she's got him right where she wants him.

This scares me. C.S. Lewis would call such thinking "the poison of subjectivism" which will "end our species and damn our souls." God forbid such thinking should become commonplace. But I fear it has.

A Plea to Pastors

Some recent news stories have reported an increase in the number of people going to confession since Pope Francis ascended to the Holy See. This is a wonderful thing to hear, and we ought all to pray that it continue. If the spiritual life is likened to the bodily life, then this sacrament is medicine for a sick soul, and all of us are suffering from one sort of spiritual illness or another. We all could use a little booster shot of God's grace now and then!

To extend the analogy, it would certainly help if the clinic were open more often. As much as we talk about the vital importance of this sacrament to the spiritual life, most parishes offer confessions very infrequently: most typically, for somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes right before the vigil Mass on Saturday afternoons. But life is busy, and Saturday afternoon seems a busier time than most: you might have to work, or coach a Little League team, or it may be the only time you can work on that home improvement project without the neighbors complaining. There are 10 thousand and eight reasons why any 60 minute block of time may be unavailable to you in a given week.

And in my experience, often the priest shows up 10 or 20 minutes late. Can you imagine a health clinic that only offered flu shots once a week for 45 minutes? Yes, most parishes also say you can make an appointment to have your confession heard. But have you ever tried actually doing this? Whatever time you suggest, odds are the pastor is in a meeting.

God bless our priests, they're often over-extended and over-worked, I know. My point here is not to blame them. My point is to say that if the Church is serious about its words on wanting the faithful to avail themselves of this sacrament more frequently, parishes should make this sacrament available more frequently. The Church teaches us that the Mass is the "source and summit of the Christian life," and it backs this up by offering four, five, six Masses during the weekend, giving people as much of a chance as possible to partake of the Supper of the Lamb. The Church also teaches that the sacrament of Penance is sorely needed for our spiritual health, and it backs this up by... 45 minutes a week? That doesn't add up.

The leadership of the Church knows this, I think. In his 2002 apostolic letter motu proprio Misericordia Dei, soon-to-be-St. John Paul II, as part of an effort to effect a "vigorous revitalization" of the sacrament, directed the bishops and priests of the Church to ensure that this sacrament be made more widely available to the faithful:

"Local Ordinaries, and parish priests and rectors of churches and shrines, should periodically verify that the greatest possible provision is in fact being made for the faithful to confess their sins. It is particularly recommended that in places of worship confessors be visibly present at the advertised times, that these times be adapted to the real circumstances of penitents, and that confessions be especially available before Masses, and even during Mass if there are other priests available, in order to meet the needs of the faithful."

Now, there are lots of reasons that the number of people partaking of this sacrament has been down in recent decades. The biggest, I'm sure, is the loss of the sense of sin, the dulling of our consciences, the defining-down of sinfulness to "I'm basically a good person... I mean, it's not like I kill people... often." This problem also needs to be addressed. But I'm convinced of the Field of Dreams Principle: "If you build it, they will come." If you offer confession more often, more people will participate. I know that priests are often extraordinarily busy, but would it be that much of a demand on your time to offer other half hour periods during the week, three or four days--heck, maybe every day? Look at it this way: if people come, fantastic, you've been a Good Shepherd and reconciled them to God; if people don't come, you can use the time as a daily period for spiritual reading, prayer, homily prep, etc. Work on your crossword puzzle if you want. But be there for us. You are doctors of grace and we need your ministrations.