The Spectrum of Catholic Views on Choice
From blustering bishops to Catholics for Choice, trying to pin down the "Catholic" stance on abortion will send you all over the map. In the latest, the Catholic Health Association, the major coalition of Catholic hospitals, is giving the green light to health reform that includes the last-minute Senate compromise on reproductive health. While America's conservative bishops remain stubborn, the association of hospitals -- you know, the people who actually treat and interact with the sick -- has determined that the need to get everyone decent health coverage ranks above being nit-picky over what's already anti-choice language.
Back in the day (May 2009), the bishops threw down eight requirements for winning their support for health care reform. Disregarding the whole "separation of church and state" thing that ought to make their opinion irrelevant, the bill has measured up to their litmus test -- including on reproductive health, where they insisted that the legislation "preserve the longstanding prohibition on federal funding for abortion" (re: Hyde Amendment). Yet even though an abysmal infringement on women's rights in the Senate version segregates private funding for abortion from public funding for all other health services, the bishops aren't giving it up unless the reconciled final bill retains the House's Stupak Amendment, which goes far past preservation and would likely result in women losing the abortion coverage they already have.
The New York Times explains that the Catholic Health Association, on the other hand, has chosen to follow "traditional principles of cooperation with evil" in service of the greater good. I'm hardly thrilled about throwing around the term evil, even if we're talking high-brow theology, but I'm all for cooperation.
If anti-choice forces' goal is to decrease the number of abortions, the best way would be to collaborate with pro-choice groups on accessible contraception and comprehensive sex ed. Yeah, yeah, I know: they're all rah-rah for abstinence and not so keen on condoms. But if their opposition to abortion truly stems from the desire to protect "innocent lives" from murder, the "sin" of using birth control or getting frisky before marriage should be a far lesser issue. As an atheist, under their rules I'm already headed to hellfire and damnation anyway.
Backing up a minute, when they dish out the "evil" rhetoric, we don't have to lie down and take it. Catholics for Choice considers protecting women's reproductive rights a moral stance founded on respecting women, stating that only 15% of American Catholics accept the hard-line anti-abortion position. Varied views on abortion are reflected in the Catholic history books: in the 5th and 13th centuries, respectively, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that a fetus doesn't receive life and a soul until at least forty days into pregnancy. Abortion was at times considered less sinful that illicit sexual intercourse -- certainly not deemed homicide. When it was so designated in 1588 (to be overturned by the next Pope), using contraception was included as homicide, a stance that most people today would find harder to swallow. Furthermore, the anti-abortion position has never been declared an infallible teaching.
Theology aside, Catholics for Choice calls attention to the slippery slope danger of Congress succumbing to religious meddling -- what will happen when family planning comes up, or stem cell research, after the bishops have sampled the sweet taste of victory?
Alex DiBranco
is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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