The Pro-Choice Movement's Intellectual Lineage

I have to hand it to Gabrielle Bernard. Her "Homegrown Religious Fanaticism" [June 7] may be the most anti-Catholic letter I have ever read in The Voice. Long-time readers of this paper will understand why I am impressed, as there has been stiff competition for that title. In just twelve paragraphs Ms. Bernard manages to regurgitate almost every anti-Catholic canard and misstatement of fact the pro-abortion left has ever thrown at us. So let's open up these chestnuts and see what she's got.

Ms. Bernard writes: "Mr. Vallely [a pro-life Catholic] doesn't seem to know that the Catholic Church has not always opposed abortion." Ms. Bernard doesn't seem to know that what she asserts about Catholic teaching is false. Yes, some in the Church in the Middle Ages speculated as to when the soul entered the fetus, but that did not cause the Church to change her opposition to abortion. The Church's teaching on this has been consistent throughout her history, beginning with the 1st century Didache, the most ancient non-biblical Christian writing: "… you shall not put a child to death by abortion nor kill it once it is born …"

As Ms. Bernard notes, new scientific discoveries caused theologians to "push the onset of life back to conception …" but she seems to offer this lesson in the history of Catholic theology as a criticism of Catholicism. I find this interesting since those who make this argument are often the same people who love to bring up the Galileo case. On Galileo the Church is criticized for opposing scientific progress while on abortion it is criticized for acknowledging scientific progress. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Of course this does not stop Ms. Bernard from suggesting that those who say life begins at conception exhibit religious hubris while her agnosticism on the question–and therefore her support for abortion–stems from scientific humility. But in the 29 years since Roe v. Wade new technology has made the humanity of the unborn child much more evident than it was in 1973. So, Ms. Bernard, who is it now who is allowing her beliefs to blind her to the reality revealed to us by science?

Ms. Bernard states: "Roe vs. Wade forbids abortions after the twenty-sixth week except to save the life of the mother or because of fatal fetal defect …" This is false. The abortion license in Roe v. Wade is interpreted through Doe v. Bolton, a case that was handed down the same day. The latter case says that a woman can get an abortion at any time throughout the pregnancy for "health" reasons, which the Supreme Court defined as including psychological health. So all a woman has to do is say the pregnancy causes her psychological distress and a late-term abortion is legally available to her.

Then there is Ms. Bernard's mental health center anecdote. Ms. Bernard claims that while working at the center in 1968 she saw a woman with a history of post-partum psychosis who had slashed her wrists and was wailing, "The Pope says I can't use birth control …" She writes: "At that publicly funded clinic we were forbidden to talk to patients about birth control. A local Catholic gynecologist had vowed to close us down if we did." If this story sounds a little too convenient for the point Ms. Bernard wants to make that's because it is. Laws against birth control were struck down by the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). That was three years before Ms. Bernard's story takes place. Given the number of false statements Ms. Bernard managed to squeeze into her letter, this anecdote should be viewed with skepticism.

Ms. Bernhard makes a reference to her previous "pro-abortion" (her word) letters. I commend her for casting aside the silly "pro-choice" euphemism and stating clearly what her real position is. But just when it seems like Ms. Bernhard may finally be having a rendezvous with reality she loses it again. She says she would like to counter pictures of aborted fetuses with pictures of abused children–of which there are over three million reported cases each year, according to a study she cites. But child abuse has gone up since Roe v. Wade, as the legalization of the ultimate act of child abuse naturally led to a culture of selfishness that has made the world more dangerous for children in general.

Ms. Bernhard tells us that "if there is to be an honest attempt to limit abortions, the Catholic Church must revisit Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical banning artificial birth control." But in that encyclical Paul VI made a number of dire predictions as to what would happen if the practice of contraception became widespread–an increase in adultery, divorce and the suffering of children; a lessening of morality in general and men's respect for women in particular–and they all came true. It is no coincidence that those parts of the world that reject the Church's teaching on contraception have the highest abortion rates. If you approach the sex act viewing the life that may be created as an enemy to avoid at all costs, then abortion is the next logical step.

Ms. Bernhard writes that "in countries ravaged by AIDS, the Church maintains it is a worse sin to use a condom than to spread the deadly disease to one's wife and children." [emphasis added] Would Ms. Bernhard be kind enough to cite the document where the Church teaches this? Because if she can't then she should apologize for what must be one of the most vicious falsehoods about Catholic teaching that I have ever seen in print.

Now, in my response to Ms. Bernhard I have chosen to concentrate on her larger themes and have therefore passed over many small items that she squeezed into her letter. (This seems to be a pattern among anti-Catholic writers: they attack in a stream-of-consciousness manner where they throw everything but the kitchen sink at you.) But I would like to end where Ms. Bernhard began–on "how long it took for Americans to accept Catholic candidates." Ms. Bernhard is referring to the prejudice Catholics faced when running for the White House: "In 1928, Al Smith, the first Catholic presidential candidate, had his campaign speeches lit by the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan targeted Jews, blacks, and Catholics."

When I first read the lines above I thought Ms. Bernhard was criticizing the Ku Klux Klan. Upon closer inspection I realize she was agreeing with them. Consider: to be a good Catholic is to assent (and no, not blindly–but that is another article) to the teaching of the Church on faith and morals. The Klan and other bigots understand this to mean that "a Catholic President would take orders from the Vatican" and they therefore oppose Catholic candidates for the White House. How does Ms. Bernhard respond to this? Does she point out to the Klan the part of the U.S. Constitution that expressly forbids a religious test for the office and then tell them they're bigots? No, instead Ms. Bernhard suggests that only a Catholic president who accepts her understanding of the separation of church and state (i.e., pro-abortion) would "represent all Americans," while a Catholic president who agrees with the Church on faith and morals would represent only the Catholics or the Vatican. For both Ms. Bernhard and the Klan, the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic.

This is not to say that a faithful Catholic should attempt to enshrine Catholic theology in civil law. If someone tried to pass a law to force everyone to believe in the Trinity or the Real Presence I would be the first in line to oppose it. But that abortion is the taking of a human life is not merely an article of faith held by Catholics. It is a fact of biology obvious to atheists like Nat Hentoff, Jews like Ben Stein, Protestants like James Dobson, even pro-choice feminists like Naomi Wolf. The logic of that fact compels pro-lifers to seek a day when every unborn child will be protected in law and welcomed in life. But the pro-abortion movement, building on the legacy of the Ku Klux Klan, would have us believe that this goal represents a Catholic threat to America. I thank Ms. Bernhard for reminding us, albeit inadvertently, of the pro-choice movement's intellectual lineage.