 |
| 
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 9/28/2003 8:55 AM (GMT -6) |   | Politics and the pro-life movement
http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archi...703/011703a.htm
From the National Catholic Reporter
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
John Cavanaugh O’Keefe -- a 52-year-old Harvard graduate, Vietnam War conscientious objector, and longtime pro-life activist -- fervently believes legalized abortion in the United States will end. But not in his lifetime.
“The pro-life movement is going nowhere,” says O’Keefe. “After 30 years of work, the movement is dead.”
O’Keefe is not alone. “It would be both untrue and overly dramatic to say that the pro-life movement has lost,” according to Teresa R. Wagner, former antiabortion lobbyist and editor of the forthcoming Back to the Drawing Board: The Future of the Pro-Life Movement. “But we are not winning. And the sooner we face it, the sooner we change it.”
O’Keefe and Wagner are realists. Thirty years and 40 million legal pregnancy terminations after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision on Jan. 22, 1973, abortion competes with laser eye surgery for the distinction of being the most common surgical procedure performed in the United States.
While legislative fights over high-profile abortion-related issues continue to grab headlines -- a proposed ban on “partial birth abortion” is the most recent example -- the effort to overturn Roe is as far from reality today as it has been at anytime since Justice Harry Blackmun penned the landmark decision.
The venues for debating Roe change over time. At the center of today’s storm are judicial nominees, whose appearances before the divided Senate Judiciary Committee are designed to ferret out their views on the decision. Even here, President Bush’s nominees wave the white flag. Asked at a recent hearing if Roe was “settled law,” meaning that it should not be overturned, Bush nominee Miguel Estrada agreed that it was.
Legal abortion in 2003, it seems, is as American as apple pie.
And yet.
American ambivalence over abortion is legendary -- and maddening to the lobbies that have grown up on each side of the debate. Americans “think abortion should be legal, but they think it should be regulated,” says Catholics for a Free Choice president Frances Kissling, “and they’re much more comfortable with it remaining legal if they feel it is being regulated. And that, of course, is an unsatisfactory position to those who are either deeply committed to the antiabortion cause or to the pro-choice cause.”
Where pro-life and pro-choice antagonists see black and white, most Americans view grey: willing to restrict and regulate the practice in some cases (late-term abortions and parental consent for minors who seek abortions, for example), but unwilling to require a woman to carry a “defective” child, or one created through the violence of rape or incest.
How do Americans view legal abortion? A necessary evil, say the public opinion polls, lying somewhere on a fuzzy continuum between birth control and infanticide. The nuance expressed by the public -- nearly half of Americans call themselves “pro-life” though most favor some version of the legal status quo -- is not shared by their elected leaders. With exceptions that prove the rule, modern Democrats are “pro-choice,” while Republicans -- especially those outside the Northeast -- are “pro-life.”
That wasn’t always the case.
The shifting politics of abortion
In the late 1960s and ’70s, before positions hardened and the lines were clear, elected Democrats favored abortion restrictions in roughly the same numbers as their Republican counterparts; Republican governors Ronald Reagan (his libertarian instincts winning out) and Nelson Rockefeller (population control was a family cause) signed the most liberal pre-Roe abortion laws in the country; Jesse Jackson compared abortion to slavery, while Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt was a “Democrat for Life.” Five of the seven justices joining in the Roe opinion were Republican appointees.
It was in this muddled environment that the U.S. Catholic church’s heaviest hitters visited Capitol Hill, just 14 months after Roe.
Seated before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments on that day in March 1974 were Philadelphia Cardinal John Krol, then-president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, and Cardinals John Cody (Chicago), Timothy Manning (Los Angeles) and Humberto Medeiros (Boston). It was time, the four argued, to nationalize a ban on abortion through a constitutional amendment that would “re-extend the protection of law to the unborn.”
Even by post-Sept. 11 standards, it was an era of turmoil. In short order, a president would resign, the United States would lose a war, and lengthy lines at filling stations would provide a visible symbol of a battered U.S. economy. But those were secondary concerns to the bishops, understandably perhaps, as the hierarchy of the U.S. Catholic church had provided over the previous decade the only significant institutional opposition to liberalized state abortion laws. The Roe decision only intensified that commitment.
The subcommittee’s consideration of a constitutional amendment banning abortion, said Krol, “is an encouraging sign of forward movement which, we hope, will soon lead to congressional enactment …” Continued Krol: “I emphasize the word ‘soon,’ for this issue has an urgency shared by few others now confronting the nation.”
By the bishops’ reckoning, the pre-Roe legal changes promoted by the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America amounted to nothing less than state-sanctioned killing on a potentially massive scale. It had to be stopped, and the political arena was the mechanism to halt the slaughter.
In 1971, the bishops organized the National Right to Life Committee as an arm of their Family Life office. Following the court’s decision, the committee would be spun-off into a separate organization, and today is the largest antiabortion organization in the country.
Pre-Roe America
“The rights that were upheld in Roe v. Wade are hanging by a very tenuous thread at best,” Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt wrote in a November 2002 fundraising appeal. The questionable presumption of that statement -- that Roe faces extinction in the near future -- is forgivable, perhaps, in the hyperbole inherent in direct mail money-raising appeals. But it also obscures Planned Parenthood’s history. In fact, the organization founded by Margaret Sanger as the American Birth Control League in 1923 has faced much tougher battles than it does today.
In 1955, when abortion was illegal in all but the rarest of cases, Planned Parenthood organized a conference on “Abortion in America.” That meeting spurred a movement that would knock down restrictive state abortion laws and in just 18 years provide a constitutional right to the procedure. It was a remarkable victory.
The time was right: Supporters of abortion liberalization were aided by the sexual revolution (the birth control pill was approved by the FDA for wide distribution in 1960), by the tragedy of the thalidomide and rubella babies of the era, and by growing antipathy toward powerful institutions, the Catholic church not least among them.
Access to legal abortion was promoted primarily as a woman’s health issue -- it would eliminate back alley abortionists whose procedures, the advocates said, killed thousands of women each year. Plus, there would be additional benefits, among them a reduction in the number of unwanted children (those most likely, the reasoning went, to suffer from abuse and neglect), improved population control (Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb, hit home with policymakers), and reduced social spending on the children of the poor.
In 1970, the National Organization for Women would make abortion rights a priority, formally linking the emerging feminist movement to the growing effort to repeal state abortion laws. By the end of that year, seven states -- including New York and California -- had overturned their bans and adopted laws based on a model promoted by Planned Parenthood and its allies in the legal and medical professions.
And then, in January 1973, the Supreme Court -- ruling in Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton -- found that the 14th amendment provides a fundamental right of privacy, that a decision to have an abortion should be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor.
The following day, the bishops’ pro-life committee issued a statement: “Every legal possibility must be explored to challenge the opinion of the United States Supreme Court decision that withdraws all legal safeguards for the right to life of the unborn child.”
Post-Roe politics
In November 1975 the full body of bishops approved a Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities, which called on each diocese to establish a pro-life office and supported political efforts to reverse the court’s opinion. It was a detailed strategy, one that called on the bishops to expend political capital and place abortion at the top of their social agenda, where it has been ever since.
Beginning in 1981, the mainstream right-to-life movement would place its hopes on an antiabortion president -- Ronald Reagan’s conversion to the pro-life position preceded his 1980 victory. Combined with the first Republican Senate in a generation, pro-lifers sensed that a constitutional amendment was within their grasp. The effort was bolstered by new recruits -- conservative evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants, the Christian right, had been energized by Reagan’s campaign and joined with Catholics in opposing legal abortion.
But pro-lifers split on tactics (should abortion policy be relegated to the states or should the fetus be declared a person?) and, in any case, didn’t have the votes to override the court.
While the mainstream movement pursued political objectives, others chose another course: nonviolent civil disobedience. The goal as they saw it: convert the public and its elected leaders through their witness, as Ghandi had done in India and Martin Luther King in the United States.
John O’Keefe -- who has worked for many pro-life groups, including the National Right to Life Committee, Human Life International and the American Life League -- was a proponent of “direct action.” Early on, he recalled, “It seemed obvious to me what you needed was a campaign of nonviolence.” A pamphlet he authored -- A Peaceful Presence -- described how pro-lifers could use the tools of nonviolence to change the status quo.
For more than a decade, O’Keefe and others would lead demonstrations and sit-ins at abortion clinics. Arrests were made and media attention garnered. Noticeably absent from this effort, however, were the mainstream pro-life movement and the U.S. bishops.
O’Keefe is bitter that the leaders of his church chose legislation and politics over civil disobedience. Their actions -- lobbying and political maneuvering -- fell short of their rhetoric, which welcomed unborn children as “members of the human family” worthy of the same legal protections as those who had passed through a birth canal.
“By the end of 1973,” O’Keefe said, “every American bishop should have been in jail, the cardinals first. The reason for the red [hat] is that you are a leader following the martyrs of the first centuries of the church. That means that when the lion is eating people, you go first.” Several bishops would take up the banner of nonviolent resistance and protest, New York auxiliary Austin Vaughan most prominently. But, in general, the bishops discouraged such activity -- doubtful of its impact and fearful of the consequences such organized illegal activity could bring upon the church.
On the political front, pro-choice Catholics such as New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro proved an embarrassment to the bishops. If they couldn’t control their own flock -- polls showed Catholics viewed abortion with the same ambivalence as their non-Catholic neighbors and that Catholic women had abortions at roughly the same rates as non-Catholic women -- how could they change national policy?
Meanwhile, having failed to secure the magic bullet of a constitutional amendment, the political effort focused on the next best thing: reshape the Supreme Court into an anti-Roe majority. Here, too, the effort fell short. In Casey v. Planned Parenthood, Reagan-Bush appointees Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor, and David Souter formed a critical block to preserve the essential findings of Roe.
Enter Bill Clinton. Abortion, said the 1992 candidate, should be “safe, legal and rare.”
With masterful precision, the poll-tested phrase conjured up consensus just as the most extreme elements of the right-to-life movement moved beyond peaceful demonstration to highly publicized violence against abortion clinics and doctors who performed the procedures. The stigma of violence -- eight abortion clinic staff were killed in the 1990s, and more than a dozen injured in bombings and shootings -- placed the pro-life movement on the permanent defensive.
Clinton would make protection of abortion rights a hallmark of his presidency, reinstituting U.S. funding of international family planning efforts (which included abortion services), appointing pro-Roe judges, and vetoing a ban on so-called “partial-birth abortion.”
Lessons learned
Thirty years later, what has the pro-life movement learned? Some of its leaders still seek the magic bullet: “We need to have a court that will look at the Constitution and examine it and recognize the incredible inadequacy of Roe v. Wade,” says National Right to Life Committee president Wanda Franz. Pro-choice and pro-life groups are gearing up for the next session of Congress, where legislation to ban partial-birth abortions will be considered, as will measures to promote parental notification and to provide distinct criminal penalties for harming the unborn child in an attack on a pregnant woman.
While acknowledging the need to push legislation -- if only to highlight the least publicly palatable aspects of legal abortion -- the pro-life movement has settled in for the long haul. There is a concerted effort among some pro-lifers to return to the 19th-century solution, where states banned abortion largely on the basis of the harm it did to women.
In a memo circulated among pro-life forces, Concerned Women for America Legislative Director Michael Schwartz spelled out the concept:
“The reason [the public is] … not in favor of eliminating legalized abortion is that they also believe abortion somehow is necessary for the well-being of the mothers of those babies. We must break through this mother-versus-baby framing of the issue by bringing to public consciousness in every conceivable way the fact that abortion hurts women.”
The memo continues: “Once the public is disabused of the notion that abortion is good for women, it will no longer face a conflict between two compelling claims. When the well-being of mothers and their babies is balanced only against the well-being of abortionists, then public opinion will be solidly behind our position. Litigation, research and even the legislative battles we choose should all be designed to show how abortion hurts women.”
That approach is highlighted most recently in an advertising campaign timed to coincide with Roe’s 30th anniversary. “Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women,” say the ads, sponsored by the U.S. bishops and the Knights of Columbus. “Women deserve better than abortion.”
A recent daylong conference at Georgetown University hammered at the theme. Speakers at the event highlighted the ills they claim befall women who undergo an abortion: higher rates of breast cancer, increased risk of depression and suicide, and death by botched procedures among them.
Other tactics underway include promoting, both as a public relations tool and as a means to reduce the number of abortions, the work of the nation’s 3,000 pro-life pregnancy centers. In addition, pro-life forces want to reduce access to abortion by stigmatizing the relatively few doctors who perform the operations, and by burdening abortion clinics with costly regulation.
In their statement commemorating Roe’s 30th anniversary, the U.S. bishops call for Roe’s demise. Yet they also see progress: The number of abortions is down from a high of 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.3 million in 2000, an increasing number of Americans view themselves as “pro-life,” and advances in ultrasound technology make fetal life visible. These, and other trends, are hopeful signs, the bishops said, as “we work to bring about a society that recognizes abortion for what it truly is.”
That approach is a far cry from the day when pro-life forces thought their goals were within their grasp. It’s a new era, which has an eye to the law, but is more concerned with changing public perceptions.
“So much for ordinary politics,” writes one-time abortion provider turned pro-lifer Bernard Nathanson. “An America capable of passing a pro-life amendment would not need one; an America that needs one cannot possibly pass it.”
| | Back to Top | | |
 |
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/5/2003 12:54 PM (GMT -6) | | House Passes First-Ever Federal Ban on Safe Abortion Procedures
House Passes First-Ever Federal Ban on Safe Abortion Procedures; ACLU Promises Lawsuit to Protect Women and Doctors
http://www.aclu.org/ReproductiveRig...?ID=13902&c=148
October 2, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media@dcaclu.org
WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union decried the House’s final passage today of the so-called "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003," a dangerous and deceptive measure that sacrifices women’s health in pursuit of an extreme anti-choice agenda. The ACLU said it plans an immediate legal challenge to the ban to protect women and doctors.
"The passage of this bill represents the legislative process at its worst," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington National Office. "Anti-choice lawmakers have used inaccurate and inflammatory rhetoric to hide the fact that this ban will prohibit proven and safe abortion procedures used throughout the second trimester of pregnancy, well before fetal viability."
The ACLU will file a lawsuit challenging the ban on behalf of the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortion providers in the United States and Canada. NAF members care for more than half the women who choose abortion each year in the U.S. and work at clinics, doctor’s offices, and hospitals throughout the country, including premier teaching hospitals.
A congressional conference committee met earlier this week to resolve minor differences in House- and Senate-passed versions of the ban. The committee made insignificant changes to the bill. The House today passed the committee version 281 to 142, with 12 members not voting. The Senate is soon expected to take up the bill. President Bush has said he will sign the bill into law when it reaches his desk.
The ACLU said the ban in question is effectively no different from a Nebraska law invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court just three years ago. In that case, the Court struck down Nebraska’s ban because it was written so broadly that it criminalized a range of abortion procedures, including the procedure used to perform the overwhelming majority of abortions after the first trimester, and because it failed to include a health exception. The federal measure suffers from the same two fatal flaws, the ACLU added.
"Lawmakers should not be playing politics with women’s health," Murphy said. "The Supreme Court has already made clear that these bans endanger women’s health and violate their rights. It is reprehensible for lawmakers to flout this decision and pass laws that will harm women and their doctors."
Since 1995, in addition to Nebraska, 30 other states have tried to enact similar bans. In every state where the bans have been challenged, the courts have declared the laws unconstitutional and blocked enforcement.
The ACLU has successfully challenged so-called "partial-birth abortion" bans throughout the U.S., including bans in Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, notably winning the first case in the nation to invalidate a state ban.
dlw:If the Republicans are indeed trying to pass a bill that is bound to be deemed unconstitutional then, perhaps, there purpose is to inflame pro-life sentiments in the next election?
If I was trying to reduce the number of abortions, I think it would be important to make sure I could defend its constitutionality well.
However, I'm not sure about this health-clause. I know that Doe-V-Bolton basically made it so that health was vaguely defined and women wanting an abortion could use the health-reason as a loop-hole.
The lack of a health-exception could be the pro-lifers just sowing up a loophole.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/8/2003 11:11 AM (GMT -6) | | As I understand it, the current bill on PBA is very similar to a bill that was already ruled unconstitutional. As such, this bill has a higher risk of also being ruled unconstitutional.
I'm sure one could form a bill that would be less likely to be ruled unconstitutional, but I'm not sure that it is in the interest of the Republican Party to do so. If the law is overturned by the Sup Court then it will likely put pro-lifers into a frenzy and they will turn out to vote in the next election so that Dubya can appoint a supreme court justices that will make such a bill constitutional.
So, while I hate PBA, I think that one should change abortion law based on stage of pregnancy, not the type of abortion, and I fear that the current bill has been formed with a view, not to reduce the number of said abortions as quickly as possible, but to manipulate pro-lifers politically to continue to give their much-needed votes reliably to the economic-conservative-dominated republican party.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/22/2003 7:06 AM (GMT -6) | | October 21, 2003, 6:55pm EDT
PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN HEADS TO PRESIDENT'S DESK
The U.S. Senate voted 64-34 Tuesday to ban a late-term abortion procedure. If President Bush signs the bill into law as expected, it will be the first major federal regulation of abortion since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision 30 years ago.
Online NewsHour Special Report:
The U.S. Congress
Advocates of the bill call the banned procedure "partial birth abortion," and say it is a brutal and inhumane way to end the life of an unborn fetus.
Opponents of the legislation say it prohibits established medical procedures that should be legal in cases where a mother's life or health is threatened.
Three weeks ago the House passed the bill 281-142. Tuesday's vote approved a House-Senate conference committee's version of the bill, readying it for the White House. President Bush has voiced support for the legislation and observers say he is likely to sign it into law.
Former President Clinton twice vetoed similar bills because he said they lacked appropriate protection for mothers.
Opponents of the bill have said they will challenge it in court, and legal experts have said the debate could end up before the Supreme Court. In 2000, the high court struck down a Nebraska law that banned the procedure because the court said it was too vague, and did not specify the exact type of procedure it sought to ban.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), expressed confidence that the legislation will stand up to legal challenges.
"We believe that this bill is constitutionally sound and obviously very, very necessary in terms of who we are as a society," Santorum said.
Democrats, including Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, said they were confident courts would overturn the law. "This bill won't pass the constitutional test," Lautenberg said.
The bill sparked an emotional debate on the Senate floor. Opponents said that "partial birth abortion" is not a medical term and that the bill could be interpreted as a ban on different types of procedures.
Santorum argued that the term does apply to a specific procedure, which the bill defines, and that the term appears in Webster's Medical Dictionary.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said "partial birth abortion" is a "made-up term to inflame passions." Boxer further said Democrats were willing to ban "all late-term abortions" if Republicans had agreed to life and health protections for mothers. "They don't trust women," Boxer said. She also said the procedure targeted in the bill could save the life of a mother or prevent serious complications and injury, including paralysis.
Republicans, including Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), said the bill does include a clause that protects the life of a mother, and medical experts have concluded that the procedure is never necessary to protect a mother's health.
Democrats disputed those statements and cited other medical experts who said the procedure has been done to protect the mother's health and that decisions about the procedure should be left up to the mothers and doctors.
Much of the debate centered on the rights of women and the rights of the unborn.
"Partial birth abortion inflicts pain and suffering on an unborn child," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Sessions called the procedure "absolutely unnecessary," adding that "almost all partial birth abortion performed in America are elective." Sessions called the procedure "infanticide."
Lautenberg called the law "an attempt to regulate people's behavior." He said a woman should have "the right to make a decision about her health in concert with her doctor." Lautenberg called the Senate a "male-igarchy" and a "big boy's club" and asked his opponents why no female senators had come to the floor in the morning session to defend the bill.
"A woman's right to choose is in greater danger now than it has been since the Supreme Court decided Roe versus Wade 30 years ago," Lautenberg said. He further said the bill's "sponsors have repeatedly resisted attempts to provide a health exception."
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said the bill would protect the rights of the unborn. "Is it a person or is it property?" asked Brownback, referring to a fetus and relating the abortion controversy to slavery. "We are on the same debate," he said. "If it is property it can be disposed of as the owner sees fit. If it is a person it has rights."
Senators from both sides of the aisle cited public polls supporting their position.
-- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/22/2003 1:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Day After Abortion Vote, Some Senators Show Anguish
October 22, 2003
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 - One day after the Senate
overwhelmingly approved the first federal ban on a specific
abortion procedure, some lawmakers were still coming to
terms with their own feelings after eight years of
emotional and divisive debate.
The 64-to-34 vote, characterized by both sides as a
historic turning point in a controversy that has split
Americans for decades, clears the way for President Bush's
signature.
And it was clear today that some senators who had voted for
the legislation did so only after considerable anguish.
"I'm 99 percent pro-choice," said Senator Blanche Lincoln,
Democrat of Arkansas. Nonetheless, she said, on Tuesday she
had to vote with the other 1 percent.
"I voted to ban something that, in people's perception, is
very horrific," Senator Lincoln said. But in the same
breath, she made clear she was not entirely comfortable
with the bill, saying the ban had "unfortunately been
misrepresented by its hard-core proponents."
Other senators were making similar comments today. Taken
together, they were a reminder once again that abortion is
a deeply personal as well as political issue.
One lawmaker who expressed no ambivalence was Senator Bill
Frist, Republican of Tennessee, the majority leader. "The
legislation we just passed will save lives," Senator Frist,
who is a surgeon, said after the vote. "We have just
outlawed a procedure that is barbaric, that is brutal, that
is offensive to our moral sensibilities and it is out of
the mainstream of the ethical practice of medicine today."
Opponents of the bill, saying it is unconstitutional,
vowed to challenge it in court as soon as Mr. Bush signs
it. But the president, who is traveling in Asia, said he
looked forward to the signing ceremony and called the
measure "very important legislation that will end an
abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life
in America."
Two Democratic senators who are running for president, John
F. Kerry of Massachusetts and Joseph I. Lieberman of
Connecticut, voted against the bill. The other Democratic
senator running for president, John Edwards of North
Carolina, did not vote.
Legal experts question whether the measure, which prohibits
an "overt act" to "kill the partially delivered living
fetus," will hold up in court.
Three years ago, the Supreme Court rejected a similar law
in Nebraska, saying its language was so broad as to outlaw
more than one type of abortion and that it was
unconstitutional because it lacked an exception for the
health of the mother. Opponents make that same argument
about the federal bill.
"Congress has turned its back on America's women, their
right to privacy, the right to choose," said Senator Tom
Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. "America's women are now
second-class citizens."
Interjection:This is absurd. No one's right to choose/privacy is an absolute. They can still abort earlier in the pregnancy. How could they possibly view that as degradation of their citizenship?
Seventeen Democrats joined with 47 Republicans to give
final passage to the bill, which outlaws a procedure that
doctors call intact dilation and extraction but critics
call partial-birth abortion. The vote came after emotional
and often graphic debate.
At one point, Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, read
an account written by a nurse who had witnessed the
procedure and was horrified by it. At another, Senator Sam
Brownback, Republican of Kansas, showed a photograph of a
21-week-old fetus he said had been spared an abortion by
doctors who operated, in the womb, to correct a birth
defect.
"Is little Samuel's hand the hand of a person," he said,
pointing to the photograph, "or is it the hand of a piece
of property?" To which Senator Barbara Boxer, a California
Democrat who is the bill's chief opponent, replied: "I am
not a doctor, and I am not God. I trust other human beings
to make these decisions." Interjection: how are we as
human beings to make these decisions? At the individual or collective levels? Or some comination of the two?
Tuesday's action by the Senate ends the long and tortured
legislative history of the ban, which was passed by
Congress twice before, but vetoed both times by President
Bill Clinton. This year, with Republicans controlling both
houses of Congress and the White House, abortion opponents,
who began pressing for the ban in 1995, knew victory would
be assured.
The measure passed both the House and Senate earlier this
year, but got hung up because the Senate version included
language, opposed by the House, that reaffirmed lawmakers'
support for the Roe decision. The language was stripped
from the bill in conference, and the House gave final
passage to the measure on Oct. 2, 281 to 142.
But in the Senate, advocates of the right to abortion, led
by Ms. Boxer, insisted on one more day of debate before
final passage. They characterized the bill as an assault on
the right to privacy established by the Roe case, and an
intrusion into the ability of doctors and patients to make
their own medical choices.
"This is a bad package for the families of America," Ms.
Boxer said. "I know the handwriting is on the wall, and
that it will pass, but the issue is not going away."
Indeed, three groups say they will file suit to block the
law from taking effect. They are the Center for
Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group in New York that
brought the Nebraska case; the Planned Parenthood
Federation of America; and the National Abortion
Federation, which represents 400 centers that provide more
than half the 1.2 million abortions performed in this
country each year.
The American Civil Liberties Union will represent the
abortion federation in its suit.
The bill defines the procedure as one in which the person
performing the abortion "deliberately and intentionally
vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a
head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside
the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech
presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is
outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of
performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the
partially delivered living fetus."
Under the measure, anyone violating the ban would be
subject to two years in prison and unspecified fines.
"This bill puts doctors in the untenable position of
choosing the best and most appropriate care for their
patients or risk going to jail," INTERJECTION:Don't doctors have this responsibility already and face consequences if they don't do so? How is this untenable? said Vicki Saporta, the
abortion federation's president. Of the Senate vote, she
said, "It will be a very short-lived victory. The bill will
be enjoined and will not become law."
Legal experts tend to agree. David J. Garrow, a professor
of law at Emory University who is an expert in abortion
case law, said, "The absence of an all-encompassing health
exception means this is D.O.A." Interjection:Doe-V-Bolton rides again! I.e., a constitutional amendment is needed.
But the Congressional authors of the bill say they have
addressed the Supreme Court's concerns, by making the
language of the ban more specific, and by including
Congressional "findings of fact" that suggest the procedure
they are trying to outlaw is never medically necessary.
"If your concern is women's health, then you would be for
banning this procedure," Senator Rick Santorum, the
Pennsylvania Republican and lead Senate sponsor of the
measure, said in Senate debate today.
Mr. Garrow said courts were likely to disregard such
Congressional pronouncements.
But proponents of the ban say the legal climate may change,
particularly if Mr. Bush wins re-election. They are hopeful
that, by the time the case reaches the Supreme Court, Mr.
Bush will have had an opportunity to appoint new justices,
and the slim 5-to-4 majority that rejected the Nebraska law
will no longer hold together. Interjection:We must find a way to resolve these disputes without having this issue predominate in the upcoming election. We have too many other issues to deal with.
"It would only require the change in one mind, or the
change in one justice, so that those on the other side who
make confident predictions aren't as confident," said
Douglas Johnson, a spokesman for the National Right to Life
Committee, which has spent years fighting for the ban.
Of the Nebraska case, Mr. Johnson said, "Congress is now
inviting the Supreme Court to re-examine that extreme and
inhumane decision."
The Senate's votes, and Mr. Bush's signing of the bill,
will undoubtedly have political ramifications for the 2004
presidential race. Already, the National Abortion Rights
Action League, an advocacy group, is planning television
advertisements criticizing the Bush administration as
interfering with the right to privacy.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is planning a major rally for
next April.
"This is not unexpected," Gloria Feldt, the organization's
president, said in a telephone interview, referring to the
Senate vote, "but it's also a good time to recognize what a
historic day this is. This is the first time that the White
House and both houses of Congress have been aligned in
lockstep and ready to take away reproductive choice."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/politics/22CND-ABOR.html?ex=1067866617&ei=1&en=9a66a5265b03e82a
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/26/2003 9:27 AM (GMT -6) | | So how much is your legal value?
I like how the article puts some of the issues. Undeniably, there is some conflict between women and their fetuses. It is wishful thinking to think that ignoring the problem will make it go away and so the central issue of the legal redefinition of when human life begins is obscured.
dlw
At 08:40 a.m. 26/10/2003 -0500, you wrote:
Tod:lots of good NYT articles on abortion. this writer advocates a policy that would spell death for the pro-choicers in my opinion
>
>What's The Value of a Fetus?
>
>October 26, 2003
> By WILLIAM SALETAN
>WASHINGTON
>
>With the Senate's passage last week of the Partial-Birth
>Abortion Ban Act of 2003, supporters of abortion rights
>face an increasingly conspicuous problem. It's not simply
>that it is set to be the first federal law to criminalize a
>specific abortion procedure. It's that they still don't
>know how to articulate the value of unborn human life.
>
>During the debate, anti-abortion senators brandished
>pictures of second-trimester fetuses and asked whether they
>were "persons" or "blobs of tissue." Senators who opposed
>the ban ducked the question, leaving the impression that
>they regarded the fetus as a blob. This is a failure of
>both moral vocabulary and political strategy.
>
>The danger of the bill is not merely that it is the first
>step in a new effort to ban abortions earlier and earlier
>in pregnancy. What's significant is that it is part of a
>larger plan to circumvent the right to abortion - a right
>protected by the Supreme Court and public opinion - and
>establish fetal personhood in other contexts. If supporters
>of abortion continue to treat the fetus as a blob in these
>other contexts, they'll subvert not only their opponents'
>principles but also their own.
>
>Recent legislation shows how opponents of abortion are
>pursuing their strategy - which they hope will lead to
>undermine the basic right to an abortion. The title of the
>bill, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, is no accident:
>abortion rights don't apply, they argue, because the fetus
>is killed when it is mostly outside the woman's body. Last
>year, they made a similar argument for the Born Alive
>Infants Protection Act, which (redundantly) forbids the
>killing of a fully delivered baby. President Bush's
>restrictions on government-financed stem cell research go
>further, blocking the destruction of embryonic human life
>outside the womb.
>
>Within the womb, the new strategy focuses on defending the
>fetus's well-being only insofar as it coincides with the
>woman's choice. Last year, the administration classified
>fetuses as "children" eligible for subsidized medical care
>under the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The
>next abortion-related bill likely to reach Mr. Bush's desk
>is the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which would make the
>penalty for killing or injuring a fetus during a crime
>equal to the penalty for killing or injuring a person.
>
>That's not to say that opponents of abortion rights have
>been consistent in their claim of fetal personhood. Mr.
>Bush does not oppose abortion in cases of rape or incest,
>for example. And the administration has ruled that fetuses
>of noncitizens - but not children born abroad to
>noncitizens - are eligible for the health insurance
>program. Why the discrepancy? "Unborn children do not have
>immigration status as `aliens' and thus are not precluded
>from receiving federal means-tested benefits," says the
>administration. In other words, fetuses can't be aliens,
>because they aren't people.
>
>Abortion-rights supporters, on the other hand, deny the
>unborn human any legal significance in its own right.
>Rather than include the fetus directly in the health
>insurance program, for example, they have proposed
>legislation to expand the program's eligibility guidelines
>to cover poor pregnant women. Their bill makes no reference
>to the gestating entity until it is born. Likewise, in lieu
>of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, they offer
>legislation to punish "crimes against women when the crimes
>cause an interruption in the normal course of their
>pregnancies." The bill never mentions the fetus.
>
>Why go to such lengths to ignore the developing human?
>Because, as one women's rights group puts it, "treating the
>fetus as a legal entity separate from the pregnant woman
>creates the potential for an adversarial relationship
>between the woman's health needs and those of her
>developing fetus." This is an objection not just to fetal
>personhood but to fetal distinctness.
>
>Treating the fetus as nothing may be the surest way to keep
>abortion legal. But it isn't necessary. In Roe v. Wade, the
>Supreme Court upheld the right to abortion while
>acknowledging the state's "important and legitimate
>interest in protecting the potentiality of human life." The
>court has struck down bans on abortion not because the
>fetus is nothing, but because, before viability, its legal
>value does not exceed its mother's right to privacy.
>
>As the debate about unborn life continues to expand beyond
>abortion, this distinction becomes crucial. Many of the
>initiatives put forth by abortion opponents seek to
>address, albeit clumsily, issues that supporters of
>abortion rights also say they care about, like domestic
>violence and prenatal health care. If the developing human
>has legal value and is pitted against a principle less
>compelling than its mother's right to privacy - for
>example, a corporation's freedom to mass-produce and
>destroy embryos, or a welfare agency's authority to
>discourage poor women from completing pregnancies - courts
>may protect the developing human. But if it's nothing, they
>won't.
>
>There's a simple solution to this dilemma: by applying the
>language of Roe, supporters of abortion rights can
>acknowledge the fetus has legal value but is not a person.
>The state has an important and legitimate interest in
>protecting the potentiality of human life, not just against
>post-viability abortions, but against abusive boyfriends,
>morally indifferent biotechnology companies and treatable
>diseases in women who can't afford health insurance.
>
>Protecting this interest requires admitting that unborn
>human life has value. By denying that value, supporters of
>abortion rights effectively deny an unborn human legal
>protection from any threat, in any context. Is that really
>what they want?
>
>William Saletan, chief political correspondent for Slate,
>is author of "Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the
>Abortion War."
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/opinion/26SALE.html?ex=1068175635&ei=1&en=6fd969f5b69a33fd
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/31/2003 12:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Abortion Rights Groups Sue to Block Restrictions
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: October 31, 2003
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — With President Bush soon expected to sign the first federal law prohibiting a specific abortion procedure, opponents of the measure filed suit in three federal courts today seeking to overturn the ban on the grounds that it is overly broad and unconstitutional.
The lawsuits, filed by three groups in courts in New York, Nebraska and San Francisco, amount to an unusual pre-emptive strike against President Bush, who is not expected to sign the measure until Wednesday. It is rare for a legal challenge to occur before a bill becomes law.
"We have to take every step we can to intervene before this dangerous bill becomes a law," said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which filed the California suit. "We may have only hours to spare when he actually signs it, and we just can't take the risk that our doctors and patients can be uncovered."
The bill criminalizes a procedure that doctors call intact dilation and extraction and critics call partial-birth abortion. Opponents contend the measure bans more than one type of abortion, and argue that it is unconstitutional because it lacks an exception for the woman's health. The Supreme Court struck down a similar ban, passed in Nebraska, three years ago.
"The ban before us today suffers from the same fatal constitutional flaws, threatens women's health and lives, and is a direct challenge to the authority of the Supreme Court," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is suing on behalf of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a Nebraska abortion specialist who was the lead plaintiff in the earlier case.
The three groups, which also include the National Abortion Federation, an organization representing abortion providers, initially said they would challenge the measure in court as Mr. Bush signed the bill. The measure was passed by Congress last week and sent to the president on Tuesday.
But the White House was extremely closed-mouthed about a date for the signing ceremony, fueling speculation among opponents that Mr. Bush would rush to sign it over the weekend, before they could go to court. Only after the court papers were filed on Friday did the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, announce that Mr. Bush would sign the bill on Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/31/politics/31CND-ABORT.html
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 11/29/2003 7:43 AM (GMT -6) | | It seems very fallacious for the RCChurch to mandate the political techniques used by Catholic politicians. It may be one thing to censure in some way catholic politicians that do not personally acknowledge the tragic nature of abortion and are unwilling to spend any of their political capital on changing the status-quo, but the RCChurch, and any other church, has always been fallible in its political judgment and so such should not be mandated as doctrine.
dlw
THE NATION
Church May Penalize Politicians
Bishops are exploring requiring officeholders who are Catholic to back official doctrine.
By William Lobdell and Teresa Watanabe, Times Staff Writers
The three Catholics in the Democratic presidential primary quickly fired off statements supporting the Massachusetts high court ruling last week that same-sex couples have the right to marry.
Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark made the announcements despite two Vatican directives this year to Roman Catholic officeholders to never promote laws that endorse gay marriage.
Politicians' practices — known as "cafeteria Catholicism" — led U.S. bishops this month to begin exploring possible penalties for officeholders who ignore church doctrine. It would be the first time the U.S. church threatened to discipline individual politicians.
"This is a miracle," said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, a Catholic-influenced antiabortion group based in Virginia. "It takes seriously the problem of pro-choice Catholic politicians."
Punishments could range from bans on speaking appearances at Catholic institutions to excommunication.
Politicians under fire from orthodox factions of the church include Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Republican Gov. George E. Pataki of New York and some of California's most visible officeholders, including Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the House minority leader. All support abortion rights.
"I get tired of hearing Catholic politicians say, 'I am personally opposed to abortion,' or whatever, 'but I can't impose my moral standards on everybody else,' " said Bishop Joseph A. Galante of Dallas at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C., this month. "That's a weaseling-out."
But some clerics and laity wonder whether the bishops' desire to sanction certain politicians is politically or theologically sound.
"People worry about Catholic politicians scandalizing the community," said Father George O'Brien, who has served Communion to former Gov. Gray Davis many times. "I think a greater scandal is for the church to be arrogant in judging others."
Voters and many fellow Catholics haven't been bothered by the inconsistencies, electing to state and federal offices 412 politicians who identify themselves as Catholic and supportive of abortion rights, according to the American Life League.
Politicians, were they to remain faithful to key Catholic teachings, would have to oppose abortion, capital punishment, birth control, the war in Iraq and gay marriage.
A few of America's 195 dioceses, including Dallas and Philadelphia, bar abortion-rights politicians from speaking at Catholic churches and schools. In April, news leaked that Bishop Robert Carlson of Sioux Falls, S.D., had sent a letter asking the state's Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle to stop calling himself a Catholic.
But the bishops and the Vatican haven't agreed on a disciplinary policy, and no politicians are being denied Communion.
"The bishops and pope have decided not to excommunicate people on their views on abortion," said Frances Kissling, president of the Catholics for a Free Choice, an abortion-rights group. "If they started, they would have to excommunicate a lot of people they don't want to excommunicate."
Kissling said the bishops valued their relationships with the more liberal Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, such as Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Kennedy, who help advance the church's mission to help the poor.
Antiabortion advocates say there is another reason why bishops are afraid of angering liberal Catholics: money.
"They are afraid of alienating pro-choice Catholics and suffering the consequences of that alienation, including loss in donations and loss in federal funding dependent" on Catholic abortion-rights politicians in Congress, said Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis, a conservative Catholic magazine.
President Kennedy set the tone for Catholic politicians. As a presidential candidate in 1960, he told a group of Protestant ministers in Houston that his Catholic faith would be kept private and not interfere with his public policy.
Kerry used Kennedy's speech in his response to Pope John Paul II's efforts in January to get American politicians in line with church doctrine.
"As a Catholic, I have enormous respect for the words and teachings of the Vatican," Kerry said. "But as a public servant, I've never forgotten the lasting legacy of President Kennedy, who made clear that in accordance with the separation of church and state no elected official should be 'limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.' "
Kucinich said this month that he has tried to carry out his Catholic faith as best as he could and that he believed the prelates have too.
"I respect the bishops' right to do what they feel is appropriate," Kucinich said. "I'm not trying in any way to suggest that my role in public life is to make church doctrine."
Kucinich is a recent convert to the abortion-rights movement and says he remains personally opposed to abortion.
Clark, who supports abortion rights, was born Jewish, raised Protestant and converted to Catholicism as an adult. He attends a Presbyterian church, but hasn't given up Catholicism. Clark describes himself as "pro-choice" and has said during the campaign that "homosexuality is not a sin."
Though the three candidates support the Massachusetts court decision, they give more nuanced statements about their individual views on gay marriages. Kucinich is for them. Kerry is against them, though he supports giving the same legal rights accorded married couples to homosexual partners. Clark believes in guaranteeing equal rights for gay couples but says legalized marriage should be a decision of each state.
Abortion-rights politicians in recent years have benefited from the breakup of what once was considered the Catholic voting bloc. Today, moral beliefs of U.S. Catholics closely match those held by all Americans.
According to a recent ABC News-Washington Post poll, 88% of Catholics believe that it is morally acceptable to use birth control, and 67% believe that it is acceptable to have premarital sex. In addition, 62% believe that invoking the death penalty was morally acceptable. Homosexual relations are morally acceptable for 48% of Catholics, and having the right to abortion was acceptable to 30% of those polled.
"Very few American Catholics strictly follow all of the Vatican's positions, and these persons are quite willing to excuse Catholic-identifying politicians for doing the same," said Mark J. Rozell, chairman of the political science department at Catholic University of America in Washington.
In California, controversy over Catholic politicians whose positions on abortion run counter to church teachings has repeatedly surfaced.
Last December, Msgr. Edward Kavanagh, pastor of St. Rose Church in Sacramento, barred Davis from visiting an orphanage he directs because of the governor's abortion policies.
The furor widened when Sacramento Bishop William K. Weigand in January called on Davis and other Catholics who support abortion rights to abstain from receiving Communion. Anyone "who thinks it is acceptable for a Catholic to be pro-abortion is in very great error, puts his or her soul at risk," Weigand said.
Davis responded by saying he is "a practicing Catholic and believes in the separation of church and state," a spokesman said.
Sean Walsh, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said the new governor also made a distinction between private religious beliefs and public policies. Walsh declined to state whether Schwarzenegger was personally opposed to abortion.
Kavanagh said that unless the governor publicly opposed abortion, he should be excommunicated.
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
|
DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 12/1/2003 1:20 PM (GMT -6) | | More Amy Sullivan from politicalaims...
http://politicalaims.com/
THERE IS ANOTHER WAY Regular readers know that I tend to get a little worked up over the issue of abortion. Friends of mine roll their eyes whenever the topic comes up, anticipating another round of "there she goes again..." But I think it's important to understand the context in which my views on abortion were formed. Before I do, however, I just want to remind people that if they write in calling me a "baby-killer" (you heard me, pro-lifers) or a "mommy-killer" (that goes double for you, pro-choicers), I will hit "delete" and probably block their email addresses for good measure. If I've learned anything from working on abortion policy, it's that people are too quick to start yelling and too slow to listen and consider.
The first time I ever heard the word "abortion" I was sitting in one of the front pews of my Baptist church for a special workshop on abortion that replaced our regularly scheduled Sunday school class for two weeks. We viewed photos of fetuses and listened to testimonies by church members who had protested outside clinics. At age ten, I was still pretty unclear on the details of sex and pregnancy, much less abortion. But I knew one thing -- if what I was being told was that abortion was a clear-cut matter between those who wanted to go around killing babies wily-nily and those who wanted to protect those babies, there had to be more to the story.
I had the exact same reaction when, on my first week working in the Senate for Tom Daschle, I opened up a letter to find a flyer describing something called "partial-birth" abortion and warning that it was a scourge threatening the lives of babies everywhere. After screwing up my nose and mouth into an "eww" face, I set the letter down and thought, Oh come on. I can't believe that doctors everywhere are performing this procedure because it was the most violent, painful thing they could create. There has to be more to this story.
And, in fact, when I contacted them, pro-choice groups were more than happy to assure me that this so-called "partial-birth" procedure was performed less than one hundred times each year and only in the most tragic and rare of circumstances. They faxed me heartwrenching stories of women who had undergone the procedure after their babies' severe abnormalities threatened both of their lives.
As we know now, that claim is not true. But neither is the pro-life assertion that women and doctors can't be trusted to determine when or how to perform abortions.
I spent most of my time in the Senate cooperating on the development of an alternative way to address the problem of abortion. The measure we created would have banned all late-term abortions, regardless of the procedure used, with an exception to protect serious threats to the health of the mother. Activists on both sides go into conniptions about the details of that health exception, but the American people don't really care. When asked, they support exceptions to protect "the health of the mother"; not limiting it to "physical health," not expanding it to "emotional and mental health." They want to protect women's health. Period.
But our alternative wasn't put to a popular vote -- it was considered in the Senate. And it lost after being torpedoed by critics from the left and the right. The story of what we tried to accomplish, and how we were the defeated, is the subject of my latest article in the Washington Monthly. There is another way.
-- Amy Sullivan 5:53 PM
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 12:05 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|