Abortion and Prudential Reasoning

Think the issue of abortion is black and white? ... think again. There is a much more nuanced conversation taking place within Catholic intellectual circles. 

An aborted dead child was placed on the alter as a political stunt to lobby for a favored presidential candidate on the eve of an election ... there is no other way to put it than that this is a sacrilege and a scandal. The problem is rooted in a lack of human decency. 

There are prudential considerations to be weighted in an election that can be discussed with respect. However, the Catholic faith can not be reduced to a political ideology, partisan political endorsement or horrifying political stunts. There is no justifying this lack of decency. This is the straw that broke the camel's back. We need to have a serious discussion about ethical leadership in the pro-life movement.

I am seamless garment pro life. The Catholic Worker Movement supports the right to life. I am personally not in favor of coercive and laissez faire political solutions that ignore the underlying spiritual and material causes of abortion. I am opposed to both the Republican and Democrat platforms on abortion. In this I do not speak for the Catholic Worker Movement nor for the Catholic Church. I network across the country with and support Catholic pre-natal clinics, hospitals and adoption agencies. I responsibly dissent to Pope Paul VI's prohibition of nonabortificant contraceptives while affirming the sanctity of marriage and civil union for all regardless of wealth or sexual orientation. And, over the years we have welcomed into our CW community many homeless single expectant mothers who chose life.

You can not separate the intrinsic evil of abortion from the intrinsic evil of greed. And in the face of intractable greed, sometimes all you can do is compromise with evil to prevent a greater evil. This is called the principle of cooperation with evil and there are some rules. But in the final analysis, prudential reasoning does not circumvent what is intrinsically evil. It is here that Pope Francis has joined his predecessors in insisting that opposition to abortion must be understood in the context of commitments to other life issues. Tellingly, the Pope characterized abortion as a product of a “widespread mentality of profit, the ‘throw-away culture,’ which has today enslaved the hearts and minds of so many.” We need new political eyes..

I am certain the ruckus over the Democratic party platform goal to repeal Hyde was nothing more than political theater. Hillary was playing to the pro-choice base ... which makes strategic political sense because 50 percent of Americans identify as pro-choice, compared to 44 percent of Americans who identify as pro-life. Tim Kaine supports the Hyde Amendment and signals that pro-life Democrats have not been pushed out of the party. However, the reality is: for sixty years the Hyde Amendment renewals have always been attached to budget bills with broad bi-partisan support. Trump's promise to make permanent the Hyde Amendment is a no-brainer.

On the transition website, the first two lines in a set of bullet points say that the Trump administration will protect health-care workers from being required to perform services that violate their religious or moral beliefs and that it will “protect innocent human life from conception to natural death.” Trump must keep up the GOP pretense that he protects life from the womb to the tomb.

Think stacking the Supreme Court will change anything? ... think again. In his 2013 book, "Abuse of Discretion: A Cautionary Tale About the Civic Consequences of Sweeping Court Decisions," Clarke Forsythe of Americans United for Life has said, "personhood’ proposals have the specific aim of challenging Roe, yet they are heading toward a brick wall.” I agree with his deep factually reasoned conclusion that overturning Roe v Wade is highly improbable given 40 years of affirmation in numerous court cases and hardened silos of public opinion and experience. Sending the decision back to the states would most probability reignite tragic consequences for the poor (that ensued during the period of criminalization) in 10 states and 40 states will change nothing in deference to established public opinion.

We have the real world experience of a Texas-style closing of womens health clinics for three years (until the Supreme Court overturned), only to watch in horror as the rate of abortions and the number of poor single mothers in rural areas increased across the State as a result.

Despite the Humanae Vitae Commission's almost unanimous advise that prohibition of nonabortificant contraceptives can not be reasonably justified by natural law, Pope Paul VI predicted (prophesied, really) at least three catastrophic consequences for failing to heed to the law of God written into our very nature concerning the evil that is contraception:

(1) Marital infidelity

(2) A general lowering of moral standards

(3) The danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law.

In the Netherlands, abortion is freely available on demand. Yet, the Netherlands boasts the lowest abortion rate in the world (about 6 abortions per 1,000 women) and the complications and death rate for abortions are minuscule, according to an extensive 2016 World Health Organization study. How do they do it? First of all, contraception is widely available and free -- it's covered by the national health insurance plan. Holland also carries out extensive public education on contraception, family planning and sexuality. An ethic of personal responsibility for one's sexual activity is strongly promoted. Of course, some people will say that teaching kids about sex and contraception will only encourage them to have lots of sex. But, Dutch teenagers tend to have less frequent sex, starting at an older age, than American teenagers, and the Dutch teenage pregnancy rate is 9 times lower than in the USA. So much for Humanae Vitae's contraceptive prediction ... reality is greater than ideology ... go figure.

Abolishing abortion is not politically feasible ... not a reality ... no matter who wins the Presidency. The public will not be reverting to shotgun marriages. Therefore, I could find no proportionate reason to vote for either candidate on this particular issue. 

The reality is: the rate of abortions have declined under only two U.S. presidents... Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary gets full credit for 1990s creation of federal funding for adoptions, Catholic pre-natal clinics and childcare. Trump wants to end contraceptive insurance coverage and Title X programs. Trump said earlier this year that there should be "some form of punishment" for women who get abortions if the procedure is outlawed.

Humility is a big word ... 

Given the Catholic Church's longstanding position against abortion, one would think the abortion rate would be far lower than the population as a whole -- and yet, if anything, it seems to be higher ... particularly among poor Hispanic Catholic women. This paradox puzzles Catholic leaders on both sides of the issue. 

There are approximately 1.21 million abortions in America each year. Nearly half (49%) of abortion patients in the United States are poor (living below the federal poverty level) and another 26% are very low income (living at 100–199% of the federal poverty level). 

In 2014, some 12% of abortion patients were teens, and only 4% were minors. The majority (60%) were in their 20s, and one-quarter were in their 30s. No ethnic group makes up a majority. The majority (59%) had at least one previous birth, and a majority (62%) reported some religious affiliation (70% are Christian, 27% are Catholic and 13% identified as evangelical Protestant). 

The reasons most frequently cited for abortion are that having a child would interfere with a woman’s education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents’ or partners’ desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

You may now be wondering about the claim that women regretted their decisions. The truth of the matter is that people who make such claims of intent have an agenda, so it’s likely they seek out women who regretted their decisions. Anecdote is not evidence. Correlation is not conclusion. In reality, this is far from the truth. A 2015 study published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), for instance, found that 99 percent of women who had an abortion “felt they made the right choice in terminating their pregnancies.” 

There has been a steady decline in abortions since 1980. In the United States, half of all pregnancies are unintended. In 2008, 40 percent of unplanned pregnancies ended in abortion, and in 2011, 42 percent did. But, the overall rate of unintended pregnancies dropped 18 percent between 2008 and 2011—its lowest in 30 years. The declines are strongly correlated with increasing use of long-acting reversible contraception (or LARCs) as IUDs or implants, which more than tripled between 2007 and 2012. Highly effective sperm blocking methods like LARCs and vasectomy do not cause abortion of an inseminated egg and do not require the NFP high degree of self discipline and higher risk of unintended pregnancy. Artificial methods of contraception and the natural periodic method both work for that same end and with the same intention.

The contraceptive mandate has made a difference in the rate of abortions and the number of unintended pregnancies. All non-exempt health insurance plans cover basic birth control and only two methods are abortificants. The rule is that each of the 18 FDA approved categories has to be covered by at least one drug or service, not that everything related to contraception must be covered. A 2015 Health Affairs study showed that out-of-pocket spending on contraception has decreased by nearly 50%, saving poor women an estimated $1.4 billion per year on birth control medication, since the requirement took effect.

Some “religious employers”, houses of worship, health sharing ministries, a few employers who got religious exemptions, non-profit hospitals, some institutions of higher education, etc don’t have to provide contraceptive services, including counseling. However, after a rule passed by the Obama administration in July of 2015 employees of religious employers are provided with free contraceptive coverage through a third party insurance company (whose costs are offset by prevention of unintended pregnancies). Houses of worship are exempt from this rule and health sharing ministries are unaffected by this rule as they are not employers.

Converging data on birth control use collected by the National Center for Health Statistics and PEW shows that generally, Catholics and Protestants use contraception at the same rates ... about 63% of the population (87% of Catholic families).

Reactions to Humanae Vitae (July 25, 1968) will predictably continue to vary among bishops, priests, theologians and lay people around the world as to the distinction between artificial and natural contraception. An overwhelming majority of Catholic families in the developed world have responsibly decide according to their conscience that artificial contraception in some circumstances is permissible and indeed necessary to preserve and foster the value and sacredness of marriage. I view the matter of the church's teaching on birth regulation as dominantly an authority problem. 

In commenting on Humanae Vitae, the late Bernard Lonergan, S.J., a renowned theologian, remarked: "The traditional views [on contraception] to my mind are based on Aristotelian biolo-gy and later stuff which is all wrong. They haven't got the facts straight."

Most theologians now argue that all forms of birth regulation--including natural family planning--contain negative elements. These could be psychological, medical, aesthetic, ecological. What they have denied is that introducing such elements in our conduct is always morally wrong. Attempts to establish this moral wrongfulness have been and still are viewed as unpersuasive. 

For the sake of some sense of balance in this conversation, I feel compelled to disclose that I believe life begins at the moment of conception. I believe in the virtue of chastity. I support a consistent ethic of life and gradualism in pastoral care. I also believe in the existence of systemic evil, religious freedom, conscience and mercy. I share Pope Francis' belief that the Church is a home for everyone, especially the sinners, and we are all sinners. Not everyone shares my ideals. I have to humbly accept reality and responsibility for my prudential judgement cast into the public square.

"I think in particular of all the women who have resorted to abortion. I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision. I know that it is an existential and moral ordeal. I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision. What has happened is profoundly unjust; yet only understanding the truth of it can enable one not to lose hope. The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented, especially when that person approaches the Sacrament of Confession with a sincere heart in order to obtain reconciliation with the Father." ~ Pope Francis 

It's important to note that for most of Catholic history, abortion was permitted up until the end of the first trimester. St. Augustine (354-430 CE) wrote that a human soul cannot live in an unformed body. Though debated among theologians throughout the centuries, this was the teaching of the Catholic Church until Pope Pius IX dropped the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus" in 1869. This relatively modern teaching does not have an explicit basis in the Gospel nor the protection of apostolic tradio. So, despite the fact that I believe the moral reasoning underlying the sanctity of human life is sound, it is not difficult to understand why the morality of abortion continues to be debated in the public square.

Then there is the issue of Planned Parenthood (PP).

For 97 years, PP has been in the business of helping poor women with sex education, access to contraceptives (75%), adoption referrals, tests for sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy tests and cancer screenings ... all together that is 90% of their service mix. They served 4,665,000 clients in 2015. 79% of their clients have incomes at or below 150% the poverty level. Less that 7% of their clients requested abortion services last year. In fact, with few exceptions, PP can not use federal dollars for abortions and receive Title X and Medicaid funds ... that's exactly what the Hyde Amendment does. 

Title X funds may not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning. Medicaid funding is restricted by the Hyde Amendment to only abortion cases involving rape, incest or endangerment to the life of the mother. Some states use their own funds under Medicaid to go beyond that. Seventeen states and, until recently, the District of Columbia pay for "medically necessary" abortions. 

Of 700 PP offices nationwide, only 68 affiliates in all 50 States do provide abortion services. These offices accounted for 27% of all abortions in 2014 ... 324,000 abortions ... about 7% of their 4,665,000 clients. The funding for these services come from private donors like the Bill & Milinda Gates Foundation, the Buffett Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Cullmans, and 7,000,000 smaller donors. Total revenue from abortion fees and billable staff time is fully disclosed in their IRS 990 tax return and corporate annual report. ... 3% of $1.3 billion revenue. 

With few exceptions, the Hyde Amendment prevents federal tax dollars from being spent on abortions ... and the Hyde Amendment has my support. But this is America ... voters do not get to tell private doners how to spend their charitable dollars. And all attempts to legislate behavior have historically been a dismal failure. Perhaps you are not old enough to remember the days off criminalization ... when women with means simply crossed state lines to obtain a legal abortion and as many as 5,000 poor women died each year from the complications of back alley abortions.

To be honest, as a Catholic I have wrestled with this one. It takes some prudential reasoning ... the principle of cooperation with evil. The following rules apply to such double-effect actions:

—a) The action of the cooperator must be in itself good or at least indifferent or else it will be illicit; 

—b) The cooperator must have an upright intention or his action will be illicit; 

—c) The good that is sought by the action of the cooperator must not be a consequence of the evil effect or the action will be illicit; 

—d) There must be a proportionately grave cause if the evil is to be permitted to occur through material cooperation.

In practice the basis for ascertaining the legitimacy of material cooperation in abortion reduces to the assessment of the proximity of the cooperator's action. Hence, I support the Hyde Amendment ... our tax dollars do not fund abortions. 

The gravity of abortion requires in all cases that the harm being avoided is grave and that it be impossible or very difficult to resolve the problem even afterwards. 

I believe the contraceptive mandate and PP bear much responsibility for the reduction in the rate of abortions and unplanned pregnancies and poor unwed mothers. There is a very defined cost-benefit to society. The cause of abortion is unintended pregnancy. 

Today it is estimated that every dollar spent on publicly funded family planning yields a savings of $7.09 in public expenditures. In 2013, publicly funded family-planning providers helped women prevent two million unintended pregnancies, one million of which would have resulted in unplanned births and 693,000 in abortions. In 2010 just over half of all births—68 percent of the 1.5 million unplanned births—in the United States were paid for by public insurance and State welfare programs. That year, the government expenditures on unintended pregnancies and the associated births, abortions, and miscarriages totaled $21.0 billion. 

That’s a far cry from the $2.37 billion America spent on publicly funded family planning in 2010 (75 percent in Medicaid expenditures, 10 percent in Title X, and the rest in state appropriations, state block grants, private donors and service fees). In 2013, those programs served 8.3 million women. 

It's not hard to understand why all 50 States and the District of Columbia provide 700 PP offices with 80% of their funding with strong bi-partisan support. And many poor states need that federal support for their Medicaid programs. 

It is also not hard to see that defunding Planned Parenthood would most probably increase the number of abortions and the number of poor unwed mothers ... and sadly, the paradoxical reality is no political will exists to fund a logarithmic increase in public welfare supports for poor unwed mothers.

There is a proportionately grave cause and remote proximity to evil due to the Hyde Amendment that permits me to support Planned Parenthood in good conscience. 

Much of the political spin in Washington has revolved around Republican party leadership attempts to scrap the Affordable Care Act, eliminate Title X 10% subsidy to States, drastically reduce public welfare transfer payments, block living wage proposals and circumvent immigration reforms. Their demonstrated intent is to slash and burn the federal budget (in particular, poverty reduction programs) to partially finance another trillion dollar tax transfer over ten years to the 1% and a $32 trillion dollar tax-free estate transfer over the next thirty years to their aristocratic progeny. Evasion of $19 trillion in estate and income taxes over thirty years will most probably contribute to lingering federal deficits, damage incentives to establish and fund charitable foundations, reduce the size of the life insurance industry, underfund public welfare programs (family planning, Medicaid and entitlements), increase the ranks of welfare-dependent unwed mothers and children locked in poverty and expand an abortion industry that disproportionately affects the poor. The devil is in the details. I believe that much of the party rank and file are good people duped by populist slogans, flimsy pretexts, dissimulation's, pseudoscience, publicity stunts and idealist fantasies ... hence, the unholy alliance of neoconservatives, libertarians, tea partyers and trumpsters with the pro-birth movement ... pro-birth is not pro-life.

I think possibly the best relevant example of prudential reasoning is how the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) handled the contraceptive mandate. The USCCB generally supports progressive healthcare, welfare, EIC, immigration, and living wage distributional reforms for the benefit of the poor. The bishops were wise in limiting their healthcare battle to a religious freedom conscientious objection to paying for abortions ... but that is as far as they took it ... no farther. The USCCB established the mens rea of cooperation with evil.

The USCCB did not seek to overturn healthcare reform or to cut funding for the poor or to legislate the family planning behavior of their employees. No Catholic hospital, university, parish or school has dropped its employee healthcare insurance plan, despite the fact that the plans offer and pay for contraceptives made available to their employees.

The USCCB questionably did spend several million dollars earmarked for charity to defend the principle of religious freedom. But, in a responsible application of prudential reasoning ...specifically, application of the principle of cooperation with evil ... the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops did not throw the baby out with the bath water when it became apparent they could not adjudicate or legislate their ideal insurance plan.

I highly recommend that you study Amoris Laetitia Chapter 8 - the best discussion of sin and conscious that I have ever seen come out of the Vatican. Twentieth century innovations in closed-loop reductionist neo-Thomistic reasoning have been throw out the door for lack of prudence.

AL both exceeds and defies expectations. Indeed, Francis signals as much when he warns that too much commentary on these issues reflects either “an immoderate desire for total change without sufficient reflection or grounding,” or “an attitude that would solve everything by applying general rules or deriving undue conclusions from particular theological considerations” [2]. The pope rejects both.

Throughout the text, the pope takes his own advice that the Church must (1) recognize the complexity of the contemporary family and (2) offer “truth and hope” [57]. Francis highlights this complexity from the beginning of the text, seeking to ensure that the Church’s understanding of that situation is “firmly grounded in reality” [6]. With this analysis of the family’s conditions, Francis can make clear that the causes of the family’s distress are diverse, and that no single response to them will prove a silver bullet.

AL 37. We have long thought that simply by stressing doctrinal, bioethical and moral issues, without encouraging openness to grace, we were providing sufficient support to families, strengthening the marriage bond and giving meaning to marital life. We find it difficult to present marriage more as a dynamic path to personal development and fulfilment than as a lifelong burden. We also find it hard to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.

The role of conscience is paramount in moral decision making. “Individual conscience needs to be better incorporated into the church’s practice in certain situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage” (303). That is, the traditional belief that individual conscience is the final arbiter of the moral life has been forgotten here. The church has been “called to form consciences, not to replace them” (37). Yes, it is true, the Pope says, that a conscience needs to be formed by church teaching. But conscience does more than to judge what does or does not agree with church teaching. Conscience can also recognize with “a certain moral security” what God is asking (303). Pastors, therefore, need to help people not simply follow rules, but to practice “discernment,” a word that implies prayerful decision making (304).

The church needs to understand families and individuals in all their complexity. The church needs to meet people where they are. So pastors are to “avoid judgements which do not take into account the complexity of various situations” (296). People should not be “pigeonholed or fit into overly rigid classifications leaving no room for personal and pastoral discernment” (298). In other words, one size does not fit all. People are encouraged to live by the Gospel, but should also be welcomed into a church that appreciates their particular struggles and treats them with mercy. “Thinking that everything is black and white” is to be avoided (305). And the church cannot apply moral laws as if they were “stones to throw at people’s lives” (305). Overall, he calls for an approach of understanding, compassion and accompaniment. You have to trust God.

Do you really want to continue digging that rabbit hole? 

For real ... what would you do differently in the public square to help one million women each year who experience an unplanned birth and the 693,000 who feel compelled to seek an abortion ... with preferential option for poor women ... 75% or 519,750 of the abortion population are poor women?

Abortion is a cash business ... only 12% of abortions are paid for by insurance with Hyde Amendment exceptions for rape, incest or endangerment to the life of the mother

There are low barriers to entry (if you are not poor) ... only $400 for an abortion.

Other than soothing consciences, the Hyde Amendment has no real impact upon the rate of abortions. Hyde merely shifts the cost burden to the poor and private foundations. 

There is no politically realistic probability of overturning Roe v. Wade and expecting positive outcomes in the states because 50 percent of Americans identify as pro-choice, compared to 44 percent of Americans who identify as pro-life. This is not a short-term aberration that can be influenced with propaganda ... these are hardened silos of public opinion (experience) and numerous court decisions that have become entrenched throughout the last forty years. 

Throwing stones at people or moral suasion has no positive effect.

There has been an 18% steady decline in abortions since 1980. The declines are strongly correlated with increasing use of long-acting reversible contraception (or LARCs) as IUDs or implants, which more than tripled between 2007 and 2012. Highly effective sperm blocking methods like LARCs and vasectomy do not cause abortion of an inseminated egg and do not require the NFP high degree of self discipline and higher risk of unintended pregnancy. Artificial methods of contraception and the natural periodic method may both work for that same end and with the same intention. 87% of Catholic families have in good conscience used contraceptives. 

In 2013, publicly funded family-planning providers helped women prevent two million unintended pregnancies, one million of which would have resulted in unplanned births and 693,000 in abortions.

In 2010 just over half of all births—and 68 percent of the 1.5 million unplanned births—in the United States were paid for by public insurance and State welfare programs. That year, the government expenditures on unintended pregnancies and the associated births, abortions, and miscarriages totaled $21.0 billion. 

Eliminating contraceptive coverage, Title X and Medicaid programs for the poor increases the rate of abortions and the number of poor unwed mothers in need of public welfare support.

The paradox is that even if you could ideally criminalize abortion in all 50 states without adverse consequences (an unrealistic if), there is absolutely no political will to more than double current $21 billion annual Medicaid spending on unintended pregnancies and the associated births and miscarriages. The projected Medicaid expense increase does not include annual added costs to public welfare systems for poor unwed mothers and their children who become locked into poverty. 693,000 annual abortions attenuated x 75% poor = 519,750 additional new welfare recipients each year at an average cost of $60,000 per family. Do the math.

In FY 2016 total US government spending on welfare — federal, state, and local — is “guesstimated” to be $1,084 trillion, including $610 billion for Medicaid, and $474 billion in other welfare. Roughly half of this welfare assistance, or $462 billion went to families with children, most of which are headed by single parents. Total US government spending on welfare was 6% of the $17.9 trillion GNP (2016) and 29% of the total Federal expenditure budget of $3.684 trillion.

The Republican party leadership has demonstrated intent to cut public health and welfare programs without responsible consideration of probable consequences and desires to help the 1% evade an additional $19 trillion in estate and income taxes over the next thirty years. Given this reality, without some oppositional incentive to compromise, an unrestrained Republican Presidency, Congress and Supreme Court could do irreparable damage to human life. The tragedy of unintended consequences is that in hindsight they were usually preventable had care been exercised in analyzing the probable consequences of acts. You can not separate the intrinsic evil of abortion from the intrinsic evil of greed.

The battle to limit abortions will continue to be played out in the States ... but you can't legislate or dictate by judicial fiat peoples' fundamental beliefs and moral behavior. You can stay grounded in reality, you can help people, you can pray for people and you can have mercy.

The reality is: the rate of abortions have declined under only two U.S. presidents... Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary gets full credit for 1990s creation of federal funding for adoptions, Catholic pre-natal clinics and childcare. Trump wants to end contraceptive insurance coverage and Title X programs and shift massive wealth to the 1%. 

Do the math! Willful blindness to political realities can cause grave harm to others.

These are verified and statistically reliable facts and logical conclusions derived from those facts. The Catholic theological principle of cooperation with evil is not a specious disjointed irresponsible set of ideological opinions or unchecked emotions without grounding in fact and careful analysis of the probable consequence of acts.

Employment of the principle of cooperation with evil is not a concession to evil ... it does not mean that we set aside our moral ideals and not carry our convictions into the public square ... nor is it willful blindness to the reality of systemic evil. If the political choices that present themselves can not separate the intrinsic evil of abortion from the intrinsic evil of greed, then I must consider in good conscience the probable consequence of acts and make a moral compromise in the casting of my ballot that chooses to cooperate with evil to prevent a greater evil. These are my choices ... this is reality.

From Be Revolutionary: Some Thoughts from Pope Francis

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On Ideas and Realities

There also exists a constant tension between ideas and realities. Realities simply are, whereas ideas are worked out. There has to be continuous dialogue between the two, lest ideas become detached from realities. It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone, of images and rhetoric. So a third principle comes into play: realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom.

=============

Reality is greater than ideas (ideologies) in any discussion of pastoral care. The Gospel hermetic of mercy is our moral focal point for discernment. All economic decisions are moral decisions.

Evidence is required ... Catholicism is truthful ... this is indeed a matter of life or death.

I have moral problems with idealists who talk a good game and accomplish nothing or worse cause great harm. You can have absolute moral certitude that abortion is intrinsically evil (I do)! ... be morally right!! ... dead right!!! ... and cause more babies to die if your actions are not grounded in reality. 

Do you understand the probable consequences of your actions in the real world?

I share in the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin's seamless garment consistent ethic of life observation ... "pro-birth is not pro-life."

I am a Catholic Worker. The founder of our organization, Dorothy Day had had an abortion herself as a young woman. This fact was held in secret from most who knew her until after her death. Dorothy’s own position on abortion and birth control was held almost as privately and close to her heart as that. Dorothy's Archbishop attempted to coopt her into support for pro-life. She refused, indicating this is an issue that the Catholic Worker will not get involved. 

Dorothy never spoke, wrote or marched in favor of criminalizing abortion. This may be because while the draconian laws forbidding abortion that were in place in 1920 did force her into a back alley, they did not save the life of her unborn child. Moreover, she believed for years that she was made sterile by the crude and unsanitary procedure she suffered, so that she regarded the later birth of her daughter Tamar as a miracle. Laws against abortion offered her no protection but only added more pain, destruction and degradation to a most wretched experience in her life.

The solution Day offered was not the passing of restrictive laws but the reformation of the church. “Up and down and on both sides of the Hudson River religious orders own thousands of acres of land,” she lamented, “cultivated, landscaped, but not growing food for the hungry or founding villages for the families or schools for the children.” She well understood, she said, the biblical phrase “in peace is my bitterness most bitter.” Day confessed to Dan Berrigan her inner struggle to “reconcile this with Jesus' new commandment of non-resistance, of loving others, forgiving others seventy times seven — forgiving and loving.” The ones Day prayed for the strength to forgive were not the pro-abortionists, but “the enemies of our own household,” the comfortable churchmen she described in the harshest terms, who dared stand in judgment of poor women and their families.