TO STOP ABORTIONS, VOTE FOR JOE BIDEN OVER DONALD TRUMP

This Blog promised to give our views on the abortion issue. Because it is such an important issue, we decided to wait until closer to the election. Our readership has been growing and growing and we thought this issue deserves a larger audience.

We feel now is the time. Everyone on this Blog’s team is pro-life. We certainly admire and support those who take a broad view of pro-life. Our faith commands us to support life at all of its stages. But the bloggers here are firmly pro-life in the sense we strongly oppose abortion. Having carefully considered the issue, we have concluded that a JOE BIDEN administration would better protect unborn life than a TRUMP administration. Here is our reasoning:

The experience of nations across the globe show a strong co-relation of a robust safety net to low abortion rates. There is almost no co-relation of laws against abortion to the abortion rate. The Netherlands has one of the most permissive abortion laws in the world. It also has one of the lowest abortion rates of any nation outside the Muslim world. Brazil, the Philippines and Mexico have strict laws against abortion yet some of the highest abortion rates in the world. The Blogger Team here does support laws to restrict abortion. We disagree with Joe Biden on that issue (though we note Biden has voted for late term abortion restrictions). But we also reject the position that restrictive laws by themselves sufficiently protect the unborn. Those conservatives who oppose social initiatives while only advocating for restrictions are only half hearted in their opposition to abortion. They have compromised and negotiated down their anti-abortion principles. Here are the programs Biden supports that have proven to reduce abortion:

• The Affordable Care Act. The signature Obama-Biden legislation has resulted in ONE MILLION fewer abortions since enacted. Prior to ACA, the abortion rate had been declining by a steady 2% decrease each year starting with the Clinton administration and somewhat stalling during the Bush Administration. In each year since the implementation of ACA, the abortion rate has declined 3-6%, a remarkable improvement. The data goes up to the end of 2016. By 2017 the United States had an abortion rate of only 14.6 per 100,000 fertile women. On the eve of Roe v. Wade, it was 16.3. Thanks to ACA we now have an abortion rate LOWER than it was before the Roe decision. The data here is indisputable but it is open to discussion as what it is in Obamacare that leads to this sharp decline in abortion. Evidence suggests that women who have health insurance feel more secure with their future as are more likely to choose life. ACA also mandated coverage for the unborn in all insurance plans, something the Trump Administration is trying to eliminate. Prior to ACA almost all individual insurance plans included abortion coverage. ACA mandated that people buying insurance in the marketplace have the right to choose a pro-life plan and that states (which many have) could require all plans to exclude abortion coverage. ACA also greatly expanded access to birth control. The data only compares the abortion rate to ACA implementation. It can be expected that good maternal health care achieved through the reduction of the uninsured also reduces miscarriages, so here are additional unborn lives not counted in the abortion data.

• Paid Parental Leave. Laws that allow mothers to take paid time off after the birth of a newborn help women choose life. Biden supports paid parental leave. Trump made vague promises during his 2016 campaign but in four years has failed to follow through with a plan. Nancy Pelosi pushed through paid parental leave benefits for federal employees while Trump offered no assistance.

• Pregnant Worker Fairness Act. This was recently passed by the House of Representatives and supported by Joe Biden. Trump has not supported this important anti-abortion legislation nor asked McConnell to bring it to a Senate vote. This long-overdue bill would direct employers to provide reasonable accommodations for workers carrying an unborn child, much as they would for a worker with a disability – say, shifting them to an assignment with reduced heavy lifting during pregnancy, if available. A New York Times investigation of working conditions for women warehouse workers at New Breed Logistics (that’s right, the company founded by Postmaster General Frank DeJoy) and its successor firm, XPO found that multiple women there experienced miscarriages attributed to their work duties. In a particularly notorious incident, a pregnant warehouse worker who asked for light duty was told by a supervisor that she should get an abortion if she wanted to keep her job.

The above policies result in fewer women seeking abortions by significant numbers, likely greater numbers than a reversal of Roe would. Defense of the unborn must not only include threats from surgical abortions but abortions caused against the will of the mother, often politely called miscarriages. But when clear actions lead to the death of unborn life, it is morally an abortion regardless of what polite terms others prefer. We are speaking of the Trump rollback of EPA standards of dangerous chemicals in the workplace, agricultural fields and environment. Millions of unborn deaths will occur because of Trump rollbacks on the chemical Chlorpyrifos, Mercury, trichloroethylene (which causes fetal heart attacks), methane gas and other pollutants. These may cause health problems for adults but with fragile unborn life, it has been fatal for millions of unborn babies. Additionally, maternal health is a factor in a successful pregnancy. Programs for maternal nutrition face cuts in the Trump Administration but funding would be restored by Joe Biden. Biden supports abortion reducing initiatives such as prenatal care, postnatal care, and access to child care for working mothers.

The preceding speaks to positive program of Biden and the Democrats that could reduce the abortion rate down to the miniscule levels of Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Portugal. Now let’s look at the weak Trump record.

The Trump campaign appears to reprint a National Right to Life Committee flyer on his abortion stance. Since both groups use the same actions, let’s look at them:

• Defunded Planned Parenthood and issued the Mexico City Policy. Neither of these actions can be shown to have prevented a single abortion. Federal funds cannot be used to pay for elective abortions. The assertion by the Trump campaign is that monies are fungible. This is highly doubtful and the Administration has every right to review the proper spending of government grant money. As much as they want to claim this, certainly no Catholic has any obligation to believe that government grant money is fungible. That would be a matter of private judgment. In fact, many Catholics (including us) reject the claim by some secularists that aid to parochial schools is unconstitutional as it is fungible and could subsidize worship and evangelization. Catholics Charities and Catholic Relief Services receive millions in government funding and sign sworn statements that they are using the grants properly. Can the Church swear under oath that grant money is not fungible when she receives it but require Catholics to believe so when other organizations receive it? We also note that Trump carefully limited these proposals to only apply to social welfare programs, something Republicans show a hostility towards anyway. This is further evidence of a right wing deal between the RTL Establishment and anti-social welfare Republicans. The MCP was carefully written to apply only to overseas social welfare organizations. Had Trump not carefully written it but just applied it to all overseas aid, it would have cut off the largest recipient of US aid, the state of Israel, where abortions are paid for by the government.

• The second item the Trump campaign and NRTLC cite was Trump’s speech at the March for Life. Personally, we applaud his presence there, a first for an American President. But certainly this symbolic action does not bind any person, including Catholics, to vote for him. But in this, the right wing asserts that it is appropriate to consider intangibles. With that on the table, we believe Trump grossly fails the issue of protection of unborn life. His womanizing, general immorality, crudeness on issues of sexual morality all point to the behavior that promotes what St. John Paul II called a culture of death instead of a culture of life. Every Catholic and every voter has the right to make a judgment on the sincerity of a politician. From Trump's 1999 statement that he is "strongly pro-choice" to his womanizing lifestyle, Catholic voters might conclude in good conscience that he is not sincerely anti-abortion. Further, his comments that pregnancy is an “inconvenience” for employers and his comment "what are we going to do about it?" to his then girlfriend Marla Maples when she told him she was pregnant does not suggest a solid opponent of abortion.  We believe Donald Trump promotes an abortion culture.  

• As to the appointment of judges, some people may feel they received a "wink and nod" or have inside information. But few if any of Trump's judicial appointments have publicly said they would rule to repeal Roe. The GOP record on what were sold to the pro-life movement as anti Roe judges has not been good. Here again, each Catholic voter is free to decide for themselves how much value and trust to put in these nominations. It should be noted in the Presidential Debate, Trump suggested Roe was not in danger of being overturned.

Some readers, like this Blog Team, might believe that we should have both effective social programs and environmental health standards that protect unborn life AND legal restrictions on abortion. Given that neither of the two candidates hold both of those, such readers might ponder the question of which to give greater weight. We are convinced that the legal restrictions are less effective. Donald Trump himself stated that reversal of Roe would mean the question of abortion “would go back to the states,” to Lesley Stahl of CBS News during a conversation on “60 Minutes.” Ms. Stahl asked him what would become of women seeking abortions in states that banned the procedure. “They’ll perhaps have to go — they’ll have to go to another state,” the then president-elect replied. For one of our Blog Team, he only recently reached the conclusion legal restrictions have limited value. His mind was changed by Raymond Cardinal Burke, a churchman who speaks frequently on abortion. Cardinal Burke once wrote in a heartfelt way of his mother, whose doctor had indicated she could have an abortion when she was pregnant with the future Cardinal. Mrs. Burke of course chose life, explained her loving son. But what struck our Team Member is that he was born a few miles from where Cardinal Burke was born. Knowing that part of rural, conservative 1950s Wisconsin, populated by devout Catholics and Lutherans and at a time before Roe when abortion was illegal in Wisconsin, he found it an education to learn from Cardinal Burke himself that the laws at time didn't seem to stop the availability of abortion. 

This is our longest essay in the Blog. We might further develop it. But we believe our readers are due for the reasons why we think even being a single issue abortion voter, Joe Biden is the preferred candidate.

CATHOLICS FOR JOE BIDEN WELCOME PRO-LIFE EVANGELICALS FOR BIDEN

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Join Richard Mouw, President emeritus of Fuller Seminary, John Huffman, Board Chair emeritus, Christianity Today, Jerushah Duford, Billy Graham’s granddaughter, Ron Sider, President emeritus, Evangelicals for Social Action, Brenda Salter McNeil, Reconciler, Professor, Pastor, Richard Foster, author of CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE and others in signing this statement:

AS PRO-LIFE EVANGELICALS, WE DISAGREE WITH VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN AND THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM ON THE ISSUE OF ABORTION. BUT WE BELIEVE A BIBLICALLY SHAPED COMMITMENT TO THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE COMPELS US TO A CONSISTENT ETHIC OF LIFE THAT AFFIRMS THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE FROM BEGINNING TO END.

Many things that good political decisions could change destroy persons created in the image of God and violate the sanctity of human life. Poverty kills millions every year. So does lack of healthcare and smoking. Racism kills. Unless we quickly make major changes, devastating climate change will kill tens of millions. Poverty, lack of accessible health care services, smoking, racism and climate change are all pro-life issues. As the National Association of Evangelicals’ official public policy document (FOR THE HEALTH OF THE NATION) insists, “Faithful evangelical civic engagement and witness must champion a biblically balanced agenda.“  Therefore we oppose “one issue” political thinking because it lacks biblical balance.

Knowing that the most common reason women give for abortion is the financial difficulty of another child, we appreciate a number of Democratic proposals that would significantly alleviate that financial burden: accessible health services for all citizens, affordable childcare, a minimum wage that lifts workers out of poverty.

For these reasons, we believe that on balance, Joe Biden’s policies are more consistent with the biblically shaped ethic of life than those of Donald Trump. Therefore, even as we continue to urge different policies on abortion, we urge evangelicals to elect Joe Biden as president."

If you would like to add your name to this statement, go here: Prolifeevangelicalsforbiden.com

HOUSE PASSES PRO-LIFE BILL WITH ALL DEMOCRATS VOTING IN FAVOR

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to pass legislation protecting unborn life after the bill was brought up for a vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).  No Democrat voted against it while the Republican were divided between supporters and opponents of the unborn.

Joe Biden has announced his support for the legislation while Trump has not. 

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would require bosses to provide reasonable accommodations at work to pregnant women and their unborn children. The act is modeled on the 30-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires employers to work with disabled employees to find reasonable fixes at work so they can continue to do their jobs. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) sponsored the bill, along with Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee.

Republican Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) took to the floor to oppose the bill.  She said the bill didn’t protect employers’ religious rights, though didn’t explain exactly how.  Perhaps employers have the religious right to consider their employee's unborn child to be nothing of value. 

Pregnant women have been told by their bosses, sometimes directly and other times clear but indirectly, that if they want to keep their job, they should get an abortion.  None the less, scores of Republicans who claim to be anti-abortion voted against the bill.  Thoughtful Catholics have every right to question their anti-abortion sincerity.  

The accommodations pregnant women require at work are fairly simple: a stool for a cashier to sit on while working the register, light-lifting duty for warehouse workers, a water bottle for a retail worker on the shop floor or a different-sized uniform for a pregnant police officer. Sometimes pregnant women just need a few more bathroom breaks or time to go to the doctor.  Other times, they need to be kept away from exposure to workplace chemicals that could cause an involuntary abortion.  However, without such accommodations, unborn babies are at risk of harm or death.  

The Democrats showed that women get fired or sent on unpaid leave for being with child. That means they’re left without income just when they really need a paycheck. The consequences can be devastating: Democrats mentioned a woman who wound up homeless when she was in her third trimester and others forced to apply for food stamps.

“When companies refuse to accommodate for pregnancy-related needs it doesn’t just hurt the person being discriminated against it hurts the entire family,” said Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on the House floor Thursday.

Many women have little choice to keep working, putting their lives and their pregnancies at risk. A few years ago at a warehouse in Memphis, several women had miscarriages after they were denied lighter lifting duties.  

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden applauded the bill’s passage and urged the Senate to take it up. “While President Trump called pregnancy ‘an inconvenience’ for businesses, Vice President Biden believes that pregnant workers shouldn’t have to choose between their health and their work,” said Mariel Sáez, the women’s media director for the Biden campaign. “He strongly supports the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and included it in his agenda to build America back better for women. The bill’s protections for pregnant workers are commonsense and vital — especially in the face of this pandemic.”

The bill passed Thursday would also prohibit employers from firing women simply for asking for accommodations or not hiring a woman because she’s pregnant and might need some temporary fixes to work.

MONA CHAREN: Why This Pro-Life Conservative Is Voting for Biden

Since I announced publicly that I will be voting for Joe Biden in November, I’ve received a few communications from puzzled readers. “How can you, a supposedly pro-life woman, support someone who believes in killing babies?” Others say, “What do you not like about Trump’s record? The tax cuts? The record jobs numbers? The conservative judges?” One reader summed things up with “I used to like you.”

I understand. I feel the same way about many people myself.

I will try to respond for the sake of those who, like me, find themselves alienated from the Republican Party despite some policy agreements with the Trump administration.

Let’s start with abortion. I have been pro-life my entire adult life. I haven’t changed. I continue to find the practice abhorrent, and will persist in trying to persuade others. But I’ve noticed a tendency among pro-life conservatives to forgive absolutely everything else if a politician expresses the right views on abortion. This is a mirror image of the left, as we saw when Bill Clinton was accused of sexual misconduct. Many liberals were willing to overlook his gross behavior toward women in the name of preserving abortion rights. Call it “abortion washing.” Both sides do it.

Abortion washing shuts down moral reflection. Rather than do the work of analyzing how one good thing weighs in the balance against other considerations, abortion washing permits the brain to snap shut, the conscience to put its feet up.

My views on abortion can’t be severed from the rest of my worldview. I oppose abortion because it’s morally wrong. I understand that women are sometimes plunged into terrible life crises by unplanned pregnancies, which is why I do what I can to provide help for them. Crisis pregnancies can present agonizing choices, but I don’t think killing is an acceptable solution because life is sacred.

That doesn’t settle the matter of how to place abortion within the matrix of factors that go into voting. There are prudential considerations. While I would prefer to vote for someone who upholds the right to life, I’ve never believed that electing presidents who agree with me will lead to dramatic changes in abortion law, nor is the law itself the only way to discourage abortion. The number of abortions has been declining steadily since 1981. It dropped during Republican presidencies and during Democratic presidencies, and now stands below the rate in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided and when abortion was illegal in 44 states.

The Supreme Court, despite Republican appointments, has side-stepped many opportunities to reverse Roe. As David French noted, Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter were harsh critics of the decision, but chose, on the bench, to vote for continuity. So if the logic is to support presidents based on the kind of Supreme Court nominees they will choose, the chances that any particular appointment will have the effect of changing the law seem remote.

It has always been my hope to change people’s hearts, so that this cruel practice—like slavery, torture, and mutilation—can be put (mostly) behind us.

Being pro-life is part of an overall approach to ethical questions. It’s wrong to take innocent life. But other things are immoral too. It’s also wrong to swindle people, to degrade and demonize, to incite violence, to bully, and while we’re at it, to steal, to bear false witness, to commit adultery, and to covet. I don’t think Trump has committed murder, and he seems to have honored his parents (though perhaps in the wrong way). But as for the other eight of the 10 commandments, Donald Trump has flagrantly, even proudly violated them all, and encouraged his followers to regard his absence of conscience as strength.

Donald Trump is a daily, even hourly, assault on the very idea of morality, even as he obliterates truth. His influence is like sulphuric acid on our civic bonds. His cruelty is contagious. Remember how he mocked a handicapped reporter in 2016? His defenders either denied the obvious facts, or insisted that, while Trump himself might be “politically incorrect,” his supporters wouldn’t be influenced by that aspect of his character.

Alas, they are. Consider the incredibly moving moment during the Democratic National Convention when young Braydon Harrington, who struggles with stuttering, introduced Joe Biden. That night, an Atlantic editor with the same affliction tweeted “This is what stutterers face every day. I’m in awe of Braydon’s courage and resolve.” But Austin Ruse, author of The Catholic Case for Trump, tweeted his doubts that Biden ever stuttered, and replied to another comment with, “W-w-w-w-w-w-what?”

Casual cruelty has become the fashion for many Republicans. Trump acolytes have adopted the mob-boss style that Trump brought to the Oval Office. When former Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen was preparing to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Matt Gaetz, tweeted, “Hey @MichaelCohen212 — Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot.” (Gaetz was rebuked by the House Ethics Committee for this last week.)

Even U.S. senators and cabinet secretaries have aped Trump’s bullying tactics. During Trump’s impeachment trial, Senator Rand Paul (R., KY) repeatedly badgered Chief Justice John Roberts to reveal the name of the whistleblower—in violation of the spirit of whistleblower protection statutes, and despite knowing that it might endanger that person’s safety. When Roberts declined, Paul revealed the name himself on the Senate floor. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo permitted his aggression free reign when NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly asked a question he didn’t like, screaming profanity at her. Sen. Martha McSally, perhaps sensing that the new Republican chic is rudeness, wheeled on a CNN reporter and called him a “liberal hack” before you could say Trumpian. And Ted Cruz, self-styled “constitutional conservative,” has made a show of joining the social media group Parler, which hosts alt-right and other unsavory characters, the better to “own” Twitter.

It isn’t just a matter of style. At Donald Trump’s order, thousands of children, including hundreds under the age of four, were forcibly separated from their parents at the border. Pro-lifers are tender-hearted about the most vulnerable members of society. So images like this must stir something. Separating children from their parents is a barbaric act. In the crush of outrages over the past three and a half years, it has gotten swallowed up, but the horror of what was done in our name should never be forgotten.

All of this is familiar to Trump supporters, along with the “fine people” in Charlottesville, the mocking of reporters for wearing face masks, the Joe-Scarborough-is-a murderer intimations, the Lafayette Park tear gas, denying the legitimacy of elections, the bleach enemas, and on and on. They accept it. Some Trump supporters genuinely hate Trump’s imbecilic tweets and disordered personality. But they will vote for him because they believe that the left is far worse.

Gaetz, characteristically subtle, claimed at the RNC that Biden and Democrats will “disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS-13 to live next door. And the defunded police aren’t on their way.”

Writing in Commentary, Abe Greenwald proclaims that the violence following George Floyd’s death is the start of a revolution. Echoing the alarm of the Flight 93 election argument from 2016, he writes, “The battle for the survival of the United States of America is upon us.” Speaker after speaker at the Republican National Convention has sounded the same theme. The left is on the march. Violent mobs are coming for your suburban home. If you don’t vote for Trump, Antifa will control your town council, AOC will confiscate your guns, and Al Sharpton will dismantle the police.

Funny, but I could have sworn that the Democratic Party nominated Joe Biden last week, not Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or Bernie Sanders.

Look, there are extremists on the left, and the Democratic Party has a weakness for not wishing to call them out. Democrats do the truth and themselves no favors by attempting to gloss over the looting, arson, and vandalism that have persisted in Portland, Chicago, and other cities throughout the summer. And they insult the millions of peaceful protesters who expressed the conscience of the nation by failing to distinguish them from criminals who used the opportunity to pillage and destroy.

Some of the extremists are not on the streets, but on the editorial boards of leading newspapers, on university faculties, and in other positions of cultural influence.

But it’s dishonest, and frankly, a bit hysterical to attempt to hang every sin of the left around Joe Biden’s neck. He’s no radical, and the party that nominated him showed that its centrist core was stronger than its extremist wing.

Biden denounced violence in cities, saying:

The vast majority of the protests have been peaceful. Anyone who burns or pillages… should be arrested. They are a problem for society and they make a mockery of what the march is all about. They should be tried, arrested and put in jail.

As for calls to “defund the police,” Biden kept his balance.

Absolutely not. I do not support [defunding the police] and I never have. What I support is strong and serious reform of police departments which most serious police officers in the country support. And we should have transparency in what in fact occurs within police departments as it relates to accusations of brutality or violating peoples’ rights.

In the wake of renewed violence following yet another horrific police shooting, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Biden repeated this message, expressing deep sympathy for Jacob Blake and his family, outrage at what happened, and also condemnation of violence, saying “burning down communities is not protest, it’s needless violence . . . That’s wrong.” Biden struck exactly the right tone.

The argument that the left is worse doesn’t persuade me. Strange as it is to write those words after 30 plus years as a conservative columnist, I have to say that when you compare the state of the two major parties today, the Republicans are more frightening.

It is the Republican party that has officially become a personality cult, declaring that it will not adopt a platform but will simply follow whatever Trump dictates. It is the Republican party that pretends that COVID-19 will magically disappear. It is the Republican party that has elevated a series of criminals and grifters including Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roy Moore, Steve Bannon, Wayne LaPierre, Rudy Giuliani, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Roger Stone. It is the Republican party that shamefully declined to uphold the Constitution when Trump diverted funds to his border wall. It is the Republican party that has become truth-optional. And it is the Republican party that now opens its arms to adherents of a deranged but nonetheless dangerous new cult called QAnon, which a (defeated) Republican called “mental gonorrhea,” and which in December, 2016, inspired a man to open fire in a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C., as part of a “self investigation.” The FBI has designated QAnon a domestic terror threat, yet minority leader Kevin McCarthy has committed to providing committee assignments to Marjorie Taylor Greene, should she be elected in November

There is putrefaction where the Republican party’s essence should be, and appointing pro-life judges cannot mask the stench. So this conservative is voting for the Democrats. Will the GOP reform? I hope so. But my priority isn’t trying to heal the Republican party. It’s trying to heal the country.



Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a contributor to The Bulwark, and host of The Bulwark’s Beg to Differ podcast.

WHY THIS PRO-LIFE CONSERVATIVE IS VOTING FOR BIDEN

ANOTHER PRO-LIFE REPUBLICAN IS VOTING FOR BIDEN AND ASK YOU DO TOO

 

This is just one testimonial of a pro-life Republican who is switching and voting for Joe Biden.  This year, the pro-life vote is extremely divided.  We bring you the perspectives of those pro-lifers who have chosen Joe Biden.

Catholic Bishop John Stowe rebukes Trump as 'anti-life'

 

Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, publicly criticized President Donald Trump during a July 31 webinar.  This has been one of the strongest and most direct criticisms of Trump by an American Catholic bishop, though Pope Francis himself has taken Trump to task on occasion. 

Notable, the Bishop joined with a growing number of faithful Catholic voices not over matters such as immigration, capital punishment, care for Creation, labor rights and other issues where the Catholic Church has a clear position rejected by Trump.  The Bishop called Trump "anti-life."

In the webinar, the Bishop stated:  "For this president to call himself pro-life, and for anybody to back him because of claims of being pro-life, is almost willful ignorance. He is so much anti-life because he is only concerned about himself, and he gives us every, every, every indication of that," Stowe said.

The Bishop continued, "Pope Francis has given us a great definition of what pro-life means.  He basically tells us we can't claim to be pro-life if we support the separation of children from their parents at the U.S. border, if we support exposing people at the border to COVID-19 because of the facilities that they're in, if we support denying people who have need for adequate health care access to health care, if we keep people from getting the housing or the education that they need, we cannot call ourselves pro-life." 

But for Stowe, being truly pro-life must include efforts towards racial, social and environmental justice. "We have to be concerned for the unborn children, it's foundational for us," Stowe said. But, he added, "our understanding of pro-life has to be the vision that was described as the seamless garment vision." That vision gained traction after a 1983 speech by the late Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

Right wing elements have long rejected a broad vision of protecting human life.  Not only have they rejected offenses against human life because of race and economic injustice but have also disregarded offenses against unborn life when it does not fit with their partisan political agenda.  Spontaneous abortions caused by environmental pollution and industrial chemicals are unmentioned,.  Proven social programs that reduce abortion such as universal health care and paid parental leave are opposed.  And these Right-wing activists even oppose provisions of the Affordable Care Act that prohibited discrimination in health insurance against the unborn by requiring that the unborn be included in parent's heath care policies.  

BOSS TELL WORKER TO GET AN ABORTION OR LOSE HER JOB

As the Trump Administration tries to destroy every bit of worker protection and union rights, those who call themselves pro-life must grapple with the reality that women are sometimes pressured by their bosses to abort.  We will write later about the pro-life implications of paid parental leave laws, universal maternity care and other proven initiatives that reduce the numbers of abortions.  But for now, here is an article from the New York Times:  

Your Baby or Your Job?

TRUMP ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES AND ABORTION

Both the abortion rights lobby and the Right-to-Life establishment are quick to ignore a cause of abortions that does not fit their agendas.  We speak of abortion caused by environmental pollution.  Much of the media as well as the two entities mentioned  would use the nice euphemism "miscarriage."  Miscarriage is the natural death of a fetus.  Abortion is when it is caused by a human act.  Were we unknowing of the impact of environmental pollution on unborn life, in ignorance we could call it as miscarriage.  Now that we know for a fact that environmental degradation destroys unborn life, it is an abortion, albeit an abortion the National Right-to-Life Committee seems not to care about.  

We will address this is more detail later, but raise one example now.  Today's New York Times carries a story about pollution from gas flaring.  It reports that new research on gas flaring suggests that the practice poses a significant risk to the unborn.

The study was published this month the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.  It found that pregnant women who lived near areas where flaring is common had 50 percent greater odds of giving birth prematurely than those who did not. These births occurred before 37 weeks of gestation, when incomplete development raises a baby’s chance of numerous disorders, even death.

Joe Biden's record on climate change and care for Creation stands in sharp contrast to Donald Trump.  And Biden's positions are on the side of preventing these abortions undesired by the mother of the child yet suffered by her anyway.  

'Catholic Democrats' Statement on SCOTUS Ruling

'Catholic Democrats' issued the following thoughtful statement on the Supreme Court ruling yesterday.  More information on Catholic Democrats can be found on their website.  There is a link on the right side of this blog.  


Many are not going to like everything we have to say on today's Supreme Court decision overturning the restrictive Louisiana law requiring physicians to have admitting privileges in local hospitals.

We agree with Catholic Church's teaching that abortion is morally wrong. However, we support the 5-4 Supreme Court decision because we believe - as Aquinas asserted - pedagogical value of law should take into account cultural norms, society's willingness to accept the law & ability to enforce it.

Even President Obama, in his 2009 Notre Dame Commencement Address said, "Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually, it has both moral and spiritual dimensions.”

Although we think Aquinas would find legalized abortion on demand as anathema to the values of our faith, we also think he would undoubtedly recognize that society's support for Roe is strong and consistent. Additionally, studies show that restrictive abortion laws do not prevent the incidence of abortion. We do not believe this is going to change in our lifetime or the lifetimes of future generations.

Finally, we are mindful the nuanced opinions of American public are not represented by either political party who seek to push the debate to the margins. While 56% of Americans believe abortion is morally wrong only 8% believe that it should illegal in all circumstances. Thus, we believe that those who are "pro-life" should support policies that help pregnant women bring their pregnancies to term and to subsequently care for their families in both the short and long term, e.g. WIC, adoption programs, SNAP, income support & job training.

As President Obama said at Notre Dame, "So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available...Let’s honor conscience of those who disagree with abortion and draft a sensible conscience clause...Those are things we can do."