Dear George,
With warm regards, I hope all is going well with you. I’m trying to tackle one feature of our discussion at a time. It takes a lot of thought to do just one part of our complicated discussion..
Your statement: “What if the US had already legalized the killing of Jews, and it was occurring at an enormous rate—4,000 deaths a day. In the upcoming election, two candidates are running for office. One candidate supports the killing of Jews and promises to enact a bill guaranteeing the slaughter for ages to come. That same candidate also happens to have great ideas about social reform. The other candidate’s ideas on social reform seem lacking. However, he is pro-Jew. He would certainly not expand the killing of Jews and would block any further expansion of such activities. Would you vote for the first candidate? “
Regarding your statement above, I know George, that is I can understand that because you believe, single mindedly, that abortion is the very worst that can occur of anything, this comparison seems true to you. For me this is actually a ridiculous concoction of a comparison. If a candidate promised to kill Jews and guarantee the slaughter for years to come, truly, no one would be able to vote for a candidate using such language because we would all believe it is murder. On the other hand, regarding our discussion of abortion (intrinsic evil) not all people think abortion is murder. Think about the following. Is there a God? Is there an afterlife? Did Jesus Christ found the Catholic Church? We cannot know that for sure. But we have faith that those questions are answered in the positive as absolutely true. However, not all have been given the gift of faith. And their difference with us is an honest one. So I will not judge a person who differs from me as being somehow less perceptive than me because he arrives at a different point of view. Thus I do not agree with your statement that, “Any man who does not see the value of human life at so vulnerable a stage cannot be trusted with the reins of the country.”
In addition, notably, I see the possibility of reducing abortions by a man that speaks as Obama does in the following statements, below this paragraph. I have more hope that abortions can be reduced by the measures he speaks of compared to a leader who only has vague hopes that the appointment of a judge is going to be able to change the law.
Obama has said, “…when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do - that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.
That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.
So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women."
Understand - I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/obama-notre-dame-speech-f_n_204387.html
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Dear Susan,
I can understand your response to my analogy. It is hard to imagine Hitler as anything other than pure evil. It is perhaps even harder to imagine Obama or any other pro-abortion candidate in the same light. Barack Obama is a good person. He is made in the image and likeness of God and truly wants what's best for the American people. But my analogy is not about personalities; it's about objective truths.
What Hitler approved and facilitated is called murder. Abortion is also murder. The two acts are morally equivalent. If you find Hitler reprehensible and would not vote for him, it is not because you have known him personally and think he's a bad man. It is due to the holocaust. Put another way, we condemn his actions, not him (because we don't know the state of his soul when he died). We would not vote for him because he supports and would enact morally reprehensible policies.
You say, "If a candidate promised to kill Jews...no one would be able to vote for a candidate using such language because we would all believe it is murder." I don't think you intend to, but you make truth a democracy in making such a statement. It doesn't matter whether people believe a thing is evil. It is or is not evil de facto. Even if the entire nation supported the killing of Jews and didn't recognize it as murder, we, as Catholics, would still be obliged to withhold our vote because it is murder.
You seem to think that popular opinion should influence our political decisions in the moral realm when you say, "Regarding our discussion of abortion, not all people think abortion is murder." I ask: if everyone thought that abortion was murder, would it then be wrong to vote for a candidate who supported it? If so, then you have made truth relative to popular opinion. If not, then it wouldn't be wrong to vote for Hitler either. (This is of course assuming that everyone believed killing Jews was wrong in Nazi Germany, which clearly wasn't the case.) Put simply, your statement implies that evil is more or less tolerable depending on popular opinion - killing can be tolerated if a lot of people don't believe it's killing.
You say, "I will not judge a person who differs from me as being somehow less perceptive than me because he arrives at a different point of view." I say, we must judge. Jesus judged. He told the woman caught in adultery to "go and sin no more." He was telling her that her actions were wrong. Judgment, though, is not condemnation. We do not place anyone in hell, but we do call their actions good or evil.
If someone told you that drunk driving was good for you, would you not call that person less perceptive? Such a person has a mistaken notion of personal safety. They are wrong. That's an inevitable consequence of truth – there is a right and a wrong. Abortion is wrong. It doesn't matter whether Obama believes it is wrong. It doesn't matter whether the entire nation believes it is wrong. It is. We can still say Obama is a good man, but he has poorly perceived the intrinsic value of unborn human life. Genuine people can be genuinely wrong.
Our belief, as Catholics, that abortion is wrong should be a premise to this discussion, not a participant. We should not say, "I believe that abortion is wrong, but others may not yet have come to that belief, so we must give them slack." Instead, we must say, "Abortion is wrong. (Period.) Those who have not yet come to that conclusion are mistaken." That is what voting according to a well-formed Catholic conscience is. We take our beliefs into the polling booth. We don't excuse a candidate's immorality by saying that he doesn't think it's wrong. We look at the issues, not the person, and say, his policies are wrong; they support intrinsic evil; therefore I must withhold my vote.
Finally, Obama's words on reducing abortions while well-meaning are as hollow as if Hitler had said, "I still want to be able to kill Jews, but I'll work hard not to kill so many."
God bless,
George
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