I’m with David at Catholics in the Public Square – the more I read about Virginia governor candidate Tim Kaine and Catholic the more troublesome it is. Generally I want to support truly pro-life Democrats. Though too often their pro-life views will nod towards Catholic teaching on the death penalty, but it does not seem to penetrate to other areas. Previously David reported:
I have a faith-based opposition to abortion. As governor, I will work in good faith to reduce abortions by:
1. Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother;
2. Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education;
3. Ensuring women’s access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity; and
4. Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies.
We should reduce abortion in this manner, rather than by criminalizing women and doctors. Too often politicians are interested in scoring political points, rather than in reducing the number of abortions. Many of the legislative proposals introduced in the General Assembly, like the ones to require unnecessary building standards for doctor’s offices that perform abortions, are just political grandstanding. They encourage division and lawsuits rather than contributing to the goal of reducing abortions.
Okay, yes, because of Roe and Casey the right to kill an unborn child is legal. Mr Kaine wants to work, it seems, within that reality. Great. Except for the promotion of contraception I have no problem with this plan. Yet, his stance of not wanting to "criminalize" abortion is a problem. This is important to Catholics because of what John Paul II taught us in Evangelium vitae:
When it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects". (Evangelium vitae n. 73)
My own comment was that one abortion clinic in another state recently closed due to increasing standards. These are much more than grandstanding, but real ways to reduce abortion. When abortion clinics have to face the same regulations everybody else does, they scurry away afraid of the light.
I also deeply distrust statements like "on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother;" This is absolute garbage since there is never a medical situation where PBA would save the life of the mother. How in the world can killing the child at the last seconds before birth ever be any medical necessity?
This sounds more like safe, legal, and rare than a truly faith filled pro-life response.
Now David is posting about Michael Schiavo’s endorsement of Tim Kaine.
"I don’t think governors should use their PR grandstanding to intervene in these cases," Kaine replied, according to an AP report. He said he supports the courts ending disputes like the one involving Terri.
So I guess he is for the death penalty after all – if your disabled.
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3. Ensuring women’s access to health care (including legal contraception)…
They just don’t get it. I can understand how a Protestant wouldn’t get it, but there’s no excuse for a Catholic not to get it.
I also deeply distrust statements like “on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother;” This is absolute garbage since there is never a medical situation where PBA would save the life of the mother. How in the world can killing the child at the last seconds before birth ever be any medical necessity?
Bang on Jeff. You just need to yank the head out! How on earth could just yanking the head out endanger the life of the mother?!
I think, though what do I know, that the “protects the life and health of the mother” bit is part and parcel of the enforceability of a PBA ban. Without a life and health clause of some sort, any PBA ban is a constitutional non-starter.
Whether a PBA ban with such a clause is enforceable in the sense that someone could be convincted of violating it, I don’t know.
Are you more interested in supporting pro-life Democrats than pro-life Republicans? Catholics need to get past party politics and support the really pro-life candidate whatever party he’s from. As a practical matter it will nearly always be the Republicans, but Catholics can’t allow the Republicans to think they have us firmly on the plantation, either. Kaine is a cynical bastard and thinks he can get round us by saying he’ll try to pass “an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother”. There will always be some doctor who is willing to claim that any partial-birth abortion is necessary to the mother’s mental health, and that’s all the loophole they need in the law to do PBAs all day and every day. When are Catholics going to get over this idea that it’s somehow more Catholic to vote Democratic? It’s more Catholic to vote pro-life, regardless of party, with no nonsense or doubletalk.
Elinor,
My last Democrat vote was for Jimmy Carter (who also made me a conservative). It would be nice if the Democrats became truly pro-life and so that we could then argue about the best ways to answer policy questions and not argue about who is a human being.
Very true, once Roe is reversed and abortion is illegal in all fifty states. Until that happens – and it may possibly take a little time – it’s sheer sentimentality on the part of millions of Catholics to keep longing for the El Dorado of the pro-life Democrat. What is worse, they (and I don’t mean you, so don’t be offended) are too often glad to pretend that assurances like Kaine’s really mean what they want them to mean, and justify voting for a pro-abortion candidate because they have the idea firmly fixed in their minds that it just isn’t Catholic to vote for a Republican. I’d be surprised if you’ve never met anyone who thinks that way; I’ve met squads of them, let alone the ones I’m related to.
Without a life and health clause of some sort, any PBA ban is a constitutional non-starter.
At least for the time being. The Federal PBA ban has a life exception but not a health exception. It will go before the Supreme Court sometime before next June (I think – I could be wrong). Hopefully it will be upheld (since O’Connor was the fifth vote in Stenberg and she’s being replaced) and the elastic health exception will no longer be required.
When I read that endorsement from Schiavo, I was sickened. It’s truly disgusting.
Kaine’s promise of a “health” clause in a PBA ban would mean that it would not be a ban. Being distressed or upset counts as health. And to save the life of the mother? A three-day procedure on a potentially viable child? Why not just do a C-section? Save them both? Because the goal is a dead baby, that’s why.
Also, one last note. When Roe is overturned, it will not make abortion illegal in all 50 states. It will allow all 50 states to create their own laws through legislation and referrenda; this will probably mean legal abortion in some states, and illegal abortion in others. It’s not perfect, but it will be better than what we have now.
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