Unsettled Christianity

Gerard Bradley, Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, has an essay online today entitled When Is It Acceptable for a ”Pro-Life” Voter to Vote for a ”Pro-Choice” Candidate?

Excerpts:

It won’t do to say that one is “pro-life” because one views abortion with profound misgivings, or because one regrets that so many abortions occur and that the law should work to make it more rare, or because abortion is, in some sense, wrong and evil. Abortion is all these things. But abortion is much more than all these things. In an abortion someone who has the same right not to be killed that everyone else has, is killed. So abortion isn’t just an unfortunate event, but it is morally wrong because it deprives a human person of his right to life-and thus we need to enact laws that protect the right to life for all people. This is the “pro-life” position I have in mind in asking under what circumstances is the “pro-life” voter morally justified in voting for a “pro-choice” candidate…

Argument 1: “Attack the Root Cause of Abortion”

This argument proposes to leave the unjust legal structure about abortion in place until some distant future time when, it is hoped, abortions will be so rare that prohibiting them will make sense. This argument proposes to now seek a reduction in the number of abortions performed annually, from the present 1.2 million to some lower number. The argument proposes to accomplish the reduction by attacking what are said to be abortion’s “root causes,” mainly, a widespread lack of proper health care and income supports. These proposals include better pre-natal maternal care, better pediatric care, and more income supplements for the poor. The moral question is whether this proposal is fair to the unborn? And that entails applying the Golden Rule.

To do that we must take a different example of the same basic proposal, an example which substitutes a different set of people called upon to pay the price of doing nothing to legally restrict a certain class of deadly assaults. Take the example of domestic violence. Suppose that approximately 1.2 million American women are killed each year by domestic violence. Suppose further that a Presidential candidate said the following: “Friends, I think we must stop wasting resources prosecuting domestic violence. Let us get the law out of the picture. Maybe someday we could arrest men who kill women at home. But that day is not today, for anyone can see that arrests and convictions have not slowed the rate of domestic violence very much at all. Besides, we are talking about private family matters where people make hard choices. Let us instead join together and attack the root causes of domestic violence, causes which have to do with ignorance and poverty. I propose therefore to give angry men jobs and money to attend anger management classes. And I think we should start teaching all of America’ children early on that every man and woman deserves to be treated well.”

Anyone who refuses to vote for this candidate but who would vote for a “pro-choice” candidate is, at least presumptively, guilty of failure to apply the Golden Rule.

Argument 2: “He’s Better on Other Issues”

Some people who describe themselves as “pro-life” support “pro-choice” candidates without placing any faith in the reduce-the incidence-of-abortion idea. These people instead maintain that the “pro-choice” politician’s positions on other issues, such as the environment, taxes, education, are so far superior to those of a “pro-life” alternative, that voting for the “pro-choice” politician–notwithstanding the harm his abortion policies would do–is the right thing. These people often say that the virtues of his other positions supply a “proportionate” reason for voting for a “pro-choice” candidate.

The question which these people must ask themselves is this: Would they vote for a “pro-choice” candidate on the strength of his preference for more government-provided health care than his rival proposes in his comparable plan, if doing so exposed their children to mortal danger? Suppose the candidate’s commitment to a policy of “choice” referred, not to so many tiny and invisible people, but instead to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, or to the same number of prisoners or mentally handicapped or physically infirm people. Would they still support that candidate, even if his policies on energy, taxes, and employment were superior to his rival’s?

A vote for a candidate who favors “pro-choice” policies on abortion by someone who does not answer the preceding questions “yes” does not, I think, satisfy the Golden Rule.

Argument 3: “Women’s Equality”

“For two decades of economic and social developments people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their control of their reproductive lives.”

This cluster of assertions by three members of the Supreme Court in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision tracks quite closely a very widespread conviction cited in support of “pro-choice” candidates. The central claim is that laws guaranteeing “choice” about abortion are instrumentally indispensable to women’s equality. Now, I do not think for a moment that the claim is true. But for this analysis I shall grant the claim, and then apply the Golden Rule to test the justice of the position articulated.

There is no need to imagine cognate claims, to which we must hypothetically apply the Golden Rule. History and current affairs supply countless examples of societies where some of its members have obtained equality for themselves by exploiting others of its members. Sometimes the numerator (those who gain) is larger than the denominator (those who suffer). Sometimes it is the other way around. In either event the basic moral question is the same. And there is little mystery about what just about everyone would say in response.

So, was it just for Spanish colonizers in the sixteenth century to obtain the satisfactions of life in Central America–where the price was paid in blood by immiserated Amerindians? Was it fair for English men and women three centuries later to enjoy the fruits of pastoral life–brought to them on the backs of dead Irishmen? A century-and-a-half ago the Supreme Court “facilitated”-indeed, helped to preserve-the equality of all white people. But does anyone today defend Dred Scott as a moral beacon?

If the answer to these questions is “no,” then one who takes the Golden Rule to be a principle of justice cannot vote for a “pro-choice” candidate on the strength of what the Casey Court proclaimed. And if the voter tempted to vote “pro-choice” refuses to apply the Golden Rule–as I have done here–than he is refusing to seek and to do justice.