September 14-20, 2008 Issue |
Posted 9/9/08 at 10:22 AM
Perhaps the
most absorbing element of this election season is the spectacle of abortion
activists and media analysts grappling with both Gov. Sarah Palin’s decision to
spare the life of her Down syndrome child and her teenage daughter’s decision
to continue her pregnancy and marry the father of her unborn child.
As a group of talking heads on
television expressed their amazement at the state of the Palin household, I
thought of William May, my moral theology professor at the John Paul II
Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and his penchant for poking holes
in the tortured logic of abortion advocates. May could nail the source of
abortion supporters’ present discomfort in a nanosecond: Palin’s family choices
directly challenge arguments that justify abortion as the “lesser evil.”
Since the ’60s, reproductive rights
activists have presented abortion as perhaps the best solution for the scourge
of teenage pregnancy, inner-city poverty, gender inequality, and the suffering
experienced by disabled infants and their families. But May didn’t buy those
arguments: “If abortion is the ‘lesser evil,’” he used to tell our class, “then
the alternative — keeping the baby — constitutes the ‘greater evil.’ But how
can that position be proved?”
The answer is that it’s impossible
to prove that abortion constitutes the “lesser evil.” Catholic moral
theologians like May have labored for years to explain both the logical
inconsistencies and the moral dangers of the “lesser evil” argument. Now, the
Palin family is providing an assist.
Basically, the “lesser evil”
argument seeks to weigh, or commensurate, the good and evil consequences of two
opposing moral choices.
But May and others argue that this
exercise is like comparing apples and oranges. With abortion, the decision is
made to terminate nascent human life in order to avoid a worse outcome.
According to this equation, bringing the baby to term will produce such disastrous
consequences that the good of preserving human life is outweighed by the
overwhelming burden of sustaining it. But no abortion advocates have offered an
analytical model that will support this utilitarian calculation. In fact, this
balancing act is not a precise scientific evaluation, but a reflection of
personal beliefs and experience.
The “lesser evil” argument also
reveals a scary indifference to the moral evil inherent in the choice to
destroy innocent human life. Many pregnant women, unwed or not, can be
overwhelmed by the scandal, financial and logistical demands, and threats to
personal freedom posed by the arrival of a new child. This argument implicitly
assumes the mother can predict the future, and that it will be bleak if her
child is brought to term. But this, too, cannot be proved. The future, as we
all know, is woefully, or gloriously, unpredictable.
In fact, the “lesser evil” position
depends on scary scenarios that can distract the would-be mother from the
fundamental moral principle at issue: “You shall not do evil that good shall
come of it.”
There
was a time when every American child learned that “the ends don’t justify the
means.” But since the ’60s, that moral aphorism has been under sustained
attack, both within and without the Church. Long before self-described Catholic
politicians challenged traditional teaching on abortion, the Church was roiled
by the eruption of theological dissent on the morality of married couples using
contraception.
The rejection of Humanae
Vitae (The Regulation of Birth) depended on a steady stream of
sympathetic portraits of married couples struggling to achieve financial and
emotional stability by spacing births. Contraception was the “lesser evil.”
During the debate on Humanae
Vitae, dissenting theologians advanced two additional arguments to
justify the use of contraception. Moral relativism remained the most popular
argument — times had changed, and moral absolutes no longer applied. The second
argument has been described as the “fundamental option”: “Good” people can
occasionally violate moral absolutes without endangering their souls. Good
Catholics could contracept, as long as they remained loving parents and
spouses. Since then, similar arguments have been employed to justify abortion,
sidestepping the decisive way evil actions shape our character and future moral
choices.
The three lines of theological
dissent pose logical and moral problems. But May also liked to expose the blind
spot at the heart of any rejection of moral absolutes. The arid “lesser evil”
equation that sentences the unborn child to death ignores the endless
possibilities of a human choice that embraces the great good of preserving
life.
As Pope John Paul II often noted,
the Ten Commandments provide the absolute limit beyond which human behavior
cannot descend. But the Decalogue sets no limits on human transcendence.
Christians navigate their temporal existence with the aid of a Church that
offers the truth that sets us free.
When abortion is off the table, the
search for true solutions begins — tightening the household budget, proposing
marriage, offering the child for adoption to a childless couple. Catholic moral
teaching drives human creativity, inspiring real fruitfulness.
Once declared a settled political
question, abortion keeps resurfacing at the center of the political stage. In
part, that’s because the debate over abortion is not just about the unborn
person’s right to life. It’s also about how we should embrace the vast
possibilities of our vocation to love as Christ loves us. How we should live in
this world.
Many Americans, Republicans and
Democrats will be drawn to the drama of the Palin family. And while neither
they nor we know what the future holds, we share their hopes. And who knows?
Maybe this election will consign the “lesser evil” argument to the dustbin of
history. Professor May would applaud heartily.
Marylander
Joan Frawley Desmond writes for a
variety
of publications on religious and cultural topics.
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