Nineteen pro-life Democrats on the Hill have signed a letter addressed to Speaker Pelosi indicating that they would only support comprehensive healthcare legislation that “explicitly excludes” federal funding of abortions.  The nineteen House members are: Dan Boren (D-OK); Bart Stupak (D-MI); Colin Peterson (D-MN); Tim Holden (D-PA); Travis Childers (D-MS); Lincoln Davis (D-TN); Heath Shuler (D-NC) Solomon Ortiz (D-TX); Mike McIntyre (D-NC); Jerry Costello (D-IL); Gene Taylor (D-MS); James Oberstar (D-MN); Bobby Bright (D-AL); Steve Driehaus (D-OH); Marcy Kaptur (D-OH); Charlie Melancon (D-LA); John Murtha (D-PA); Paul Kanjorski (D-PA); and Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-PA).

Bravo!

Comprehensive health care is far too important a policy to risk by miring it in the quicksand of abortion politics. Including abortion funding within comprehensive health care bills would dramatically raise the intensity of the struggle for health care and greatly erode the chances for passage. Moreover, such an inclusion would hardly be incidental.  Guttmacher Institute statistics suggest that providing such federal funding of abortions may increase the number of abortions in America by as much as one-third—an outcome that hardly reflects well on a new “pro-life friendly” Democratic Party that would prefer abortion to be rare and the need for it to be reduced.

Many Catholic Democrats in the House are noticeable by their absence from this important list. Catholic progressives committed to common ground and pragmatic progress on life issues should be at the forefront of support for this letter.

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A Reaganomics Spin Before Caritas in Veritate

Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute has spent a lifetime trying to sell Reaganomics to the Holy See.  He’s at it again, offering pre-emptive spin on the yet-to-be-released encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, hanging his effort on a critique of Fr. Tom Reese’s argument that the new encyclical will blame the current economic crisis on free market greed.

Novak’s spin is that free markets are not to blame for the current crisis. Instead, (what a surprise!) the evil culprit is too much government. He makes three points, none of which reflect a careful consideration of the factual history of the current situation. He claims, first, that financial markets are already thoroughly regulated. Second, that free marketeers are not motivated by greed, but by “love of creativity, invention, and groundbreaking enterprise.”  And, third, he says with a straight face that the “fundamental systemic motive” of capitalism is “the imperative to liberate the world’s poor.”

The problem in Novak’s estimation is government and similar interfering authorities that disrupt the freedom of the markets and thereby (with sinister intent) thwart market benevolence. Free markets are the true path to the common good; governments and any who would diddle with free market “solutions” are enemies of the common good.

You can’t make this stuff up.

So, the debt securities mess, the real estate bubble and the banks’ subsequent panic don’t suggest a need for more careful government oversight. Mortgage speculators, Wall Street investment bankers, and real estate “flippers” were not motivated by greed, but instead by a noble creativity and the spirit of invention. And free marketeers themselves preach their gospel of wealth because of loving concern to liberate the poor with an eye toward the common good.  Right. Let’s all imagine R. Allen Stanford and Bernie Madoff camped around their billions singing Kumbaya.

We all await the new encyclical with great anticipation. We don’t know what it will say.  But, Catholic social thought fits neither into the ideology of capitalism nor into statist ideologies. Indeed, it critiques elements of both.  Government and markets have their place, but both must be subordinated to and directed toward the common good.  That subordination and direction requires transcending self-interest in competition and replacing such with love of neighbor and love of God.

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Misunderstanding Pro-Life Polls

Colin Mason in this week’s PRI Weekly Briefing points to new polls showing a growing number of Americans self-identifying with the label “pro-life.”  He cites the Gallup poll of May 10th that found 51% of respondents called themselves pro-life, 42% pro-choice, 2% mixed, and 4% unsure. Let me add to this the Fox News poll of May 13th that found 49% called themselves pro-life, 43% were pro-choice, 6% said both, and 2% were unsure. And, let me also add the CNN poll of late April that found slightly different results: 45% pro-life, 49% pro-choice, 3% mixed, and 1% unsure.

Mason interprets the rise in pro-life self-identifiers as people switching to the pro-life side because they are increasingly motivated to oppose President Obama’s pro-choice policies.  Much as I am overjoyed to see the numbers of self-identified pro-lifers rise, I think Mason misinterprets the numbers. What’s actually happening, in my estimation, is Obama has made it easier for people in the middle of the abortion spectrum to call themselves pro-life. He’s done this by making abortion reduction policies and similar common ground life policies part of the national conversation. 

Many of the 50% or so of Americans who call themselves pro-life, in fact, support abortion in some cases, such as for serious health issues for the mother and in cases of rape. For example, a June 1 Roper poll found that 20% were of the opinion that abortion should always be illegal, 24% illegal in most cases, 33% legal in most cases, 19% legal in all cases, and 5% unsure. A Quinnipiac poll of late April has a similar pattern with 14% arguing that it should always be illegal, 27% usually illegal, 37% usually legal, 15% always legal, and 7% unsure. The pattern evident in these numbers has remained fairly constant in recent years. So, while indeed more people are calling themselves pro-life, we’re not seeing that translated (unfortunately) into changes of support for abortion.

But there may be other good news here. We might well interpret the higher number of self-identified pro-lifers as growing support for common ground efforts to reduce the incidence of abortion.  Polling last fall indicated support for abortion reduction policies as high as 80%.  We might now be seeing spillover from such arguments in public understanding of the issue.

I have argued that the moral imperative, given the near political impossibility of ending legal abortion in America, is to take advantage of this growing common ground sentiment to reduce the need for abortions.  If I’m right, the new numbers offer hope for such efforts. Mason at PRI, sadly, thinks otherwise.  He writes:

It is … ludicrous to suggest that the two sides work together on the issue of abortion. There can be no common ground on the morality of abortion.

We Catholics should think very carefully about this. What really is the best political tack to take if we are truly committed to saving as many unborn lives as possible?  Do we work on common ground efforts that hold out some promise of incremental success in the near future?  Or, do we oppose common ground efforts in hopes that a later, more comprehensive end to abortion can be achieved?  I’ve studied the issue for years.  I’ve looked at the numbers closely.  I’ve studied American national politics.  Seeing little chance for a definitive solution, I think the prudential course—the moral course—is to work very hard on common ground incrementalism.