Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Leonard Belter is a Columbia law school graduate, former Captain in the United States Marine Corps, federal prosecutor, and long-time partner in the law firm of Winston & Strawn. He is recently retired and lives with his wife in Springfield, Virginia.

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Is Being Pro-Choice a Sin?

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................................................1Chapter 2 The Human Reproductive Process...........................................................................................................................................10Chapter 3 What the Catholic Church Teaches Regarding Abortion......................................................................................................................13Chapter 4 Natural Law Concepts.....................................................................................................................................................31Chapter 5 Fundamental Difficulties with the Church's Position as Applied to Ex Utero and Pre-implantation Fertilized Human Eggs....................................................38Chapter 6 The Church's Position Creates a Moral Conundrum..........................................................................................................................59Chapter 7 Is There a Natural Law-Based Requirement that We Must Value Human Potential as the Absolute Moral Equivalent of the Actualization of that Potential?.....................67Chapter 8 Are Practical Considerations Irrelevant?.................................................................................................................................91Chapter 9 Critical Aspects of the Church's Position Rest on Political, not Moral, Judgments........................................................................................105Chapter 10 The Alleged Sin of Cooperating With Evil................................................................................................................................111Chapter 11 Dangers of Sectarianism-A Brave New World Scenario......................................................................................................................124Chapter 12 Personal Conclusions-Where I Stand......................................................................................................................................129Chapter 13 An Appropriate Degree of Deference......................................................................................................................................134End Notes...........................................................................................................................................................................143

Chapter One

"Please delete all references to Saint Mary's from your campaign literature. Your pro-choice position does not comport with Saint Mary's values." -Our pastor to my wife, August, 2003

This book had its genesis in personal experience. My wife ran for the state Senate in Virginia in a special election held in August 2003. She lost. As we entered our home about 1:00 am on the morning after this loss, we were intrigued to see in the day's mail a letter on the formal stationary of Saint Mary's Catholic Church, our parish church in Fairfax Station, Virginia. The letter, addressed to my wife, was brief.

"Please delete all references to Saint Mary's from your campaign literature. Your pro-choice position does not comport with Saint Mary's values."

It was signed by our pastor.

I was angry enough to think about calling him then and there. We had attended Mass at Saint Mary's and been active members of this parish for over twenty years. In her introductory campaign materials, my wife had listed and described her affiliation with Saint Mary's along with numerous other pieces of biographical information. She had never described herself as pro-choice and indeed viewed her position as pro-life. During the campaign, however, she had answered a questionnaire from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) on the subject. She had said that she was opposed to abortion. In response to a hypothetical question that assumed that Roe v. Wade had been overturned, she said that she would not vote to put a woman or her doctor in jail for choosing to have an abortion. This made her pro-choice, and others who supported her so described her position. She also responded to questions on two specific and nonhypothetical subjects, issues on which her potential position as a state senator might enable her to vote. In her responses, she said that she supported the existing parental notification requirements, which included a judicial bypass provision, and that she would support a partial birth abortion ban that met the requirements then set down by the Supreme Court. In other words, on these two real-world abortion issues, she was more pro-life than pro-choice. No matter. Because of her answer to the hypothetical Roe v. Wade question, she was fairly described as being pro-choice.

My wife had a far more Christian response to our pastor's letter than I did. She pointed out that the letter was clearly not intended to be taken seriously; after all, it had arrived after the campaign was over. We decided to go to bed and then seek a meeting with our pastor when I had calmed down. We never did seek that meeting, but I began to compose this book in my mind that night.

Significant components of the Roman Catholic Church or Magisterium (the official teaching hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church) have indicated that political activity, including voting, in support of a pro-choice position is regarded as sinful conduct that merits at least confession and may merit denial of communion. A small number of America's Roman Catholic bishops have said that they would deny communion to Catholic legislators who do not meet their particular political or voting standards on the abortion issue. In some dioceses, bishops have sought to bar speaking engagements in any Catholic institution, regardless of the subject to be addressed, if the prospective speaker was publicly pro-choice. As a body, however, the American Catholic bishops have an institutional policy of neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the denial of communion to publicly pro-choice Catholics. Rather, they hide behind a policy they adopted in 2004 that allows local bishops to deny communion if they so choose.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, recently of Saint Louis and now assigned to the Supreme Court of the Vatican, has challenged this policy of local control and demanded uniformity among the bishops. The October 5, 2007, National Catholic Reporter (NCR) reports on an article in which Archbishop Burke asserts that it is a "mortal sin to offer communion to the unworthy." He is also said to criticize the policy of the majority of his fellow bishops, a policy that leaves the communion decision up to the individual local bishop. Archbishop Burke is quoted as saying that "the question regarding the objective state of Catholic politicians who knowingly and willingly hold opinions contrary to natural law would hardly seem to change from place to place."

True to his word, Archbishop Burke called on Saint Louis University to discipline its basketball coach, Rick Majerus, for publicly expressing a pro-choice position at a rally for Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign. The coach claimed that he was exercising his First Amendment rights. The...