In articles covering Obama's meeting with the pope, much has been made of Obama's commitment to reduce the number of abortions. Take this passage from a Reuters piece:
It sounds like a reasonable compromise position, right?
But what about the phrase "do everything possible to reduce the number of abortions?"
Is this really what the pro-life movement sees as the best direction for compromise?
Obviously, pro-lifers want the number of abortions reduced -- but a truly pro-life ideology is focused on the method of reducing abortions, not just the end numbers.
It's not just that we want to live in a society with fewer abortions overall -- we want a society that finds the very idea of an abortion so repugnant that it is not even a considerable option.
Let's consider some ways in which we might reduce the number of abortions without necessarily improving our society:
It's a pretty safe bet that the primary method of reducing abortions will most likely be artificial contraception. I've seen NARAL speakers try to publicly embarrass Catholic pro-lifer debaters by getting them hung up on the Church's views on the subject. Obama can appear to offer a compromising olive branch that he knows many pro-lifers will have to refuse. The egg will then appear to be on our face for being uncompromising, and people who are afraid to give up their artificial birth control will prefer to make the pro-choice compromise.
The problem with contraception is that it perpetuates the social attitudes that make abortion seem attractive. It separates sexuality from reproduction and it encourages partners to see each other as toys rather than people. You all know this already.
Perhaps another way to think of the issue is this:
If couples would have had an abortion if they had gotten pregnant are only avoiding abortion because they aren't getting pregnant, then they are still in a morally dangerous state. Our relationship with God isn't quite the same as our relationship with the law. I can't be arrested (thank goodness) for being willing to steal an ipod unless I actually make the attempt to steal it.
Jesus as explained to us, however, that God isn't quite so litigious -- we sin when we consciously, willingly, and unjudgmentally indulging a fantasy to sin. For God, unlike Yoda, it isn't a simple matter of doing or not doing. Our relationship with God is grounded as well in what we would be willing to do or what we would be desirous to do. Obviously, this isn't the same thing as temptation. That I am tempted to steal the ipod is not the same as being willing to steal the ipod if the chance came up. That is, I can feel a desire to steal, but there's another level to it -- one can desire or not desire to have that desire (and at this point I'm pretty sure I'm plagiarizing an article I just read on indulgences and detachment from sin).
For God, our desire to desire something that is illicit is itself an illicit desire and takes us away from him. It's kind of the reverse of Baptism by Desire. If we hope for God's mercy for those who would have followed him if they could have, then it seems logical that we must fear for the state of souls whose faith is without works--who merely avoid committing grave deeds because they are not given the opportunity.
I'm not saying that anyone who would have had an abortion given the opportunity is necessarily in a state of mortal sin. Still, if we agree to a compromise position -- if we promote a society that still puts some people in a position where they think abortion is an option, then we still bear responsibility for those people's choices. We'd still be promoting a culture of dehumanization and death -- we'd just be promoting a Culture of Death Lite. I'm not sure how well that will go over at our judgment.
Imagine you were on a jury hearing the trial of a terrorist/Nazi/orc/Sith Lord(choose your favorite proverbial bad guy) who was responsible for a truly heinous attacking resulting in 1,000,000 deaths. What kind of punishment should he receive?
Now, imagine it came out in the trial that his superiors initially planned the extermination of 2,000,000 people, but he was able to talk them down to 1,000,000. Are you going to lessen his punishment by half?
Should serial killers start using this plea? "Well, your honor, if you knew how many more people I could have killed but chose not to, you wouldn't be passing such a harsh judgment."
Let's try another scenario. Let's imagine that we haven't captured the bad guy. Some Islamic terrorist group is launching wave after wave of attacks, killing hundreds of people. Elections come up and a presidential candidate promises he will do everything possible to reduce the number of deaths from terrorist attacks. Upon election, he swiftly instates sharia law, and the number of terrorist attacks drop to almost zero.
He reduced the number of deaths, but would the society be better off?
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