Beyond Choice

By Julia Smucker

While traveling recently, I saw a button on someone’s backpack that proclaimed, “My body, my choice.” The allusion was clear, and I pondered how much importance our society places on choice. We all make choices, but is it an absolute value by which to measure everything else? Can there be choice without responsibility? Equally striking was the word “my,” carrying with it the idea that choice is a private possession, that one person can make choices in isolation. Should my choices matter only to me – even if another body is dependent on mine?

The individualism implied in this slogan has driven the abortion debate in endless circles. The tendency on both sides to frame their arguments almost exclusively in terms of individual rights has led to something of a stalemate in the public square: a woman’s right to choose comes up against a child’s right to live. Individuals do of course have genuine rights that must be respected, but to move beyond the current dead ends, something more is needed. The individual does not exist in isolation, but rather in relation to and as part of community and society. Rights do not exist in isolation, but rather they relate to certain values.

Considering values helps to shed light on the meaning of rights. We can affirm a number of positive goods at once, but also insist that these goods be rightly prioritized. Nobody is likely to deny that life is a good, and, when kept in healthy perspective, so is choice.

But when anyone’s choice is deemed more valuable than anyone’s life, the priority of values is out of order. When a woman’s choice not to be pregnant trumps the life of her child, when parents’ choices endanger their children either before or after they are born, when a disturbed man’s choice to stockpile an armory results in the death of innocents, when someone’s choice to die solely on their own terms becomes more precious to them than life itself – in all of these cases, choice has been made an idol, at a grave human cost.

When understood in relation to what is most valuable, rights can bring real depth to the conversation. For instance, Catholics believe that a person’s right to life neither begins nor ends at birth but extends throughout one’s natural life. And since this right is rooted in the dignity we all share as bearers of the image of God, it is bigger than the right to simply remain alive. This informs how we should treat everyone, especially those whose human dignity is most often disregarded: the unborn, the poor, immigrants, the imprisoned, the ill and the disabled. To see life as a value and a right is to recognize that all people deserve to be treated with dignity.

When human dignity, or even life itself, is subordinated to individual choice, it often leads to what Blessed John Paul II famously termed the “culture of death.” If we’re to find a cure for this social ill, it requires a recognition that human beings are made to live interdependently. Our choices are not ours alone: they affect others beyond ourselves. And no choice is of greater value than any life.

Julia Smucker holds an master’s degree in systematics from Saint John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota. Since being received into the Catholic Church in 2010, she has sought to integrate the gifts of her Mennonite heritage within her newfound ecclesial home. Her commitment to nonviolence has found deep resonance with Catholic teaching on the dignity of all human life. She is a regular contributor to the group blog Vox Nova.

For the week of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this blog is featuring guest posts by Catholic bloggers who participated in the November 2012 USCCB event, "An Encounter with Social Media: Bishops and Bloggers Dialogue."

What Children Teach Us About Abortion

By Mary DeTurris Poust

As deeply committed as I've been to the pro-life effort over the years--going on marches to Washington, standing up in college classes to argue my point, writing columns and feature stories and blog posts--I have to admit that the shock value of abortion can begin to fade when you fight the same fight year after year, decade upon decade. We know all too well the horrors of abortion, but after a while I have found myself getting numb to that harsh reality, tired of having to say the same thing over and over.

Enter my 12-year-old daughter, Olivia, who has not yet been jaded by the larger society's blasé view of unborn babies and its acceptance of abortion on demand. Children, it seems, know intuitively that there is something terribly wrong with abortion, something incomprehensible. They have not yet been entangled in the relentless drumbeat of "my body, my choice." They can still see clearly and with honesty.

Maybe it's because children are so much closer to life inside the womb. Maybe it's because they recognize the scary possibility that someone could have chosen to end their own life before it had begun. Maybe it's because children are so pure and untainted by cynicism and selfishness and fear that they recoil at the suggestion that anyone anywhere at any time would willingly choose to kill their unborn child and see it as the "better" option, the lesser of two evils.

It's not an easy thing, to sit down with your 10-year-old or 12-year-old or 16-year-old and talk about abortion. Even as a committed pro-lifer, discussing abortion feels like I am betraying them somehow, like my role in the adult human family ties me to this evil in our midst because I have been unable to stop it, because I have carried babies in my womb and should never ever become numb to the prospect of someone ending such a life. And my children stare at me incredulous, sure I can't be right about this, about the numbers, about the methods, about the reasons.

Up until now they've assumed--probably because they spend so much time in Catholic circles where people are mostly pro-life--that their view, our view is "normal" or popular, and I've had to tell them quite bluntly, especially as they begin to spread their wings and voice opinions in public, that they face an uphill battle, that they will be made to feel they are ignorant or intolerant or hateful because they believe a life that begins at conception should be protected and nurtured from that point until natural death. It's not easy to prepare your children for the awful words you know will be thrown at them if and when they decide to share their views as they get older. My 16-year-old son has already learned to be quiet in some instances at his public school rather than risk being branded a hater because he is pro-life.

What does that say about us, about our society, about this 40-year battle that shows no sign of letting up, especially in my own state of New York, where the radical so-called "Reproductive Health Act" is being pushed so fiercely by our governor that his State of the State address sounded more like a NARAL rally?

This is where we live, not just geographically, but spiritually, intellectually. We live in a collective mindset that refuses to listen to reason, refuses to listen to the science of ultrasound, refuses to listen to the heartbeat that proclaims the right to life with less fanfare but more power than any politician pounding out propaganda from a podium. But we can also hope that the world may yet learn to listen to the wisdom of children, who know better than we adults that, in the words of Dr. Seuss, "A person's a person, no matter how small."


Mary DeTurris Poust has written for Catholic and secular publications for nearly 30 years. She is the author of six books, including the recently released "Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God" and "Everyday Divine: A Catholic Guide to Active Spirituality." She blogs at Not Strictly Spiritual and is the co-host of "Guided by Grace," a show for Catholic women on Telecare TV. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and three children.

For the week of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this blog is featuring guest posts by Catholic bloggers who participated in the November 2012 USCCB event, "An Encounter with Social Media: Bishops and Bloggers Dialogue."

Hey, I'm Talking to You!

A week ago, the bishops issued a landmark statement on religious freedom, "Our First, Most Cherished Liberty."

Along with its assessment of the state of religious freedom in the United States and around the world, one interesting facet of the document is its acknowledgment of the breadth of its audience. This is an issue that touches all faiths:

In insisting that our liberties as Americans be respected, we know as bishops that what our Holy Father said is true. This work belongs to "an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture."

The bishops explicitly lay out for various demographic segmenst how they can make a difference on this issue.

To everyday Catholics engaging in political life:

As bishops we seek to bring the light of the Gospel to our public life, but the work of politics is properly that of committed and courageous lay Catholics. We exhort them to be both engaged and articulate in insisting that as Catholics and as Americans we do not have to choose between the two. There is an urgent need for the lay faithful, in cooperation with Christians, Jews, and others, to impress upon our elected representatives the importance of continued protection of religious liberty in a free society.

To officeholders:

We address a particular word to those holding public office. It is your noble task to govern for the common good. It does not serve the common good to treat the good works of religious believers as a threat to our common life; to the contrary, they are essential to its proper functioning. It is also your task to protect and defend those fundamental liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. This ought not to be a partisan issue. The Constitution is not for Democrats or Republicans or Independents. It is for all of us, and a great nonpartisan effort should be led by our elected representatives to ensure that it remains so.

To Catholics in health care and other social services:

We recognize that a special responsibility belongs to those Catholics who are responsible for our impressive array of hospitals, clinics, universities, colleges, schools, adoption agencies, overseas development projects, and social service agencies that provide assistance to the poor, the hungry, immigrants, and those faced with crisis pregnancies. You do the work that the Gospel mandates that we do. It is you who may be forced to choose between the good works we do by faith, and fidelity to that faith itself. We encourage you to hold firm, to stand fast, and to insist upon what belongs to you by right as Catholics and Americans. Our country deserves the best we have to offer, including our resistance to violations of our first freedom.

To priests:

To our priests, especially those who have responsibility for parishes, university chaplaincies, and high schools, we ask for a catechesis on religious liberty suited to the souls in your care. As bishops we can provide guidance to assist you, but the courage and zeal for this task cannot be obtained from another—it must be rooted in your own concern for your flock and nourished by the graces you received at your ordination.

To writers, bloggers and other creative types:

Catechesis on religious liberty is not the work of priests alone. The Catholic Church in America is blessed with an immense number of writers, producers, artists, publishers, filmmakers, and bloggers employing all the means of communications—both old and new media—to expound and teach the faith. They too have a critical role in this great struggle for religious liberty. We call upon them to use their skills and talents in defense of our first freedom.

To their brother bishops:

Finally to our brother bishops, let us exhort each other with fraternal charity to be bold, clear, and insistent in warning against threats to the rights of our people. Let us attempt to be the "conscience of the state," to use Rev. King's words. In the aftermath of the decision on contraceptive and sterilization mandates, many spoke out forcefully. As one example, the words of one of our most senior brothers, Cardinal Roger Mahony, thirty-five years a bishop and recently retired after twenty-five years as archbishop of Los Angeles, provide a model for us here: "I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community can muster."

And so there it is, one body, many parts, all with a part to play.