ARTICLES
APRIL 2005 ARTICLES
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by Jim Holman.
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Will They Do Penance?
The Future of the Pro-Life Movement
BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER
The American pro-life movement is "poised to make significant gains in the coming year," said Cathy Cleaver Ruse, spokeswoman for the U.S. bishops' Pro-Life Secretariat, in January. Pro-life commentary has been filled with such optimistic prognostications since the re-election of President George W. Bush in November.
Pro-life folks took heart from exit poll data: 22 percent of voters surveyed cited "moral issues" as the ones that determined their vote. Then there have been opinion polls. A 2004 Zogby poll showed that 53 percent of those polled agreed with the statement, "abortion destroys and human life and is manslaughter." The latest, a January 19 Los Angeles Times poll, mirrors previous polls on the subject of abortion, indicating that 53 percent of those surveyed said it should be illegal. Of this total, 12 percent said it should always be illegal while 41 percent said it should be illegal with exceptions. Since, said a pro-life news source, the "exceptions" directly mentioned in the poll were the cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother — the rarest cases for which abortions are performed — "a majority of Americans oppose all or most abortions."
This all sounds encouraging until one reflects that of the 22 percent of those who cited "moral issues" as their most compelling reasons to vote, 20 percent voted for Senator John Kerry. Thus, it is not clear here what "moral issues" means; it may mean abortion, in some cases; it may mean homosexual marriage, in others; it may also mean a host of other things.
And looking at the Times Poll, one notes an ambiguity. The question asked was: "which comes closest to your view on abortion: Abortion should always be legal, or should be legal most of the time, or should be made illegal except in cases of rape, incest and to save the mother's life, or abortion should be made illegal without any exceptions?" (Emphasis added.) Since respondents were asked what came "closest" to their view on abortion, those who answered with "illegal except in cases of rape, incest, and to save the mother's life" might have had other exceptions in mind which the tight confines of the poll did not allow them to express.
But these poll resorts tell only a small part of the story. Whether or not Americans are becoming more pro-life can not be known from polls alone. So I thought I would ask a few folks active in the pro-life movement what they thought. Is the pro-life cause in the ascendancy?
"No," said James Hanink, a Loyola-Marymount philosophy professor who moonlights as a pro-life activist. Hanink said that "in the experience of the United States, the sentiment in favor of pro-life goals, as measured publicly, has tended to increase until there is some concrete measure to realize those goals. At that point the sentiment moves away from pro-life goals. This happens for various reasons, the most plausible of which is that pro-choice forces become more focused and those in the middle come to consider what personal costs they might have to bear."
The responses to the questions in the Times and Zogby polls offer "a certain plausibility and a certain hopefulness," Hanink said; but since the questions are "posed in an abstract way," they do not necessarily elicit anything but abstract responses. "It would be easy enough," Hanink continued, "to have questions along the lines of something like this: 'for the most part do you think taxes should be lowered?' Answer, 'yes.' A follow-up question, perhaps, a year later: 'do you think there should be less governmental support for Y?' where Y is something in which the person being polled has a real interest. The answer will be, 'no, there shouldn't be a lessening of federal support, it should be increased.'"
"A far more useful measure of pro-life prospects" than polls, Hanink said, "is in the measure of conviction and remorse and willingness to do penance on the part of those who have condoned abortion or who have participated in abortion personally or financially. I don't see any fundamental coming-to-terms with the extraordinary evil of abortion in the American experience. The [polls] are straws in the wind and are useful as such. But I don't think they have much predictive power."
But what of the re-election of President Bush, who is widely seen as strongly pro-life? "I think it's worth looking at it in comparison to the alternative," Hanink said. "Kerry's winning would indicate that in respect to certain, but not all, core moral issues there was now a deep indifference. Bush's winning suggests that with respect to these same core moral issues — but not with respect to the whole range of moral issues — there is a refusal to become indifferent. At the same time, however, it's not as if the Bush administration is going to make any fundamental changes in the law. [The Bush victory] leaves open the possibility of some fundamental changes in the rather indefinite future, but there's not much at stake right now."
Sister Paula Vandegaer, a Sister of Social Service in Los Angeles, however said she was encouraged by the re-election of George Bush. "I think he's serious" about abortion, she said. "I think it's his personal belief." Sister Paula, who works with International Life Services, a Los Angeles-based pro-life counseling and education organization, has been in the pro-life movement since 1967, when the California legislature passed and then-Governor Ronald Reagan signed a bill legalizing abortion. From the perspective of 38 years, Sister Paula said "there definitely is a change" in peoples' attitudes to abortion. "I see it mainly in the young people, the Generation Y that's coming up. They've seen so many mistakes, so many problems, and a third of their generation doesn't exist; that's had an impact. Their older brothers and sisters are suffering from post-abortion problems, both physical and mental. They've seen something different; abortion is no longer the 'really good thing' — that it's women's rights, that it's good for women, etc. It's more and more seen as a choice that many shouldn't have to make, and a choice that's not good for them. That's definitely affected everyone."
But are younger people increasingly repelled by abortion out of a more intense respect for human life or simply because they see its bad effects? "I would love to say there is a great spiritual renewal going on in the country! But I'm not sure of the answer to that," Sister Paula replied. "I think things have been so bad, the sexual revolution has produced such disaster that a blind man on a galloping horse could see it. I don't know how much of a spiritual renewal that is, but I also know is that when people withdraw from bad things, the Holy Spirit has an opportunity to step in a more powerful way. So I'm hoping that there is an accompanying spiritual renewal, and I think there is with many groups. I also think there is a greater openness among young people. They've had a lot of reservations about churches and about religion, and they're very much into New Age; but that's also being reviewed."
The pro-life movement is "more or less just treading water," was the conclusion of a Sacramento pro-life activist, who asked not to be named. "There are no particular signs of any upswing," he said. "The reigning powers that be, including those in the Catholic Church bureaucracy, still don't see this as a serious problem." At best, said the activist, "there is a small minority of evangelical Protestants and orthodox Catholics that are quite aware and quite alarmed about the developments that are happening" — developments such as stem-cell research, euthanasia, "the necessary follow-ups to contraception."
Of Cathy Cleaver Ruse's comments, the activist said, "I think she's a good person, but I think she's a bit whistling in the dark. It's a little [like this year's March for Life] in San Francisco — that was a heady experience; I was there. But to think that shows some kind of great enthusiasm is wrong. All that shows is that if you work within the limitations of the Catholic Church bureaucracy, they'll turn out a small crowd for you. They'll contact the respect life coordinators, and they'll all send several buses; and that makes a small crowd, and they march through streets with sites having no significance in respect to abortion as far as I know. They were not marching from Planned Parenthood to the courthouse. You pick a reasonably nice day, and the marchers will come. And the other side will do you the favor of sending a few nasty looking people who are pierced and tatooed to shout at you, so you can feel a sense of martyrdom."
"I don't want to sound sour," said the activist; but "the problem is that it's a little too late to change Roe v. Wade" because the change would have effect in only a very few states."
And though the election of President Bush "is better than the alternative," the activist does not think it will mean much for the pro-life movement. "I think, like the Catholic hierarchy, Bush is pro-life," said the activist, "but I don't think, in the practical plane, he sees it as a really important issue. It's a kind of a Sunday issue, and it has some political implications, of course — it helps him to get re-elected. But the big things are the economy (we're always having to fix the economy, first), social security; and spreading democracy throughout the world. Unfortunately, the democracy he's talking about seems to be libertinism — Planned Parenthood, pornography, radical feminism."
But our Sacramento activist is not entirely pessimistic. "There are some signs," he said, "that some people are coming to their senses, realizing that it's bad through experience. With contraception and abortion freely available, their kids don't get married, or if they are getting married, their marriages don't last long, and then they have their grandchildren to take care of; and in the worst cases, their grandchildren fall into the hands of the state. More and more people are experiencing those realities, and when they do they start to realize that one of the causes is free availability of contraception and abortion. In that sense, I do think there is some progress. The inevitable is gaining on us. There are people who look back and see the demon is on their heel, and they ask how did it get there?
"The awareness is increasing," concluded the activist, "but not enough to bring about an awakening and desire for immediate, effective change."
Gerry Urrutia with the Los Angeles-based Shield of Roses (a pro-life group that does sidewalk counseling in front of abortion clinics) said she was not confident that the pro-life movement would, as Ruse said, "make significant gains in the coming year." "I don't feel that optimism," said Urrutia, "maybe because I am in the trenches. I work day to day on it — as I'm sure she does. But I don't know what she's basing that on; I'm optimistic that it's eventually going to have to stop, but I don't see anything happening around the corner."
Even if most Americans are as pro-life as some would have them be, Urrutia is still not that hopeful. If they are pro-life, "they are not doing anything about it," she said. "They are not putting feet to their ideas." Even the number of the hard-core pro-life activists has seemingly dwindled, said Urrutia. "When I look at pictures [of Operation Rescue], I see hundreds of people, thousands of people at a site. Where are they now, 10 or 15 years later? I'm still standing at the sidewalk; I don't see anybody out there. I don't see priests marching or bishops, except your occasional Bishop Burke, down to the abortion mill. If I saw all the bishops do that, I'd say, they' re really speaking about this. But I'm not seeing that."
But, Urrutia said, though she is not "enthused with the adults," she is optimistic about the youth. "I give chastity talks and talks about abortion to teenagers. My husband and I have seen a difference there, and we're very excited. They are going to be the answer, I think. They're not snotty, they are really interested in both messages — chastity and the pro-life message. I am not enthused with the adults, though."
Urrutia said earlier generations of youth were not so open to the pro-life message. But today's youth "are looking behind them and they are seeing mother's multiple boy friends, sisters having abortions — I think they're seeing that maybe that's not working and they're not so turned off." Urrutia, who said she only gives talks to Christian groups, added, "years ago these kids would have argued me down to the floor, but they are more accepting now. Maybe it's because they see lives and families broken?"
But some of her experiences with youth have given Urrutia pause. She has known girls from Catholic, pro-life families who have gotten abortions. "I know that happens," she said. "And when those things happen, my whole world goes upside down."