Professor Kmiec has just published a very thoughtful follow-up article: "Why was Obama Notre Dame visit 'Eloquence Incomplete'?" I highly recommend reading both articles, but especially the second.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
More Kmiec on Obama
On Monday I posted a link to Doug Kmiec first article commenting on President Obama's Notre Dame Commencement address, entitled "Obama at Notre Dame: Incomplete Eloquence."
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I am afraid that I found Professor Kmiec’s column to be less than impressive.
ReplyDeleteKmiec’s major premise is empirically false; statistically speaking, most women of child-bearing age quite readily “choose against life within them”. More than half of all unintended pregnancies in this country are terminated by abortion. Many women make this same choice more than once. In some countries, the average woman has had six abortions.
Kmiec’s minor premise is also empirically false, at least with respect to the United States. There is no limit on a woman’s freedom to choose life. Every state provides public funding for prenatal care and birth; there is a long waiting list of couples ready and willing to adopt any “unwanted” babies, at no cost to the birth mother; and all children are protected by an extensive network of health and welfare services.
Not surprisingly, Kmiec’s false premises have led him to an unsound conclusion. As there are already no real limits on a woman’s freedom to carry her unborn child to term, efforts to address these non-existent limits will have little or no effect on the prevalence of abortion. No woman ever has to choose to kill her unborn baby, and surveys demonstrate that the majority of abortions are motivated by personal lifestyle considerations.
The reality is that almost all women are willing to seriously consider terminating an unintended pregnancy, although almost none of them would ever consider killing their own baby once it has been born alive. Many women who experience an unintended pregnancy are unable or unwilling to accept the fact that an early-term fetus is a distinct human life, biologically and morally identical to a baby that has already been born, even though they would immediately do so if the pregnancy was planned. The rhetorical dynamics of the debate have served to reinforce this cognitive dissonance. Even Professor Kmiec cannot bring himself to say that abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being.
Cardinal Mahony has been largely AWOL in the fight against abortion, but he did have one useful insight in a rare commentary on the issue many years ago. He challenged those who used the term “pro-choice” to openly admit what the nature of that choice is – the killing of an unborn child. If and when President Obama, Professor Kmiec, or Father Jenkins of Notre Dame ever get to the point where they are willing to publicly acknowledge that reality, I might take their supposed concern about reducing abortion seriously.
Jim Belna