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PDF versionMe & CFC
by Michael Sean Winters on Mar. 17, 2010
Most days it would never occur to me to give a thought to the group Catholics for Choice (CFC). It is an unpleasant topic. Better to think about Somalia, or the stomach flu, than to occupy one’s mind with a group that seems determined to make a mockery of the moral tragedy which is abortion. They give a bad name to those on the Catholic left who really do struggle with the complexities of the issue, who understand that there is no shame in ambivalence and great honor in wrestling with moral difficulty. CFC is to the Catholic Left what Randall Terry is to the Catholic Right, an embarrassment. Still, in this great, free country of ours, they are entitled to their opinion, even if it is a loathsome opinion.
Yesterday was not most days. Yesterday, I received a call asking me to be on a radio show to discuss the issue of health care reform. I was told that the president of CFC, Jon O’Brien, would be the other panelist. That was fine by me. I am always ready to speak about my opinions and defend them as best I can. As the host said, “I know you disagree with Jon, but we are all civilized people who are capable of a good discussion.” Agreed. She called back ten minutes later to say that Jon refused to be on the show with me because of things I had written about CFC in the past.
I have been harsh about CFC in the past, especially when their foundress, Frances Kissling, launched an attack on Alexia Kelley, the founder of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a group that has done more in a few years to advance the causes dear to the heart of most progressive Catholics than CFC has done in decades. I have re-read what I wrote about them today and I stand by every word. In fact, one of the good things to come of yesterday’s unpleasantness is that I have the opportunity to put what I have written before the readership of NCR again. You can click here and here to read the posts in question.
What was surprising, even to me who holds CFC in such low regard, was the idea that Mr. O’Brien would fail to see that democracy lives by disagreement and discussion. I will go on the air to debate ideas with anyone except a Holocaust denier. Surely, it was not cowardice that motivated Mr. O’Brien to decline to appear on the same show as me. What was it? I think I know. I think Mr. O’Brien must know that I am on to the game they are playing at CFC, the game they exist to play. As someone who agrees – how can one not? – with the bishops about the morality of abortion but who sometimes disagrees with them about the politics of abortion, I am well acquainted with the line between moral authority and political authority. CFC exists to confuse people about that line. They are constantly raising an alarm that the separation between Church and State is threatened, as if a renewal of the Thirty Years War was the most likely thing to happen tomorrow. CFC displays a kneejerk hostility to anything any bishop says. They proclaim that abortion is a “personal decision” without acknowledging that such a formulation avoids, it does not confront, the moral issue. Still, even I was surprised that Mr. O’Brien would be so averse to the kind of debate and discussion that makes democracy possible. I knew CFC hated the Church. It was news to me that they have such contempt for democracy too.
NCR: February 3-16, 2012
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MSW: "As someone who agrees –
MSW: "As someone who agrees – how can one not? – with the bishops about the morality of abortion but who sometimes disagrees with them about the politics of abortion, I am well acquainted with the line between moral authority and political authority."
Well said! I shall be using this line in the future.
It's too bad that Mr. O'Brien
It's too bad that Mr. O'Brien declined to join you on the radio program. Then again, he might have thought you'd say some of the things you wrote in those blog posts, like:
"Her [Kissling's] ethics are the kind of neo-Malthusian nonsense that one finds in liberal circles in the early 1920s, when Margaret Sanger was cavorting with the KKK and before Josef Mengele gave eugenics a bad name."
That's about as inane as "get your rosaries off my ovaries."
I used to be 'pro-life' (i.e. anti-abortion) until I undertook something very uncomfortable - a serious meditation on rape and the possibility of conception via rape. Outlawing abortion would mean backing up rapists' rights of fatherhood with police power. That is not what a just world looks like.
Perhaps it is semantics, but
Perhaps it is semantics, but I am confused by your saying that abortion seen as a "personal decision" does not confront the moral issue. I do understand that, for some, that may be the case, as it seems to be with CFC. Yet, for others, I don't see that the thinking of one avoids the other. I have know many who think of it as a personal decsion, yet also seem to understand that it is a personal decision full of moral implications. It is a difficult issue for many and I offer prayers for all those who struggle with so many of the issue it raises.
Dear Mr. Winters, I
Dear Mr. Winters,
I acknowledge that I have said some pretty nasty things about church leaders on a range of issues not just abortion and some of them I wish I hadn't said and others I stand by. I may even fail in fairly representing the views of some, but not deliberately. I also have a fairly rich record, going back many years of dealing with abortion in complex terms and as a moral issue, it includes explicit statements about what is best in the prolife position and criticism of what is not so good in prochoice rhetoric and positions.
While I see things, as we all do, through my own lens, I am pretty confident I have never said anything quite as ugly or as wrong about someone I disagree with as this statement by you about me. "Her ethics are the kind of neo-Malthusian nonsense that one finds in liberal circles in the early 1920s, when Margaret Sanger was cavorting with the KKK and before Josef Mengele gave eugenics a bad name."
I'm not quite sure how one uses consistently language that ignores the dignity of persons one disagrees with as a way of criticizing what you see as their lack of respect for truth and other persons and at the same time maintain moral superiority, but you seem comfortable in that role.
I am actually curious about the origins of your view that I hold neo Malthusian views or have ideas that are comparable to those of Mengele, the KKK, or even Sanger. Perhaps it is simply believing that women have a moral right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy that makes all of us eugenicists and Nazis, in which case, I can relax. But if I have actually said things that lead you to believe I hold such views I would like to know them so I can be more careful in the future.
I can share with you things I have done and said that specifically reject population control, the idea that some persons or some fetuses should be eliminated because of their race, intelligence, sex, disabilities, etc. I am on record as opposed to coercion of any sort - coercion to continue pregnancy, to end a pregnancy, to use contraception, to have only one child.
It is, of course, interesting to become so despised as a symbol that one is cited as an example of views that have nothing to do with what one believes. One's name gets thrown around for effect because it can rile up a segment of the population all by itself. And, it requires no citations, references or any intention of fairness.
Somewhere in yourself, I imagine you know that even people who disagree with you on abortion have some merit in their arguments, operate from good values, have some points and values that may give rise to doubt about your own position. Sidney Callahan once noted that the sign of a fair debate or discussion among people who disagree is the ability to see what is good in the other's position. I would think finding that good and acknowledging it would be something someone with your values would cherish and want to exhibit. I am in fact sure I am not wrong about that.
All the best
Frances Kissling
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