How to be Pragmatically ProLife!

I wrote an alternative prolife platform position for the Christian Democratic Union(CDU), a party I was considering joining. Unfortunately, they have an uncompromisingly prolife position. However, I do believe that my alternative is a superior strategy for dealing with the politics of abortion and could enable a third party to gain a serious foot hold on power by capturing the center on this most persistently contentious issue.

An Idea to Prevent Abortions and Acrimony.

For the CDU to succeed in getting significant National attention and a toe hold on power, it needs to gamble. That includes gambling by taking a controversial and more centrist position on the politics of abortion. The goal of this gamble is to reduce effectively the number of abortions and to get free nat’l media attention by distinguishing ourselves from both main parties and capturing the center on this issue.

Idea: We call ourselves Pragmatic ProLifers. We commit ourselves to working long-term to making all elective abortions approx. 48 days after conception illegal. We justify this goal by stressing that it is not an arbitrary compromise cutoff point but rather is a clear cut dividing line for when we should first treat the human unborn as legally-protected-persons. It is clear cut on account of the critical importance of relationality for whether someone is a human being. What makes us human beings is not our dna or our level of brain activity or how much autonomy we have as individuals. What makes us human beings is not any specific set of attributes that we possess, but rather how other human beings are able to recognize themselves in us. This is the critical importance of relationality for whether someone is a human being and the first means by which we recognize someone as such is through their human form that emerges at 48 days after conception, as illustrated here.

Now, we don’t have to all agree on this notion of when we should first treat the human unborn as human beings, but we can say that “Not all of us here [in the CDU] believe this and many of us hold to more conservative or liberal positions personally, but we agreed that politically it would be wise to make this our end-goal for the extension of legal-personhood to the unborn.” We could then use pictures from before, at and after this point in embryonic development to illustrate our goal.

The next step is to emphasize the need to be pragmatic or strategic in achieving this goal. There are two key pragmatic principles here:

(1) we need to stress that it is much more important to change hearts than laws about the personhood of the human unborn and

(2) we must also seek legal and social changes that will value all mothers.

In the first point, we need to stress the importance of changing hearts first, since otherwise there is no guarantee that the extension of legal protections to the unborn against arbitrary loss of life will prove durable. There are examples, like in Portugal, where abortions were made illegal and then, after some bad press over the enforcement of the law, were made legal again. The legal changes did not last because most people did not believe that those involved in the abortion deserved to be punished.

The solution here is that we need to tie ourselves to the mast and commit ourselves longterm to changing hearts before changing laws. The way to do this is with a strategically chosen constitutional amendment. We need to press for a constitutional amendment that would make federal legal changes as to when we first treat the human unborn as a legally-protected person only possible through national referendums.

The second part above of being pragmatic is to reduce the feminist opposition by making sure that we are both prolife and pro women’s rights. Our faith-based approach would stress the need to follow Jesus in the way he did not condemn the sinner in John 8:3-11, but rather stood up for her right to life and dignity(despite her shortcomings) and then asked her to leave her sinful lifestlye.

So what these pragmatic principles would result in is a three part strategy.

(1) We would encourage local reforms meant to prevent abortions and care for mothers, like those advocated by feminist prolifer Serrin Foster.

(2) we would lead the charge for a hopefully multipartisan-supported Constitutional Amendment. The amendment described above would omit the economically liberal aspects of the CDU’s current Human Dignity amendment, so as to hopefully get the support of prolife economic conservatives. The amendment would repeal only part of RoeVWade. We could leave the protection of all first trimester elective abortions until a later amendment, after it’s become clear how well the referendums work in adjudicating our differences on this controversial subject.

(3)It would then be up to us to foster widespread conversations on the facts of the fetal development process and what it means for us to be human beings who deserve legal protections against arbitrary loss of life, and to press for a series of referendums until we reached our goal.

Personal Testimony

I believe this would work long run and, in the short-run, it would be just what the CDU(or any third party) needs to distinguish itself from the main parties on this persistently important political issue. It would allow the party to capitalize on the institutional rigidities of the main parties on this issue and to capture the center.

As someone who used to believe that we were humans at conception and then later switched to that we were humans at the point of viability and then who went through a process of gradually working out what I believed through much debate and study, I can promise you that I believe 100% that we will be able to convince 75% of the US population to make the beginning of legal personhood at 48 days after conception. I don’t believe that about conception. In fact, I see the belief that we are ensoulled human beings at conception as basically a religious tradition, justified neither by Science nor Scripture, that is held by some Christians and not others. As such, I am very much opposed, on the basis of the separation of Church and State, for it to be made law over and against the views of the majority of US citizens.

Strategic Problems with the existing CDU approach.

I would describe the CDU’s Human Dignity Amendment as a strategy similar to that used by the Pope in the Evangelium Vitae. This approach couples a strong orthodox position on the value and inviolability of life in opposition to legal abortions with an economic advocacy for the working class and poor. The problem is that this coupling of the two issues is too easily decoupled. I think realistically, it is hard to commit to politically. It skips over the uncomfortable question of how the party would work out its priorities when the two agendas inevitably come into conflict.

A party has only so much political capital and when they come into power, they will be under pressure behind the scenes by moneyed interests. In these situations, it would be easy to deprioritize economic issues by over prioritizing social issues and then spinning the outcome to the party as “biblically balanced” or “compromise”.

The key to circumventing this problem is to pick one’s battles wisely at the outset on social issues so as to ensure a better balance between them and economic issues and to provide more room for making key structural reforms to the political system. Structural reforms like First Pass the Post Plus or making state legislative bodies a unicameral hybrid between representational and majoritarian systems where elections are annual and there is near 100% voter participation.

The Importance of Admitting our Fallibilism.

But in all of this, we need to distinguish between God’s ideals and human laws that inevitably accomodate human sinfulness. And, inasmuch as we are fallible in discerning what sorts of legal changes we may make in the here and now, it is not helpful to claim that our goals reflect a transcendent “natural law”. We can believe in moral realism and oppose relativism but also admit that our systems of cultural values/beliefs fall short and can and should be open to some changes.

So, that didn’t work with the CDU, but I still believe that it could work and help a third party grow in political influence or that aspects of the position would be helpful for major party candidates.

dlw

Comments

22 Responses to “
How to be Pragmatically ProLife!”

dlw on June 27th, 2006 12:50 pm

Well, I got a positive comment on my pragmatically prolife manifesto from Vasu Murti, the Hindu liberal prolife pro animal rights/vegetarianism activist. He agreed on the need for another constitutional amendment and liked my reference to Jesus’ actions towards the woman caught in adultery.

I also got some good feedback from a conservative Roman Catholic friend of mine. He wrote, “Thank you for sharing this, dlw. I’ll have to think about some things to determine if I can fully agree with you on this, but for the meantime, I definitely agree that the bigger picture is to change hearts, and that of course is ultimatley through the grace of God, not, however, to the exclusion of our being a certain channel of that love through our words and actions, which would include our prayers and sacrifices and penances for our own holiness and for poor sinners. Yes, I agree, even if Roe V. Wade were completely reversed, that, in and of itself, would not solve everything, for if unchastity and the desire to abort remain, I’m sure there’d be a “black market” to work around it.

I’ll try to say more later if I have time!”

I consider these good signs if I can get positive feedback from very different perspectives…
dlw

dlw on June 27th, 2006 1:17 pm

Mass Gov’r Mitt Romney has been called pragmatically prolife based on his call that the decision be left to the states rather than the US Supreme Court.

Here’s an excerpt.
Governor Mitt Romney’s call for individual states and not the US Supreme Court to determine the legality of abortion places him squarely in the center of the antiabortion camp, which acknowledges that the public isn’t ready for an outright ban in the US Constitution.

I am very much against this, as I don’t believe matters of legal personhood should be left up to state’s rights.

This is just more evidence of how much my idea needs to garner more public attention.

dlw

Ted Gossard on June 28th, 2006 12:23 am

dlw,
Interesting proposal. I like nearly every point about it. Though am not converted to the idea that viability is when humanity begins. If it is life that is inevitably going to be birthed as a girl or boy human being, than for me the human life begins at conception. As much is there at the point of conception as at 48 days and 9 months. The only difference is the development of it. My understanding or view of that.

I do think this move is better than the Democrat platform, which just seems to summarily dismiss most all concerns about abortion (though some of their politicians, including high profile ones, are doing better than that, I think). And better than the Republican, which says abortion is wrong (with exceptions), but does little substantively about it, except to appoint justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, who may vote to overturn Roe v Wade. Unfortuantely the differences between conservative and liberal (”activist”) judges, in my take, is not as cut and dried as some (like conservative evangelical Christians) make it out to be. On some issues which side is more Christian is very debatable.

Yes, hearts must be changed. Otherwise passing laws will be to little or no avail. There does need to be a consensus our nation comes to, even as over time took place in regard to slavery and the “civil rights” of African Americans.

Thanks dlw, for your work here. Hope it at least gets people thinking. Maybe NPR could pick up on it, sometime, sooner than later.

Ted Gossard on June 28th, 2006 12:27 am

Correction: …life, that in the full course (instead of “inevitably” alone) will inevitably be a human girl or boy.

dlw on June 28th, 2006 1:01 am

Ted, Why not bring it up with others, yourself?

And, there is no inevitability from the point of conception on, in fact, over a majority of human zygotes will be absorbed by the woman’s womb within the week(or two) after conception.

The potential for development argument is too slippery, every sperm can in the full course potentially become a human boy or girl, but that doesn’t mean every sperm is sacred…;)

dlw
ps, I reposted about this over at TPMCafe to get some pro-choice feedback. I’ve had two replies so far. One of them pointed out that I didn’t address the need to improve sex ed and family planning and didn’t understand that I was excluding consideration of non-elective abortions in the above post. The other said I was just trying to get females arrested for having abortions and a liar, adopting a ruse since I couldn’t get all abortions made illegal.

I guess such replies are to be expected given the level of acrimony on this subject.

dlw

Ted Gossard on June 28th, 2006 2:40 am

dlw,
Thanks for your good reply.

Yes. That was in my mind, about the human zygote problem. I just couldn’t put that into medical terminology, as you did. But that was in my thinking and primary as to why I added the second comment. Which is simply back to my point at that point: In the course (I guess I shouldn’t say, normal) of a full term pregnancy and birth, the life to develop into the baby at birth, is completely present at conception.

What else is magic about 48 days, besides the appearance?

Yeah. The world of politics. Good when people can thoughtfully exchange their views, even when poles apart.

David O. Moberg on June 28th, 2006 11:57 am

You have interesting pragmatic perspectives.

I discovered your statement through Prism ePistle and expected a wholistic view that would go further than you indicated.

Isn’t ProLife a concern for people of all ages, not just the nine months prior to birth? Thus the Replublican Party is pro-life for the prenuptial period and the Democratic Party for ages from birth to about 115 or 120. — DOM

dlw on June 28th, 2006 1:20 pm

Ted,
I don’t know if I can convince you, but to have human dna and be biologically alive does not make one a human being, as all of our cells would qualify.
If you add potentiality to that, it’s too slippery of a criterion.

My point is not that 48 days is magical. My point is that what is fundamental to us being human beings is our relations with each other. We can recognize ourselves in each other and feel the duty we have to each other. And the first means by which we recognize ourselves is not by our dna or potentiality but by the human image. This is part of imago dei that God formed man into(as is repeated twice in Genesis 2:7-8.). It is not an arbitrary condition, as we can infer from Genesis 2:19 that describes how Man gave names to the animals after they were formed. Our ability to recognize the human form in someone, despite our flaws, is key to the bond that shd make us responsible for each other.

But I wouldn’t say that conception vs 48 days is poles apart. We’re closer together than others…

dlw

dlw on June 28th, 2006 1:36 pm

DOM,
Thanks for reading and commenting.

I dissent from the consistent or completely pro-life approaches that Ron Sider and others take. It doesn’t work to keep the existing frames of the politics of abortion and add other issues. The reason is that the existing frames have sown stalemate in our conservatively structured gov’t. Much political activism in the past on prolife issues has only produced acrimony and cynicism. When you try coupling the traditional anti-abortion position with other issues under a pro-life rubric, most traditional prolifers can sense that would be tantamount to giving up on prolife political activism.

What I’m doing is reframing the politics of abortion and setting out a vision for how we can longterm effectively prevent abortions and acrimony. Aspects of this position, if it gets the nat’l attention that it deserves, shd get multipartisan support, which will make it no longer a wedge issue and increase the likelihood of reforms. This would then give other “prolife” issues a better chance of becoming more important in elections.

So it’s a matter of strategy. What matters is reframing the issue as being fundamentally about how we determine the defined circumstances when women may elect an abortion or alternatively when the human born are first treated as legally-protected persons with protections against arbitrary loss of life similar to that currently given to new born infants.
dlw

Big Chris on June 28th, 2006 10:42 pm

David,
I could probably pick a few things to contend with, but it’s all nuancing. I don’t have a problem with your proposal, but I would differ in thinking that it is only a step in the right direction, not the final solution. I would rather have this than the current situation though.

Big Chris

dlw on June 28th, 2006 11:02 pm

Thanks for the reply man.

I see it as better than anything else that is on the ground right now…

dlw

The Anti-Manichaeist » Blog Archive » A tribute to/proposal for Warren Buffett on June 29th, 2006 12:46 am

[...] I was googling about him, because I wanted to pitch to him my idea. I couldn’t find contact info so I thought I’d just do it from here. I think that with a 100,000 dollars, I could start a Christian Pragmatic Prolife party that would be based on my Pragmatic Prolife Manifesto and a couple of other undervalued policy reform ideas cherry picked from my Christian Pragmatic Progressive Party Platform. The party would have a candidate for the US Senate in MN, I’d find someone else to be the candidate, and we would campaign nonstop until one of the other main candidates took on my position on the politics of abortion, or something reasonably similar to it. It would not be critical for them to take on the other issues on the platform, as their presence would be an extra incentive to take on my issue, to shut us up if you will. [...]

The Anti-Manichaeist » Blog Archive » Interaction with Pro Choicers over My Pragmatic Prolife Manifesto! on June 29th, 2006 10:38 pm

[...] I decided to post a link to my How to be Pragmatically Prolife post over at TPMCafe. I did this at a liberal blog, because I knew that it was critical to see how the approach would fair with prochoicers. It is critical that their opposition be reduced for the idea’s success. I have had a good deal of response and, while they did oppose the idea(after all, they are prochoice, not prolife.), I believe I’ve been able to respond to them well. And, what has been more important for me, the dialogue has largely been courteous. And that, sadly, is something that does not happen often when people deal openly about their differences over the politics of abortion. Normally, it’s an exercise in futility as people talk past each other or things get heated easily rhetorically. And so I’m willing to say that so far, I think things have been relatively successful. [...]

The Anti-Manichaeist » Blog Archive » The Pragmatic Progressive Bandwagon! on July 3rd, 2006 3:05 pm

[...] I think that this idea and the Basic Income Guarantee plan for income tax and welfare reform, coupled with a Land Value Tax to keep marginal income tax rates down and oil taxes to force us to conserve and reduce our foreign oil dependency problem and taxes on $peech given to politicians/parties/PACs, and my vision for making state legislatures unicameral with a hybrid between a majoritarian and representational election system and annual elections where near 100% voter participation is encourage along with healthcare and educational reforms would work well if coupled with the image improvement in matters of national security and a reframing of the cultural wars issues thru aspects of “my pragmatic prolife manifesto” and a redirection of LGBT activism from seeking more legal gay marriages to more concrete and less symbolic rights issues and winning more public goodwill by championing family values issues that are being neglected by the religious right. [...]

The Anti-Manichaeist » Blog Archive » Letter to Warren Buffett on July 10th, 2006 5:35 pm

[...] I believe this idea would work if it got the exposure it deserves. It is a critical issue to act on as it has been the most divisive issue in US history since Slavery. You can find it at my blog here [...]

The Anti-Manichaeist » Blog Archive » Letter to Warren Buffett on July 10th, 2006 11:58 pm

[...] I decided to write to the billionaire Warren Buffett about some of my ideas. Here is the letter: Dear Mr. Buffett: I am a political economist turned seminarian. I was a professor of Economics in Mexico for two years, but felt called more to be a peacemaker activist in the cultural wars that have been seriously harming our country’s democracy and the witness of USAmerican Christianity. I write because I admire you and believe you are the right person to bring national attention to some ideas that I have developed. I wanted to bring to your attention some political reforms that I have written about from my blog, the Anti-Manichaeist. I believe you could bring the proper attention to them in this election year, perhaps by supporting candidates who would adopt the key parts of them in their platforms. I have written a pragmatic prolife manifesto that has fared well with both prolifers and prochoicers. It contains an idea I have been working on for some time now on how to reframe this most controversial issue, so as to both affirm that women have a constitutional right to elect an abortion under defined circumstances and that we may alter those defined circumstances by extending to the human unborn the status of legally-protected-persons similar to what is currently given to newborn infants. My idea includes a constitutional amendment that would seek to take the issue out of the hands of politicians and judges and put it to the US public through a series of national referendums that would require a 75% approval for a proposed change to pass. My general slogan on this matter is, “All Choice takes place in a Moral/Legal Framework; Let’s Talk about the Framework!” I believe this idea would work if it got the exposure it deserves. It is a critical issue to act on as it has been the most divisive issue in US history since Slavery. You can find it at my blog here [...]

The Anti-Manichaeist » Blog Archive » Christian Pragmatic Progressive Party Platform on July 24th, 2006 12:33 pm

[...] For abortion, the CPPP supports making the regulations of the abortion industry more consistent with the commitments to the need for legal protections for human life of a wider portion of the US population. It supports the Pragmatic Prolife Manifesto. [...]

The Anti-Manichaeist » Blog Archive » New Wineskins for Prolife Political Activism on August 2nd, 2006 9:52 pm

[...] I wrote the following letter to Prism E-pistle. It’s a condensed version of my pragmatic prolife manifesto that gives more attention to the biblical case for why I believe we become human beings 48 days after conception. [...]

Michael Bindner on September 19th, 2006 12:52 am

Actually, you don’t need a referendum, which is extra-constitutional, to give fetuses legal standing. Under the 14th Amendment, Congress can define who is a citizen by enforcing the first article. The Republicans know that if they try to do that their corporate support will dry up.

The thing that is needed is serious financial support of families and young people. If that is part of you program, say it directly and not by reference. What I am talking about is a $500 per month per child refundable tax with negative withholding if applicable and a base taxable wage of $10 per hour so that employers pay more than just the tax credit.

Anything short of that is blowing smoke.

dlw on September 19th, 2006 4:57 am

Michael, all possible constitutional amendments are “extra-constitutional”…

Could you clarify your constitutional legal reasoning some for me? Somehow, I doubt the writers of the Constitution meant for it to clarify when exactly the human unborn merits protection against being aborted.

As for what you wrote, I am not against that but I think the matter of when we first treat the unborn as legally-protected persons needs to be clarified. This is separate from and complementary to providing financial support to families and young people.

Are you with the usbig, per chance?
dlw

Jonathan on March 9th, 2007 1:00 am

David,

You had asked me to read this post–I have, and it aligns fairly closely with my position on the issue. I think the only way to reach a conclusion on this issue is to compromise. Also, I’m skeptical of the belief that life begins at conception as well. Sam Harris (for all his atheistic diatribes) brought up some arguments I hadn’t heard before in his book (though you’ve probably been bantering them around for years–forgive me, I’m a relatively new moderate liberal)

dlw on March 9th, 2007 1:34 am

I think there are strong biblical args against the dogma that we are human beings at conception. Life precedes the rise of humanity and what makes us human beings is neither our dna or our autonomy.

Please pray for me that Jim Wallis will listen to his friend Chuck Gutenson who has promised to try and bring up my idea with Jim when they meet sometime in the not-so-far-off future.

dlw

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How to be Pragmatically ProLife!

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