September 1982 Print

The writer of this article is an American graduate student of Oxford University, at present completing a thesis for his M. Litt. in Mediaeval History. He has published articles in Catholic journals in Great Britain and America, where he is active in the pro-life movement. Acknowledgements to Christian Order

 

What Abraham Lincoln said of one of his generals—"He can pull defeat from the jaws of victory"—could be applied equally well to the Catholic bishops of the United States on the abortion issue. Now that the pro-life caucus in the U.S. Congress is at its greatest strength in a decade, and a strong bill that would grant the legal status of personhood to the unborn has a favorable chance of passing from the committee to the floor, the Catholic bishops have directed the faithful to make a ninety-degree turn in order to support a constitutional amendment that recognizes the States' right to abort but not the fetus's right to life. It is most certainly the most incompetent political decision by the Catholic bishops since the birth of the Republic.

The Prelude

In 1973, when the Supreme Court allowed unrestricted abortion, the foremost opponents were the Catholic bishops. At first, the anti-abortion movement existed primarily in a Catholic ghetto, and its ability to influence national politics was slight. Even so, in 1974 the Catholic bishops rejected any compromise on abortion. They specifically refused to support legislation that would leave abortion decisions up to the States. The bishops insisted that a national law or constitutional amendment which recognized the fetus as a person and guaranteed its right to life was the goal of the Church.

The Catholic stand was an example to many non-Catholics, especially Evangelical and Protestant churches. These Protestants, including such groups as the Moral Majority, became the major part of the crusade against abortion. The pro-life groups not dominated by the bishops also became the most effective striking force against abortion because they didn't hesitate to organize campaigns and to give financial backing to pro-life candidates. The 1980 election year was a banner year for the pro-lifers. At least two dozen congressional elections were decided on the abortion issue and the Senate ranks as well were swelled by staunchly pro-life senators such as Jeremiah Denton and John D'Amato. The bishops and their pro-life committees did little if anything in bringing about this result.

 

The Human Life Bill

In January, 1981, a bill was introduced into Congress by its sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms and Congressman Henry Hyde, which would effectively end abortion in the U.S.

Called the Human Life Bill, it would legally define the unborn child as a person with the rights of personhood under the law. This bill was proposed in accordance with Article III, Section ii, of the Constitution, which states:

In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

In other words, the Human Life Bill would force the Supreme Court and other courts to grant the rights of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to the unborn.

The 14th Amendment reads:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of Life, Liberty, or Property, without due process of Law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If the unborn were granted personhood under the law, then no abortion could be performed without a court hearing beforehand. Moreover, under the "Equal Protection" clause the State would be obliged to provide full equal representation to protect the rights of the fetus. It's not difficult to see how the Human Life Bill could end the slaughter of the innocents.

During the year, the Human Life Bill battled its way through the preliminary hearings and finally to a successful subcommittee vote in late 1981. To become law, the Human Life Bill needs only a majority vote in each of the two Houses of Congress.

Last fall as the Human Life Bill was progressing through committee, it and its supporters (every major pro-life organization) came under attack from an unexpected source : the United States Catholic Conference (USCC). In October, the USCC General Counsel, Wilfred Caron, issued a brief stating that the Human Life Bill was unconstitutional. At the same time, Mark Gallagher, the American bishops' pro-life organizer, was urging bishops and pro-life groups to support a different law called the Hatch Amendment.

The Hatch Amendment

On September 21, 1981, an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, named for its sponsor, Senator Orrin Hatch, was introduced in Congress. It reads:

A right to abortion is not secured by this Constitution. The Congress and the Several States shall have the concurrent power to restrict and prohibit abortions; provided, that a law of a State which is more restrictive than a law of Congress shall govern.

This Amendment does not recognize the unborn child as a person under law. While it allows the State the right to restrict abortion, even its sponsor admits that there is no guarantee that the States will pass their own laws to prohibit abortion and thus save a single life. Unlike the Human Life Bill, which can be passed by a simple majority of Congress, the Hatch Amendment—as an amendment to the Constitution—must be passed by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress and three-quarters of the 50 State legislatures before it can become law.

Led by the Committees of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S. Catholic Conference, the bishops quickly lined up to support the Hatch Amendment. Archbishop John R. Roach of St. Paul, Minneapolis, the Chairman of the NCCB, endorsed the Hatch Amendment on October 23. He said that a "pure" human life amendment was unlikely to pass, and "The bottom line in favor of the Hatch Amendment appears to be that it is politically achievable."

Without making more than a cursory examination of the Human Life Bill, the bishops' Pro-life Committee, led by Cardinal Cooke of New York, endorsed the Hatch Amendment in September. The U.S. bishops were committed to the Bill without even being polled! Bishop Thomas Welsh of Arlington, Virginia, said of the committee's action, "Rather than receiving the information on a matter of great concern to all of us, from a telegram, there must have been some way to poll us" (NY Times, 11-17-81). However, other bishops soon fell into line and began issuing their own endorsements.

At the annual general meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (Nov. 16-19, 1981) some of the bishops expressed doubt about the NCCB support of the Hatch Amendment. Cardinal Humberto Medeiros of Boston asserted that the 1981 NCCB abortion stand was not consistent with the bishops' previous stand. He pointed out that in 1974 Congressional hearings the bishops had openly rejected the same approach that they were now endorsing. The Cardinal said that he wouldn't be able to tell his flock in Boston why the bishops had changed. "In my conscience, I do not see how I could endorse an Amendment which will grant the power to Congress and the States to destroy life in the womb. I will not have these innocent voices in the future shouting at me, asking me what right I had to sacrifice them" (Providence Journal, Nov. 17, 1981). Bishop Daniel Cronin of Fall River, Massachusetts, said that the Hatch Amendment contained a "built-in contradiction." "As I understand the Amendment, an unborn child in the wrong State at the wrong time isn't going to fare as well as one born in the right State at the right time" (Providence Journal, Nov. 17, 1981).

Most bishops, however, were enthusiastic about the amendment. Cardinal Cooke said "To the extent it is possible to judge the morality of a constitutional amendment, the Hatch proposal is morally sound. It will reverse the social acceptance of destruction of the unborn which grows more pervasive each day it goes on" (Providence Journal, Nov. 17, 1981). Bishop Joseph Mc Nicholas of Springfield, Illinois, supported the Hatch Amendment as an expedient political move. He said that the foes of abortion who seek the "perfect amendment" would be allowing the practice to continue if they are not willing to compromise. Cardinal Cooke pushed especially hard. At a press conference during the first day of the bishops' meeting, he predicted that the bishops would line up "four square" behind the Hatch Amendment.

Cardinal Cooke's prophecy was correct. Faced with previous endorsements, strong lobbying from the NCCB committees and the pressure to present a "united front," every bishop but one voted to endorse the Hatch Amendment. Even Cardinal Medeiros, who had spoken so passionately against the Amendment, voted with his 200-plus colleagues. The lone voice of dissent belonged to Bishop Joseph Sullivan of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, probably the most outspokenly orthodox Bishop in the United States.

 

Whipping the Pro-Lifers into Line

On December 12, 1981, the board of the National Right to Life Committee was called together for a special session in order to endorse the Hatch Amendment. Just two months before, the board had unanimously adopted a policy amendment which called for the legal definition of a person, as it applies to the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, to apply to the unborn. Bishops called up their state committee members to lobby for an endorsement of the new approach. One right to life leader said that she had not heard from her bishop for five years before he called her at her hotel to urge her to vote for the Hatch Amendment (The Wanderer, Dec. 24, 1981). The lobbying again paid off. By the end of the day, the majority of National Right to Life Committee Board members endorsed the Hatch Amendment by secret ballot.

The bishops are laying down a stern law with respect to supporting the Hatch Amendment. The Wanderer (Dec. 17, 1981) reported that Bishop Kelly, General Secretary of the NCCB-USCC, told a meeting of diocesan pro-life directors in December that "no dissent" to the bishops' policy will be tolerated. At that meeting, Mark Gallagher, one of the bishops' pro-life lobbyists, reportedly said, "We will treat a vote against the Hatch Amendment as making a Senator a member of the hard-core pro-abortion camp" (The Wanderer, Dec. 10, 1981). This presumably means that legislators with solidly pro-life voting records who disagree with the weakness of the Hatch Amendment and prefer to support much stronger pro-life legislation will now be labelled "pro-abortion" by the bishops and their committees.

If the Hatch Amendment goes down in defeat, as it most probably will, the credibility of the bishops goes with it. If the bishops continue to undermine the Human Life Bill, then the chances of any pro-life legislation passing at all is minimal. Thus, the trust and cooperation built up over the years between the different pro-life groups will be destroyed for years to come. Even many Catholic pro-lifers that I know now express their doubts about the bishops' commitment to ending abortion and find it safer to carry out pro-life activities in groups dominated by Protestants.

Even if the Hatch Amendment passes, it is doubtful that it will have any effect of limiting abortion. The Amendment contains the two great flaws of not legally defining "person" or "abortion." Any federal court could and probably will, be able to interpret abortion as only taking place in the last three months of pregnancy, all other abortions being "terminations of pregnancy" and not applicable to the amendment. Other laws and interpretations to allow abortion to prevent "harm to the mothers' physical or mental health," etc., etc., could be invoked to allow abortion in the last three months. It's little wonder that the pro-abortionists vent their wrath upon the Human Life Bill while showing little concern about the Hatch Amendment.

I wonder what the bishops and their bureaucrats really think of the laity. One day they tell us that a states' right approach is wrong; the next, we are told to follow this policy without dissent. Do they have contempt for us?