Bp Tobin "Unimpressed" With Obama's Tucson Speech | National Catholic Reporter

Bp Tobin "Unimpressed" With Obama's Tucson Speech | National Catholic Reporter by Michael Sean Winters

As long as repealing Roe is the sin qua non of the pro-life movement, Bishop Tobin, A/B Dolan and Michael Sean Winters will be stuck in a rut. While Roe was tragic, it was not wrong.

Jurisdictionally, the ruling is correct - whether a fetus is a person or not cannot be an issue decided by the States (and should not be - doing so would tear the nation apart much as the question of slavery did). The 14th Amendment makes this a federal question. The unambiguous language of the amendment also makes birth the absolute marker for recognition - however Congress can adjust it under its enforcement powers under the amendment and its rights as THE sovereign legislature.

Focusing on Roe is also irresponsible, meaning it relieves the pro-life movement and its leaders in the hierarchy from dealing with the quandry of HOW to extend rights to the unborn. It is not up to Obama,or even to Catholic legislators to come up with this solution - it is up to the partisans to do so.

The onus of change is clearly on the movement. Until it has a proposal, neither Obama nor Biden need do the movement's work for them. We can, however, point out the obstacles the movement must overcome to put forward legislation:

- dealing with making sure that natural miscarriages don't produce malpractice suits because a legal person dies without at the same time violating the equal protection rights of these legal persons

- deciding how criminal responsibility is meted out in killing a legal person without violating the equal protection rights of doctors by exempting mothers

- deciding how much power to give the state in investigating the deaths of legal persons - or how to avoid investigators borrowing families who have had miscarriages without leaving a hole in the law so big that the law is unenforceable.

It is not up to pro-choice Catholic politicians to resolve these quandries for you and until you propose a bill that deals with them (essentially by ignoring first trimester pregnancies), it is irresponsible to say that Abortion is the number one issue on which politicians are to be judged. In fact, without some draft legislation that addresses the issues I raise responsibly, ABORTION IS NOT A PUBLIC POLICY ISSUE AT ALL.