Why it's time to redefine what it means to be "pro-life"

I wasn't quite old enough to vote in the 1988 presidential election, but if I had been, I would have voted for George H.W. Bush, and a big reason would have been his "pro-life" position on abortion. As a Catholic, I spent years as an altar boy in the 1980s listening to priests at St. Callistus Church in El Sobrante speak of abortion as an assault on the sanctity of human life, and I agreed wholeheartedly.
All these decades later, I continue to follow my church's teachings on the morality of abortion, but my view of what it means to be "pro-life" has changed radically. I have never voted for a traditional Republican pro-life candidate for president, and have no intention of ever doing so. I no longer see that label as limited to the abortion debate but rather as encompassing a broad range of social justice issues that relate to the respect and defense of human life -- most notably, the gun epidemic ravaging our nation, and the refusal of so-called pro-life politicians such as Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump to do anything about it.

Victims of Parkland, Florida, shooting

Even in the context of abortion, I've come to believe that the social policies embraced and promoted by pro-choice politicians in areas such as sex education, health care and anti-poverty programs have been much more effective in reducing the frequency of abortion in our society than the empty words of pro-life conservatives whose only goal is to coerce women to do what they believe to be moral. As a Christian, a husband and a father, I believe that abortion is about much more than the endless debate over Roe v. Wade, and that respecting and defending life in our scarred society and world is about much more than whether a woman retains the right to terminate her pregnancy.
It's time to stop allowing politicians to monopolize the label of pro-life over a single issue, especially when they consistently show a callous disregard for human life in the positions they take on universal health care, the plight of immigrants and refugees, the environmental threat to the livability of our planet, and the scourge of gun violence that has taken the lives of our children in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkside, Florida; and Sutherland Springs, Texas, to name but a few.

It is time for all Americans to state loudly and clearly that politicians who turn a blind eye to the fundamental human right articulated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are not pro-life in any way, shape or form, regardless of their position on Roe v. Wade. The children of Newtown and Parkland, and so many other places, were not afforded this most basic right. No amount of thoughts and prayers can change that fact.
Bill Clinton was never labeled, by supporters or detractors, as a pro-life president. But in my mind, his pro-life record stands above any president of my lifetime. As a new breed Democrat, he boldly reshaped the debate around abortion to encompass both moral and legal considerations during his 1992 presidential campaign, expressing a view that it should be "safe, legal and rare." And indeed, after peaking during the first Bush presidency in 1990, the abortion rate in the United States fell steadily during the Clinton years, and has continued to fall since.
But that's not why I consider him pro-life. As president, Clinton undertook one of the most successful humanitarian endeavors of the 20th century, ending the Bosnian genocide through military and diplomatic measures and saving countless civilian lives, despite opposition to his efforts at home. And, he signed the 1994 assault weapons ban into law, a ban that was long overdue and that was ultimately allowed to expire by "pro-life" congressional leaders who decided to place the wishes of those who demand unfettered access to military weapons of mass destruction above the safety of our children. Not surprisingly, in the years since the ban expired, the AR-15 assault rifle has become the weapon of choice in mass shootings across the United States.
I've been pleased to see my own church, through the inspirational leadership of Pope Francis, greatly expand its focus, emphasis and advocacy for a broad array of life issues over the years, whether it be the fundamental right of all people to health care, food and safe living conditions; its solidarity with immigrants and refugees seeking lives of dignity for themselves and their families (a banner at my church reads "All immigrants Welcome Here"); or the threats of climate change to the ability of people around the world to live in safe, stable environments and benefit from God's gift of natural resources.
The pillars of social justice are broad and interconnected, and the days when a political or religious leader can narrowly define advocacy for life as being about abortion, and abortion only, need to end.
As a humble sinner, I would never presume to speak for God. But I have listened to the Gospels many times throughout my life, and I have my own feelings about what Jesus Christ would say about those who claim to stand for life, while doing nothing to stop the assault on our children, our society and our planet. What He would say about those who market themselves in elections as pro-life, while ignoring the cries of the parents of Newtown and Parkland, or the fact that no where else in the advanced world do such acts of mass terror occur with such horrific frequency, only to be met by such indifference by those who have the power to do something about it.
It's summed up pretty well by a verse I've heard in church more times than I can count over the years, and which speaks volumes in the wake of  Parkland, Florida.
 "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."-- Matthew 25:45

Why did Catholics go for Trump? A Catholic wants to know

When it comes to political ambivalence, no religious group can touch us Catholics. Trying to come to terms with how to vote in any given presidential election can be an excruciating experience worthy of the confessional.

Jews overwhelmingly tend to vote for Democrats; evangelical Christians are even more fervent in their loyalty to Republicans. African-American protestants are liberal, white protestants conservative.

Catholics? We seem to blow with the wind, and in this election we helped blow Donald Trump to victory (though not this one).

The exit polls showed that Catholics favored Trump 52-45 percent on Nov. 8. It's likely that advantage played a pivotal role in putting him over the top in the Catholic-heavy Rust Belt states that tipped the election.

But why? Catholics favored Barack Obama in both 2008 (54-45) and 2012 (50-48). They also went for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and Al Gore in 2000. The only other time in the past quarter century the Catholic vote went for a Republican was in 2004, when Catholics favored George Bush over the man who was trying to become only the second Catholic president in U.S. history, John Kerry.

At least we know now that Catholics aren't inherently biased against Catholic presidential candidates.

So why is it that our vote is consistently so up for grabs? As a former altar boy who has heard more than a few politically tinged sermons over the years, I have a few ideas.

Three types of Catholics

In my experience, there are three distinct types of Catholics: Conservative Catholics who adhere strictly to church doctrine and tradition, and for whom abortion is the defining moral and political issue of our time (hence the conservative priests who argued that John Kerry should be denied communion because of his pro-choice position); progressive Catholics who take a much more holistic and far-reaching view of social-justice issues and tend to focus on ones where they can have a more immediate impact, such as violence, climate change and immigration; and secular, or pragmatic Catholics, for whom faith is but one aspect of their lives but not a defining one, and who are most likely to separate their religious beliefs from their political views.

In any given election, any one of those three groups can play a pivotal role in determining which candidate gets the Catholic vote. My guess is that the secular Catholics were the decisive block in backing Bill Clinton in the 1990s and the progressive Catholics went for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

My hunch is that this year the conservative Catholics tipped the balance, and I think it may have had a lot to do with the third presidential debate. I think the conservative block is the minority among the three but perhaps the most politically passionate and certainly most likely to base their vote on the singular issue of abortion.

Trump appealed directly to them by taking on abortion head-on in the third debate, a contrast from mainstream Republicans have who have largely tried to steer clear of the topic in recent years even as Democrats have become more absolute in their pro-choice positions. When Trump said outright in the third debate that he would nominate pro-life justices to the Supreme Court and condemned in graphic (if inaccurate) terms late-stage abortions, I wonder if that was the tipping point for older, socially conservative Catholic voters in the Rust Belt who believe firmly that abortion is tantamount to murder.

Hillary Clinton's response was to toe the traditional Democratic line, which has become increasingly inflexible over the years. Abortion, for them, is in no way a moral issue, it is entirely a personal one. Whereas her husband once declared his belief that abortion should be safe, legal and rare, Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic Party long  ago dropped the "rare" part of that equation.

The problem is that for many other Americans, abortion is an issue that generates a degree of ambivalence and internal conflict that neither political party seems willing to acknowledge or address. I've heard many talks about abortion in church over the years, though not nearly as many as I once did because of the progressive nature of my current parish, but the most powerful one came a few years ago from a priest who decried the positions of both the left and the right on the issue and blamed both for failing to address it in practical terms: the pro-life movement that seems to believe the only answer is repealing Roe. V. Wade and fails to recognize how conservative economic policies actually encourage abortion and that coercion is not the only, or best, answer; and the pro-choice movement whose entire focus is preserving Roe. V. Wade while ignoring the broader moral implications of abortion, or any effort to focus on ways to help women in this difficult situation to choose life. Progressive Catholics believe abortion is a sin but one best addressed through compassion rather than coercion.

Because neither party is interested in deviating from its rigid ideological positions, it is the minority of voters on the extremes who can tip a close election in one direction or the other. When enough voters feel that Roe V. Wade is at real risk, pro-choice voters are most likely to turn out in big numbers for the Democrat. But when pro-life voters feel they have a champion, they are the ones energized to turn out. That may be what happened in 2016.

The unfortunate thing about the politics of abortion is there's never any real hope to find common ground on a core social and moral issue that continues to divide America and cause anguish for those most directly affected.