Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

And also from the L.A. Times, a sob story from one of the leading Sob Sisters of our time, Kate Michaelman, the former NARAL leader. Her column, “This Time, Alito, it’s personal” is one of those things that just makes pro-lifers want to throw up their hands and howl. The level of sheer inanity and dripping sentiment is enough sweetening for your breakfast cereal ten times over. Some points (with rebuttal encased in * *):

LOOKING BACK more than three decades to one of the most difficult times in my life, it’s hard to say what seems more insulting: being forced to obtain my husband’s permission to have an abortion after he had just abandoned my family or — many years later — Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s ruling that a similar requirement was not, in constitutional parlance, an “undue burden.”

In 1969 — in those distant but suddenly closer days before Roe vs. Wade — my husband deserted me and our three small daughters.
**OK, so your husband left you. Well, let’s do what a lot of women do; cry about it, eat ice cream, and call your girlfriends
over to roundly denouce him. Then move on.

After learning I was pregnant, and making the wrenchingly personal decision to have an abortion, I was forced to submit to an invasive and humiliating interrogation before a hospital review board in Pennsylvania. It ultimately gave its permission. I was in the hospital preparing for the procedure when a nurse informed me I would need my husband’s permission too. I found him a few days later and he gave it.

** “wrenchingly personal”–no, that’s deciding whether or not to have a masectomy or a lumpectomy. Those are wrenchingly personal. Deciding whether or not to kill your child isn’t personal–it involves at least one other person pretty closely. Just because your husband left you doesn’t mean you can just kill the child because it’s going to be too hard. If it’s too hard, you have it and give the baby up for adoption. People like me, who can’t have their own children, would gladly take this burden off your hands. **

In the 1992 case of Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, Alito voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring women to notify their husbands before having an abortion. Such a requirement, he ruled, was not an “undue burden” on most women. The vast majority of women, he noted, voluntarily discuss an abortion with their husbands, while the law provided a nominal exception for women in the most extreme circumstances, such as abusive relationships.

The only women who would be burdened were all those left in the middle — women like me, women in extraordinary and individualized circumstances that neither laws nor legal standards could possibly anticipate.

**So let’s just have tailor-made law, OK? I mean, I’m sure every murderer or rapists has “extraordinary” and “individualized” circumstances, too, so let’s just amend the laws to make them more palatable for our criminals. Yes! That’s the way to set effective legislation in place!**

Alito’s opinion in essence said the only women the law would burden were those for whom it was burdensome; his standard appeared to be that individual rights could be restricted provided that not too many individuals were at stake.

**I think the baby would be at stake. I also think that it takes two to make a baby, and, absent father or not, he should
at least know that his wife, or ex-wife, or girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, is planning to end the life they both created.
He *may* just have an opinion on the matter that should be taken into account.

That is precisely the problem with government regulating private lives. Politicians do not know how laws will affect each individualized case. Courtrooms are a citizen’s last refuge from unjust laws. When judges do not see those in their courtrooms as whole people and diverse individuals, that final constitutional safeguard is eviscerated.

**The government regulates “private” lives every single day. It tells us how fast to drive, what we can and cannot put into
our bodies, etc. Part of living in a society means giving up certain rights for the benefit of the society. Our society
cannot and does not benefit when the slaughter of the current and future generations continues unchecked because
we want to protect the “private” life of the mother. And yeah, Kate, politicians aren’t wizards. They can’t forsee every
result of a law. But you know, I think the idea of saving the lives of children (who will, by the way, Kate, be paying for
your retirement via Social Security–but you know, since you’re in favor of “choice”, a lot of them won’t be there to do
so–and the program won’t be there for you. Call it their “choice.” **

To be sure, Alito would likely say women such as me should not take his opinion personally. I don’t. But his potential elevation to the Supreme Court comes at a moment when privacy rights hang in the balance on an array of issues. A woman’s right to choose is the most immediately threatened among them. Many Supreme Court decisions on that topic have been decided by a single vote — Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s. If Alito is even slightly more conservative than O’Connor — as is obviously the case — his vote would be enough to render the protections of Roe vs. Wade functionally meaningless for millions of women.

**and yet, the rights of the tiny women in the womb are systematically violated every day, under a constitutional “right”
that doesn’t even exist. **

That is disturbing enough. But far more is at risk. From the Terri Schiavo case to the Patriot Act, politicians at all levels of government show an increasing willingness to invade the most sacred areas of private life — from decisions about the beginning and end of life to the books we check out of the library.

**Remember what I said about giving up certain rights, kate? This is what I mean. And if somebody is constantly
checking out books from the public library about jihad and how to make bombs, I want the FBI to know about it.
Hell, *I* want to know about it. I really don’t think the Feds are looking at my book list going, “hmmm…this kid’s
reading Alexander McCall Smith! That must mean something!!” (um, yeah. She likes to read mysteries.) Can we
please stop whining about the Patriot Act?
And don’t even get me started on Terri Schiavo. That’s just another example of the Left’s total absence of respect for
human life, which I find insulting and degrading.**

Politicians are inclined to do that sort of thing; they rarely respect limits on their own power. That is why we have judges — but if judges such as Alito are willing to give politicians such unthinking deference that they do not even attempt to ascertain how real laws affect real people, it is difficult to see how privacy can possibly be protected.

**Newsflash! It’s not even in the Constitution!!**

That is why it is so disappointing that President Bush has chosen to be intimidated by the most extreme element of his political base rather than acting as what he so often purports to be: a leader. Because he has chosen to follow, it is up to senators to lead. This nomination will rise or fall on the courage of moderates of both parties. Neither Democrats nor Republicans should expect their claims of moderation to be believed if they support a nominee whose views are so extreme.

**Follow? Hmm…I think the President picked Alito for the seat, not the Senate. I think it’s pretty clear the message he’s
sending out. And the Senate will lead—but not the way she wants.
And it’s our favorite word!! Extreme!!**

Bush’s political strategy is already clear: to portray anyone who opposes Alito as obstructionist. That is a label senators should not fear. If their power to advise and consent — as well as the privacy of individual American citizens — means anything, this is a nomination that must be obstructed.

**Someone please give this woman a Con Law class. Judge Alito is one the preeminent jurists in the United States, by
pretty much mutual consent from people who know these things. If he’s obstructed, it’s because he’s pro-life, and that’s
it. And Kate and her colleauges in the Democratic party can pretty much tell Catholics and conservative Evangelicals
that there is no place for them in their party (which isn’t going to help them in the long run).

photo: My cousin, Brendan, who is very glad that his mother didn’t follow Kate’s advice.

I’ve seen this published on a lot of blogs today; it comes from a Cathy Siepp’s column in the L.A. Times, and I’m posting it here for your pleasure and enjoyment…it’s pretty funny:

I REALIZE IT’S HARDER for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a liberal Episcopalian minister to resist attacking Republicans. Still, there’s something fantastically disingenuous about the Rev. George Regas’ protests that, contrary to what the IRS suspects, he didn’t give an impermissibly virulent anti-Bush sermon at All Saints Church in Pasadena a couple of days before the 2004 election.

The issue came up last week after All Saints received a letter from the IRS warning that its tax-exempt status could be in jeopardy because of Regas’ politically charged sermon. But Regas insists that he did not “cross the line” by endorsing one candidate over another. True, he opened the sermon by saying “I don’t intend to tell you how to vote,” presumably with his fingers crossed. But it’s virtually impossible to read it as anything other than an anti-Bush tirade aimed at sending parishioners to the polls two days later to vote the president out of office.

Although Regas called his sermon “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush,” he didn’t imagine Jesus sitting there awkwardly on a third stool, like Ross Perot, but as a presence directly criticizing only Bush, never Kerry. (Although you’d think, just out of curiosity, Jesus might have asked what really happened on those Swift boats.)

Instead, Regas’ Jesus scolds the president: “President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq,” adding, “now the latest figures say 100,000 Iraqi fighters, women and children are dead.” And: “Jesus turns to President Bush again with deep sadness. ‘Is what I hear really true? Do you really mean that you want to end a decade-old ban on developing nuclear battlefield weapons?’ ”

Leaving aside the odd notion of Jesus getting information by checking “the latest figures” (wouldn’t he just know?) or hanging around the water cooler (”Is what I hear really true?”), Regas’ Jesus is quite a policy wonk. According to the sermon, Jesus is pro-choice, against the Iraq war and vehemently disapproves of the Bush tax cuts (that “50% of the tax savings goes to the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans” would “break Jesus’ heart,” according to Regas). He’s in favor of good prenatal care, “dignified jobs” (does carpentry count?) and affordable housing.

I’m curious what he thinks of gerrymandered voting districts, electricity regulation and making it easier to fire bad teachers, but maybe Jesus isn’t really into California politics.

“How Jesus mourns the death of those 3,000 people killed on 9/11,” Regas continues. “But Jesus also mourns the death, devastation and loss in Afghanistan and Iraq and Sudan and Israel-Palestine….” Then he conjures up Jesus again: “At the time of the trauma of 9/11,” Jesus says, “you did not have to declare war. You could have said to the American people and the world, ‘We will respond, but not in kind.’ ”

Just how Bush should have responded, Jesus doesn’t say. But I’d like to know how Regas would have channeled Jesus’ foreign policy ideas about Pearl Harbor, for instance, or the Holocaust. Presumably Jesus would have thought the latter, at least, merited some kind of action — if only to keep it from leading to what Regas calls “Israel-Palestine” instead of just Palestine.

“Mr. President,” Regas’ Jesus continues, “the consequences of arrogance, accompanied by certitude that the world’s most powerful military can cure all ills….” And blah-blah-blah-blabbity-blah. This Jesus is awfully wordy, not at all like the terse prophet you may remember from the Bible. Regas apparently thinks Jesus would sound rather like Cindy Sheehan blathering on to the Huffington Post, or maybe like one of John Kerry’s speechwriters.

And yet the retired rector insisted a few days ago, on The Times’ Op-Ed page, that his sermon “did not cross the line” between religion and campaign politics because “peace and the alleviation of poverty are core values” of his congregation. But peace and the alleviation of poverty are core values of any congregation, and there are plenty that are liberal yet manage to address these issues without attacking particular political parties or candidates.

Now, I hope no one takes this the wrong way, because some of my best friends are Episcopalian, but when it comes to reflexive anti-Bush cant, even the most progressive Pasadena churchgoers are pikers compared to the average Westside Jew. Yet I’ve never heard anything comparable to Regas’ rhetoric at my synagogue — from the congregation, sure, but not from the pulpit.

Somehow the sermons there manage to deal with peace and poverty without electioneering. And if Regas actually thinks his didn’t cross a line, I wonder what part of “render unto Caesar” he doesn’t understand?

With the recent SCOTUS nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court now stands at an interesting point in history. If Alito is confirmed (which, by all the rights, equity, and fairness under God he should be…), there will be 5 Catholics on the Supreme Court–for the first time ever, we will hold a majority.

This is big stuff. I mean, for Catholics, it’s sort of like a big-time arrival. Where’s the Know Nothing party now? But there are still those who would want to call us “odd”, “out of the mainstream”, “extremist” (is any of this ringing a bell?) and they’re doing all they can to make sure an eminently qualified jurist like Alito doesn’t get the nod, because, y’know, us Catholics are just crazy folks!

I’m not saying the opposition is only focused on him because he’s Catholic; they are some rather “famous” (infamous?) Catholics (or CINOs, as I’ve called them elsewhere on this blog). They’re against him because he’s a *good* Catholic. You know, in line with the Church, believing what we believe. The press was all over this today when it came out that Alito does not think abortion is a right supported by the constitution. Well, for anyone who has taken Con Law 101, this is pretty obvious. Even for those of the U.S. population that haven’t, it’s pretty obvious. I mean, just read the fourteenth amendment sometime, and see if anywhere in there you see a line about the right to kill your child. Not only is Judge Alito’s opinion legally sound, it’s morally sound. Chief Justice Roberts is also personally against abortion, and has written some good works about this. But his record isn’t quite as openly pro-life; he just hasn’t been writing opinions as long as Alito has, and I don’t think he’s quite as open as Alito is (or Alito’s mother; the day after the nomination she told the press, “Of course Sam is pro-life!”). But if he was a good pick (which he was), Alito is excellent. Catholic, conservative, a constructionist (meaning he doesn’t look for rights in the Constitution but interprets what’s actually there). A judge could be pro-life and still make a pro-choice ruling based solely on the evidence presented. Judges aren’t judged (OK, sorry) the same way politicians are. When Catholic politicians vote for pro-abortion legislation, they’re violating the laws of the Church. As Catholics we cannot support/condone anything that goes against Church law (even if it’s not infalliably defined). Sen. Kerry, Kennedy, et al. are voting against what they’re supposed to believe. Faith is lived in our every day lives. As Catholics, they should know this. But they just don’t seem to get it. And the idea of their strongest constituency–the pro-choicers–leaving them instills them with more terror than what will happen to them because of their voting record later. “One cannot serve God and mammon,” Jesus said. But some of them would like to try!

It’s heartening to see a good jurist and a good Catholic up for such an important position. I thank Pres. Bush for nominating him, along with C.J. Roberts, and appellate court judge William Meyers, evidence that Catholics can contribute great things to our political life without B XVI building a Vatican II on the banks of the Potomac. (Do non-Catholics seriously think that this would ever happen, anyway? I can’t imagine the Cardinal of Washington being too thrilled with it.)

Support the Alito nomination, and remember that a lot of the fear-mongering you are seeing–and will see–on the news is just that. The Vatican’s not coming over here, the Catholics are not taking over the world. But good conservative Catholic values on our nation’s highest court would do this nation a good service, I believe–and so do a lot of others.

“Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” –Mt. 25:30

Ah, the parable of the talents. This was one of those that I loved to hear in grade school, because I always thought it was dumb of the servant not to go and spend the money. I mean, come on; who digs a hole and puts money in the ground? Now that I’m older, I get that the point wasn’t exactly market-related, although it is, in a sense. God gives us gifts (”talents”….isn’t that a funny connection?) and expects us to use them wisely, or what good are they to us? We’re often reminded to be good stewards of our “time, talent and treasure”, but I bet most of us only focus on the “treasure” part, because the offetory basket comes around every week as a reminder! But time and talent are just as, if not more, important that the money. Sure, the Church needs money to help in its mission (and to repair the roof when it leaks, and the heater when it breaks…you know how it goes), but it also needs *people* to fulfill that mission. So, if you haven’t already, consider helping out at your church in some small way. It doesn’t have to be a lot–I’m not saying you need to run for Parish Council president, and organize the festival, and run the PSR program. We’re humans, not God. But maybe join the Bible Study, or the Spiritual Life committee, or even just go to the retreats/ prayer evenings/ etc. that your parish provides for you. (There’s usually food…go for that if nothing else!) Whatever you’re interested in. The Church is made up of all of us, and it needs our help. Besides, who wants Jesus to call them a “useless servant”? And the wailing and grinding of teeth doesn’t sound so great either…..