Why has President Barack Obama’s approaching visit to Notre Dame caused such an uproar? Why won’t these stubborn pro-life Catholics just give way and accept the fact that Obama is the president and is honoring Notre Dame by his mere presence? Why don’t those who oppose abortion just accept the fact that abortion is legal, (the Supreme Court has ruled on it), quit forcing their religious beliefs and imposing their morality on the rest of us, and focus on the lives of those who are already born? Can’t we all agree to disagree? Jesus ate with all those who would hear him, so it is quite appropriate for Notre Dame to invite Obama. Besides, abortion will not be won or lost in the political arena. The sooner the pro-life movement comes to terms with this reality, the better.
At first glance the above arguments seem plausible, even preferable. However, one can recall such statements made regarding slavery. “Why don’t those who oppose slavery just accept the fact that slavery is legal, (the Supreme Court has ruled on it), quit forcing their religious beliefs on the rest of us, and focus on the lives of those who are free? Slavery will not be won or lost in the political arena. The sooner the abolitionist’s movement comes to terms with this reality, the better.”
During the Civil Rights struggle there were those who argued against it in the same fashion. Perhaps the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. will jar our collective conscience: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” But do we ever accuse Martin Luther King, Jr. of imposing his beliefs upon an unwilling southern majority when he demanded that the African-Americans Americans be treated the same as white Americans all because of his belief that the dignity of human beings was rooted in the fact that they were created in the image of God?
Doesn’t the Declaration of Independence impose a belief? “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Did President Lincoln “force” his religious and political beliefs on an entire nation when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation?
Is there an analogy to the abortion issue? What of the civil rights of unborn persons? Medical science has shown conclusively that human life begins at conception. Yet the real debate now is whether pre-born human life constitutes human personhood. Is the right to life an inborn, innate given at human conception?
The argument goes that they – the unborn, the embryonic humans – are not human persons, but merely potential humans, and as such they have no rights. The unborn are even treated as disposable biological material because they are not human persons. Yet if there is no objective truth regarding the human personhood of human beings, then the objective truth of the dignity of each and every human person is lost.
A society that affirms the dignity of the person but then also permits fetal experimentation or abortion is denying equality before the law. And when a law denies an entire category of human beings the status as human persons, are not the very foundations of law and civilization weakened? Is it possible to advance the cause of human dignity without recognizing and defending the right to life of all human beings – born and unborn? All other rights are founded on and flow from this most basic of rights. Is not democracy false when it fails to recognize and affirm every person’s dignity and his or her subsequent rights – regardless of age or size?
Suppose Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez invited Obama to Caracas where he honored him with an honorary doctorate in Democracy? Wouldn’t that seem hypocritical?
And as for the argument that Jesus ate with anyone who would listen to him, the issue is not over the invite to Obama as much as it is in his being honored with a Doctorate in Law from the prestigious Catholic University of Notre Dame. And usually during or after such dinners with Jesus the said sinners turned from their former path and followed the Truth. And does not law flow from the truth?
As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from his jail cell in Birmingham: “There are two types of laws: just and unjust…. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws.” We should have great respect for human law; while at the same time recognize valid situations that justify civil disobedience.
As St. Augustine wrote: “An unjust law is no law at all.” “Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the Moral Law or the Law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the Moral Law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”
Permissive abortion laws are degrading to human dignity, deny the personality of the unborn, and are unjust in the eyes of God. Law exists in order to protect individuals in society and to ensure social order and justice. The old adage “one’s rights end where another person’s rights begin” is ever true. Laws were never intended to allow another person to dominate another or give someone permission to injure another. Laws are passed in order to promote mutual welfare in society and to encourage persons to strive for what is good.
Just as segregation laws were unjust and deprived an entire category of human beings their natural rights, so it is with the abortion laws that deprive the pre-born of their status as human beings and deny them their rights as human persons. In the case of abortion, plain and simple, the unborn child’s rights are violated.
And that is why there is opposition to President Obama’s Notre Dame Commencement address and reception of an honorary Doctorate of Law at Notre Dame. For God is the Eternal Source of all Law, the same God who said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). The Psalmist attests to this truth: “[O Lord] You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb” (Ps 139:13).
Perchance, a century from now, the former supporters of abortion rights and deniers of the humanity of the unborn child will be making a new accusation: They will blame the Church for allowing abortion (just like some blame the church for slavery and the Holocaust). Unfortunately, they will have a point. They will name the prominent Catholics and Christians who supported abortion in our day and hence judge the Church by their actions - or inaction.
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