Via Amy Sullivan, the official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, published an editorial yesterday praising Barack Obama, while the newspaper's editor gives an interview in which he says:
"What I want to stress is that yesterday, on this precise and very delicate issue, the President said that the approval of the new law on abortion is not a priority of his administration. The fact that he said that is very reassuring to me. It also underlines my own clear belief: Obama is not a pro-abortion president."
Snarks Amy, "Uh, oh. It sounds like the Vatican newspaper "doesn't understand what it means to be Catholic.""
I'm with you on the disconnect between conservative American Catholics and the Vatican. While they have every right to stand firmly in their political positions, the idea that the Vatican "doesn't get it" because it disagrees is absurd.
But. I do find the "pro-abortion" moniker interesting. While I wouldn't use it for Obama, I don't see how it's substantively different than calling Cheney "pro-torture". The "safe-legal-rare" characterization seems to fit in both cases. One would be hard-pressed to argue that even the hardiest defenders of torture would want to use it more often than is absolutely necessary, and the procedures are monitored by doctors.
I think that those who get so upset about Obama being called "pro-abortion" should also be careful to not over-use the "pro-torture" rhetoric in other ethical debates (and I'm not accusing you of doing so, but it is rampant amongst some commentators). Speaking as someone who is against the legalization of either torture or abortion, it strikes me as a situation of the pot calling the kettle black.
Posted by: anonymous | May 26, 2009 at 12:04 PM
Well, it is certainly possible to have an argument over whether torture should be "safe, legal, and rare." I seem to have that argument alarmingly frequently these days, thanks to the popularity of "24" (where, of course, it is none of those things, but still tacitly approved).
I think that there are a number of disanalogies in this case. First of all, as pointed out below, a chief difference has to do with the debate about who is vested with human rights. The fetus is so vested at best ambiguously, while a human adult, who would be subjected to torture, is unambiguously so.
Second, Cheney isn't really interested in "legalizing" torture. He's arguing that torture is part of a whole suite of limitless powers that should be granted to the executive branch in the name of safety. He is, essentially, arguing for dictatorship.
And third, abortion is currently legal. Torture is not. So committing an act of torture is breaking the law, while having an abortion isn't. Cheney's monstrosity is that he's decided that, when it comes to the powers of the executive, they are in principle unlimited, and allow for the use of torture, for any reason the executive chooses, including trumping up evidence for an unjustified war. There are no "ticking timebombs" that we can refer to. But Cheney wants permission to use torture regardless, just in case.
Oh, one more thing, abortion is a right claimed by individual citizens over their own bodies. Torture is a right the state claims over your body. I think that's a big difference.
Posted by: Scott Paeth | May 27, 2009 at 09:38 AM
You're missing my point. I'm not talking prescriptively, but descriptively. The question isn't whether torture or abortion are/should be legal, but whether Obama could be accurately described as "pro-abortion" the same way that Cheney could be actively described as "pro-torture". And since you've acknowledged that the safe-legal-rare argument is indeed being made about torture, you seem to be agreeing with me there. The point is that advocates of "torture when necessary" think about the issue the same way as advocates of "abortion when necessary". Both of them, one of them, or neither of them could actually be CORRECT about what they think, but I wasn't talking about that. I'm just saying they're two peas in a pod.
But... if you're going to move on to another topic and speak prescriptively about abortion or torture in law... well then, one glaring shortcoming I see in how you've framed the comparison here is that you point out the disputed nature of who is vested with human rights for fetuses as opposed to adults, but you don't also point out the disputed nature of certain coercive practices, how they relate to torture, and its legal status. Curiously, Obama gets a pass to say that certain questions of the fetus are "above his paygrade", but when people give the same answer ("it's above my paygrade, i.e., classified") about matters concerning intelligence and coercion, it somehow doesn't fly. It's somehow not disputed, nor complex, but obvious as a connect-the-dots puzzle. And yet you dismiss pro-life arguments about the self-evidence of life at conception as simplistic insofar as they don't recognize the disputed nature of the question! Do you see that you're doing precisely the same thing?
It's also worth pointing out that the human rights of adults, while indisputably present, are not free from dispute as to what particular rights adults enjoy against coercive force by the state. It may be obvious that a prisoner has a right to life, but do they have a right to free association? One would think not, given the lock and key. Now... do they bear certain human rights against coercive force? Sure, but how do we define that? As a right not to be handcuffed? Not to be strip-searched? Not to be waterboarded? I'm not saying that there aren't answers to these questions, but that the answers are disputed.
I'm not saying you're wrong about torture- actually I think we agree about torture. But I am saying that the same ambiguities you want to uphold with regard to abortion... the disputed status of the fetus/of abortion, the extent to which "safe-legal-rare" is "pro-abortion" or not... you should also recognize as ambiguities of the torture debate... the disputed status of the prisoner/of waterboarding, the extent to which "safe-legal-rare" is "pro-torture" or not. It doesn't mean you have to end up pro-life and anti-torture like me; you may have your reasons for taking a firm stance against torture but not against legalized abortion. But at least don't reduce your view of torture advocates to language of "monstrosity" while insisting that such language be set aside when talking about abortion. Either grow a thick skin and realize that pro-life advocates have a reason to call Obama "pro-abortion", or try to realize that advocates of torture- whether or not they're right- may not simply be monstrous.
Posted by: anonymous | May 28, 2009 at 11:33 AM
I can only respond briefly.
I do think that there is a distinction between saying that Obama is "pro-abortion" vs. Cheney being "pro-torture," at least I think I understand what the Vatican newspaper sees the distinction as being. In Obama's case, he doesn't personally want to encourage abortion, although he might believe that individuals ought to have the right to do so. In Cheney's case, he does want the right to directly instruct underlings to carry out torture. In that sense, Cheney is "pro-torture" in a much more direct sense than Obama could be said to be "pro-abortion."
I do think, by the way, that in any ordinary understanding of the term, Obama is "pro-abortion," in the sense of being "pro-abortion rights." But Cheney is "pro-torture" in a more morally problematic way -- he really wants to torture people, and thinks people should be tortured, and he wants to be the one giving the orders that the torture take place. I think this is a meaningful distinction.
Posted by: Scott Paeth | May 29, 2009 at 10:16 AM
The distinction that torture is a government directed coercive action as opposed to a government protected coercive action is worth making, I'd agree. That Cheney "really wants to torture people", however, is a bit hyperbolic. And even as someone who finds torture morally problematic, I have enough objectivity to recognize that the orders coming down the chain of command on torture are typically a matter of restraint rather than of active coercion. The torture memos, incriminating as they are, were pursued to limit the sort and amount of torture inflicted. This is all worth pointing out, and I think it changes your portrayal of Cheney a bit. Any executive orders about torture were more concerned with the "safe-legal-rare" mantra than they were with the "waterboard 'em" mantra.
Posted by: anonymous | May 29, 2009 at 10:47 AM
In any case, the relationship between Cheney and a torturing CIA operative isn't terribly different than that between Obama and an abortionist doctor. Not the same, of course- Obama isn't making the decision to abort any baby the way that Cheney (or at least some high-ranking official) might make a decision to torture a prisoner. But most of what has come up in the torture discussion has been guidelines and regulations under which torture can be allowed. In that sense, at least, it is comparable to abortion. Cheney isn't flipping the switch any more than Obama is, but simply outlining (with arguments based on rights and social welfare) what can be appropriately done.
Posted by: anonymous | May 29, 2009 at 10:52 AM
I appreciate you keeping the conversation going. I'm a bit busy to respond today, but on the topic of the torture memos, you should read my article: "Dirty Hands Revisited: Morality, Torture, and Abu Graib," in last Spring's Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, where I address some of the moral implications of the torture memos (and it features U of C professor Jean Bethke Elshtain, for good measure)!
Posted by: Scott Paeth | May 29, 2009 at 10:55 AM
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Posted by: writing law dissertation | May 30, 2009 at 01:54 AM