Pro-Life Democrats Suffer Persecution From Their Congressional Peers

The Slaughter of the Innocents by Carl Heinrich Bloch (May 23, 1834 – February 22, 1890)

I'm having trouble understanding how Catholics (or any other Christians) can remain Democrats with a clear conscience.

Here's the story: U.S. congressman’s struggle reflects pro-life Democrats' continuing plight

Here's a quote:

Earlier this summer, Smith called pro-life House Democrats “heroic” for their willingness to buck their party’s pro-abortion leadership and vote against a House bill that authorized the provision of taxpayer money to groups that promote abortion overseas.

So what is it like serving as a pro-life Congressional Democrat in the current Democrat-controlled Congress?

“We’re back in the majority,” said Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, the Democratic co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. “And now suddenly the fact that I’m a pro-life Democrat … it’s back to making life real difficult for me, let’s put it like that.”

Stupak said that he has been punished for his views. Language that he sought to have included in a couple of recent bills, on matters unrelated to pro-life issues, was stripped from the bills, without any explanation being given to him.

Said Stupak, “A couple of people have told me it’s because I have pro-life views, some of the pro-choice committee chairs and subcommittee chairs – no matter how reasonable the language was – will not help me.”

In order to succeed on a national level as a Democrat, you are required to convert to the pro-choice position. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were pro-life until their ambition led them to national aspirations, and they had a Damascene conversion on the road to Washington D.C., becoming staunch baby-killers, worshiping at the altar of Roe vs. Wade, offering incense to NARAL, and opposing anything that stands in the way of abortion on demand (including partial-birth abortion).

Any thoughts?

Comments

[anthony]

The democrats are signing their own death warrant by the "all or all" approach to abortion promotion. I can't conceive of any rational reason how any Catholic can remain even registered as a democrat let alone lower themselves to vote for one. Please I understand some of you feel, that you "need" to vote for a democrat... but for God's sake register as an indepentant.

Any thoughts?... plenty! But, they aren't repeatable in civilized company.

[Katherine]

Persecution seems too strong a word. My public views are pretty much in line with the Catholic Church on a range of issues. I've been a Democratic precinct captain, committeewoman and ward chairperson. While most of my fellow Democrats are pro-choice, no one has ever persecuted me. I have a cordial social relationship with my Republican counterparts, including the Republican County Chair, who is also a member of the Planned Parenthood Board of Directors. I've joked with them about switching sides based on my problems with my party on abortion and a few other issues. In a friendly way, they made it clear to me that even with my pro-life views, I would not be welcome in the GOP because of my opinions regarding the right of workers to join labor unions, etc.

No sense going where one is not wanted!

[Thomistic]

Katherine,

I'm glad that people who support murdering babies are nice to you, but I'm sorry you think that makes it okay to help their cause.

Pax,

Thomistic

[carlos]

Rep. Stupak has only himself to blame. Members of the Dem caucus--including those who call themselves pro-life--put Rep. Pelosi in as speaker and Rep. Hoyer in as Majority Leader. Both Pelosi and Hoyer are pro-aborts. Pelosi and Hoyer pick the committee chairmen.

I can't think of a single reason why a Catholic would vote Dem given that party's antipathy for human life and traditional morals. Individual GOP members--i.e. Vitter and Craig--are pieces of trash that need to be taken out in a primary, but the party platform is pro-life and pro-marriage.

[carlos]

Katherine, the union issue in the US is more complex than is thought by most Catholics. I don't think anyone has a real problem with the right to join a union. The problem is that many states--like my own Indiana--have closed-shop or agency-shop laws. Essentially such laws--as opposed to right-to-work laws--require that companies only hire union members. In essence, if a person wants to work at GM, he or she must join the UAW, even though that organization supports pro-abortion candidates like former Governor Joe Kernan and former U.S. Rep. Jill Long-Thompson.

[Manuel]

Katherine,
Herod was very "cordial" to his step-daughter he got her the head of John the Baptist! If only John the Baptist hadn't been so outspoken!

[Atlanta Catholic]

Katherine,

"I've joked with them about switching sides based on my problem with my party on abortion and a few other issues."

Years ago while praying and sidewalk counseling in front of a killing center, another sidewalk counselor handed me a small photograph book. Her husband had followed the truck that picked up the dead babies. The truck drove to a building that was local and unloaded the boxes. Her husband went around the back and peered inside the window. What he saw absolutely sickened him. He took photos of stacks upon stacks of clear plastic containers of dead babies. Some of the containers had the names of the mothers on the side of them. The containers were all different sizes. Some of the containers were so large that you could see parts of a large developed baby. The woman who handed the photo book to me was an Evangelical Christian who had come to pray on a Saturday. When she handed me the photo book she just said, "For some reason I am led to give this to you."

Katherine, there is a missing ingredient in your understanding of the brutality and pure evil of abortion. You might be excellent at chairing events for politicians but your lack of sensitivity to the murder of God's most innocent is inconsistent with an informed conscience. I am glad that you have the potential to influence people but when they see you joking around the subject of abortion, you lessen your chances of being taken seriously.

I took the photobook to a local Catholic Church and set the book down in front of steps of the Tabernacle. It was so heartbreaking to feel the helplessness of viewing this evil. I prayed for every baby pictured in those containers and asked God to forgive the mothers and people who coopererated in such evil.

I still have the photo book and when someone can look at the pictures of these abortions and use the word joke in the same sentence, something is out of order.

Chairing political events are sometimes necessary. What is more important to God is the solid defense of the right to life of every unborn baby.

[Imprimartin]

Atlanta Catholic,
You should scan those photos and send them to a pro-life news organization. This proof needs to get out.

Martin

[joanne]

"I have a cordial social relationship with my Republican counterparts, including the Republican County Chair, who is also a member of the Planned Parenthood Board of Directors."
Katherine, are you listening to yourself? If your social and political life cost you your soul, what good are they? Whether people LIKE you even though you're pro-life is irrelevant. And if going where you are wanted is more important than even one child's life, are you pro-life?
It takes courage to be pro-life. I pray that all of us who want to be pro-life will be given the courage to follow the Truth, even when we are despised.

[Subvet]

Slightly off topic but your selection of Bloch's "The Slaughter of The Innocents" is inapprorpiate as it shows the mother grieving.

The same can't be said of women who allow their babies to be sucked out of the womb. While the grief may come later (much later for some) at the time of the crime they are willing participants.

[joanne]

"The same can't be said of women who allow their babies to be sucked out of the womb. While the grief may come later (much later for some) at the time of the crime they are willing participants."
No woman goes into an abortion clinic with murder in her heart. The reasons for her decision are individual, though the reasons she may give initially tend to fall into known categories. Whatever her reason, it should be understood that her reason is necessarily undermined by denial at the time of the abortion.
As to her being willing, some of these women have been pressured by family, doctors and peers as well as being coerced by society into thinking that she's doing the right (and sometimes, ugh, honorable thing). And some of these women are just afraid and/or uninformed, especially in states where she is not given "the right to know".
The extent of her guilt is not up to us to decide, and the focus on the woman as the problem is just as dangerous to the cause of life as seeing the baby as the problem. The woman HAS a problem accepting her pregnancy, and often it is one that is simple to solve, given the opportunity.

[carlos]

The extent of her guilt is not up to us to decide, and the focus on the woman as the problem is just as dangerous to the cause of life as seeing the baby as the problem.

joanne, as long as avoiding the focus on the woman as the problem is merely a stratagem to ensure that lives are saved, I've no problem with your statement. If, on the other hand, you believe that a woman who acquires an abortion has no guilty whatsoever, I strongly disagree. Natural reason--unenlightened by divine revelation--tells a woman that she's carrying a living human being. A woman's agreement to kill her child--even if she is pressured--still is morally unacceptable.

[joanne]

I'm not saying she's innocent, Carlos, I'm saying that the degree of her guilt is not ours to decide, especially in a culture that PROMOTES abortion as a HEALTH alternative.
If a woman is in a crisis pregnancy, we need to offer her help. If she has already had an abortion, we need to guide her toward healing and forgiveness. And of course we need to work and pray to end abortion as a legal option.
Toward that end, I shamelessly beg your prayers for the upcoming 40 Days For Life campaign. Rhode Island particularly needs your prayers. Thank you.

[Atlanta Catholic]

Joanne,

Just a bit of insight into what I have experienced with some of the women that I had the opportunity to speak with. No, they were not the majority but the number who fell in this category were eye opening. I had not been used to meeting this particular type of woman. Every passing year there seemed to be more women that were, what I am about to describe. I saw a new coldness that these women knew exactly what they were doing. It was not out of desperation or poverty or medical reason.

This coldness was incredibly scary. They actually said that they never liked children. They knew they might occasionally be reminded but they "would get over it" and that this was the best thing to free them. Now, of course we know that this is not true but the cold demeanor of these women was frightening. One woman who said her family was Catholic told me that she hated children and never wanted any. She aborted her late term pregnancy the next day. She was offered every assistance imaginable.
It was very sad to know that this baby died the next day. I was curious to know who prayed the rosary in her family because it was only a special grace that allowed this unusual opportunity to try to reach her. She said that her grandmother prayed the rosary every day. This young woman did not respond or cooperate to that grace.

Another commented that she was able to put her three previous abortions on her credit card and was angry that she could not do the fifth one on credit. Her main concern was how soon she could become sexually active again.
I am sad to tell you but there are a number of women who enter into the abortion center with killing in there heart.

A hopeful message is to never give up trying to reach one of these women. One woman went into the abortion center and was told she was too far along. She was 5 months pregnant. They gave her directions to another late term clinic. She was standing there waiting for her ride. She was a law student and she told me that she never wanted children. She said that her own mother had an abortion and regretted it.
I asked her if her mother knew if she was going to abort her baby? She said that she had not told her mom that she was pregnant. Her ride was still delayed. I told her the story of the famous actress Gloria Swanson who aborted her baby. When she walked down the lighted stage to receive her Hollywood award she reflected on the horrible price she had paid to receive this award. She regretted ending the life of her own child for a meaningless trophy. Gloria could not hold back the tears. She wished she could turn back the clock... The law students ride home, still had not come. She was getting impatient but she was listening.

Would you believe that this young woman allowed me to drive her back to her local dorm? On the way I told her that no accomplishment, no law degree would ever salve her sorrow down the road. I told her that I had observed traits in her that showed she could be a wonderful mother. I gave her my phone number on a piece of paper and dropped her off at the University. She got out of the car and never answered my comments but thanked me for the ride. Four months later I received a phone call in the evening. It was a young woman's voice saying that I probably did not remember her. It was the law student. She was about to deliver her baby. She gave me no personal details and was brief. She said that the reason she called was that her mother asked her to call me and thank me for talking to her daughter that day. I told her to thank her mother. I never heard another thing but that was just incredible. I also want to add that there was a Norbertine priest present, praying the rosary with a small group of Catholics (across the street from the abortion center) on the day I initially spoke with the young woman. This is what prayer can do.

[joanne]

Dear Atlanta,
What a beautiful story! Thank you.
As for the demeanor you describe, I have witnessed it also, with great pain. But I maintain that they do not KNOW what they are doing, even if they know objectively, intellectually. If they KNEW the truth of what they were doing, they would not do it. And so, still, these mothers are women in need. What is needier than an empty heart, or a heart so filled with oneself that it can't reach out to another?
And what greater miracle can the Lord perform but the conversion of hearts? Our 40 Days for Life prayer theme in RI will be, "Lord, this year, change our hearts."
We have the fifth highest abortion rate in the nation (5000 babies a year!) and yet, most people here "don't know anyone who has had an abortion". Why would we know? After all, abortion is a "personal healthcare" issue. (more accurately it should be called a personal healthcare 'non-issue'!)

[RussellNeglia]

A Catholic who is or votes Democratic is in deep denial. You cannot be a Democrat and a Catholic - it is a contradiction. The Catechism states that abortion is an evil that merits excommunication (2272). Accordingly, a Catholic who is or votes Democratic is cooperating with an evil that automatically excommunicates him/her from the Church. Translation: if you're a Democrat or vote for them, you've excommunicated yourself and are no longer Catholic.

[joanne]

RussellNeglia,
If that were true, we sure would have a bunch of excommunicated, strongly pro-life bishops!!! You can certainly be a Democrat without agreeing with the Democratic platform today and without voting for Democrats. How will the party change if everyone leaves it?
I chose to switch for political and emotional reasons: I can't vote for a pro-life candidate in the primaries if I'm a Democrat, (significant because not all the Republicans are pro-life), plus the Democratic response to the partial birth abortion ban proved to me that the party is now officially insane.
Political apostasy is far better than losing my soul or my mind. But I can see why some people would switch to Independent or remain a Democrat while voting Republican. It is dangerous to politicize the Gospel. There is no Catholic party, and there shouldn't be.

[carlos]

You can certainly be a Democrat without agreeing with the Democratic platform today and without voting for Democrats.

joanne, you bring up a good point. However, I would argue that most Democrats that I know would no longer consider you a Democrat if you disagreed with the party platform and no longer voted for Dem candidates. Even if one wants to "change the party," he or she is frozen out from true power because big donors, county chairmen, and state chairmen are, by and large, pro-abortion and pro-gay.

[joanne]

Carlos,
Oh. I was defining party membership by current registration. I was a registered Democratic "unbeliever" for years! I didn't dissociate officially (give up until sanity reappears) until I witnessed the fervor with which Clinton and Obama vowed to regain the woman's reproductive right to barbaric infanticide. I do not, for a moment, want to be numbered with such cheerleaders of atrocity.

[carlos]

joanne, my mistake. I keep forgetting that in other states, one registers by party. In Indiana, where we have open primaries, one just registers to vote and does not register by party.

[billiam]

"A Catholic who is or votes Democratic is in deep denial. You cannot be a Democrat and a Catholic - it is a contradiction. The Catechism states that abortion is an evil that merits excommunication (2272). Accordingly, a Catholic who is or votes Democratic is cooperating with an evil that automatically excommunicates him/her from the Church. Translation: if you're a Democrat or vote for them, you've excommunicated yourself and are no longer Catholic."

as lex luther said

WRRROOOOOOONG!

da pope says ...

A Catholic would be guilty of formal [intentional] cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

i think saving the environment, ending war, working to end poverty and starvation are proportionate, specifically the environment. if we don't have a world to live in, all other issues become meaningless.

[Thomistic]

Sorry billiam, but it is you who are wrong. Your excuses for voting for baby-killers (whether Democrats or Republicans) aren't "proportionate" because of two reasons:

1) It isn't required that one tolerate baby-killing in order to lessen the evils you mention.

2) The direct murder of an innocent person (or people) is a worse evil than poverty or pollution, and even war, since none of those things involve the direct murder of an innocent person (or people) by necessity, whereas baby-killing does.

Pope Benedict XVI was saying the principle of double effect (look it up if you aren't familiar with it) can allow for one to vote for a candidate who is pro-abortion only if the pro-abortion stance of the candidate (which is an evil) is only tolerated and not permitted, and the good effect (which must precede or coincide with the tolerated evil effect, otherwise one would be doing evil to bring about a good) must be proportionate to the evil tolerated (which would mean it involved directly, not indirectly) saving innocent human life (such as by protecting a society from destruction by a threatening invader by voting for a more competent leader in a time of war). What you are suggesting is proportionalism, a theory which suggests that one can do evil to bring about a good if the good is considered proportionate to the evil act performed in an effort to bring about a real or perceived good. Proportionalism has been condemned by Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor (which you need to read over and over). You can't do evil that good may follow. St. Paul teaches that in Sacred Scripture.

Moreover, the fantasy that baby-killers are going to be the ones who end up "saving the environment, ending war, [and] working to end poverty" is such a fantastic claim that one can easily understand why someone who persists in voting for baby-killers (whether they are Democrats or Republicans) continues to do so – namely, they're not very bright.

It is an act of hubris to think that any human person or group of people can end such things, especially when Christ promised that such things would endure until the end of the world. Yes, one should always strive to lessen such evil things, but not at the expense of tolerating the evil of deliberate, legal abortion.

Why would you fantasize for one minute that anyone, much less a baby-killer, can end war? Our Lady of Fatima told Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco that war is a punishment for sin. To end war, one would have to end sin, and baby-killing is a sin.

Wars will always be with us, so long as human beings persist in sinning and loving themselves more than God and neighbor. Baby-killers won't be ending war. People who don't respect the dignity of human life have little chance of ending war while they continue to support the war on innocent, defenseless, developing, unborn, human life. You may as well believe that baby-killers are our best help for ending murder.

Pax,

Thomistic

[carlos]

Thomistic, excellent analysis! billiam's erroneous thinking is the fruit of the poison created by the likes of Robert Drinan, S.J. His thinly-disguised proportionalism merely served as an excuse to allow Catholics who should know better to vote for a Democratic Party that quickly became anti-life, pro-deviant, and anti-American.

[SAK]

I would covet your comments on the blog at www.familiesagainstplannedparenthood!!

On Saturday, pro-life individuals will be marching at the Aurora, Illinois Planned Parenthood abortion site. The site had been scheduled to open on Sept 18th.