...or is the issue of abortion like the zombie that won't die?

Every time I write about this subject I feel the need to begin with a disclaimer. Why should today be any different? To wit:

No one applauds abortion. No one thinks abortions are good. Most of us would prefer it if abortions were never performed. It's a sad decision that combines terror, remorse and in some cases permanent guilt. I'm sure that somewhere, someone had an abortion because having a child would have been inconvenient or because they feared stretch marks, but those cases are so rare as to be inconsequential. For most women the decision is difficult and traumatic. It is also personal.

There should be no authority-state, federal or local that has any right to decide for a woman how she should treat her own body. No one but the person involved can dictate what her course of treatment should be. The Supreme Court ruled correctly in 1973. The state should never be allowed to interfere in a woman's medical decisions.

But just as the Religious Right has difficulty understanding the concept of personal rights, they also missed the class on settled law. Every time the Republican Party gains a majority in a state house they interpret the election as a mandate to rewrite Roe v Wade. Courts have consistently trashed these statutes but that hasn't kept the holy of holies from trying. Hey, why not? If you come from a red district, they'll love you for it.

Recently the legislators of the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a law that sinks to an all-time low in this never-ending conflict. According to this legislative horror, before a woman can obtain an abortion she is required to have an ultrasound image taken and be offered the opportunity to see the image. The medical professionals involved will be required to record whether the patient saw the ultrasound. It should be noted that only seven of the Senate's 40 members are women but I'm sure that played no part in the decision. State Senator Janet Howell attached an amendment to the ultrasound bill requiring men to receive a rectal exam and a stress test before receiving a prescription for erectile dysfunction meds. She only lost it by two votes.

Florynce Kennedy, founder of the Feminist Party in the 70's is famous for suggesting that "if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament". Can anyone argue otherwise? Intellectually dishonest legislators from George W. Bush to Newt Gingrich have ridden this nag in elections all over America. (Actually GWB was so dishonest he never even stated his opposition to abortion for the record. He opted for individual state legislatures to decide.) The fastest way for a Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann to corral a few loose Teabaggers is to stand four-square for a Constitutional ban on abortion. It's a safe stance because it will never go anywhere...sort of like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.

And , of course, the subjects of abortion and birth control bring us to the dust-up between the Susan B. Komen For the Cure Foundation and Planned Parenthood. The attempted defunding of PP by the Komen board was politically motivated, ill-conceived (sorry!) and should have been reversed. Komen was in trouble the minute they hired Karen Handel as head of Public Policy. Handel, a failed candidate for Governor of Georgia and queen of the Teabaggers was instrumental in persuading the Komen board to deny grants to Planned Parenthood on the grounds that they are under investigation. The fact that the "investigation" is a witch hunt originated by an anti-abortion conservative was apparently never considered. Thankfully, the decision has been reversed and Ms. Handel is unemployed.

The real tragedy here is the damage to the Susan B. Komen organization. Having raised more than two billion dollars and, maybe more importantly, the awareness to the dangers of breast cancer among women, the Komen charity is one of the most important voices in the country. They are certainly entitled to a mulligan here but, it can also be a teaching moment. Beware of high-profile candidates who want to use your organization for political ends or to further their own agenda. Your profile is high enough. You don't need celebrity board members.

And finally, what conversation about birth control and abortion would be complete without a mention of the latest case making its way through the court of public opinion; namely Obama vs. the Catholic Church. Frankly, it's a tangle.

The administration's new healthcare plan requires that businesses, including Catholic hospitals and universities, provide healthcare insurance that includes coverage for birth control, IUD's and morning after pills. These forms of birth control along with all other forms of birth control are forbidden by the Church. The Catholic Church therefore objected to a requirement to participate in the distribution of devices and medications that violate its laws. The Department of Health and Human Services countered that the institutions in question are primarily businesses and therefore must provide the same medical coverage as any other business including, birth control. Therein lies the conflict.

Surprisingly, although almost all American Catholics practice some form of birth control, it seems their sentiments are in support of the Church. The argument appears to be taking shape around the idea of religious freedom. That confuses me. Jehovah's Witnesses prohibit blood transfusions but cover the procedure for their employees. No one is asking the Catholic Church to hand out condoms or put Planned Parenthood on the parish speed-dial. They are merely being required to provide insurance coverage for medical practices with which they take issue. The HHS isn't forcing anyone to use the services.

Naturally, when you want to discover where the source of all the trouble lies, all roads lead to Rome. In 1968 Pope Paul VI had a wonderful opportunity to separate birth control pills, which were becoming very popular, from other forms of contraception. (Actually it would have been a grand time to package the entire outmoded prohibition on all forms of birth control and drown it in holy water. He demurred.) The Pope empaneled not one but two commissions to determine if the Church teaching needed updating. Paul VI was advised that perhaps a change was warranted. For whatever reason, the Pope said nope. Catholics must continue to have all the children God will give them. Clearly no one in Rome was willing to take into account the cost of gym shoes or a college education. (Note: the final encyclical, called Humanae Vitae, was heavily influenced by the writings of one Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, later to become that bastion of progressive thought, Pope John Paul II.)

This being an election year, the President can hardly antagonize a group as large as Catholicus Americana. (Wow! Latin does carry gravitas.) Some compromise will surface which will allow both sides to save face. Maybe the name "birth control pills" could be changed to "menstrual cycle regulators". Condoms could be sold to hunters at Eddie Bauer to keep the rain out of their rifle muzzle. Anyway, when the smoke clears we can all go back to wondering why Catholics in America would side with the Church about birth control which they use, and side with the President on abortion which they oppose. Thus, my children, is the role of sex in politics.

...or is Albert Pujols the only Cardinal with any consistency?

The abortion villagers are at the gates again brandishing their torches and pitchforks. They claim to speak for God and are demanding that everyone, and I mean everyone, kneel to their will. I speak of the Catholic Church, in the person of its middle management, which continues to attempt an ecclesiastic coup in the United States. Not content with advising its adherents to respect the life of the unborn, they are bound and determined to alter the American justice and legislative systems to do their bidding. In 2004, Saint Louis archbishop Raymond Burke forbade Sen. John Kerry from taking communion in his domain. It is impossible to know whether this action cost Kerry any votes among Catholics but when the margin of victory in Ohio was 130,000, any issue could be seminal.



Today's effort to control the world comes from Cardinal Edward Egan of New York. The good Cardinal has attacked the Jesuits of Fordham University for their plans to honor Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Justice Breyer is to receive the Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize. Cardinal Egan has voiced his objection to this honor on the grounds that Breyer has voted early and often to uphold Roe vs. Wade. Apparently the archdiocese is unimpressed with the hundreds of other decisions that have marked Justice Breyer's fifteen years on the High Court. Hello, Pierre the bridge builder!



Breyer will be the seventh justice to receive the Fordham-Stein award. All were on the "wrong" side of Roe. There have also been three former Attorneys General. None of those awards caused so much as a ripple around St. Patrick's Cathedral. That might be because none of the other recipients were announced before an American Presidential election. Fortunately, the Jesuits have a long and storied history of thumbing their noses at Church authority. You can expect that Cardinal Egan's blustering will receive all the attention it deserves...none.



Having grown up under the sometimes heavy hand of the Roman Catholic Church, I am at a loss to understand why they have chosen the abortion question as the cause celebre and why in the United States. Abortion, in one form or another, is legal in all 27 European Union countries where the number of abortions is much higher. That includes Italy and Ireland where Church influence is systemic and pervasive. Why the U.S.? Perhaps the folks in Rome feel a natural kinship with the neocons of the Republican party. In Europe, religion is almost never a part of the political discourse. Politicians never pander to the God squad. No one cares what you believe. They care how you will govern. What a novel concept!



Strangely, the Church has not been nearly as vocal on other issues it considers sinful. One never hears of popes and bishops railing on about adultery. The last time I checked, the prohibition on adultery was still listed in the Ten Commandments right between killing and stealing.

And what about capital punishment?If state sponsored murder doesn't rate a little papal indignation, what does? No one in the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy made a peep when George W. Bush ran for President from one of the most execution-happy states in America. Does war count? No one tried to excommunicate Jack Kennedy for invading Cuba. At least the U.S. government isn't in the abortion business directly. I suspect that if you want to know why the RCC considers one sin more worthy of protest, you'll need to buy a ticket to Rome.



Nevertheless, neither the Republicans nor the Catholics have had any success making abortion part of the presidential election in 2008. It would appear that in the face of an economic meltdown of biblical proportion, the only God America wants to pray to is Henry Paulson. It only took a President of epochal mediocrity to remind the country that leadership and false piety aren't synonymous. In fact, they don't even pray in the same church.