Your first argument is that the partial birth abortion ban won’t stop any abortions and was therefore a useless effort;
Correct, and I cited both the Supreme Court opinion, and the opinions of even groups that strongly supported it.
your second argument is that the law is incapable of stopping abortion anyway, and your conclusion is that we should find another solution that doesn’t rely on the law.
Almost correct. A change in secular law would probably prevent some abortions. However, I believe that a total emphasis on secular law, to the exclussion of Christ’s teachings and other infallible teachings of our Church is a dead end path.
Society will not accept our teachings on abortion any time soon. Consider, we have 5 Catholics on the Supreme Court and just produced a majority opinion that gives a blue print for circumventing a ban that effects only 2000 abortions a year - and reaffirms the dubious legality of Roe v. Wade… Even many Catholics do not wholly accept our absolute ban, and argue that about 100,000 abortions a year are not ‘direct’ when the life of the mother. We must stop this, but there is no single, magic bullet.
I assume that the solution you seek lies in convincing people of the inhumanity of abortion - the battle for the hearts and minds of the people.
Yes, the hearts and minds of the people must change. Just as the Church battled the widespread practice of infanticide for the first millenia, then the practice of abandonment for centuries more.
If that’s so, why do you belittle those who are actively contributing to that goal?
Well, I think that we could look back at what has actually been said and raise the very real question of who is belittling whom. After all, I have been repeatedly called pro-abortion because I believe that Social Justice contributes to our goal. But you stil ask a valid question.
The Partial Birth Abortion Ban troubles me in particular because the publicity and appall are largely based on falsehoods. We were told that it would stop a significant number of abortions, something the authors of the bill did not believe to be true. We convinced the public that this was primarily a 3rd trimester procedure, it is not. We argued that the procedure is never a medical necessity, when, in fact, it fairly likely to be used in some of the most morally troubling cases where secular society is most likely to sympathize with the decisions of mother…
Whenever deceptions are used to promote a cause I think a very real possibility exists for a net loss. Sure, short term gains can be had, but it ultimately makes things worse. A good example would be the occupation in Iraq. As a big fan of Frances Fukuyama, the conservative theorist and father of neoconservatism, I am well aware that many of the main players in the Bush administration had arguments for invading and occupying Iraq, dating back to the early 90’s, and crystalized in the Project for the New American Century formed in '97. I actually doubted the wisdom of those arguments, largely because of my two tours as a medic in Vietnam (my own attempt to balance faith and duty to country).
However, even in the PNAC writings, it was believed that the public would not accept the obvious wisdom of using Iraq to establish a permanent military presence in the region, so a rallying event would be needed. So it was not the least bit surprising to me that 9/11 quickly turned into a call for invading Iraq. Although I always had doubts, I do believe that most of people involved in planning the invasion thought that it was the right thing for the country to do. But by telling us things like, 6 months, no cost, 9/11, weapons of mass destruction, instead of the reasons they actually believed, they got an invasion and short term support, but no long term support for the actual endeavor.
I think this is tragic. To me, rather or not we were lied to, and rather or not the original occupation and counter insurgency was incompetently handled is irrelevant. The moral obligation seems clear, we’ve created a situation where hundreds of people show up tortured and beheaded over night and where have to arm militias that are driving hundreds of thousands of Christians from their homes. But it is now almost impossible that we will volunteer in droves or match hundreds of billions of dollars that have been spent poorly - because the deceptions and loss of trust give an excuse to avoid a grievous moral responsibility, and a lack of faith in our leadership for many.
We see a similiar reaction here. Even among people whose basic beliefs about abortion match, look at how much anger and resentment is triggered when it is suggested that something that has been repeated and accepted is challented.
