A critique of more weak Kmiec speak

Don't let the cutesy blog title fool you, keeping tabs on Kmiec is always serious business. Kmiec, of course, is the most prominent "pro-life" Catholic supporter of Barack Obama. What has Kmiec been up to lately?

Back in late January, Kmiec explained his abortion views at a Pepperdine faith forum. He confirmed once again that "he thinks his name may possibly be considered for the position of Vatican Emissary in Obama's administration."

Kmiec seemed to suggest that he believes in delayed hominization (underlining mine):

"Abortion is an intrinsic evil that can be justified under no circumstances. The Church takes the position it does … not because of the Bible - although it believes in the inerrancy of the Bible - but also … as a matter of objective scientific fact that this human zygote is human, and if you don't interfere with it, it will become a person, and by virtue of that, it's entitled to legal protection."

The Church does not teach when the zygote becomes a human person, but it does teach that the zygote ought to be treated "as a human person" from the first moment of its conception. It does not say that the zygote becomes a human person at some later stage of development, as Kmiec does here.

One freshmen seemed to get what continues to escape Kmiec:

"What really stood out to me was hearing … that Obama wanted to limit abortions, [when] that very day, the Mexico City Policy was reversed," said [Seaver freshman Mimi] Rothfus.

Yes, reality can have a harsh ring to it sometimes.

On the 10th, Kmiec published an article in Sojourners, talking about Obama's new Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He says "President Obama is off to a fine start." I have so much to say here, but will limit myself to one quotation:

"Many Catholics, including myself, were disappointed by the president’s reversal of the Mexico City executive order, which blocked foreign aid to groups that include abortion referrals among their health services. The president’s rationale was motivated by Third World conditions, and we need to ask ourselves how we in opposition would formulate an answer for the millions of non-Catholics who were at risk of fatal illness in developing countries for lack of non-abortifacient, contraceptive services that were swept within the previous policy."

Wrapped up in this dense block of verbiage is a very simple message: third world countries need contraceptives, Kmiec thinks. He evidently needs to review his Church teaching: artificial contraception is universally wrong, based on the natural law. It's not just wrong for Catholics, ergo, Catholics ought not promote artificial contraception to anyone.

Also on the 10th, Kmiec published an article in the National Catholic Reporter. The substance:

Today the church has strategically (might it be said, prudentially in light of the perspectives of other faiths?) chosen to take incremental steps to conform human law to God’s, and perhaps that means that all of us -- the church included -- need to more charitably assess efforts to promote the choice for life premised upon social and economic support. Such support, at a minimum, should physically and materially strengthen the community, and perhaps an economically recovered America will also be spiritually revived such that the Supreme Court will once again describe us, as it did pre-Roe, as a “religious people whose institutions presuppose the existence of a Supreme Being.”

Once again I find myself mystified by a Kmiec argument. The fact of the matter is that under the Obama administration we can look forward to a farther widinening gap between God's law and human law on the issue of abortion. The legal limitations set on abortion will be gradually rolled back. Obama has promised this. Furthermore, I see no guarantee that economic prosperity will cause spiritual rebirth. Typically, it would seem to me, the opposite is the case. Finally, Kmiec's wait-and-see approach is a very handy way to dismiss opposition to Obama's here-and-now problematic solutions (e.g., reducing problem pregnancies by expanding contraceptive access).

I predict that as Obama's presidency continues, and as he is allowed to implement more of his program, Kmiec's tenuous arguments will continue to appear more and more threadbare. Kmiec will, as a result, be forced to more desperately stretch his rhetorical justifications over the contradictions between what Obama is actually doing, and what Kmiec would have us believe he is about.

Finally, last week, on the 12th, Kmiec had a public debate with Hadley Arkes at Villanova University. I'm trying to track down a report of how it went down.

And that's the "weak Kmiec speak" news.

update: Adam Raha at Sober Inebriation:

Upon contacting Villanova University, I was told by Anne Hischar that the debate will be aired in its entirety online at www.matthewryancenter.org in about two weeks.