10/14/2004: "Kerry's Catholic incoherence on abortion"

Mark Brumley of the Catholic publishing house Ignatius Press nails to the wall John Kerry's "I can't legislate an article of my faith" excuse on abortion:

Then came the kicker: "I believe that I can't legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of faith."

What article of faith was Kerry talking about? That abortion kills an innocent human being? That's not a peculiarly Catholic belief or "article of faith." Plenty of people who aren't Catholics think abortion entails taking an innocent human life. President Bush does, and he's a Methodist, not a Catholic. So too many Lutherans, Baptists, Nazarenes, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians agree with faithful Catholics and President Bush. Then there are non-Christians, including many Jews, Muslims, and Hindus, for whom abortion is the killing an innocent human being. Indeed, some people with no religion at all or who deny God's existence take the same position.

How, then, can opposition to abortion rights be "an article of faith"? Or if it is, why should that preclude opposing abortion on other grounds held in common with people who don't necessarily share one's faith?

Apparently, whatever scruples Senator Kerry has about his Catholicism informing his views of abortion and embryonic-stem-cell research don't affect his stances on many other political issues. He declared,

"My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There's a great passage of the Bible that says, 'What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead.' And I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people. That's why I fight against poverty. That's why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That's why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith."

So it's okay for Senator Kerry's Catholicism to influence his efforts against poverty, or to clean up the environment, or to fight for justice and equality. As he said, "All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith." But for some reason his Catholicism mustn't influence him to support the right to life for unborn children.

It's as good a short-form rebuttal of this Cuomo-esque claptrap as I've ever seen. Read it all.