Like Joe Biden, I’m a pro-choice Catholic. Unlike Joe Biden, I’m not a Democrat. Thus, my reasons for being pro-choice likely differ from his.
Although I’m pro-choice, I don’t support abortion. I think it’s murder. But I hold a different view of government than pro-lifers who would outlaw abortion.
As a Catholic, I subscribe to “the principle of subsidiarity, according to which ‘a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions...’” (CCC #1883). Source:
Catechism of the Catholic Church - IntraText
In my view, the primary responsibility for preventing sins and societal ills (including abortion) belongs to individuals and to families. Thus, most of what the U.S. government does is overreach. It’s that simple. If I don’t want mothers to abort their children, then I should teach my daughters about the value of human life, which begins at the moment of conception. If I do a good job, then my daughters shouldn’t abort their children.
I can try to persuade others not to abort their children, but that’s where the Kingdom of Christ ends, at persuasion. The Kingdom of Christ is entirely persuasive, never coercive. The devil’s empire is coercive.
“But you said yourself that abortion is murder. Surely the state is right to outlaw murder?” I grant that God’s law against murder, including abortion, is good. But God’s law is also powerless apart from Him. Witness the billions of murders committed since God gave the law. Witness especially the earthly keepers of God’s law (the Jews) in collusion with the ultimate keepers of man’s law (the Romans) committing the most heinous murder in history (the crucifixion of Christ).
The trouble with government is twofold. First, its laws are powerless. If God’s laws are powerless apart from Him, then man’s laws are more so. Second, government refuses to accept that its laws are powerless. More precisely, government pretends to have power to enforce its laws.
We know that government’s laws are powerless because it has made laws against speeding, yet writes speeding tickets daily. It has made laws against drunk driving, but arrests drunk drivers daily. It has made laws against murder, but arrests murderers daily. Its laws don’t work, but it claims that without its laws (and more crucially its enforcers), society would suffer
more speeding,
more drunk driving,
more murder.
The test case for government’s argument is virtually nonexistent, because few societies in history have been able to rid themselves entirely of government for long. Government is fond of pointing to war-torn countries in states of “anarchy” as their test case, but such countries are not truly anarchical. Their ongoing wars are almost entirely concerned with establishing some form of government. They are not free from politics. They are engaged in politics at its ultimate level, the level of brute force.
What law “enforcement” mostly does is show up
after a crime has been committed (murder, for instance) or during the commission of a crime (especially drunk driving and speeding, occasionally rape and theft though not usually), but
always after a crime is initiated. So-called law “enforcement” then has mainly a punitive function, as its penalties supposedly discourage more crime. Again, there is hardly a test case for this. Maybe look at the thirteen colonies after the revolutionary war, just before they got their new government off the ground. Or study Native American tribal organization. There is still a form of government there, but it’s the sort of government that I prefer, which is to say minimal.
One way to get minimal government is to pass few laws. Few laws need few enforcers, administrators, and other bureaucrats. Trust the individual and the family to regulate their lives. Expect criminality to be ever-present. Yet, try to treat criminality persuasively, which is not to say by simply discouraging criminality. But when criminal acts occur, treat the criminal as a human being capable of redemption. Try to persuade the criminal to reform. In extreme cases, some criminals may need killing or lifetime incarceration, but what we have today throughout the world is a universal police state and prison planet. It’s too much. Off the rails. Globalist. Satanic.
This leads back to the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. Littleness. Localness. For more on the subject see
Subsidiarity (Catholicism).
Government in general today is too large, especially the US government. It’s tempting to think that when the Founding Fathers formed the government, they envisioned a smaller institution for a smaller population of the thirteen colonies rather than an imperial government reigning over the expansive territory and population of today. But that’s not true. The empire we have today is exactly what the dominant faction envisioned. Hamilton in the Federalist Papers envisions an empire, repeatedly referring to it by name, such as when he writes in Federalist #13, “The entire separation of the States into thirteen unconnected sovereignties is a project too extravagant and too replete with danger to have many advocates. The ideas of men who speculate upon the dismemberment of
the empire seem generally turned toward three confederacies - one consisting of the four Northern, another of the four Middle, and a third of the five Southern States.”
Well, I’m for the confederacies that Hamilton was against. Actually, I’m for a division of the empire more along the left/right and libertarian/anarcho/centrist political lines of today - not necessarily separation into distinct nations, but at least a political division similar to what Diocletian did when he split the Roman Empire into East and West to make it more easily governable. We can all remain Americans with a common military to oppose Communist China, Recidivist Imperial Russia, etc. But ultra-leftists can be free to smoke legalized LGBTQ crack rocks in their own safe space version of empire called Libtardia, ultra-righties can be free to shoot bazookas at lawn jockeys on the public square in their version called Magatardia, and those of us who just want to be left alone to mind our own affairs can reside in Central Calmistan.
Anyway, it was not the Federalists but the Antifederalists who supported this concept of small government, which best reflects Catholic subsidiarity. In opposition to “subdivision of
the empire into several partial confederacies,” Hamilton preferred “union under one government” (Federalist #1). It is precisely this Hamiltonian idea of empire that Abe Lincoln and the Northern army imposed on the South during the so-called Civil War. The lamentable fact that the South had a slave-based economy has muddied the waters.
Consider any other political issue in the same light. Say for instance, that the South supported a constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol sales replete with a Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Act. Then the North conquered the Southern States, forcing them to accept alcohol sales. Or suppose that the South supported a law against abortion, while the North was pro-choice. Then the North conquered and forced abortion on the South.
Of course, it’s not entirely clear that alcohol consumption or abortion are good for society. The point is that the conquering force must end up on the political side approved by modernity. So long as this is the result, it makes it difficult for anyone to question the “might makes right” policy of the conquerors. “Oh what? You wanted the South to win so that a bunch of oppressed people couldn’t party with booze or abort the burdensome results of their sexual trysts?” No.
I wanted the South to win for the same reason I wanted the Antifederalists to win. I want small, local government with few laws, few enforcers, few administrators, and few other bureaucrats. I want a government localized and responsive enough so that individuals and families can actually influence the debate about laws rather than being dictated to by a distant imperial government substantially controlled by communist/fascist corporations and lobbying groups with little oversight.
Since that’s what I want, I encourage everyone
not to abort their children, but I don’t insist that an imperial government enforce my views. That makes me pro-choice, I guess. That’s also why I’m probably a different sort of pro-choice Catholic from Joe Biden. If the “Ruth Sent Me” crowd shows up at my parish, I’ll discourage them from disrupting Mass with their mindless chanting, but I’ll also offer to schedule a meeting to talk with them respectfully about our concerns. They seem particularly concerned about abortion. I’m particularly concerned about tyranny… and I’ve had enough of it… frankly.
