Everyone knows what the Catholic Church teaches about abortion, right? It is an “intrinsically evil act.” Yet the answers of Joe Biden and Paul Ryan in the recent vice-presidential debate suggested, each in its own way, that knowledge of this teaching does not translate automatically into a particular position on abortion law and policy.
Vice President Biden affirmed his personal assent to the church’s teaching that life begins at conception, but he (mistakenly) referred to this as a “de fide doctrine” (a truth of faith), which the law ought not to impose on others. Representative Ryan, meanwhile, maintained that “the policy of a Romney administration is to oppose abortion with the exceptions of rape, incest, and the life of the mother.” While the church has always taught that one could support less-than-ideal abortion laws if nothing better was possible, one gets the feeling that a Romney administration would view the exceptions as morally (rather than just politically) justified, a position incompatible with the claim that abortion is intrinsically evil—that is, evil in all circumstances. In the wake of Todd Akin’s comment on “legitimate rape,” Republican House Speaker John Boehner was asked during an interview on PBS whether his party had become “extreme” on abortion. Boehner answered: “Mitt Romney, myself, others who are very prolife, the American people today, a majority of them identify as prolife. But we all have exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother. And, frankly, almost all of my colleagues in the House have the same exceptions.” It is evident that Speaker Boehner has not mastered the script about intrinsically evil acts, either.
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