What’s Wrong with the World

American pro-lifers are going to rue the preoccupation with electoral politics that led to supporting a Bush Administration determined to expand executive prerogatives and build up the State. Come January, the domestic security apparatus can be turned against us. When that begins, let us hope we have the courage to follow the advice proffered in this posting.

But it wouldn't be civil disobedience - that's a heroic act of furthering Progress. When anyone does it for un-Progressive reasons it's naught but a threat to social order, plain and simple.

Sarcasm aside, I agree with Kevin and I won't be surprised if this happens elsewhere. I'll have to keep Australia in my prayers.

This seems to me a clear-cut case of a law that orders the commission of an intrinsically evil act and that should be defied.

True, but at some point civil disobedience will simply result in a lot of people being sent to prison, at which point it'll be as useless for ending this evil practice, as driving a Prius is for environmentalism. It'll make people feel good about themselves, while accomplishing little of substance.

Not that I advocate violence per se, but it would certainly be a lot more persuasive to the pro-abortionists if there were the intrinsic threat that Christians would actually use violence as a last resort to stop such impositions upon them. After all, it doesn't logically follow from Romans 13 or elsewhere that the state can possess the authority to do that which violates God's law, nor can Christians be expected to just lay down and accept "just punishment" for disobeying an order that is in defiance of God's revealed will.

Usually the theory of civil disobedience is that you do go to jail for it. That is, the whole point of civil disobedience is that it is by definition a form of non-violent protest. I think there might be some effectiveness to it if done on a massive scale. If you really had thousands of, say, Catholic doctors who were going on practicing medicine, you couldn't do "sting" operations on all of them to "catch" them refusing to refer to abortionists, and you would gut your medical field if you really started throwing them all in prison or pulling all their licenses. I think if you got a massive enough civil disobedience going, you could motivate the state to leave the law unenforced. And if not, I think it would be a valuable symbol that Christians don't agree with the unstated premise, "If you're a doctor you are obligated to refer for abortion."

Mike T,

Not that I advocate violence per se, but it would certainly be a lot more persuasive to the pro-abortionists if there were the intrinsic threat that Christians would actually use violence as a last resort to stop such impositions upon them. After all, it doesn't logically follow from Romans 13 or elsewhere that the state can possess the authority to do that which violates God's law, nor can Christians be expected to just lay down and accept "just punishment" for disobeying an order that is in defiance of God's revealed will.

Do you realize just how contrary your above comments are to how the early christians actually practiced Christianity back in their days?

You didn't see Christians then rise up against Rome in fitful acts of violence to prevent Imperial Rome from imposing on them worship of its false gods!

My goodness!

If the several acts of marytrdom they actually performed instead doesn't teach you anything, pay heed to Christ & His Apostles who never instructed Christians to rise up against the Rome and overthrow it even in the face of its unjust laws.

Rome was converted through acts of martyrdom; not violence.

I hardly imagine Ignatius, Irenaeus, Perpetua, Felicity assume a Proto-Rambo stance & start rampaging against Rome and its injustice.

Although, perhaps Ignatius was a coward since he, in fact, just laid down his life & accepted his punishment thus:

"I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ." — Letter to the Romans

You didn't see Christians then rise up against Rome in fitful acts of violence to prevent Imperial Rome from imposing on them worship of its false gods!

That's because the actions were directed at them, as a form of persecution for their faith. The Bible isn't so cut-and-dry when it comes to Christians resisting institutional evil that is persecuting them for a cause that has nothing to do with them being Christians.

One of the key differences between Imperial Rome and modern America and Australia is that Imperial Rome didn't systematically murder the lives of the unborn. It had many institutional problems, but they were not nearly as clearly evil as some that exist today. A better comparison would not be to Rome, but to the Canaanites and Phoenicians and their institutional practices related to Moloch worship.

Usually the theory of civil disobedience is that you do go to jail for it. That is, the whole point of civil disobedience is that it is by definition a form of non-violent protest. I think there might be some effectiveness to it if done on a massive scale. If you really had thousands of, say, Catholic doctors who were going on practicing medicine, you couldn't do "sting" operations on all of them to "catch" them refusing to refer to abortionists, and you would gut your medical field if you really started throwing them all in prison or pulling all their licenses. I think if you got a massive enough civil disobedience going, you could motivate the state to leave the law unenforced. And if not, I think it would be a valuable symbol that Christians don't agree with the unstated premise, "If you're a doctor you are obligated to refer for abortion."

True. My point is that the pro-abortionists, like most left-wing activists, will push, push and push in terms of their legislative assault. Part of what made the peaceful civil rights protests successful was that everyone knew that if Martin Luther King failed, Malcolm X would step in to replace him. If there were a similar understanding on the abortion issue, you would probably see a lot more respect for the opinions and goals of the peaceful abortion protesters.

Again, I'm just making an observation here, not advocating violence.

'I think if you got a massive enough civil disobedience going, you could motivate the state to leave the law unenforced."

I think if the prolife movement doesn't forge a non-violent protest then the abortion regime will have prevailed and we can all take our place in that special place reserved for cowards.

"Part of what made the peaceful civil rights protests successful was that everyone knew that if Martin Luther King failed, Malcolm X would step in to replace him."

Untrue. TV coverage of Selma was the dagger that effectively ended segregation. Malcolm X was a counter-productive and late arriving force.

Has anyone here ever seen comparable footage of Operation Rescue and the counter-protestors that would greet them? Film of the West Hartford protest?

I didn't think so. The media will do all it can to keep the blindfolds on an unwitting nation. We'll need person of prominence to lead and my hunch is Archbishop Chaput is ready.

To tell you the truth, I am not expecting that anything I advocate here is actually going to be successful at ending abortion. I'm prepared for lack of success. What I do think is not only that we must be determined not to be corrupted ourselves by these demands for cooperation but also that pro-lifers not simply acquiesce in the complete corruption of the medical profession by all quitting that profession. There remains a question: Is it permissible for some given individual in Victoria to quit being a doctor as opposed to continuing to be a doctor and defying the law if occasion should arise? Yes, obviously, it is. And better that, of course, than cooperate in abortion. However, I would like to see a lot of doctors simply ignore the new regulation and go on with business as usual, because if all the good guys quit, that means simply abandoning the profession, which does not serve patients well, either.

"I'm prepared for lack of success."

We're called to be faithful, not successful and that means suffering. No getting around it and let me admit it; I wish I could avoid the persecution and pain.

Civil disobedience is, frankly, for suckers and Hindus. (Yes, I just maligned lots of people over whom we as members of modern society are supposed to fawn.) Armed insurrection against unjust rule is perfectly permissible under the just war rubric. The reason it tends to be rare (just revolution, not revolution generally) is that the standards are difficult to meet, especially "reasonable likelihood of success." The likelihood of success in a peasant revolt against the Romans was 0%. The Romans had defeated the world's mightiest regular armies and put down far better revolting forces (Spartacus's gladiators, the Zealots, etc.) than the fledgling Church could have fielded. The members of the early Church were also divided on the permissibility of violence under any circumstances, both because of the Roman army's pervasive mithraism and simply because things go unsettled when you haven't ever had an ecumenical council.

The examples above of individual martyrs are inappropriate. Every martyr of which I can think was taken, either individually or with companions, and killed either for being a Christian or for refusing to apostatize or commit some mortal sin. The moral imperatives that operate upon an individual in such circumstances are not the same as those that operate upon a society or government. If the government begins a general persecution, killing Catholics because of their faith, or tacitly sanctions such widespread killing by private parties, a prima facie case for a just armed uprising exists. But unless you have a sizable military force capable of a reasonable expectation of victory against the government, you won't meet the moral standard actually required to lead a revolution. Unless there are things I don't know about the connections between the prolife movement and the military, then, we're probably stuck with the ballot box and sidewalk protests for the time being.

My criticism, of course, is not of every non-violent form of protest. It's with the belief that a person is both morally obligated to break a law and undergo the legal punishment proscribed therefor. If the government lacks the legitimate authority to compel a man to do a thing, surely it lacks the authority to punish him for his oversight. Of course, it's also with the noxious pacifism that underlay Gandhi's campaign. The Church must promote peace, but She is not a pacifist.

I think you more eloquently made my point, Paul. The general unwillingness of Christians to ever use violence for a political end these days, even when it is clearly acceptable, coupled with a willingness to acquiesce to unjust demands to preserve one's lifestyle is why the left has made such radical gains.

I suppose the one area of potential difference is that I see no harm in individual Christians or small groups of Christians using force, even when they know it's a doomed effort, to stop unjust actions that target them and their neighbors for reasons other than pure religious persecution.

Paul:

Armed insurrection against unjust rule is perfectly permissible under the just war rubric. The reason it tends to be rare (just revolution, not revolution generally) is that the standards are difficult to meet, especially "reasonable likelihood of success." The likelihood of success in a peasant revolt against the Romans was 0%.

See, you bring up an interesting point here, Paul.

I've seen similar reasoning concerning these same standards expressed elsewhere.

Does this mean then that the American Revolution itself (where the likelihood of 13 colonies winning against the massive British Empire then seemed 0%) could not be rightly called a "Just Revolution" due to its apparent failure to meet such requirement initially? Or does the fact that because afterwards, even in spite of those odds, they did win automatically render the war just?

Sounds like a creative dodge; "I'm not going to put any skin into the game until we get to use weapons". I guess its better than: "I'd join you at the clinic, but I bruise easily", but its the kind of rhetoric that sets the cause back by several millenia.

Please save you're muscle-flexing, I am Spartacus fantasy for the Remnants's next weekend retreat.

Mike T,

I suppose the one area of potential difference is that I see no harm in individual Christians or small groups of Christians using force, even when they know it's a doomed effort, to stop unjust actions that target them and their neighbors for reasons other than pure religious persecution.

I don't know if you realize this, but what you say here would seem to justify the violence of some fringe Pro-Life folks who actually commit acts of violence at abortion clinics.

Personally, I don't see how these folks can say they are Pro-Life on the one hand and, yet, actually endanger people's lives on the other.

Such acts are atrocious not only because of the despicable acts of violence committed by these individuals but also because they distinctly contradict the very meaning of "Pro-Life" by their heinous acts.

I essentially wrote: "Rome was converted through acts of martyrdom; not violence."

Kevin's response: "Please save you're muscle-flexing, I am Spartacus fantasy for the Remnants's next weekend retreat."

Kevin,
Your comments here is relevant how????

Mike T, Paul and I were discussing a matter that, based on your most recent comment, appears to have been lost on you.

Can we all agree, gentlemen, on this much?

1) Doctors in Victoria, Australia should not obey the law quoted in the main post and should refuse to refer for abortions.

2) Doctors in Victoria who do so are not obligated to quit being doctors but rather would do more good by keeping people of honor in the medical profession for as long as possible.

I consider the whole issue of vigilantism and armed insurrection to be pretty much beyond the scope of this post. I'm not a pacifist, by a long, long shot. But I have real doubts about the legitimacy of armed revolution for _many_ reasons, both in principle and because of the immense improbability of success. I can imagine scenarios in which one could be justified in using force in self-defense or defense of the innocent under immediate attack where you could save the person by putting yourself forward: For example, if a woman who was talking with you as a sidewalk counselor were about to be dragged off against her will by her boyfriend into the abortion clinic, you could certainly stand up to him and protect her (and her child), even if it ended up meaning that he assaulted you and you ended up in a fight with him. Generally, however, I am going to condemn acts of violence in the abortion culture wars, and that for many different reasons.

Ari, I was responding to the two warrior/abstractionists before you. But yes, if this discussion is about;
1) only those directly impacted by unjust laws are required to respond by non-violent means, or 2)applying Just War Theory to prolife activism, then yes your point is lost on me.

Kevin,

Since your comment came right after mine & did not have a quote to put it in context or even the names of those you were actually addressing, I thought you were somehow responding to a comment of mine.

Concerning unjust laws, I don't know how one could deem it fit to restrict nonviolent protest of such laws to only those affected by it. For example, there were those who were not black that actually fought against segregation in America back in the days. Heck, Mary White Ovington was a white woman who was actually one of the founding members for the NAACP.

As to the Just War theory, kindly note that I was not the one who brought that up. In my original comments, I pointed to the examples of the early christians for Mike T's benefit. Paul thought it apt, for some reason, to counter my comments with a posting on Just War.

Lydia,

Doctors in Victoria, Australia should not obey the law quoted in the main post and should refuse to refer for abortions.

Certainly, this would be preferred; however, the reality is such that if & when these good doctors do so, they will most certainly meet the unfortunate fate of criminal prosecution and even incarceration for what were really righteous acts, as their atrocious law would have it.

These doctors may very well have families.

To that point, I would ask you in all sincerity that if, say, you were actually married to one such doctor and living in Australia with several children in tow; would you counsel likewise as you have done so here, knowing that your husband may very well end up being criminally prosecuted for his actions?

Ari, here's my answer to that question: I would certainly advise my husband (though I wouldn't need to, because if my husband were a doctor, he would know it as well as I) that he must never assist a woman in obtaining an abortion, where such assistance includes referrals. That, IMO, is an absolute given. The only remaining question is how he should try to avoid that. Should he change his specialty? Should he move to some remote location where the checker-outers are unlikely to catch him or where women are unlikely to report him for a refusal to refer? Should he just sit tight, hope it doesn't come up, be the best doctor he can be in the meanwhile, and hold on to his determination not to help a woman procure an abortion? Or should he quit being a doctor altogether?

I certainly don't think he _must_ go on being a doctor. I addressed this issue above, when I said this:

There remains a question: Is it permissible for some given individual in Victoria to quit being a doctor as opposed to continuing to be a doctor and defying the law if occasion should arise? Yes, obviously, it is. And better that, of course, than cooperate in abortion. However, I would like to see a lot of doctors simply ignore the new regulation and go on with business as usual, because if all the good guys quit, that means simply abandoning the profession, which does not serve patients well, either.

So, then, the question is this: Who participates in the effort to keep some good doctors in the profession, at risk to themselves and their livelihoods and families, and who avoids cooperation in evil by getting out of the profession altogether? That's obviously going to have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. I would hope that any disagreement between you and me on this would concern my point #2 rather than my point #1, and that your only reason for advising doctors just to get out of the profession would be risk avoidance for good people with dependents *rather than* the belief that they are obligated not to disobey an obviously unjust law.

"I don't know how one could deem it fit to restrict nonviolent protest of such laws to only those affected by it."

Amen. But don't we already know;"...when these good doctors do so, they will most certainly meet the unfortunate fate of criminal prosecution and even incarceration..."? I think financial penalties and social ostracism more likely, but soon, we will have to grapple with the moral challenge posed by the passage of FOCA. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, merely voting and writing stern letters will probably not suffice on the level that matters most; discipleship.

1) Doctors in Victoria, Australia should not obey the law quoted in the main post and should refuse to refer for abortions.

2) Doctors in Victoria who do so are not obligated to quit being doctors but rather would do more good by keeping people of honor in the medical profession for as long as possible.

Yes.
Yes.

Kevin,

Amen. But don't we already know;"...when these good doctors do so, they will most certainly meet the unfortunate fate of criminal prosecution and even incarceration..."?

Sorry, Kevin, but for a person to simply dictate that people should do such and such because if they were in those somebody else's shoes, they would do likewise; doesn't cut it with me.

If you haven't yet realized, that was the whole point of my discussion with you on the other thread; that is also the point of my question to Lydia here.

It's easy to pontificate that these doctors should do such & such; but if we were on the other end of that pontification, if it was actually us, would we really be willing to suffer even unto prosecution and actually do the right thing in spite of real consequences to us?

I can only hope that when the time comes for myself, I might live up to the courage of the Martyrs & the Saints: "There but for the Grace of God go I..."

Ari, you constantly frame the issue as one between passive voting or martyrdom.

"It's easy to pontificate that these doctors should do such & such;..." Its hypocritical if that is all we do.

"I can only hope that when the time comes for myself, I might live up to the courage of the Martyrs & the Saints..." Agreed. Time to gird our loins.

Kevin,

"Ari, you constantly frame the issue as one between passive voting or martyrdom."

Kindly note that even you are finally coming to grips with the present reality in your previous comments:

I think financial penalties and social ostracism more likely, but soon, we will have to grapple with the moral challenge posed by the passage of FOCA.

When FOCA does occur, I wonder what hope do Catholic hospitals have as well as their workers, many of whom I know who are, in fact, faithful to the teachings of the Church on abortion.

Should that fateful day arrive, are we ready -- will we be ready -- to face the storm then & still have the right to call ourselves Christian?

Ari, I'd like to think--and actually, trying to be as objective as possible, I do believe--that the most "cowardly" I'd get (if it were cowardice) were I in these doctors' shoes would be to get out of the business. I truly believe it would be *very wrong* for them actively to participate in helping a woman get an abortion--to refer her to a doctor without conscientious objections. For a pro-life doctor, to do so would represent a very serious, very drastic loss of integrity. I'm not going to back down on that one. The most I will allow is that it could be legitimate simply to take oneself out of a position where the issue could even arise. One might retire or take up another profession first, for example.

Ari, your are stuck in your won feedback loop, unable to follow the arguments of others and we're both repeating ourselves.

However, I don't consider the only options open to us as those qualifying for martyrdom. At least not yet. If 7 million voters are, as some pollsters claim "single-issue prolifers", think what 10% of that number could achieve by regularly engaging in prayerful witness in front of clinics.

I assume FOCA is coming, have given you what I think the Christian response should be. The Church will have to close hospitals and schools. Municipalities will drown in red-ink and innocent people will suffer. Before that happens though, the country should be forewarned by a high-ranking prelate. Maybe then our hostile elites will pullback from overreaching, but a confrontation is coming.
And we have only ourselves to blame if we blink and say; "lets wait until the next election."

Kevin:

"I assume FOCA is coming, have given you what I think the Christian response should be."

Yes -- you have -- it is this:

"lets wait until the next election."

Even further, I agree with you -- "And we have only ourselves to blame..."

Interesting how you refuted yourself in your own comment.

Ari, first let me apologize for the grammatical mistakes above and any confusion they caused.

When I said; "lets wait until the next election", I was criticizing the attitude that holds electoral politics to be the alpha and omega of pro-life activism. It is a view that has contributed to our plight.

Look, there is nothing else either one of us can say to each other. Other than; prepare for the next phase in the battle. Anyone called to fight in it should be grateful for the privilege.

1) Doctors in Victoria, Australia should not obey the law quoted in the main post and should refuse to refer for abortions.

2) Doctors in Victoria who do so are not obligated to quit being doctors but rather would do more good by keeping people of honor in the medical profession for as long as possible.

So I would add that judges before whom such doctors are dragged for punishment are under no obligation to punish them, and are also under no obligation to resign from the bench or recuse themselves from the cases, but rather would do more good by keeping people of honor on the bench and deciding these cases for as long as possible.

If the legislature insists on passing unjust laws, let the legislature enforce them.

...at some point civil disobedience will simply result in a lot of people being sent to prison, at which point it'll be as useless for ending this evil practice, as driving a Prius is for environmentalism. It'll make people feel good about themselves, while accomplishing little of substance.

The accomplishment in question is not simply ending the practice of abortion, but refusing to do evil. What is accomplished is that the doctor not become an accessory to murder.

Kurt, exactly. Well-put.

Zippy, I'm meditating a post on medical essentialism, with you very much in the forefront of my mind. Even if we don't agree on an essentialist view of judge-ship, I suspect we'll be much closer to agreement on an essentialist view of being a medical man.

Sorry Lydia, I couldn't let an old hobby horse pass without taking it for a ride :-/

Lydia, this is coming to the U.S., if FOCA passes.

For all their talk of tolerance and pluralism, on matters of human sexuality and reproduction, the American Left is far worse than the worst book-banning mayor they can find in rural Alaska. They simply will not tolerate dissent. There is no argument when the good, the true, and the beautiful--the epiphany of egalitarianism--is firmly and with certainty entrenched in your consciousness 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. For all their talk of the virtues of fallibilism and openness, on these issues, it's the Apostate's Creed (yes, I meant to write "Apostate") handed down to them by the magestarium: Hefner, Kinsey, Sanger, Wattleton, Vidal, and Flynt. You can be an agnostic about God and the objective meaning of language--in fact, you can conduct entire graduate seminars just on those subjects alone--but don't you question the dogma that there may be a place that you're supposed to put your pee-pee. According to the Apostate's Creed, you can put it anywhere you damn please as long as the receptacle consents. And if a third party, like a baby, results, you can slice his throat with Ockham's razor.

Welcome to Pottersville. The train left the station in Bedford Falls in 1968.

There is indeed a lot of scariness from the left on the issue of "consent." It's always used extremely opportunistically. I'm involved right now in a thread at Secondhand Smoke on the subject of taking human organs without consent. It was prompted by a blog post at an Oxford bioethics blog (you can imagine) in which it was proposed that organs be taken even *against* the person's wishes. "Organ conscription" was the new word coined for this.

And the attempt to draft doctors into being abortion enablers shows the same trend. Choice always devours itself. It's like a law of life.

Nice phrase, "Choice devours itself." Here's why, IMHO: "choice" is a power and not a judgment. It is an exercise of will, not a consequence of a deliberation.

Prediction: if there are not enough ova for gay couples to have children, they will be conscripted as well. And those who resist will be called "Greeders."

The first casualty was language, as our friend Michael Bauman has eloquently stated in at least three places: http://michaelbauman.com/abortname.htm http://michaelbauman.com/meaning.htm and http://michaelbauman.com/verbalplunder.htm

The next casualty was the invisible and the weak, the unborn. The next will be the dissident Christians, who will be called every name in the book before they go before hate crime tribunals to receive their punishment.

Remember, our faith begins with "In the beginning was the Word." There's a reason for that. And that's why those who attack language implicitly attack the Christ.

God help us.

...at some point civil disobedience will simply result in a lot of people being sent to prison, at which point it'll be as useless for ending this evil practice, as driving a Prius is for environmentalism. It'll make people feel good about themselves, while accomplishing little of substance.

I understand why many contemporary conservatives recoil from the thought of civil disobedience. Most view it a tool of the Left and out of sheer habit and temperament, tend to settle for the status quo. No matter how depraved it may be, as long as there are some offsetting comforts and hope of future reform, many conservatives will avoid the unpleasantness of confronting the State. The Babbitt-like dismissal above is not surprising.

What is hard to understand, is how Christians, given the long history and deep institutional memory of resisting Ceasars, could be so blind to the impact peaceful resistance has on a regime that is suffering from dwindling moral authority. I truly doubt FOCA could survive the non-violent witness of laypeople from all walks of life, acting to defend a right as basic to Liberal self-understanding as that of a free conscience. Exposing such a profound internal contradiction would leave a rickety State with but one weapon, raw power. Never, as history teaches us, a good guarantor of its long-term survival.

I can think of two peaceful successful actions against governments. One is against the Marcus regime in the Phillipines. The other is the Sollidarity movement. The later may be more relevent for us because it was against a brutal Marxist government. Perhaps it would make sense to study these and similar movements that worked without violence.

I am afraid violence by small groups of Christians would just get us all labelled as "Terrorists" and give ammo to our enemies in the culture wars that Christian conservatives are all unreasoning fanatics.

Faustina, agreed; Solidarity is an excellent model and violence is not an option. Studying previous Christian movements is important, but let it not delay the actions we can take right now. Moms have turned back from the abortuary and abortionsits have converted, all because of the witness and prayers of a few souls standing across the street. The technocracy loathes the spiritual communion created by public resistance and prefers love remain private, isolated and circumscribed.