Jim Wallis is making the point to the administration that effective healthcare reform cannot be linked to abortion and still succeed.
Making abortion provisions part of healthcare reform will kill healthcare reform. . . There are a number of people who believe this is an issue of deep moral conviction and conscience and there are firewalls that if they are breached will really destroy common ground.
Will the Roman Catholic church cut its ties to hospitals over the requirement to provide abortion services? Some say it will, and that will be a major blow to healthcare and a moment of great alienation.
Here are some further comments by Keith Pavlischek at First Things.
Wallis was asked point blank by David Brody of CBN News: “Where are you or Sojourners on this issue of abortions being covered as part of a benefits package?” Wallis’s reply: “I’m against that.”
I suppose it would be rather churlish and curmudgeonly of me not to see this as a positive development. Wallis does seem to count himself among those who have deep moral objections to this policy. Or does he?
Before we break out the champaign, pop the corks, and celebrate the return of a prodigal to the pro-life fold someone needs to ask Wallis a follow-up question: What exactly is so morally objectionable about including abortion in health care reform? For example, Wallis has always claimed to be both pro-life and pro-women (whatever that means). Couldn’t his progressive friends argue that including abortion in health care reform is being pro-women? And if he opposed it, would that make him anti-women?
If Wallis’s opposition is truly principled (or “prophetic”) then we can expect Wallis and the Sojourners crowd to offer up a reasoned and articulate public argument for the moral wrongness of including this particular “health care procedure.” We would expect to hear from Wallis and the Sojourners crowd not merely the acknowledgment that other people have moral objections, but an explanation and articulation of Wallis own moral objections. We would expect an argument that informs his readers just exactly why his “progressive” friends are so wrong on this issue and the right wing “pro-life extremists” are right.
First Things readers might want to check out the Sojourners website to judge for themselves. But, as Loconte suggests, the stuff you find over there doesn’t exactly instill confidence. To put it bluntly, if you breeze through the website or Sojourners magazine you can’t help but conclude that Wallis and the his friends just aren’t up to the intellectual or moral task.
But I am willing to be proven wrong. In fact, I’m anxious to be proven wrong. So, just to prove I’m not a complete curmudgeon, let me offer one cheer for Wallis’ public stance on this issue. For time being, however, I will withhold further cheers until I hear him give a reasoned public argument telling us why it would be wrong in principle to include abortion as a part of health care reform. And I’ll withhold the other cheer until I have a chance to evaluate the intelligibility and moral coherence of Wallis’ pro-life argument.
The ball is in your court, Brother Wallis. Silence is not an option
