by Rev. Dr. Richard Einerson
There is a strong majority in this country that is pro-choice for women. Yet the minority can rule on this issue if we allow it. I have some background in medical ethics and from that background I feel compelled to make some comments. I was co-chair of the Medical Ethics Committee at Meritcare Medical Center in Fargo, ND where I was a chaplain for 18 years. In that role I attended weeklong seminars in medical ethics at the University of Washington as well as the “Managing Mortality” conference at the University of Minnesota. I heard the families of two major medical ethics cases, Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan. The first had to do with disconnecting a ventilator, the latter with discontinuing feeding tubes. Ever since the religious right has fought to have the government enforce quasi-religious values in families and personal life which continues today. (Comas: Karen Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, and Terry Schiavo, Chapter 2). We are in the middle of that fight over women’s health and pro-choice issues now.
The battle has been going a while. I had an annual lecture in medicine and religions and invited Kristie Cruzan White, Nancy’s sister to tell their story to our physicians and community. Shortly thereafter (around 1991} I invited Dr. Daniel Maguire to lecture. His topic was going to be on grief in families who lose young children to incurable diseases as he and his wife had experienced. Maguire was a Jesuit teaching at Marquette but had become in the top ten on the hit list of his Catholic Church by an article he published in the Christian Century describing a visit he and his wife had made to a Planned Parent Center in Milwaukie. Contrary to the Republican notion that it is primarily “loose women” who get abortions, they found it was often women such as a schizophrenic whose medications would malform the fetus; other women whose pregnancies were not proceeding normally.
As a result of his unorthodox notions on abortion, I received a phone call on a Monday morning from the Chairman of the Bank which funded our lecture and who was more than nervous about our choice of lecture. I inquired who was objecting. It was the Bishop’s office and at least one of our conservative physicians. I said: “Norman, would you give me 24 hours to speak with them.” He reluctantly agreed. But in mid-afternoon I got a call from the President. After several statements I said: “Are you suggesting we pay his honorarium and have him stay home?” Of course, the answer was yes. Fortunately, we had friends in the philosophy department at Moorhead State University across the river who paid his airfare, and we had the largest turnout ever in their huge auditorium. Then Maguire did talk about abortion, quoting a Catholic Bishop in the 16th century. With his Irish humor he said: “He didn’t lose his job, and his lectures weren’t cancelled!” Let’s be clear: This was an attempt of overruled FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
In another article, A Question of Catholic Honesty, Maguire takes on his church’s absolute stance on abortion: wrong all the time. He says: “As a Catholic theology I find this situation abhorrent and unworthy of the richness of the Roman Catholic traditions that have nourished me. I indict not only the bishops, but also the ‘petulant silence’ (Beverly Harrison’s phrase) or indifference of many Catholic Theologians who recognize the morality of certain abortions, but still will not address the subject publicly. I also indict the male dominated liberal Catholic press which does too little to dissipate the myth of a Catholic monolith on abortion.”
To me this is clearly an issue of women’s healthcare. It is an issue to be dealt with honestly in the privacy of a doctor’s office. I personally, as a man, cannot imagine the agony a woman goes through who may need an abortion. But I know that many of those who have FREEDOM as bumper stickers are all for LIMITING FREEDOM OF CHOICE FOR WOMEN. l It is amazing the me that the Supreme Court may be seriously nullifying Roe v Wade, established precedent. It says more about this court than it does about law. But if it does so, it is up to Congress. Our question as a society is: will be allow the minority to rule? Is the filibuster more important than a woman’s civil liberties? It is time for the majority to work at claiming its power. We should query and pressure our congressional representatives and senators. We should show up in the streets. The minority and their religious dogmatism should not prevail! It is time that the most strident voices be put down. I am not talking about their freedom of speech, but their trying to impose their will on the majority.
An unfortunate concomitant of the extreme right is the downright viciousness of their attacks. I mention the Nancy Cruzan case. The right consistently demonstrated where Nancy was lying in a persistent vegetative state. One of the signs on that Christmas eve read: LOOK WHAT NANCY GOT FOR CHRISTMAS: DEATH! I would hope that kind of viciousness might cease but I doubt that will ever be the case. Religion always has its zealots. They must not win this battle. We need to demonstrate that there are other Christians who are not zealots, who are champions of women’s rights, and who believe in the constitutional rights of all Americans!