Life Principles in the News
Celebrating Life
Speak to world in words it understands, Father Spitzer says
By Jack Smith
Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer called on pro-life activists to develop a comprehensive pro-life philosophy and learn to use a vocabulary that "the secular culture can accommodate" without difficulty.
Personhood, human rights and the common good are Catholic-based concepts in the American vernacular which those working for life ought to use as the basis of debate and persuasion, Father Spitzer, president of Gonzaga University told the Annual Respect Life Conference at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Oct. 19.
In his keynote talk, "The Case for Life," Father Spitzer said the American Framers’ understanding of these concepts was originally drawn from Dominican, Jesuit and other scholarly church sources. "They’re all from the Church . . . We may as well use them and try to communicate with people through them."
In all discussion with friends and family and within the political arena, he suggested a Jesuit maxim, "Never deny. Seldom affirm. Always distinguish." Simply rejecting your opponent’s position never advances the debate, fawning affirmation seldom does, but reflecting on "deeper" values and making distinctions using "higher viewpoints" can "make the portholes of communication come alive," he said.
Roe v. Wade had a profound impact by failing to make proper distinctions at the level of higher principles: rights, personhood, cultural ideals and personal ideals, Father Spitzer said. "Roe v. Wade did not just lead to the abortion of 25 percent of the pre-born infants in this country . . ." he said, "it undermined the great philosophical underpinnings of our culture and the republic."
In the area of rights, the court failed in the notion of "inalienable versus extrinsic" rights, he said. Extrinsic rights are those given by an external source; either a vote or the judiciary or a declaration of the state.
At the beginning of the 17th century, Jesuit philosopher Francisco Suarez discerned a flaw in democracies whereby rights could be revoked by a "tyranny of the majority." In response, Suarez and later John Locke developed the idea of "inalienable" rights. Father Spitzer said inalienable rights "belong to people by their very nature . . . so deeply imbedded . . . that they can never be declared . . . If they were ever declared into being, the only agency who could do it would be God Himself."
These rights belong to human beings "by virtue of their existence alone," he said. It is this Catholic understanding of "inalienable" rights with which Thomas Jefferson formed the Declaration of Independence.
In determining which stage an unborn human being was due inalienable rights, "the Supreme Court took on the prerogative of God," he said. "Literally the culture is undermined by the mere declaration of when an inalienable right begins . . . If the Supreme Court gets to declare when inalienable rights begin, what did the Supreme Court just do? . . . It turned inalienable rights into extrinsic rights." We have "to go back to the only objective criterion" for the possession of human rights — human existence, he said.
"Everything else is a subjective criterion." By using a subjective criterion, the Supreme Court has opened the door to any criterion, he said.
The court also erred, Father Spitzer, said in the area of the subordination of competing rights. "Normally if rights conflict, the court has to decide in favor of the higher right," he said. Rights are ordered by the principle of necessity: You may not have property without liberty and you may not have liberty without life. The court, in Roe, subordinated the right to life to the right to liberty (privacy), turning this principle on its head, he said. In the 19th century, the court made the same error in the Dred Scott decision, subordinating slaves’ liberty rights to owners’ property rights.
Personhood is the "critical assumption for civilization," Father Spitzer said. In working against slavery in the New World, the Dominicans developed a distinction between the extrinsic and intrinsic dignity of human persons. The extrinsic dignity of persons is generally something "earned" he said. "You’re a good student, you get good grades, you’re a good person." But the Dominicans also declared an intrinsic dignity, which even slaves possessed, solely "because of their very human existence . . . Because you are a human being, you have an inestimable, transcendental worth, lovability, goodness and worthiness."
Intrinsic dignity "is unchallengeable," Father Spitzer said. "It belongs to you, in yourself . . . and if you have faith, you know it was endowed in you by your Creator." He called this "the one critical assumption of all human society – every being of human origin is a person."
"Every social injustice," from racism and genocide to economic marginalization, "is based on a belief or declaration that some class of beings of human origin is not a human person or is sub-human," Father Spitzer said. He said the court decision further eroded cultural ideals by violating the "principle of non-maleficence." He described non-maleficence as the "Silver Rule". The silver rule is the golden rule with "two nots . . . Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you." He said the "two nots" rule describes an ethical minimalism below which an ordered society cannot fall. "The Golden Rule," or ethical maximalism, to which Christians are called is broader and more extreme than the silver rule.
Not only are Christians called not to do bad things to their neighbors, but they are required to do all the good things we would have them do unto us, he said. The golden rule, presumes belief in the silver rule, he said. "If the silver rule falls, the golden rule falls." While maleficence against the unborn exists, "Every other issue remains in a quandary," he said.
This undermining of cultural ethics also strikes at personal ideals, Father Spitzer explained. "What becomes legal becomes normative, and what becomes normative becomes moral," he said.
Father Spitzer assured the assembled that despite his passion and warnings, he was optimistic about the chances for preventing a cultural collapse. "What can we do about?," he asked. "Point it out," he said.
Pointing it out requires a "positive approach" and the willingness to "take back the categories of cultural discourse," he said. Two such categories are love and happiness, he explained.
There are four categories of love; affection, friendship, erotic love and Agape. He said all are important and desirable, but only with "unselfish love for the other, for who they are in and of themselves (Agape) . . . do we enter into unity. Only Agape sustains forgiveness, compassion and care for the marginalized."
Mother Teresa picking up hundreds of dying poor, did not have time or likely inclination, for excited affection, meaningful friendship or romantic interest in those she served, he explained. But Agape sustained her and gave her joy, he said. "She was not stuck with Agape. She is the master of Agape." Similarly, he explained the pro-life movement can make progress by living in and showing others to the higher forms of happiness. The highest happiness comes from "a life of unconditional, perfect, unrestricted love . . the joy of being involved in something of eternal significance, in the project of God."
Living for and showing people to the highest forms of happiness can have a profound effect in "healing the culture," he said.