Is The Seamless Garment Pro-Life?

A Heroic Social Ethic

If you have noticed the emphasis on educating Catholics about the intrinsic right to life of all human beings has been diluted, sidetracked, or even aborted altogether in your area in recent years, then you have encountered the “seamless garment” approach to life issues. The theory is that the pro-life cause is a seamless garment which should not be torn asunder. All issues regarding the sustenance of human life—housing, health care, global warming—are of equal importance and abortion is first on the list only because it begins with “a” rather than because without the right to life none of the other issues could exist.

In truth, abortion and euthanasia are unique issues because they involve the legal killing of the innocent. But that fact is lost in the shuffle when the right to life becomes merely one of the scramble of politically correct issues of the day. When a liberal politician has the “right” (read: politically correct) positions on health care, environmentalism, housing, homosexual rights, and quality of life, he may be certified as “pro-life” by compliant clergy, despite a little thing like his support for the legalized execution of the unborn. The pro-life cause is a seamless garment, after all.

Yes and no.

There really is a “seamless garment” of pro-life issues. But it is not the cover that some Catholic bishops and academics have provided for well over two decades which has enabled pro-abortion politicians of both parties to claim pro-life support. It has also derailed effective pro-life work in parishes.

In an editorial, “The Bishops Have No Strategy for Life,” Al Matt wrote in The Wanderer (5 December 1974): “That leaves the Bishops with only one national effort that has any direct relation to the abortion issues—the ‘Respect Life’ program…. This program—a slickly packaged affair—diffuses the abortion issue among other concerns such as youth, the elderly, poverty, and such irrelevant items as capital punishment and gun control.”

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin in his Gannon Lecture at Fordham University on 6 December 1983, said: “I am committed to shaping a position of linkage among the life issues…. For the spectrum of life cuts across the issues of genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modern warfare and the care of the terminally ill…. The issue of consistency is tested…when we examine the relationship between the ‘right to life’ and ‘quality of life’ issues…. My point is that the Catholic position on abortion demands of us and of society that we seek to influence a heroic social ethic.

“If one contends, as we do, that the right of every fetus to be born should be protected by civil law and supported by civil consensus, then our moral, political and economic responsibilities do not stop at the moment of birth. Those who defend the right to life of the weakest among us must be equally visible in support of the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and the homeless, the undocumented migrant and the unemployed worker. Such a quality of life posture translates into specific political and economic positions on tax policy, employment generation, welfare policy, nutrition and feeding programs, and health care. Consistency means we cannot have it both ways: We cannot urge a compassionate society and vigorous public policy to protect the rights of the unborn and then argue that compassion and significant public programs on behalf of the needy undermine the moral fiber of the society or are beyond the proper scope of governmental responsibility.”

In Catholic schools and parishes as well as in political campaigns, Catholics have been told that the “seamless garment” approach to life as described above is the Catholic approach. Catholics who insisted that abortion is a decisive and defining issue were dismissed as “single issue” zealots.

Cardinal Bernardin’s argument was used to induce pro-life voters to avoid an abortion “litmus test” and to support pro-abortion Catholic politicians because of their politically correct positions on “quality of life” issues. The argument has also provided cover for academics at Catholic universities. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush was not unambiguously pro-life. But Al Gore was wholly in support of the Culture of Death. Yet I would confidently bet the car and maybe even two football tickets that faculty members at mainstream Catholic universities, including clerics, voted for Al Gore by a decisive margin.

Over the years, supporters of the “seamless garment” have insisted that pro-life politicians should adopt politically correct positions on “quality of life” issues. But there was no comparable insistence that liberal politicians should adopt an uncompromising stand against abortion. The “seamless garment,” to mix the metaphor, was a one-way street. As William McGurn aptly noted, “What pro-choice Catholic pols understand is that the bishops will not go to the mat…. In the end, the conflicting signals leave the Church with only one real power: the power to dilute the message and undermine those politicians who are pro-life. And the pro-choice forces ceaselessly manipulate this to their advantage” (“Going Their Way: Bishops, Where is Thy Sting?” The Wall Street Journal, 4 December 1998, p. W17).

Reverence And Love

So what is the real “seamless garment?” Read what John Paul II has to say in Evangelium Vitae:

“[T]he deepest element of God’s commandment to protect human life is the requirement to show reverence and love for every person and the life of every person” (EV, n. 26).

“Not only must human life not be taken, but it must be protected with loving concern. The meaning of life is found in giving and receiving love, and in this light human sexuality and procreation reaches their true and full significance. Love also gives meaning to suffering and death…. Respect for life requires that science and technology should always be at the service of man and his integral development. Society…must…promote the dignity of every human person, at every moment and in every condition of that person’s life (Ibid, n. 80-82).

“We need…to ‘show care’ for all life and for the life of everyone…. [P]rogrammes of support for new life must be implemented, with special closeness to mothers, who even without the help of the father, are not afraid to bring their child into the world and to raise it. Similar care must be shown for the life of the marginalized or suffering, especially in its final phases…. It involves…long-term practical projects and initiatives inspired by the Gospel” (Ibid, n. 87-88).

Among “the projects and initiatives” John Paul urged: “centers for natural methods of regulating fertility,…[m]arriage and family counseling agencies…homes or centers [for] unmarried mothers and couples in difficulty…communities for treating drug addiction, residential communities for minors or the mentally ill, care and relief centers for AIDS patients, associations for solidarity especially toward the disabled [and ‘humane assistance’ for] the elderly…and the terminally ill” (Ibid, n. 88).

The Culture of Life extends to economic matters. Here, as in the “life” issues, “the foundation on which all human rights rest is the dignity of the person” (Ecclesia in America, n. 57). That dignity is founded on his creation in the image and likeness of God. Relation to others is intrinsic to man as it is to the Persons of the Trinity. Therefore society and the state should foster solidarity among persons rather than the sterile individualism of the Enlightenment. “The awareness of communion with Christ and with our brothers and sisters…leads to the service of our neighbors in all their needs, material and spiritual, since the face of Christ shines forth in every human being…. [A] culture of solidarity needs to be promoted, capable of inspiring…initiatives in support of the poor and the outcast, especially refugees forced to leave their villages and lands in order to flee violence” (EA, n. 52). That solidarity is shown “in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work. It also presupposes the effort for a more just social order” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1940). “The object is solidarity among the poor and workers, between rich and poor, between employers and employees and among nations and peoples” (CCC, n. 1941).

The authentic “seamless garment” can be seen in the Church’s teaching on the death penalty. While the Church continues to teach that the state, which derives its authority from God, has authority to impose the death penalty, the 1997 final version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church incorporates the teaching of Evangelium Vitae and makes it clear that the death penalty can be justified only if it is the only possible way to defend lives against that particular unjust aggressor (CCC, n. 2267). The allowance of the death penalty only “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor,” confirms that a Catholic can no longer argue for the death penalty from a general need to protect society, obtain retribution or promote the common good (CCC, n. 2267). This practical elimination of any use of the death penalty arises from the importance of conversion of the criminal. “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity.” God put a mark on Cain to protect him because “God, who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner, did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide” (Evangelium Vitae, n. 9). The ultimate correction, of course, is repentance. Up to the final moment, God offers opportunities to repent, to change, to see life as He sees it, so that this one lost sheep can still achieve his eternal destiny in Him.

John Paul has stressed the importance of the family and “other intermediate communities.” He has emphasized the Church’s “preferential option for the poor, which…is not limited to material poverty, since it is well-known that there are many forms of poverty, especially in modern society—not only economic, but cultural and spiritual poverty as well” (Centesimus Annus, n. 57).

The Challenge To Us

On every relevant issue, John Paul challenges the pagan Culture of Death and the claim of the state to total power over life and death. In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul said, “[T]he direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral” (EV, n. 57). “[A] civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law…. In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it” (EV, n. 72-73, quoting from Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion [1974], n. 22).

John Paul has stated that, “[W]hen it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality” (EV, n. 73). While a legislator could vote for such a law, John Paul did not say that he should do so (see Charles E. Rice, The Winning Side, St. Brendan’s Institute [219-633-0701], 2000, p. 255-8).

The “seamless garment” argument has been misused to confer “pro-life” status on politicians who support the agenda of political correctness but who fail to support—or even oppose—the protection of the lives of the unborn. A pro-abortion politician can often obtain “pro-life” endorsement by making rhetorical or marginal gestures in a pro-life direction. In numerous cases, such politicians have gained “pro-life” endorsement by voting for the ban on partial-birth abortion (which ban will not stop a single abortion) despite their consistent overall pro-abortion voting record.

The utter failure of the compromising, establishment pro-life movement leads to the conclusion that abortion should be an absolutely disqualifying issue. A legislator should not vote for any law that would affirm or accept the legitimacy of any legalized abortion. Nor should a voter ever vote or support a candidate for any office, whether president or trustee of a mosquito abatement district, who personally favors the legalization of abortion in any case. The true seamless garment is founded on the dignity of the person. It affirms the right of every human being to be treated as a person from the moment of conception and the absolute invalidity of any law that would allow the intentional killing of the innocent. It is the measure by which all our actions and those of others should be judged.

Dr. Charles Rice has been a professor of constitutional law at the University of Notre Dame Law School for more than 30 years. He is also a member of the governing boards of Ave Maria School of Law, Franciscan University of Steubenville, EWTN, and a director of the Thomas More Center for Law and Justice in Ann Arbor, Mich.

(This article courtesy of HLI Reports, a publication of Human Life International.)

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