In the aftermath of the presidential election, some pro-abortion politicians are trying to figure out how to blunt the impact of the pro-life vote. One prominent pro-abortion politician, Hillary Clinton, is already working feverishly to try to dilute the pro-life vote.
She has a shrewd strategy: emphasize birth control as the way to decrease the number of abortions and borrow socially conservative code words such as “abstinence,” “responsibility,” and “family.”
But what never changes is the moral stance that permeates the pro-abortion position: pre-marital sex is unquestionably good. The only pre-marital sex that some pro-abortion politicians might disavow is that taking place among teenagers. For the typical pro-abortion politician, the abstinence message should be aimed, at most, only at teenagers while they are teenagers. But the problem is that abstinence arguments are not persuasive if those teaching it do not really believe in it as a matter of fundamental lifetime morality and happiness. To preach abstinence only because of one’s vulnerability at a certain age is to say that there is nothing wrong at all with pre-marital sex in itself — it is only a matter of the right timing.
Teenagers, who are more savvy than ever, will recognize that this amoral presentation of teenage abstinence is a form of deception. Either premarital sex is wrong, or it isn't. If it isn't, then it's just a matter of shrewd and smart teenagers doing their homework on available contraceptives and following up. In my view, the amoral Hillary Clinton approach will not encourage any significant degree of abstinence but rather more sexual activity among teenagers — activity which means more contraceptive failures, which in turn mean more abortions as the last resort method of birth control.
More than mere abstinence, we must teach the positive virtue of chastity as a requirement for lifetime happiness and fulfillment. It's not just a matter of timing or of the vulnerability of teenagers. It's a matter of lifelong happiness. It means chastity in college and, yes, even in graduate school and thereafter. Clinton’s teen-only abstinence message implies that she does not believe in the positive value of chastity itself, but only in temporary abstinence for teenagers as a way to claim the mantle of family values.
But family values are not about temporary, expedient behavior patterns for adolescents. Genuine morality is about what is right or wrong, even when we are no longer teenagers.
And, in any event, a recent report by LifeSiteNews.com (1/25/05, “Report indicates abortion demographic shift in US”) shows that “the largest share” of abortions are now occurring among older, adult women who are in effect using abortion as birth control — not among teenagers. If you teach chastity to the young as the right thing to do for one's entire life, then the behavior that leads to these adult abortions will decrease.
We already live in a culture permeated with sexually stimulating material and with contraceptives prominently available in every corner drugstore, in public restrooms, and in colleges and universities everywhere. Teachers present the techniques of contraception in classrooms throughout the land. So the Hillary prescription of more birth control to reduce abortions has already been tried and has already failed. As long as people do not see chastity as a matter of long-term personal happiness, abortions will abound, especially in a society under the yoke of Roe v. Wade, a court decision sacred to pro-abortion politicians. What we need to teach teenagers is lifelong chastity as a matter of right and wrong. In the end, that is the only effective pro-life message. Anything short of teaching lifetime chastity smells of deceptive window dressing and political posturing that will not get the job done.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.
