The Reactionary Utopian
August 16, 2005
THE "SEAMLESS GARMENT" REVISITED
by Joe Sobran
The late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, former
archbishop of Chicago, endeared himself to liberals,
especially liberal Catholic politicians, by adopting the
metaphor of life as a "seamless garment." It isn't enough
to oppose abortion, he insisted; to be consistent, you
have to defend life on every front, as for instance by
relieving poverty and illness.
This came as welcome news to the liberals, since it
turned "life" into a checklist, in which abortion was
only one of many items, and not necessarily the most
urgent. You could be "pro-life," according to the
Bernardin standard, merely by supporting the welfare
state.
Well, of course life is, in some sense, a seamless
garment. We should oppose abortion on the same principle
that we should oppose the bombing of cities. But
according to Bernardin's way of thinking, you mustn't
oppose bombing Hiroshima unless you also favor setting up
an anti-poverty program there.
Conservative Catholics smelled a rat. They sensed
that this "seamless garment" was really just a way of
minimizing the special problem of abortion, at a time
when more than a million abortions were being performed
in America every year.
Liberal Catholics, on the other hand, loved the
idea. But somehow the imperative of consistency worked
only one way. We never heard any of them say, "Well, it's
not enough for me to support the welfare state. If I'm
really going to be pro-life, I must also fight to end
legal abortion." Politicians like New York's Mario Cuomo
felt they had been vindicated in their empty "personal"
opposition to abortion.
You know that familiar line: "I am personally
opposed to abortion, but ..." But you weren't going to do
anything about it. If you opposed it "personally," you
were in favor of it practically. And everyone knew it.
Abortion remains legal today thanks in large part to
all those nominal Catholic politicians who oppose it --
"personally." That telltale adverb must lift the hearts
of abortionists everywhere.
Cuomo is still at it. He recently told NBC's Tim
Russert that "we" -- we Catholics -- are "hypocrites"
because we say we oppose contraception even though most
of "us" use contraceptives like other people. Of course,
it goes without saying, people who call themselves
Catholics while constantly subverting Catholic morality
aren't guilty of hypocrisy. To hear Cuomo tell it, he's
one of the few honest Catholics in politics. So why do so
many other Catholic pols talk like him?
But has anyone ever refrained from getting or
procuring an abortion because people like Cuomo
"personally" disapprove of it? Extremely doubtful. Their
message is clear: "I can't give my blessing to any
abortion, but please don't let me discourage you from
getting one. I wouldn't want to impose my beliefs on
anyone."
I sometimes wonder how such Catholics would behave
if their alleged "beliefs" were sincere. It's probably a
purely hypothetical question, but if they really thought,
felt, and acted as if abortion were evil, without wishing
to ban it by law, surely there are ways to give this view
real force.
Public opinion can be powerful even when it isn't
backed up by force of law. If you advertise allegiance to
the Ku Klux Klan, you'll soon find yourself ostracized by
people who don't question your legal right to join the
Klan.
In the same way, the country would change
dramatically if every Catholic who professes "personal"
opposition to feticide would peacefully picket abortion
clinics. But can anyone even imagine a Cuomo, let alone a
Ted Kennedy, doing even that much?
Even so, the country is changing. Abortion rates
over the past decade have reportedly plunged
dramatically. The Democratic Party is now uncomfortable
about its unreserved public identification with the cause
of "choice." Even Hillary Clinton has voiced reservations
about the practice -- and has probably made more impact
thereby than all the liberal Catholics in America put
together.
So the "seamless garment" has turned out to be
nothing but a loophole for hypocritical Catholic
politicians. If anything, it has actually made it easier
for them than for non-Catholics to give their effective
support to legal abortion -- that is, it has allowed them
to be inconsistent and unprincipled about the very issues
that Cardinal Bernardin said demand consistency and
principle.
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