Life is too short to get upset about things said on The View, but co-host Sunny Hostin’s recent comments about women voting against abortion caught my eye because they hit close to home — we went to the same Catholic all-girls high school in New York City. She even cites being Catholic in her screed against women who vote against abortion.
“What’s also surprising to me is the abortion issue,” she said. “I read a poll just yesterday that white, Republican, suburban women are now going to vote Republican. It’s almost like roaches voting for Raid. Right? They’re voting against — they’re voting against their own self-interests! Do they want to live in Gilead? Do they want to be in the ‘Handmaid’s Tale’?”
She continued:
“The fact that women are voting against their own health care,” Hostin continued, adding, “I am very surprised that white Republican suburban women are voting against their own health care. I have not very recently evolved on the issue. I am Catholic, that is my faith, I believe that abortion is wrong. . . . For me. There’s a separation between state — a government — and church. And I do not have the right to tell someone else. However, they are voting against their own self-interest.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church doesn’t say abortion is wrong for you, individual women, or couples. For anyone legitimately confused by prominent politicians who have professed their faith while supporting abortion expansion — going even beyond Roe — this is what the Catechism teaches:
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.
2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves.
Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.
2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,” “by the very commission of the offense,” and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:
“The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.”
“The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.”
Faith is not some treasure we hide in a safe and bring out on Sundays before brunch. Faith is to be lived. If you think women voting against the radical propositions in Michigan and California are like roaches voting for Raid, you don’t think abortion is wrong.
And, it cannot be said enough that you most definitely do not have to be Catholic or at all religious to know that the killing of an unborn child is wrong. Yes, there are all kinds of difficult circumstances women find themselves in. Let’s work to help them not have to choose death for their children. Yes, every twelve- or 15- or even 18-year-old girl isn’t prepared to raise a child. Why don’t we help her see that she’s actually worth waiting for? That she deserves some respect from the boys in her life. Why don’t we insist on better for our boys? I know that’s terribly quaint, but it is a recipe for less misery and death.
And this business of being only personally opposed to abortion is moral and practical nonsense. We see how it has played out in Joe Biden’s presidency: He has promised to codify Roe first thing in the new Congress!
To protect the most innocent among us is not to legislate morality.
But I guess I went for the Raid when I voted against Kathy Hochul? (Evidently there was more discussion of roaches on The View today, and Hostin made clear that she didn’t think we’re actual bugs.)
Wouldn’t it be something if two former Catholic schoolgirls in New York could help lead something better — that protects life, and the dignity of women too? Abortion advocates lie to women about what women are capable of.