This is something that needs to be pointed out more. Even though Roe was overturned, it's merely a bandaid that hardly effects real, positive change. If we want abortion to cease, we must be role models in having families - raising children well, being Christ to our wives (or for women, the Church to their husbands), and participating in the growth of our communities, especially the parish. If we cannot do our part in building our parishes to be support structures for people in every stage of life, then no amount of political ideology will help us.
Thank you for your observation! I think you're right. The pro-life movement focused on overturning Roe--and, thank God they did--but at what cost?
Economists talk about "opportunity costs." Basically, what do I not do to do what I do, do? There are opportunity costs, for example, to attending Liturgy. I can't sleep late or go to brunch with my wife.
I happily bear the cost of leaving these things undone (usually!) because I value Liturgy much, much more. But they are still costs.
So, to your point, there were things left undone (opportunity costs) to the pro-life movement focusing on the legal dimension of abortion. Resources invested in the political battle were not available to foster the culture of life you describe.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing; we can only do so much at once. But there were also reputational costs to the political debate about Roe. Chief among these is a general loss of trust that pro-life conservatives actually care about women and children. We can go back and forth about how fair this is--and I think in the main pro-life people tend to be supportive of women and children in crisis--but the reputational costs are still there.
Without prejudice to the need for good and just laws, as the saying goes, these are downstream of culture. While we did so for understandable reasons, focusing as we did on the legal/political dimension of abortion, meant siding with the coercive power of government.
Absolutely, Father. We can often be blindsided to the caveats in the quest for saying we did something right. Politics make an environment for us to easily say "we're the good guys!" despite doing little in our personal lives, all because we said yes to a certain set of people representing us.
This is something that needs to be pointed out more. Even though Roe was overturned, it's merely a bandaid that hardly effects real, positive change. If we want abortion to cease, we must be role models in having families - raising children well, being Christ to our wives (or for women, the Church to their husbands), and participating in the growth of our communities, especially the parish. If we cannot do our part in building our parishes to be support structures for people in every stage of life, then no amount of political ideology will help us.
Christ is among us!
Thank you for your observation! I think you're right. The pro-life movement focused on overturning Roe--and, thank God they did--but at what cost?
Economists talk about "opportunity costs." Basically, what do I not do to do what I do, do? There are opportunity costs, for example, to attending Liturgy. I can't sleep late or go to brunch with my wife.
I happily bear the cost of leaving these things undone (usually!) because I value Liturgy much, much more. But they are still costs.
So, to your point, there were things left undone (opportunity costs) to the pro-life movement focusing on the legal dimension of abortion. Resources invested in the political battle were not available to foster the culture of life you describe.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing; we can only do so much at once. But there were also reputational costs to the political debate about Roe. Chief among these is a general loss of trust that pro-life conservatives actually care about women and children. We can go back and forth about how fair this is--and I think in the main pro-life people tend to be supportive of women and children in crisis--but the reputational costs are still there.
Without prejudice to the need for good and just laws, as the saying goes, these are downstream of culture. While we did so for understandable reasons, focusing as we did on the legal/political dimension of abortion, meant siding with the coercive power of government.
Does this make sense?
In Christ,
FrG
Absolutely, Father. We can often be blindsided to the caveats in the quest for saying we did something right. Politics make an environment for us to easily say "we're the good guys!" despite doing little in our personal lives, all because we said yes to a certain set of people representing us.