BC to Honor Fr. Robert Drinan, S.J.
A celebration honoring the life and work of Robert Drinan, a Jesuit and former Massachusetts congressman, will take place at the Boston College Law School. The panel, which will take place on March 7, was announced on Friday, February 18, and will feature other pro-abortion speakers.
Among the members of the panel is Fr. Raymond Scroth, S.J., who has publicly supported pro-abortion political policy. He has recently published a book entitled, Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress. Also scheduled for the panel is Congressman Barney Frank, whom the Cardinal Newman Society calls “a strident defender of legal abortion.” An article on Lifesitenews.com remarks that Frank’s “opposition to Church teachings is well-known in both personal and political life.”
Robert Drinan, a native of Massachusetts, graduated from Boston College in 1942. That same year, he joined the Society of Jesus. From 1956 to 1970, Drinan served as the Dean of the Boston College Law School. In 1970, the Jesuit was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for twenty years.
During his tenure in Congress, Drinan became notorious for his support of abortion, which drew considerable criticism both from the Church and other pro-life advocates. In addition, Drinan is known for having influenced the Kennedy family into adopting pro-choice politics.
In 1980, following a request from Pope John Paul II that all priests withdraw from electoral politics, Drinan did not seek reelection. From 1981 until his death, Drinan taught at Georgetown Law.
Despite ending his political career, Drinan remained an advocate for pro-choice. In 1996, the Jesuit spoke out in favor of President Bill Clinton’s veto of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. According to a 1997 article in The Boston Globe, Drinan apologized for his support of the Act. However, as the Cardinal Newman Society expressed, “Unfortunately, Father Drinan did not, to our knowledge, recant or apologize for his many years of support for legal abortion.”
The Cardinal Newman Society published an open letter to Father William Leahy, S.J., President of Boston College, urging him to reconsider hosting this event on campus.
Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society writes, “Whatever Father Drinan’s contributions to Boston College over the years, and despite his perhaps laudable efforts on other human rights issues, his record on abortion should disqualify him from any honors by a Catholic institution. To celebrate his legacy is a public dishonor to the souls of the millions slaughtered in the name of ‘choice.’ It would also seem to be a flagrant violation of the US bishops’ 2004 ban on honors for those who are opposed to Church teachings.”
He continues, “Father Leahy, on behalf of the members of the Cardinal Newman Society–including not a small number of BC alumni–and so many of the faithful working everyday to end the scourge of abortion, I prayerfully urge you to cancel this event immediately and to develop policies for Boston College that ensures that future honors conform to both the bishops’ sensible 2004 honors policy and Ex corde Ecclesiae.”
Persons who do not support the event on the Boston College Campus have been urged by both the Cardinal Newman Society and LifeSiteNews.com to contact Father Leahy.
Boston College Law School professes to be Roman Catholic. By honoring the life and work of Fr. Robert Drinan, S.J., however, it is stuffing into a closet the intrinsic evil of abortion. Abortion may be legal in USA but it still is gravely immoral. Fr. Drinan’s many good works do not justify honoring him when at the same time he was known as an ardent advocate of abortion rights. Pure water into which is poured the lifeblood of aborted children of God, is no longer pure. Rather it is stained with evil, and no longer fit to drink. Fr. Drinan by his support of abortion rights rejected the teaching authority of the Church. His public disobedience misled many Roman Catholics. BCLS is making the same grave mistake of the University of Notre Dame when UND honored President Obama at its May 2009 graduation ceremonies. BCLS should abort its decision to honor Fr. Drinan. I highly recommend WHAT HAPPENED TO NOTRE DAME by Charles E. Rice for a well written and well reasoned Roman Catholic perspective of how America’s selective Catholic universities have become Roman Catholic in name only, bastions of “‘establishment nonbelief’”, and in that process, rejecting truth.
Pro-Abortion?!? Really? What a sensationalist and FALSE headline. I seriously doubt that Robert Drinan actively went out and encouraged people to have abortion and claimed that abortion was a good thing. *That* is what “pro-abortion” means. What, calling him “pro-choice” sounded like too positive a headline? Needed even MORE bias in this horrendously-written article? Let’s get some things straight here: the accepted terms for each side of the abortion debate are called “pro-life” and “pro-choice”. Each title is a method in order to portray its side in the most positive light possible. While the names are obviously partisan, those are the accepted terms, and should be used in any article that has journalistic credibility (which, obviously, this collection of words that calls itself “news” does not.) However, saying “pro-abortion” oversteps the line of merely putting spin on an issue, and ventures into the area of BLATANTLY LYING. I quote from the Wikipedia page on Pro-choice: “Pro-choice individuals rarely consider themselves ‘pro-abortion’.” NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE I know of would consider themselves “pro-abortion”, and claiming that someone who is “pro-choice” must necessarily be “pro-abortion” is a blatant attempt to slander Robert Drinan and misportray his opinions. Can it really be that hard to see the difference between being against something but supporting other people’s rights to choose something, and supporting that thing itself? Similar situation: I don’t like guns, I think the world would be a better place without guns, and I don’t support people owning guns, but I support the right of people to choose to own them if they want to. See what I did? I disagreed with an action, but supported the right of someone to choose it. NOTE how that is not the same thing as saying “Oh, I think everyone under the sun should have guns!” THEY ARE DIFFERENT POSITIONS. Portraying one as equivalent to the other is pure fabrication. I though Catholics weren’t supposed to bear false witness (Exodus 20:16). I consider myself pro-choice while still being anti-abortion, and the fact that the conservative cabal at the Observer claims to espouse unequivocal truth on this issue while obviously being so ignorant of the intricacies of such a controversial subject is deeply disturbing to me.
He’s done more in his life to fulfill the mission of the Catholic Church than most of us have, or ever will. Why shouldn’t we honor him? A good Catholic who disagrees with some Church teachings is still a good Catholic. Drinan understood that the human experience, including the abortion issue, isn’t black and white. To define Drinan solely by his stance on abortion does a great disservice to Catholicism as a whole. I pray that the scare tactics employed by Reilly don’t discourage Boston College from having an open, honest panel discussion in honor of Drinan’s legacy.
There is no such thing as “pro-abortion”. This man is pro-choice; there’s a difference.
I agree with Catherine, there is no such thing as “pro-abortion.” I would expect a little more verbal accuracy from the editor in chief of a BC campus newspaper.
pro abortion… what a joke, this article is embarrassing.
Check out your freakin’ mission statement:
“The Observer strives to promote the highest quality of journalism.”
“Dedicated towards advancing the intellectual life, The Observer desires an active and healthy exchange of ideas”
Winston, Critical Thinker, Catherine, Sean and BCLS
I’m assuming that you are all pro-semitic but you wouldn’t deny anyone the right to choose an anti-semitic position. You wouldn’t deny Hitler his right of choice. You are all against rape but you wouldn’t deny the rapist his choice. Everyone has a right to choose his/her own way. Right? And why stop the killing at birth. It seems silly to be able to kill a baby an hour before birth but not an hour after birth. It’s the same helpless human being. I know you wouldn’t do it but shouldn’t people have that choice? After all it might be a colicky baby. If you can’t murder, choice is meaningless. God help us if this is what a BC education has come to.
You are incorrect in thinking that I am “pro-semtic” (what does that even mean? My stance on Israel doesn’t fall into a clear cut pro/against), but you are correct that I wouldn’t deny the right of anyone to choose to be anti-semitic. Anti-semitism is an opinion. I can’t deny the right of anyone to hold their own opinions. If you choose to believe the sky is green, that’s your opinion, I might wholeheartedly disagree with it (as I do with anti-semitism), but everyone is entitled to their own thoughts (something that I think the conservative movement doesn’t seem to understand.) HOWEVER, if someone who is an anti-semite moves to infringe upon the rights of someone else, then I can absolutely deny them their actions. For example: I can’t deny the right of Hitler his right to hate the Jews, that’s his opinion. However, I absolutely can stop him from killing Jews, as that infringes upon their rights. Are you asking if people should have the right to kill other people because that’s their choice? That seems like a rather silly question, of course no one has the right to take away another person’s life. But your asking that question belies how little you recognize what this argument is all about: the personhood of an embryo. It comes down to, if embryo = person, abortion = murder, if embryo =/= person, abortion =/= murder. So by asking that question, you’ve already assumed that the argument is decided, which it very much not.
You are saying that a single-celled zygote is its own person, and that it has rights. Again, we get back to the crux of the argument. The problem is that there is no clear line where life begins, and anyone who claims that there doesn’t know anything about biology. It’s unfortunately a continuum: If I draw a spectrum, who can say where red ends and orange begins? (You are patently wrong, by the way, about being able to kill a baby an hour before birth: no pro-choice person I know of advocates for being able to abort fetuses that are able to survive on their own, and I only would support late-term abortions if the mother’s life is seriously endangered.)
A zygote that is formed right after conception in no way resembles a person. It is simply a cell. A single cell, with a full set of chromosomes. The only thing that has changed is that two haploid cells have combined to give a complete set of chromosomes. There’s no consciousness, it’s not as if it is suddenly imbibed with some mystical quantity. Would you consider a skin cell a person? Is killing a skin cell murder? A skin cell has a full set of chromosomes… theoretically, with the right manipulations, it’s possible to turn a skin cell into a full human being. So isn’t the killing of skin cells that you’re doing right now murder? The only thing that differentiates a zygote from any other type of cell is that some regions of its DNA are euchromatic, where in differentiated cells they are heterochromatic. THATS IT. There is nothing that makes it “life” any more than the skin cell that I just scratched off my nose was. I know you’ll probably go on and on about the “potential” to make life… so what if something has potential to become life? It’s not life yet. And this is usually about the point where “God” comes into the picture, and then we’re not in a rational place anymore. Anyway…
This single cell divides, becomes a blastula, then a gastrula, forms the notochord, etc. Look it up on wikipedia. Somewhere in this process, it becomes “life”. Now the problem is, where do we draw the dividing line between what’s life and what’s not? We can’t. There is no single clear line. If you ask me, it would have something to do with development of the brain to a sufficient level, but I’m not going to act like I have a decree from up above telling me what’s right.
There is a legitimate debate to be had over abortion. But all too often it is reduced to people (from what I’ve observed, most often “pro-lifers”) misportraying the positions of their opponents. There’s evidence of that in the title of this article. It’s a misportrayal of his stance on abortion. I would welcome a rational debate about abortion. I do not welcome irrational arguments based on “God” or based on ignorance of facts.
Yes, greenhaba, if your “logic” is what a BC education has come to then God help us. What many pro-lifers miss in their arguments is that central to the pro-choice standpoint is that life begins at birth, and not conception. Comparisons to murder are invalid – fetuses are not human beings because they have not been born. Your rape analogy is both horribly insensitive and offensive.
Also, your position seems to lack a fundamental misunderstanding of the abortion laws in the United States. In Massachusetts, for example, abortions can only be performed under 24 weeks (with an exception for when the life of a mother is in danger). The standard length of a full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks. So no, you cannot “kill a baby an hour before birth”. Furthermore, Massachusetts, as do other states, bases its abortion laws on when a fetus is viable to live outside the womb.
The biggest problem with the abortion debate is not the difference of opinion, but rather the frequent use of fallacy and blatantly incorrect information to make a point. This is a conversation that can be debated respectfully, without calling people who are pro-choice supportive of anti-Semiticism, murder, or rape.
Anonymous,
Most pro-lifers do understand that the “pro-choice” argument rests on the idea that life begins at birth. The pro-life argument similarly rests on life beginning at conception. Indeed, the only way for a pro-life argument to be “valid” (though I don’t believe that is the proper logical terminology) is for them to argue that life begins at conception and, therefore, that the taking of that life is murder.
So, then, it seems that the core question here is whether life begins at birth or conception. I am not a scientist, but I would suggest you read an embryology textbook to help with that answer.
Further, your notes about the legality of abortion at different stages of pregnancy is largely irrelevant. If there are two options, life beginning at birth or life beginning at conception (as you say in your first sentence), it seems that abortion must either be a harmless medical procedure or the killing of an innocent child. If it is the former, it ought to be legal whenever and for whatever reason. If it is the latter, then it ought to be illegal whenever and for whatever reason. Correct me if that logic is flawed.
Finally, you could argue that life begins at the viability of a fetus outside of the womb (as your comment mentions). However, I find this to be very flawed for several reasons. Under this theory, the point at which life begins is constantly moving based on the state of technology, the health of the fetus, and even the geographic location of the mother (an extremely young infant might be able to live in an advanced hospital but not in rural parts of the world). The fetus is either a living human being or it isn’t (you can’t be half alive) and whether it is living cannot logically be dependent on an external force, namely man’s current state of technology and the mother’s geographic location. Therefore, it seems we can reasonably assume my above premise that life either begins at conception or birth.
Modern biology and embryology make that answer quite clear – at conception a new, unique, individual being is formed which is human and which is distinct from either of its parents.
And, Greenhaba: thank you for your comment! Your support is appreciated as students at BC continue to stand up for the defense of the dignity of human life, from conception to natural death!
I find it difficult to believe that there’s so little on main campus to command your attention that a talk (over Spring Break mind you) at the law school about the forthcoming “Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress” engenders such zeal. I hardly understand the (unsubstantiated) claim that this event honors Fr. Drinan; rather, it appears that the Law School is hosting a talk about the admittedly controversial life of a former Dean.
Given that the author is in her third year, I find it amazing that she has yet to realize that Jesuits accept the proposition that no doctrine can be supported by silencing its opposition. Therefore, even if Fr. Drinan was not a Jesuit or former Dean, such events are an integral part of an education at BC, if not solely to sharpen arguments against Fr. Drinan’s positions. Seeking it cancellation is a disservice to the Boston College community.
Steve,
The BC Chronicle reported that, “The life and work of Robert Drinan, SJ, the accomplished Boston College Law School dean who became the first priest to serve in the US Congress, will be celebrated at a BC Law event next month.”
A Catholic university should not “celebrate” Fr. Drinan’s “work” as a pro-abortion politician.
Pax,
Andy
Anonymous,
While Andy very adequately answered your objections, I would just like to add that I didn’t know there was someone still out there that didn’t know that life started at conception. The head of Planned Parenthood, herself, said I’m not stupid I know it’s a baby. While some States may have restrictions, Roe v. Wade allows an abortion up until birth with the exception for the health of the mother. “Health” was defined the same day as Roe by Doe v Bolton as a physical condition or an emotional condition or a mental condition etc. and does not have to apply to just the mother but could be a condition of an extended family member. In other words the “health exception” is a joke and anyone can have an abortion up until the child is halfway out of the birth canal.
Evil does exist. Take Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s quote to the New York Times: “Yes, the ruling [in Harris v. McRae that the federal government does not have to pay for elective abortions] surprised me. Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
No matter how much you feel you understand the abortion issue I highly recommend to everyone that they go to You Tube and type in The Cost of Abortion and click on the 58 minute video which is usually the first one listed.
Steve,
We have been having discussions on abortion for 35 years. How much more discussion do you need to understand the pro-abortion position?
There will be a pro-abortion Jesuit speaker and the strongly pro-abortion, anti-family Barney Frank. This event does nothing but give scandal to the faithful.
[...] in direction of its “Catholic, Jesuit identity, character, history and heritage,” which by no means can be taken for granted in the ever-vibrant world of Catholic, Jesuit higher education. Stay tuned, my friends, stay [...]
Is abortion the only thing that matters to Catholics anymore? Apparently so, it completely defines the politics of your faith. Maybe this is why your religion is so backward and has fallen so far behind the times. Oh well, natural selection will take care of it.
Sean, you are absolutely right. Natural selection will take care of it. Eventually, pro-life people will dominate the earth.
In response to Winston….
Although a dialogue can be rational and God-centered, I have answered and refuted your claims from a scientific viewpoint.
My primary argument takes the following syllogistic form:
IF: 1. Every human being has the right to live, which should be protected by law,
AND: 2. From the moment of conception, the unborn are human beings,
THEN: 3. The unborn have the right to live, which should be protected by law.
If one accepts the first two premises, then the pro-life position stated in the conclusion is inescapable. Surely, few people will have any qualms about the first premise. Human beings have the right to live and if the law exists to protect anything at all, it exists to protect human beings from violent aggression that ends their lives.
The second premise is the target of a number of evasions and obfuscations. Let’s examine it further.
The Central Issue of the Abortion Debate
If conception does create a human being, and all human beings have a right to live, which should be protected by law, then the debate is over: the government should protect the lives of the unborn by prohibiting abortion. The crux of the issue is the ontological status of the living matter created by the act of conception. What is it?
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, life is, “a material complex or individual characterized by the capacity to perform certain functional activities, including metabolism, growth, reproduction, and some form of responsiveness and adaptation.” Upon conception, human embryos exhibit all of these features.
A fertilized human embryo carries out the processes of metabolism, it grows and develops, it responds to stimuli and maintains homeostasis, and it contains the genetic potential for reproduction. While it is not capable of reproducing at such an early stage in its development, neither is a four year old boy; the important issue is that it has reproductive potential, or to be even more accurate, that it belongs to a genus which can reproduce itself as a whole, as not all particular living organisms are fertile.
Someone might counter that the embryo is unviable- that it can not “do all of these things by itself.” Actually, a fertilized embryo does carry out metabolism by itself. When people make this objection, they mean that the fetus only processes energy that it acquires from its mother who actively acquires it herself. Yet there are many other organisms which are considered separate, living beings that also live inside the mother (in her skin, digestive tract, and elsewhere) and acquire their energy from her.
All organisms acquire their energy from their environment. And for some organisms, their environment is another organism. Such is the temporary state of the unborn human being until it reaches a transition into the next stage of its life cycle, infancy. The embryo or fetus is getting no “help” in absorbing and processing the energy. It doesn’t simply remain passive while energy is actively pushed through it from an external source. By its own power, it actively works to obtain energy from its environment and process it to grow and develop, which it also does by itself.
The mother’s womb is not a factory, actively assembling a new organism from passive parts. It is a nourishing environment in which the new organism actively replicates and specializes its cells to grow and develop. The embryo’s reproductive potential is also independent from the mother. It exists as a series of codes in the embryo’s genes. Lastly, a fertilized embryo does react to stimuli as an independent and fully-functioning organism without being “helped” to do so by the mother.
So clearly we have proven LIFE by an objective and scientific definition of what life is. What kind of life is it?
Alive and Human
It is HUMAN LIFE. It is not plant life. It is not a chicken embryo. It is a human embryo. A fertilized human embryo has its own unique genetic human signature that is different than that of either of its parents. This shows that it is clearly not additional tissue mass belonging to the mother. The genetic material in each cell of the developing embryo has a unique identity separate from the mother’s.
As well as being separate and unique, a fertilized embryo is ontologically no different than a human toddler, adolescent, or adult. Nothing is added to or taken from the embryo except food and waste products (which is no different than for any human being). At no point does the embryo undergo any fundamental, ontological change after conception; it simply grows and develops just like a toddler grows and develops, or a thirteen year old girl.
Thus, it is an error to claim, “It’s not a human, it’s a fetus.” That would be like saying, “It’s not a human, it’s an infant,” or, “It’s not a human, it’s an adolescent.” These are category fallacies. The proper answer to these assertions would be, “Sure it’s a fetus, sure it’s an infant, and sure it’s an adolescent. It’s a human fetus, a human infant, and a human adolescent.” These are simply stages of development in the human life cycle.
A human starts as an embryo, becomes a fetus, is born an infant, develops into a child, grows into an adolescent, matures into adulthood, and eventually dies. Scientifically and philosophically, there is no good reason to believe a human being is created at birth, because nothing is created at birth. At birth, a fetus simply changes location and changes its mode of acquiring food and dispensing waste, but at no point does it become something entirely new or different. Life begins at conception and proceeds through its stages until death. From the moment of conception, the unborn are human beings.
“Pro-Choice” is an Evasion
Having demonstrated that premise 2 of the syllogism is objectively and scientifically true, anyone who also accepts the first one is compelled to accept the conclusion, that the unborn have the right to live, which should be protected by law. Yet supporters of legalized abortion shy from this issue and generally refuse to directly confront arguments about the ontological status of the unborn.
They prefer instead to argue that they don’t believe in forcing their values on others, and that people should be free to choose. Rather than address the most relevant issue, which is when a human being comes into existence and whether or not the unborn are human beings, their evasion of this matter is so fundamentally at the root of their stand that they have named themselves after it. They call themselves “pro-choice.”
This is an evasion of the issue. If the unborn child is in fact a living human being (as I have shown above), then no one has the right to choose to kill her any more than they have the right to choose to kill a 14 year old girl, and by supporting legal restrictions on abortion, you are not forcing your morality on others any more than you are when you support laws that prevent people from murdering 14 year old girls.
Conclusion
There is no more pivotal moment in the subsequent growth and development of a human being than when 23 chromosomes of the father join with 23 chromosomes of the mother to form a unique, 46-chromosomed individual, with a gender, who had previously not existed. Period. No debate.
In terms of biology and human embryology, a human being begins immediately at fertilization and after that, there is no point along the continuous line of human embryogenesis where only a “potential” human being can be posited. Any philosophical, legal, or political conclusion cannot escape this objective scientific fact.
There is no more appropriate moment to begin calling a human “human” than the moment of fertilization.
Thus, the pro-choice argument is flawed and inconsistent.