Please, please, all Catholic women out there who are planning to vote for the GOP presidential ticket because you think Hillary kills babies: harken to the revelation that Trump feels stars have the power to do "anything" they want. As a TV star and business celebrity, he felt he could treat women as objects to grope, be they friends, strangers, colleagues or employees. Please consider that the power of the U.S. President has morphed, despite Constitutional obstruction, to the power to declare unilateral wars of choice. And consider that worldwide arms merchants are always ready to flatter our leader into becoming a "war president."
Please consider your vote, if it is based on Sanctity of Life, in terms of war, peace, and policy that harms life -- or nurtures it.
I recently Googled ,to remind myself of presidential power and life, "Wounded Iraq Vets images." It seemed ghoulish, but I had to remember the effect on the lives of men and women who were sent to war by a Commander-in-Chief who said he had the "political capital" to do what he wanted. And though few who'd voted for him anticipated it, what he wanted turned out to be a war of choice. He once joked, from a press podium, that his job would have been easier if he were a dictator.
The U.S. president is an ultimate media celebrity.
So please consider "anything" a president "wants" to do, if you value Sanctity of Life, in terms that are not just limited to abortion and women's reproductive choices. Romania had a total ban on abortion during Ceausescu's Catholic dictatorship, and all it did was create a culture of duplicity, fill orphanages with neglected babies who failed to thrive, and ruin the reproductive systems of desperate young women in that unhappy maternal generation.
Remember, please, my Catholic sisters, that Sanctity of Life means all life, not just life developing inside a woman who is to become a mother, ready or not. (I have long pleaded with our church to support contraception as the moral reproductive choice for couples, and the loving one for new life.)
Donald Trump's publicly stated support of Respect For Life law is belied by his behavior, his biography, and his business dealings. His running mate, Mike Pence, his beard in this regard, is smooth to look at and listen to, but I wonder how much his life has had to be inconvenienced by openness to life in practice? Has his career as radio host and politician been interrupted because he's had to take daily, hourly care of someone who's been solely dependent on him?
What must be said, loud and clear, by those who know from experience, is that Openness to Life is not just about all the reproduction a womb can bear. It's about being changed and directed, by these daily, repetitive nurturing tasks. They are mostly invisible, except to those who answer the call of babies, children, troubled teens, sick and wounded adults, all the loved ones who are ours to tend to in intimate care. Does Mike Pence or Donald Trump know, or help with, the intimate care of someone wounded to the point of immobility, as families of vets do? Have they stayed home for a few years with babies and toddlers? Have they tended someone with chronic, debilitating illness, someone robbed of speech, mobility, or sound mind?
Tending to others who depend on us intimately is Respect For Life, is honoring Sanctity of Life, is being Open To Life. But this labor is rarely shown by the GOP as it holds the political Respect For Life banner and demands an abortion ban as the most important moral policy in society. in fact, this labor is undermined by Republican Party policies that cut funds to caregiving and caregivers, to children' needs and families' needs. Their "bootstrap" policies suggest that dependency is for "losers." They seem truly to respect lives that are vigorously able to compete for power and money. Lesser lives aren't worthy of respect.
Does Hillary show Respect For Life, Openness to Life, in her ideas, in terms of nurture? Read her book, "It Takes A Village." It is full of her intent -- however imperfectly effected -- to think of leadership as nurture, with a special emphasis on tending to the basic needs of children, the next generation who will tend the earth and our society. She knows that being a public "star" doesn't mean you "can do anything" because she' learned that lesson in her marriage, the hard way. She knows the limits of political power are in the balance of powers as set forth in our Constitution, the living document that keeps us together as a nation. She knows it also resides in our respect for one another as human equals who must decide, together, in the public forum, whether to harm or help one another.
To help is to nurture, to nurture is to be open to life.
Consider that, please, my Catholic friends around this country. It's long past time to for sticking fingers in ears to block out the horribly venal things Donald Trump says and does. Denial is not worthy of the faith that I'm sure most of you practice with more doctrinal faithfulness than I. But the spirit of the law is my guide. This pope shows that letter of the law can change. Let our faith grow beyond strict obedience and piety to one political idea.
It's important, this election, to remember how long life is, and consider that faith calls us to greater openness and respect -- past the time of reproduction.
Look on those vets, and remind yourself how important it can be.
Peace.