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When life begins isn’t a private issue for a Catholic
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February 1, 2021When Legatus’ editor asked me in late November to consider writing a piece on a topic related to ethics and life for Catholics post-election, her request really struck me. I was just re-reading comments made by Joe Biden back in September 2008, when he was campaigning to be Barack Obama’s vice president. Biden had responded to a question from Tom Brokaw on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and his answer is even more critical today than in 2008.
Brokaw asked Biden about the recent response of his running mate to the question, “When does life begin?” Obama had demurred that the subject was above his “pay grade.” So, Brokaw asked Biden: “If Senator Obama comes to you and says, ‘When does life begin? Help me out here, Joe,’ as a Roman Catholic, what would you to say to him?”
Biden grinned and said to Brokaw: “I’d say, ‘Look, I know when it begins for me.’ It’s a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I am prepared to accept the teachings in my Church.”
So far, so good—if Biden had stopped there. But he didn’t. Biden said that while he personally believes life begins “at the moment of conception,” there are people of other faiths with different definitions. Thus, said Biden, “For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.”
The bishops responded to Biden’s statement by noting that the Church does not teach that life begins at conception “as a matter of faith” but, rather, “as a matter of objective fact.” Moreover, said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the protection of innocent human life “is not an imposition of personal religious conviction but a demand of justice.”
Indeed. Worse, note that although Biden said that he believes life begins at conception, he nonetheless favors the right to exterminate unborn life. Biden’s position was thus arguably worse than that of his running mate. Consider that Obama professed to not know when life begins. Obama could claim blissful ignorance. To the contrary, Biden remained convinced that life begins at conception, and was “prepared to accept the teachings in my Church,” but then, regardless, favored and enacted laws allowing for the deliberate termination of that life.
Biden further compounded his ethical, biological, and spiritual misjudgment with a political misjudgment. It’s one that many “pro-choice Catholic” politicians have made for decades: he insisted that he cannot “impose” his moral values on others. This flaw in Biden’s thinking was underscored by his own bishop, Michael Saltarelli, of the Diocese of Wilmington, who objected: “No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’ Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’”
No question about that. And of course, Biden’s troubling statement in September 2008 is more troubling now, in 2021, as liberal media sources tell the public at large that Biden is a lifelong “devout” Catholic — baptized, confirmed, receives the sacraments, prays, owns a rosary. But how Catholic would Joe Biden be when it comes to this life issue that his Church and so many Catholics consider fundamental to the faith? The question to Biden remains: when does life begin? And how do you honor life?
Help us out here, Joe.
PAUL KENGOR is a professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, PA. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century.
