Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Is “Pro-Life 3.0” an Attempt at "Compromise" or Dagger to the Heart of Choice?
September 26, 2022
By Bill Berkowitz
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and negative public reaction to extreme and punitive laws in states such as Ohio where a ten year old victim of rape had to travel to Indiana for an abortion, some groups within the anti-abortion movement are advocating for a more “compassionate” Pro-Life 3.0. Pro-Life 3.0 puts forward a message calling for greater government support for pregnant women -- before and after childbirth. It’s leading proponent, Charles Camosy, argues that generating more government support for pre-and-post-childbirth, might challenge some in the reproductive rights community to modify their support for abortion.
From the late nineties to the early part of this century, "compassionate conservatism" was a bellwether term for conservatives. Those running the presidential campaign of George W. Bush saw this phrase as political gold. While it is debatable who came up with the term “compassionate conservatism” -- some say it was longtime conservative advisor Doug Wead, while others credit Marvin Olasky, there is no doubt that this descriptor softened the public's perception of modern-day conservatism. However, "compassionate conservatism" was never really about compassion. It was about the branding and selling of a presidential candidate.
Is Pro-Life 3.0 a genuine conciliatory gesture or a sophisticated way to drive a wedge within the reproductive rights community – or both?
“This feels like a replay of discussion from the early days of the Obama administration,” Frederick Clarkson, Senior Research Analyst, with Political Research Associates, told me in an email. “It was part of the theory that ‘common ground"’ could be found between the main opposing camps on abortion. But that never really happened. While some on both sides could agree that economic supports for women were a good thing; and that it was also a good thing that women not have choose to have an abortion solely because they cannot afford to have a child, I don't recall that anyone changed their views on the need for people to have the right to make their own decisions; access to reproductive health care including abortions, and to be free from unwanted outside interference.”
Hardcore forced-birth activists are going for the kill shot; ratcheting up pressure on state legislatures to enact repressive anti-abortion legislation, with the ultimate goal being a national ban on abortion. The path to a national ban will open up if Republicans take control of both the House and Senate, and win the presidency in 2024.
In a recent issue of the conservative National Catholic Register, Mary Francis Myler writes about “pro-lifers … saying it’s time for a new phase of the movement: ‘Pro-Life 3.0.’” Myler notes that the 3.0 “approach to pro-life advocacy (that) focuses on decreasing the demand for abortion through government programs and policies, instead of focusing more exclusively on limiting legal access to abortion” (https://www.ncregister.com/news/is-now-the-time-for-pro-life-3-0-ifg00dc6).
According to Myler, “Charles Camosy, a moral theologian who teaches at Creighton University Medical School and St. John Seminary in Yonkers, New York, is a chief proponent of the ‘Pro-Life 3.0.’” Myler cites a recent Religion News Service column in which Camosy explained, “Pro-Life 1.0, … came before Roe v. Wade and was a ‘politically complex movement’ that did not fit within the left-right political divide. Following Roe, Pro-Life 2.0 was defined largely by its fusionism, channeling political activism largely through a coalition of the religious right, small-government libertarians, and anti-communist hawks. ‘This made for some strange bedfellows,’ Camosy noted in his column.”
In his piece titled “Pro-lifer 3.0 to abortion-rights supporters: Let’s talk” (https://religionnews.com/2022/06/27/pro-lifer-3-0-to-abortion-rights-supporters-lets-talk/), Camosy wrote: “Pro-lifers have worked for decades to build up large networks of pregnancy help centers. Pro-choice activists could come to see how these centers offer women who feel pressured into abortions resources and therefore choices. Many would like to expand to become shelters, especially for women facing intimate partner violence (which correlates strongly with abortion). Can we work together to better fund and expand these resources and show that these centers offer resources and therefore choices to women who feel pressured into abortions?”
Camosy added: “Let’s make pro-lifers uncomfortable in this dialogue as well, especially those left over from the fusionist era, wherein which many adopted “small government” sensibilities. It is a travesty that Mississippi, the state that provided the backdrop for the Dobbs case, deprives economically vulnerable mothers of Medicaid coverage 60 days after giving birth.
“Indeed, the United States at large has a huge problem with maternal mortality, most of which comes into play after birth. Pro-lifers should be pushed to get on the side of expanded Medicaid services, especially (but not only) in states that significantly restrict access to abortion.
“They should also be pushed to get on the side of mandatory paid family leave, childcare support, robust labor protections based on family status, health insurance that adequately cares for children with special needs, mandatory areas and times for breast-milk pumping, and more.
In an article in Church Life Journal, A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, Camosy discusses what is called a Consistent Life Ethic, which maintains that in order to be faithful to the Church’s teachings, one must not only be opposed to abortion, but one must speak out on other life issues as well. Camosy writes (https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/where-does-the-case-for-the-consistent-life-ethic-stand/): “And while there is no such thing as a ‘single issue pro-lifer,’ there are folks who refuse to consistently follow their principles on abortion if they suggest crossing over into concern for issues which might ask them to question their idolatrous political commitments or personally cause them lifestyle inconveniences with which they are unwilling to deal.”
Camosy is challenging the pro-life movement to address a broader range of issues that affect life including a more robust social safety net, gun control, and even climate change.
Frederick Clarkson added that “I would venture to guess that anything Camosy proposes is likely to be D.O.A. If for no other reason than Camosy's stated desire for the reproductive rights community to help seek funding for antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers to provide women's reproductive health care in the wake of the antiabortion laws arising in so many states. He justifies this because he says that in his experience, CPCs are getting a bad rap. He says that they do not lie to and manipulate people. Even if that is true in some places, the generalization does not square with decades of experience of many clients, and the findings of numerous journalists and state officials. There can obviously be no good faith effort to find common ground that begins with a bad faith (or willfully naive) claim and opportunistic idea like this.”
Camosy’s advocacy is “clearly an effort to divide the reproductive rights community, but it is so ham handed that it has probably discredited itself well ahead of anyone wanting to consider taking it seriously.” For now, Pro-life 3.0 appears to be an academic conversation, conducted mostly among theologians. Over the years, it has been clear that the hardcore forced-birth movement has little compassion for pregnant women, their babies or their families.
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