A Response to Gloria Purvis on the Texas Abortion Law

I read the article and listened to its accompanying podcast. I even had a look at the text of the Texas law. But I still don’t understand how Gloria Purvis can say that the Texas Heartbeat Act echoes the civil rights movement and will help force the world to “embrace femaleness.” While I agree very strongly with much of what Purvis and her podcast guest Helen Alvaré have to say about the systemic causes of abortion — which is something I have addressed in explaining my pro-life position before — their application of these ideas to the Texas law feels almost perverse. To make sense of their position on the Texas law requires a separation of principle from context that, as I see it, ignores any consideration for the long-term success of the global pro-life movement (if such a thing can be said to exist).

I admit, I am something an outsider to this particular debate, since I live in Canada. Roe v. Wade and the intricacies of abortion politics in America don’t affect me directly. But many pro-life and pro-choice people in Canada are influenced by the abortion battles in the US, and these battles also have repercussions for Catholics around the world who hope to influence world leaders to recognize and protect the unborn. Developments in the pro-life movement in other countries — including the tactics that are used, and the politics that accompany them — matter in the big picture. This is why I have concerns about the only two pro-life “victories” that we’ve seen in recent years: the Poland abortion ban, which was pushed through in January with the help of the far-right Catholic organization Ordo Iuris, and the recent Texas law that is tied firmly to Trump-influenced Republican politics. Both have involved morally dubious political and legal strategies, both are clearly situated within larger rightist social projects, and both will likely generate a response that will alienate potential progressive allies to the pro-life cause and further entrench the reigning pro-choice global consensus.

When it comes to the Texas law, where Purvis and Alvaré see the beginnings of a new progressive social revolution, many other people in the United States and around the world see the trampling of the US constitution by a Christian Right emboldened by Trumpism. Who is seeing things clearly? I will acknowledge that there is some exaggeration and sensationalism in liberal media regarding the Texas law. Handmaid’s Tale comparisons are nothing more than liberal myth-making, and only fuel the fires of culture war. At the same time, I can’t pretend that all the outrage is misguided. While it is true that abortion doesn’t need to be intertwined with so many other issues relating to women’s privacy, autonomy, and dignity, in the current social and political environment it absolutely is. Not all of the criticism of the law is justified, but it also seems that Purvis and Alvaré are arguing with blinkers on.

One of the concerns that many have with the law is that it will disrupt the social order by incentivizing a sort of private or even vigilante justice, turning citizens against each other. In her article, Purvis doesn’t address this directly but simply shifts attention away from the problem by claiming that such private justice will work in favour of women. She writes, “Given my experience with women who have been coerced, manipulated and abused because of abortion, I see the Texas Heartbeat Act as a means of justice for these women. This law centers a woman’s abortion as grounds for civil action against her abusers.” Here, and in the podcast with Alvaré, she seems to suggest that women who have had abortions and regret them might themselves be able to sue the people who helped facilitate them. I have not heard anything that would suggest this was part of the intent of the law, but even so, not all abortions result from pressure from manipulators and abusers, and not all women regret obtaining abortions. It makes it easier to think that all the women are victims here and that everyone being sued under this law will be a violent boyfriend or controlling father rather than a well-intentioned, if morally misguided, mother, aunt, or friend, but this is simply wishful thinking.

Purvis also frames the private justice aspect of the law using the language of anti-racism, remarking, “I believe this novel approach is reminiscent of the civil rights movement’s tactics whereby private citizens acted to break the unjust Jim Crow system.” This is a bold and counterintuitive take. Stefanie Lindquist, an expert on constitutional law from Arizona State University, recently offered a very different argument, stating that Texas has in fact “resurrected a decades-old technique that it used during the Jim Crow era to insulate its discriminatory laws from constitutional review in the courts.” What is more likely: that Texas is suddenly adopting the philosophy of the civil rights movement, or that it is cynically drawing upon the Jim Crow-era tactics that are already part of its legal history? When considering this question, we should also keep in mind that the person who authored the abortion legislation is Bryan Hughes, state senator from Tyler, Texas, who was also responsible for the recent Texas voting law that some have compared to the Jim Crow laws. This year, Hughes also authored a bill that would ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools. Does anyone really think he is devoted to creating a more just and equitable society as most progressives imagine that to be?

Purvis addresses another common objection when she writes, “Others assert that the Texas Heartbeat Act is unjust because rich women can secure abortions outside of Texas therefore only the poor, especially poor Black women, are ‘stuck’ bearing children.” With this statement she acknowledges that there are indeed social factors in play that make this law much more bearable for those with the time and social and financial resources necessary for travel and/or childcare. However, she dismisses such concerns by drawing upon a natural law justification: “We are not owed abortions because it is an act contrary to the nature of the female being. So, the Texas Heartbeat Act does not deprive women, rich or poor, of a natural right and as such it is not unjust.” We can certainly accept this somewhat scholastic argument in principle, but it does nothing to change the structural inequalities that overburden poor women, and Black women in particular. They will, unless society changes, simply have to suffer under this structural inequality for the sake of natural law.

Perhaps to avoid imagining women suffering for the sake of a greater justice, Purvis makes the sweeping and unsupported argument that the law, and presumably other laws like it, will ultimately bring about exactly the kind of change that those of us who adhere to a “seamless garment” pro-life ethic desire. She writes, “Abortion is integral to upholding systems that oppress women. Imagine the law, businesses, educational institutions, the military, the economy, the very structure of our society not having abortion as a buttress. Imagine our world making way for women truly as we are and, in justice, giving us what we are due because of our womanhood. This is not just financial and material support but wholesale rethinking of our attitudes, practices and systems in our society and the church.” These are fine words, but the whole process implied here seems backwards to me. She is advocating the use of abortion-war legal tactics to bring about larger social change, as if by criminalizing abortion by any legal means necessary, all of its causes will melt into air and the Texas law will act as the seed of a new and transformed society that will finally make way for women as they are. But can we really say that legal abortion is so integral to systems of oppression that without it, these systems will crumble? No — abortion is a symptom, and not a cause. It was a widespread symptom of modern industrial society long before Roe v. Wade, and will remain widespread, whether legal or not, until hearts are changed and the systems of oppression that cause it are either weakened or dismantled. I sadly doubt that Texas, even if the law holds, will become the epicentre of any revolution of social equity and inclusion.

In essence, what Purvis does, in her article and her discussion with Alvaré, is separate the Texas abortion law from its political context entirely. She writes, “I believe the act is moral because none of its elements are evil.” This is true in a limited sense. We are called to protect the unborn, of course, and a law that provides greater protection to the unborn cannot in itself be evil. Those who help a women get an abortion (even if only by providing a phone number or paying for a taxi) are guilty of something, at least according to Catholic moral teaching, and so according to the logic of justice they can be punished for this. But in a particular social and political context it may be considered unwise, imprudent, or even destructive to introduce such a law. Catholic moral teaching requires that we reject consequentialism, but this does not mean that we can pay no mind to the consequences of our actions, even if these actions may be morally justified in themselves.

My intent in offering a critique of Purvis’s argument is not to weaken pro-life sentiment or excitement, though I accept that some will take it that way. I care deeply about the pro-life cause, and I follow Church teaching in believing that abortion is always morally wrong. I am also a realist, however. I think we can work toward a future where abortion is far less common, though I know it is something that can never be truly eradicated or made “unthinkable.” We face an overwhelming pro-choice consensus across the globe, and if we are going to bring down abortion rates on a large scale it will be through first establishing solidarity with allies we can work with in fighting other great social, economic, and environmental problems — many of which make abortion all-too-thinkable or affect the unborn in other ways. In standing together for human fraternity and our shared responsibility for creation we can establish a firm basis for productive dialogue regarding the rights of the unborn and their legal protection. This is the method that, it seems to me, Pope Francis is modelling, much to the chagrin of those pro-life Catholics who think the Church should have nothing to do with any people or organizations that happen to be pro-choice. The law can certainly be a tool, but it should be directed toward lasting, long-term change. Desperate or underhanded maneuvers will only trigger culture-war conflicts that lead to failure, and wishful thinking will not change reality.

I admire Gloria Purvis very much, and it is only because I see her as a beacon of sanity in our Catholic mediasphere that her article disturbed me a little, and provoked me to offer a response. I sincerely wish that the pro-life movement was full of people like Gloria Purvis, but it’s not. Its moderate or “seamless garment” wing is very small, and the largest segments of the pro-life movement are tied to a morally corrupted Republican party and Evangelical movement within the US and Christian far-right movements elsewhere. Here in Canada it is dominated by Catholic fundamentalists, anti-LGBTQ crusaders, conspiracy theorists, and vaccine resisters. We can’t ignore that reality. I know, from bitter experience, that this is not “lazy slander.” Those of us who are progressive pro-lifers (and I consider myself one) can’t close our eyes and imagine that their questionable victories are also ours.