How can you fault him? He cannot help himself, he is merely a man, I mean politician.

Let us not forget Reagan's very apt quote, "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

Him?

So pro-choice Catholic is an oxymoron? How about those who don't believe in criminalizing pre-marital sex or in criminalizing birth control? Or am I missing the point some how?

The question in the context of government and politics is not what your religion says is right and wrong, particularly; rather the question is whether your religion compels you to do your best to codify your religious beliefs into the secular legal code. And, if it does in the context of abortion, why not also in the context of, say, premarital sex and birth control? Or, for that matter, the proper God to worship?

And not to be a spelling Nazi, but yeesh, I presume:
"Cholic" = "Catholic"
"ao" = "an"
"their not" = "they're not".

Him?

I guess the right's efforts to demonize the possible next Speaker of the House haven't been all that successful yet, judging by RedheadedLawyerLady's comment. Keep working on it, Seth.

...or possibly because birth control and pre-marital sex don't involve what many think to be a human life. Hmmmm....could that be the essential distinction? I wonder.

Eric

This is what I get for multi-tasking. Him = Her. Maybe it was merely the fact that I didn't want to admit that Pelosi shares my gender.

It seems like the concept of honor among thieves: "Sure, God, I used birth control while having premarital sex, but I'd never have an abortion."

You can easily draw a distinction, yes, but they're all sins nonetheless. And - more to the point - premarital sex and especially birth control are things that the world has effectively accepted (unlike abortion which is still hotly debated) and which the Catholic Church still considers a sin.

I.e., even if one can say (and one can say) that abortion is the taking of a life, which is worse than sleeping around before marriage, ya just can't say "I'm a Catholic, but I think birth control and premarital sex are okay; bans on them are so old-fashioned." You can't just pick and choose which doctrines you follow.

Thanks, Doug, for the typos. I should know better to cut and paste tracts, fixing the HTML where necessary.

To answer your question, yes, to be pro-choice and Catholic is an oxymoron, at least as Ms Pelosi has articulated her position to MSNBC. She is right that God has given us free will, but she misses the underlying point in Catholic teaching that in making a decision with this "free will" it is necessary that one have a well-formed conscience. As one who openly professes the Catholic faith, who considers herself in communion with the Church, it is necessary to affirm certain Truths taught by the Church as being binding on one's conscience. That abortion is intrinsically evil is one of these Truths. As it is binding on one's conscience, coming to dissent from the Church's teaching leads you out of communion: Since it has been universally affirmed by the Ordinary Magisterium (since the Didache) and the Extraordinary Magisterium (Humanae Vitae) of the Church, a well-formed conscience binds the Faithful to what the Church has taught. If she doesn't like this, the ECUSA is down the street.

Furhter, as a public leader, and as a Catholic, it is incumbent on Ms Pelosi to avoid the sin of scandal - which in her acceptance of funds from pro-abortion groups and working to their "good" end, is direct scandal. One incurs a latae sententiae excommunication (Can. 1389) in procuring an aborition: Openly stating that the issue of whether to support abortion is not even a "question" as a Catholic qualifies as urging direct scandal on other Catholic women in their choice of whether to birth or kill their children.

Finally, Catholic moral theology addresses abortion and contraception (as you mention in your comment) from different categorical standpoints. It is possible, for instance, to use artificial birth control and engage in coitus knowing full well that conception will not occur. This is permissible in the case where it is medically necessary for the woman to not conceive. Intentionally taking the life of an unborn child, however, is not permissible under any circumstances. Look to Humanae Vitae (Sec. 10-15, I believe) for an example of the different treatment ABC and abortion receive.

Nick,

You are setting up straw men. I never used any of the rationale you mentioned to support my argument.

If we can determine through rational argument that abortion is the taking of a human life, then that sort of act is, for legal purposes, much more serious than a consensual act.

Don't you think that, assuming abortion is the taking of a human life, that this is much more serious than a couple of people fooling around or using birth control? I'm sure it is a convenient way for some to dodge the issue.

St. Thomas made some distinctions of this nature. Not every immoral act must be prohibited--some laws can be so overly burdensome. Protecting innocent human life is a legitimate function of the state. Most of us would agree that a daughter cussing out her mother is wrong, but that doesn't mean the state has a role in its regulation. Hopefully, the distinction here to readers is very stark.

The issue--which Pelosi seeks to dodge--if it is a human life, it should be protected. If not, who cares? In a civilized state, a person does not have the "free will from God" to choose whether to kill someone. Pelosi needs to take a definitive stand.

Eric

Please consider: My post was not meant to imply that simply becuase Ms Pelosi is Catholic she must impose canonical law on civil law. My issue was with the rationale Ms Pelosi offers to defend her _personal_ view on being pro-choice. That a woman of her intelect would offer an argument of such paucity on why she dissents on a teaching held to be conscience-binding on the Faithful is illustrative of TOO many Catholic politicians.

Perhaps this will clarify the impetus of my post with regard to Doug's, Eric's and Nick's comments.

As one who openly professes the Catholic faith, who considers herself in communion with the Church, it is necessary to affirm certain Truths taught by the Church as being binding on one's conscience. That aborition is intrinsically evil is one of these Truths. As it is binding on one's conscience, coming to dissent from the Church's teaching leads you out of communion

That description of how to be a Catholic sounds just Rev. C. John McCloskey 3d ("There's a name for Catholics who dissent from church teachings. They're called Protestants") and the old anti-assimilationist popes. Sorry, but I'm with Ms Pelosi and millions of other American Catholics who believe in dissent and debate and not blind submission to religious authority.

"Sorry, but I'm with Ms Pelosi and millions of other American Catholics who believe in dissent and debate and not blind submission to religious authority."

You mean the two thirds who don't even practice their faith on a regular basis? Pelosi can do as she wishes--she is certainly free to dissent. But rationalizing a position such as abortion while cloaking herself in religious imagery and mis-using Catholic theology is not proper for a politician.

If she dissents from Church teaching, again, she should take a stand a simply state that either she thinks people should have the free choice to take an innocent human life or that she simply disagrees with the church that a fetus is a human life.

Not that hard really.

Eric

JohnS, I'm sorry that this sounds like Johnny McCloskey, but a statement that one believes in "dissent and debate" does not ultimately address the fact that the Church teaches certain Truths are binding on one's conscience. Yes, I also believe in dissent and debate, such as on the de fide teaching on purgatory and certain extreme strains of Marian devotion in the Church, but at the end of the day the Church is the Church and propagates certain teachings as binding on those who would consider themselves "Catholic." If one cannot accept this, then she should reconsider her religious identity, for the Church she claims to be in communion with does not in fact exist.

As a convert from the LC-MS, this issue continues to play out in my mind. The bottom line for me (as it was for Newman) is that intellectual honesty requires you to either (1) accept the Church for what she claims to be and enter into full communion (Lumen Gentium 5), or (2) reject what the Church claims to be and refain from considering yourself to be in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

Is worshipping a God or Gods other than Jesus a lesser sin than aborting a human fetus? If not, is it nonetheless permissible for a good Catholic to refrain from legislating against belief in a God or Gods who are not associated with Jesus Christ?

Doug, see Dignitatis Humanae on the issue of religious freedom.

Seth

I certainly appreciate your zeal, but as someone born Catholic, educated by the Christian Brothers, and with family members in the clergy, I take a somewhat less enthusiastic view of Rome (all religion is local, after all) and the chokehold the conservative Curia has the faithful in. And while there are some members of the American clergy who would agree roundly with Fr. McCloskey's take on Catholicism, there are also some some members of the American clergy who question Rome's authority on matters of doctrine. Dissent: it's what we American Catholics do.

Thanks, John, for your thoughtful response. Sometimes converts see dissent in the Church and are overzealous in equating it with a "slippery slope to the ECUSA" argument.

Coming from six generations of Lutherans (Grandfather was a dissenter in his own style, Assembly of God style), I have never see the same chokehold you see, but I have seen a gradual, positive change in the reception of doctrine. Coming from a family of Protestants (no Catholics out to the fourth degree of blood relation), and believing with the Council that they are in a very real, but fractured, communion with Christ, the often-times acerbic old trope that "dissenters are Protestants" does not carry the typical nefarious connotation - heck, they're my Mother.

Eric,

I'm not sure I understand your response; I think we actually agree on the basic point here (especially after reading the rest of your comments).

My point was that Pelosi can't pick and choose what hse likes out of the Catholic doctrine. Your point was (I think) that if she has to pick and choose as a legislator, she should pick the more important things (which seems correct also). I wasn't talking about what you thought I was talking about, I think. :D

Nick (and Doug),

This is not an issue of legislating "the more important things" of one's religious doctrine. Clearly, outright rejection the God of the Bible is the worst sin one can commit. But it only affects the person who commits it, so there is no need for civil authorities to legislate against apostasy. Murder and rape are also sins, but they clearly affect other individuals, so we provide punishments for those crimes.

The question, then, is which category does abortion fall in? Is it an action which harms another person, or does it only affect the persons who are consensually involved (the woman seeking the abortion and the abortionist)?

By the way, I and the other "Eric" on this thread are different people.

"If you don't want an aborition, [then] don't have one."

Someone this arrogant and condescending shouldn't be in politics, much less in House leadership. Such a statement is the worst form of singing to the choir, treating the opposition (to whom the statement is directed) as if it defined the issue in a way that it does not.

Like saying "If you don't want a slave, then don't buy one" to an abolitionist. Worse, actually, since slavery isn't necessarily lethal.

Am I the only one who doesn't see any connection between premarital sex/birth control and abortion, whether as legislation, morality or a religious tenet?

Abortion is about killing people, which puts it on a whole different level than the other two. That's why we don't talk about criminalizing the pill, but we continually talk about criminalizing abortion.

If aborting a fetus is morally equivalent to murdering a post-birth innocent human, I do not see how those holding this belief can stop short of taking every action up to and including force to make sure abortion clinics do not function. If there were a facility in my city murdering hundreds of people per year, I can't see waiting around and hoping the government outlawed the facility. If the government didn't take action, I think I'd be morally obligated to act.

At some level, I think even believers in the idea that human life begins at conception recognize a difference between the moral rights of a zygote and the moral rights of a fully functioning human being. Maybe I'm wrong, but how else to explain the relative lack of urgency in stopping the abortion clinic murder factories?

Doug,

I don't think it's a lack of urgency. I think it's a realization of what tactics will actually be effective in the long term for ending the killing of unborn children. The confrontational tactics of groups like Operation Rescue had little lasting effect--and may even have been counterproductive in some cases. Trying to win hearts and minds and pursuing the legislative process may be slower and less dramatic, but I believe it has more potential for lasting gains.

I think you're right, but I think that's because the majority of citizens regard the moral rights of the unborn as less than the rights of human beings.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I just can't see myself taking the long view if there were a facility in my city murdering 100 innocent people a year (permitted by the government and tolerated by other citizens in this hypothetical). Regardless of long-term effectiveness, I think I'd feel compelled to take extreme, possibly even violent action to stop systematic murder in my back yard.

Hopefully I'll never have to find out what I would do in that situation.

Doug,

I agree with you, and I think most people would think that of themselves. Sadly, history would suggest otherwise. Most German citizens during WWII did nothing to stop the concentration camps (and I don't believe that it wasn't general knowledge that people were executed in them). It would seem that when society has condoned something, even those who morally object tend to accept it as unavoidable.

This is my first post here. I have not posted because I don't feel I can or want to sustain the type of discussion that takes place here. But I just want to say regarding this thread, as a Catholic woman, much older than I think most of the regulars here, and not a lawyer, as most of you sound like, that it is fascinating and disheartening, but not at all surprising, to hear a bunch of young males carry on like this. You are doing the institutional church proud. All kinds of legalistic one-ups-manship, but not a shred of compassion or practicality in evidence. I was going to say that perhaps what this page needs is more of the feminine voice and more diverse points of view, but it's not really what the page needs. You all would benefit from getting out and meeting people who aren't just like you.
Sorry if I offended you, you seem like nice people who just don't get outside your boundaries enough.

Hi Mary,

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure that matters. You'd probably be surprised who reads and comments on this site. Please don't pigeonhole me/us, it's really not fair.

Mary,

Thank you for your post. However, I'm not sure what legalistic one-ups-manship is, nor why I should blush at making the Church proud, nor how compassion or practicality have anything to do with an objective observation that Ms Pelosi openly denies what the Churh affirms as binding on one's conscience. As I stated above, I posted Ms Pelosi' comments to illustrate what I consider to be the derth of intellectual engagement by "Catholic" politicians on life issues.

No matter how one frames the issue, with or without a feminine voice, with or without compassion, this is an objective reality: Ms Pelosi considers herself in communion with the Bishop of Rome. It is an objective truth that the Church with which she claims to be in communion holds that, as a matter binding on one's conscience, abortion is intrinsically evil and the procurment of such an act incurs laetae sententiae excommunication. How those who dissent from the Church on abortion play this fact out does not change the reality that something cannot be both true and false at the same time. Perhaps in the discussion of how Ms Pelosi considers herself to be in communion with the Church and still promote abortion we may introduce a feminine voice complete with practical observations, but lady Philosophy herself cannot alter an objective truth.

Hi George,
I didn't mean to be unfair. I don't read here every day, so I may not have seen a true representation of all the views here. Maybe some who read here whose views would balance things out don't post as much as others, but I wouldn't be able to know that. It does seem to me that the posts I read are mostly, but not all of course, coming from the same or very similar points of view. That's certainly fine. I find interesting ideas and links here even if I don't agree with everything. Life is more interesting and I learn more when not everything is presented the way I would think about it. My comments about lawyers were not meant in a negative way, just that in my experience lawyers are trained to think and express themselves in a way that I am not and for that reason I find discourse in that mode a strain for me. OK?
Mary

As a Catholic woman (but, yikes, a lawyer), I think Seth's points have been extremely accurate and fair. As he said, I'm not sure what "compassion and practicality" have to do with pointing out that those who want to consider themselves to be Catholic simply cannot legitimately proclaim and advocate pro-abortion views without taking themselves outside the Church in a serious way. Compassion and practicality certainly have a place in the abortion debate generally, and I believe that most of the women and men working in CPCs and in the pro-life movement generally display tremendous compassion for women facing difficult pregnancies. But these aren't just within the purview of women -- men can and should be just as strong of advocates against the injustice of abortion -- and again, they don't change the point that Catholics can't legitimately be pro-choice and be Catholic at the same time. "Dissent: it's what American Catholics do" -- um, no. Not all of us.

Mary,

What you have seen is quite representative. You have not rushed to judgment in any way. Notice how Kimberly turns pro-choice into pro-abortion. She refers to how everyone should be against the injustice of abortion, never even considering that those who do not agree with her view of abortion being murder should be able to live their lives according to their beliefs instead of hers. Notice that in the world view of the posters here you cannot be pro-choice and Catholic. In other, more honest words, the anti-abortion beliefs of the Catholic church must be the law of the land. Because that's what pro-choice comes down to, will the beliefs of the Catholic church and the fundamentalist Christian churches who agree with them become secular law for everyone, including those who do not follow those teachings? Those who are pro-choice say no, that's not the way it's supposed to work even if that's the way it used to be. Go ahead, campaign against abortion. Persuade women not to have one if you can. But your beliefs don't belong in the secular law of this country, forced on everyone who doesn't share them. That's what pro-choice Catholic politicians are, someone who understands that they took an oath to uphold the Constitution and that no matter what was done in the past (Bans not only on abortion, but birth control of all kinds and even no right to have your business open on Sunday if it isn't your Sabbath.) the teachings of any church or churches, even if they represent the majority, should not be the law of the land.

Notice that in the world view of the posters here you cannot be pro-choice and Catholic.

I'm not even Catholic, but I think this seems true. You can call yourself a Catholic, sure, and you can go to church as much as you please - but if you disagree with what boils down to a main tenet of the religion, you aren't really a member of that religion. It'd be like claiming to be a Christian who also believes in the Hindu gods: it just doesn't work that way because the two beliefs are mutually exclusive. Being pro-choice and Catholic may "only" be mutually exclusive due to the tenets of the religion, but those are the tenets of the religion nonetheless.

And of course, you can believe whatever you want. If you want to be pro-choice, go for it; if you want to be Catholic, go for it. But why on earth would you want to be Catholic (a conservative religion with tenets like opposing birth control that obviously don't jive with modern social sensibilities) and then complain about how the church is conservative and doesn't jive with modern sensibilities?

I would think it would simply make more sense to adhere to a religion that comports with those sensibilities, personally. And note, as always, there's a big difference between what the Catholic church says to do, what the government says to do - and the discussion here started with what a Catholic in the government is obligated by the Church to do.

An important question not to beg here is: what determines what is _constitutive_ of a given religious faith? Obviously, the quesiton of what is or is not essential to Catholic belief is something that is up for grabs when people like Pelosi, or Mary, or Andrew Sullivan express their disagreement with some piece of the Church's teachings. They (and many, many others) find some of the teachings to go against their own considered sense of right and wrong, or God's will, or the intellectual and moral traditions of the Church. That the Pope declares them to be wrong does not settle the matter, for the status of the Pope's declarations is itself a matter about which there is principled dissent. So please let's stop begging the question against thoughtful and sincere Catholics like Mary and others. They may turn out to be wrong, but even if they are, they are not _simply_ wrong.

This goes for statements like Nick's as well. It is just not to be taken as a given that the current Church's views on abortion (or contraception, or married or female clergy, or...) are _essential_ to the Church. The Catholic Church has a long, long history that includes many different strains of belief and practice, and it is a matter of longstanding and ongoing debate just what views it is to have on what questions. What are the "main tenets" is just not a fixed and eternal matter.

And you reveal a very Protestant way of looking at things, Nick, when you write, "But why on earth would you want to be Catholic (a conservative religion with tenets like opposing birth control that obviously don't jive with modern social sensibilities) and then complain about how the church is conservative and doesn't jive with modern sensibilities?" There's a certain spirit of church-shopping in much contemporary American Protestant practice, even up to the idea of going off and founding your own church if you don't like any of the extant options in your neighborhood. What you need to try to understand is how alien that mindset is to most Catholics. If your weekly "Profession of Faith" includes the language of "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church," and that language is given a very specific, institutional interpretation -- well, you're not going to find it easy to just pack up & walk over to the neighborhood Lutherans or whatever. Better to stay and fight for the soul of the one true Church (or to fight for one's own soul inside it), than to abandon it altogether, one might think.

Notice that in the world view of the posters here you cannot be pro-choice and Catholic.

I'm not even Catholic, but I think this seems true.

As a Catholic, I can assure you that is absolute baloney. Ms Pelosi is free to hold her pro-choice views AND still consider herself a Catholic in good standing. The Church itself teaches that a person's private conscience is supreme: "Man has the right to act according to his conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."

What Seth appears to be saying is that he does not think that Ms Pelosi's conscience is properly formed with regards to abortion. To me, THAT seems to be a matter left between her and her Creator.

Yes, as John says, Ms Pelosi can consider herself anything she pleases. Like the boy in his treehouse who styles himself Charles Martel, all is possible in the realm of self identity. The fact still remains, however, that the Church declares, as a matter binding on one's conscience, that abortion is intrinsically evil, and the procurment of the act incurs excommunication. Bottom line.

We can invoke all the Charles Curranish laudatory praise of conscience we like, but sin is still sin, and considering yourself to be in communion with the Church entails the assent that the Church is the final arbitor of certain truths, including the permissibility of abortion, even in light of our fallen conscience that tells us otherwise.

And, Nick, thanks for your common sense observation which, I can assure you, makes absolutely no sense to many Catholics.

"that the Church declares, as a matter binding on one's conscience, that abortion is intrinsically evil, and the procurment of the act incurs excommunication."

But it is entirely consistent with that (but contra your "bottom line") that a Catholic consider the Church to be in error here. They may be themselves mistaken -- it may turn out to be a sin, as you (and the Pope!) say -- but that does not settle the question of whether someone is being weirdly inconsistent by wanting to self-identify as a Catholic and as pro-choice.

Phil, you're on to something here, something that often gets overlooked, and I would suggest that it is "weird" (and as a convert that word seems perfectly perfect here) becuase the Church they claim to be in communion with does not exist.

The Church says X must be affirmed to be in communion; Pelosi and countless others say it does not. At the best we have a fractured communion with the Church, to what degree is the question. At what point it becomes "Here I stand, I can do no other," is a wait and see game.

Well Seth, if sin is still sin as you say, Church doctrine is as clear on contraception as it is on abortion. That it is intrinsically evil. I assume then that you would recommend that those 96% of Catholic women who have used contraceptives at some point in their lives should also be excommunicated.

Call it Charles Curranis or whatever, but primacy of conscience is a Catholic principle. The Roman Curia may well decide to go heretic-hunting in America, but it does so it at it's own peril.

Yes, the Church's position on contraception is as clear as it is on abortion. But you and I both know that the Church has never taught (nor have I implied) a laetae sententiae excommunication for the use of contraception, so this statement is unfair. And I would attribute the high utilization of contraception to poor catechesis, not willful ignorance of doctrine.

Recommend was a really poor choice of words. I should have instead said something like: logic follows then that those 96% of Catholic women who have used contraceptives at some point in their lives and those +70% of Catholics who support its usage, should also be excommunicated.

And I would suggest that the reason laetae sententiae excommunication has not been employed by the Church for the use of contraception is that a storm of dissent directed at "infallibility" itself would have rained down upon the Vatican.

Maybe it's the Protestant in me, but who said a small church is a bad church?

I agree this much: that only time will tell whether or not a formal schism will be the result of the growing divergence between many European and American Catholics on the one hand, and Rome on the other.

I would also note that much of the canon law you're referring to is only about 20 years old, and could easily be turned back by future developments. What one Pope can make, another Pope can unmake (as indeed has been illustrated by John XXIII and his successors).

"Maybe it's the Protestant in me, but who said a small church is a bad church?"

Now, look, there's a reason the Church calls itself _Catholic_....

Phil, you are correct that Can. 1398 dates from the 1983 Code, but the Pio-Benedictine Code from 1917 also, under Can. 2350, sec. 1, includes a laetae sententiae excommunication. But most importantly, the recent codifications of the last 100 years are not "new" but are similar to the Restatements of Torts, Contracts, etc., as a codification of existing law. Thus, the first canon against abortion comes from Sixtus V in 1588, and was applied to all the Church.

who said a small church is a bad church?

I'd ask instead, who said a Church with a centralized, unilateral authority is a good Church? This papal absolutism is a fairly new phenomenon, and goes against much of Catholic tradition where we engaged in dialogue and only made things "official" when a broad consensus was established.

You seem to forget, or are unaware, that the "Church" is not just Rome, it is we the faithful who are a part, too.

But to answer your question, Rev. C. John McCloskey 3d thinks that a small Church, a Church that demands unquestioning obedience to authority, is a good thing. Fortunately Fr. McCloskey dwells way out of the American mainstream on the far-right fringes. Unfortunately, I suspect he has many fans in the Vatican.

"Thus, the first canon against abortion comes from Sixtus V in 1588, and was applied to all the Church." True, but iirc, for about three hundred years this didn't apply to abortions in the first two months of pregnancy! Like I said, these things are mutable.

"...Can. 1398 dates from the 1983 Code, but the Pio-Benedictine Code from 1917 also, under Can. 2350, sec. 1, includes a laetae sententiae excommunication. But most importantly, the recent codifications of the last 100 years are not "new" but are similar to the Restatements of Torts, Contracts, etc., as a codification of existing law. Thus, the first canon against abortion comes from Sixtus V in 1588, and was applied to all the Church."

Seth, you wondered what I meant by "legalistic one-upsmanship". But you already knew.

You also dismissed my hope for compassion and practicality. Instead of scoring the above points, why don't you guys discuss implementable strategies to ameliorate the perceived need for abortions by changing policies that work against families and children.

That might more compassionately and practically reach your goal of preventing abortions. Or is that your real goal?

It's fascinating that not one poster, including the one who quoted from me addressed the basic fact that pro-choice is not, no matter what those who call themselves pro-life claim the same thing as pro-abortion. It would be far more accurate to call those who claim the title pro-life the anti-abortion side of the debate. Pro-choice, at its most basic is precisely that, let the people directly involved in the decision make it. Let them have choice. Since in spite of the fact that you can find some non-religious people who agree with the anti-abortion stand the overwhelming source of anti-abortion belief is religious in nature. The goal of the anti-abortion groups is to outlaw abortion for everyone whether they are someone who shares their religious belief or not. There are people who don't like the idea of abortion, who would never have one and never condone one that still don't think that it should be banned in secular law. That's pro-choice and I don't see how a Catholic politician can't be pro-choice.

I think there's something in what you posted there, Jim, that I agree with; namely, that it is a coherent position about most things to think that it is morally wrong, but that people should as a matter of law be free to choose to do it. (E.g., most ethical vegetarians are not lobbying to have carnivorous behaviors outlawed, though they would like to see that animals were raised and slaughtered more humanely.)

But: I question whether abortion can easily be brought into under that rubric. It's not just the wrongness of abortion that most pro-life people are getting from their religion, but a particular rationale for that moral judgment -- namely, that abortion is a form of infanticide. And thus it does not make sense for them to take the let-others-do-as-they-will position on abortion.

Now, if you think of abortion as basically a form of later contraception (by which I mean just that you don't think of the fetus as a person), and thought that your religion only banned abortion as part of a larger ban on artificial birth control, then that might be a case that fits your framework well. But I don't think that that's generally how people think of it, Catholics included.